was the cause he was pitched upon the fewd continued long for among others a Northern King took advantage to rush in who did a world of mischiefs but in a few yeers that King and Hee found their graves in their own ruins neer upon the same time but now may heaven have due thanks for it there is a peace concluded a peace which hath bin 14. long yeers a moulding and will I hope be shortly put in execution yet 't is with this fatall disadvantage that the said Northern people besides a masse of ready money we are to give them are to have firme footing and a warm nest ever in this Countrey hereafter so that I fear we shall hear from them too often upon these words this noble personage fetch'd a deep sigh but in such a generous manner that he seem'd to break and check it before it came halfe forth Thence my soul taking her flight o're divers huge and horrid cacuminous mountaines the Alpes at last I found my self in a great populous Town Naples but her buildings were miserably battered up and down she had a world of Palaces Castles Convents and goodly Churches as I stepped out of curiosity into one of them upon the West side there was a huge Grate where a creature all in white beckned at me making my approach to the Grate I found her to be a Nun a lovely creature she was for I could not distinguish which was whiter her hue or her habit which made me remember though in a dream my self that saying If Dreams and wishes had been tru there had not been found a tru maid to make a Nun of ever since a Cloyster'd life began first among women I asked her the reason how so many ugly devastations shold befall so beautifull a City she in a dolorous gentle tone and ruthfull accents the teares trickling down her cheeks like so many pearles such pearly teares that wold have dissolv'd a Diamond sobb'd out unto me this speech Gentle Sir 't is far beyond any expressions of mine and indeed beyond humane imagination to conceive the late calamities which have befallen this faire though infortunat City a pernicious popular Rebellion broke out here upon a sudden into most horrid barbarismes a Fate that hangs over most rich popular places that swim in luxe and plenty but touching the grounds thereof one may say that rebellion entred into this City as sin first entred into the world by an apple For our King now in his great extremities having almost halfe the world banding against him and putting but a small tax upon a basket of fruit to last only for a time this fruit-tax did put the peeples teeth so on edge that it made them gnash against the Government and rush into Armes but they are sensible now of their own follies for I think never any place suffered more in so short a time the civill combustions abroad in other Kingdomes may be said to be but small squibs compar'd to those horrid flakes of fire which have rag'd here and much adoe we had to keep our Vest all fire free from the fury of it in lesse then the revolution of a yeer it consum'd above fourscore thousand soules within the walls of this City But 't is not the first time of forty that this luxurious foolish peeple hath smarted for their insurrections and insolencies and that this mad horse hath o'rethrown his Rider and drawn a worse upon his back who instead of a saddle put a pack-saddle and Panniers upon him but indeed the voluptuousnesse of this peeple was grown ripe for the judgement of heaven She was then beginning to expostulat with me about the state of my Country and I had a mighty mind to satisfie her for I could have corresponded with her in the reâ—…ation of as strange things but the Lady Aâ—…adesse calling her away she departed in an â—…nstant obedience seem'd to be ther so precise and punctual I steer'd my course thence through a most delicious Country to another City that lay in the very bosom of the Sea Venice she was at first nothing els but a kind of posie made up of dainty green Hillocks tied together by above 400. bridges and so coagulated into a curious City though she be espous'd to Neptune very solemnly once evry â—…eer yet she still reserves her maydenhead â—…ad bears the title of the Virgin City in that part of the world But I found her tugging mainly with a huge Giant that wold ravish her He hath shrewdly set on her skirts and a great shame it is that she is not now assisted by her Neighbours and that they shold be together by the ears when they shold do so necessary a work considering how that great Giant is their common Enemy and hath lately vow'd seven yeers wars against her specially considering that if he comes once to ravish her he will quickly ruin her said Neighbours She to her high honor be it spoken being their only rampart against the incursion of the said Giant and by consequence their greatest security From this Maiden City mee thought I was in a trice carried over a long gulf and so through a Midland Sea into another Kingdom Spain where I felt the Clime hotter by some Degrees a rough-hew'n soile for the most part it was full of craggy barren hills but where there were valleys and water enough the country was extraordinarily fruitful whereby nature it seems made her a compensation for the sterility of the rest Yet notwithstanding the hardship of the soyl I found her full of Abbeys Monasteries Hermitages Convents Churches and other places of devotion as I rov'd there a while I encountred a grave man in a long black cloak by the fashion whereof and by the brimms of his hat I perceived him to be a Iesuit I clos'd with him and question'd him about that Country He told me the King of that Country was the greatest Potentat of that part of the world and to draw power to a greater unity they of our Order could be well contented that he were universall Head over Temporalls because 't is most probable to be effected by him as we have already one universall Head over Spiritualls This is the Monark of the Mines I mean of Gold and Silver who furnishes all the world but most of all his own enemies with mony which mony foments all the wars in this part of the world Never did any earthly monark thrive so much in so short a tract of time But of late yeers he hath been ill-favouredly shaken by the revolt and utter defection of two sorts of Subjects who are now in actual arms against him on both sides of him at his own doors Ther hath bin also a long deadly feud 'twixt the next tramontan Kingdom France and him though the Q. that rules there be his own sister an unnaturall odious thing But it seems God Almighty hath a quarrel of late yeers with all earthly Potentats for in so short a time
a rough account of a rambling Noctivagation up and down the world I may boldly say that neither Sir Iohn Mandevile or Coryat himself travell'd more in so short a time whence you see what nimble Postillions the Animal Spirits are and with what incredible celerity the imagination can crosse the Line cut the Tropiques and pass to the other Hemisphere of the world which shews that humane souls have somthing in them of the Almighty that their faculties have a kind of ubiquitary freedom though the body be never so under restraint as the Authors is They erre as much who think all Dreams false As They who think Them alwayes tru In the prison of the Fleet 3. Idus Decembris 1645. I. H. A VINDICATION OF HIS MAJESTY Touching a Letter He writ to Rome from the Court of Spain in Answer to a Letter which Pope Gregory the 15th had sent Him upon passing the Dispensation for concluding the Match with the Iâ—…fanta Which Letter Mr. Pryn mention's in his Book call'd the Popish Royal Favorit wherby the World is apt to beleeve that His Majesty had Inclinations to Popeâ—…y Ther goe's also herewith A clearing of som Aspersions that the said Mr. Pryn cast's upon the Author hereof in the same Pamphlet viz. That he was a Malignant and no friend to Parlements WHERBY He takes occasion to speak somthing of the first Rise And also of the Duty as well as the Authority of Parlements To my worthily honor'd friend Sir W. S. Knight SIR I Have many thanks to give you for the Book you pleased to send me called the Popish Royal Favorite and according to your advice which I value in a high degree I did put pen to paper and somthing you may see I have done though in a poor pamphleting way to clear my self of those aspersions that seem to be cast upon His Majesty But truly Sir I was never so unfit for such a task all my Papers Manuscripts and Notes having bin long since seized upon and kept from me Adde hereunto that besides this long pressure and languishment of close restraint the sense wherof I find hath much stupified my spirits it pleased God to visit me lately with a dangerous fit of sickness a high burning fever with the new disease wherof my Body as well as my Mind is yet somwhat crazie so that take all afflictions together I may truly say I have passed the Ordeal the fiery Tryal But it hath pleased God to reprieve me to see better daies I hope for out of this fatal black Cloud which now ore-sets this poor Island I hope ther will break a glorious Sun-shine of peace and firm happinesse To effect which had I a Jury a grand-Jury of lives I wold sacrifice them all and triumph in the oblation So I most affectionately kiss your hands and rest Your faithfull though afflicted Servant From the Prison of the Fleet. I. H. The Pre-eminence and Duty OF PARLEMENT Sectio Prima I Am a Free-born Subject of the Realm of England wherby I claim as my native Inheritance an undoubted right propriety and portion in the Laws of the Land And this distinguisheth me from a slave I claim likewise protection from my Soverain Prince who as He is my Liege Lord is obliged to protect me and I being one of His Liege peeple am obliged to obey Him by way of Reciprocation I claim also an interest and common right in the High National Court of Parlement and in the power the priviledges and jurisdiction therof which I put in equal ballance with the Laws in regard it is the fountain whence they spring and this I hold also to be a principall part of my Birth-right which Great Councell I honour respect value and love in as high a degree as can be as being the Bulwark of our liberties the main boundary and bank which keeps us from slavery from the inundations of tyrannicall Rule and unbounded Will-government And I hold my self obliged in a tye of indispensable obedience to conform and submit my self to whatsoever shall be transacted concluded and constituted by its authority in Church or State with the Royal assent whether it be by making enlarging altering diminishing disanulling repealing or reviving of any Law Statute Act or Ordinance whatsoever either touching matters Ecclesiastical civil common capital criminall martial maritime municipall or any other of all which the transcendent and uncontrollable jurisdiction of that Court is capable to take cognizance Amongst the three things which the Athenian Captain thank'd the gods for one was That he was born a Grecian and not a Barbarian For such was the vanity of the Greeks and after them of the Romans in the flourish of their Monarchy to arrogat all civility to themselves and to terme all the world besides Barbarians so I may say to rejoyce that I was born a vassall to the Crown of England that I was born under so well-moulded and tempered a Government which endows the subject with such Liberties and infranchisements that bear up his naturall courage and keep him still in heart such Liberties that fence and secure him eternally from the gripes and tallons of Tyranny And all this may be imputed to the Authority and wisedome of this High Court of Parlement wherein there is such a rare co-ordination of power though the Soveraignty remain still entire and untransferrable in the person of the Prince there is such a wholsom mixture 'twixt Monarchy Optimacy and Democracy 'twixt Prince Peers and Commonalty during the time of consultation that of so many distinct parts by a rare co-operation and unanimity they make but one Body Politick like that sheaâ—…e of arrows in the Emblem one entire concentricall peece the King being still the Head and the results of their deliberations but as so many harmonious diapasons arising from different strings And what greater immunity and happinesse can there be to a Peeple than to be liable to no Laws but what they make themselves to be subject to no contribution assessement or any pecuniary erogations whatsoever but what they Vote and voluntarily yeeld unto themselves For in this compacted Politick Body there be all degrees of peeple represented both the Mechanick Tradesman Merchant and Yeoman have their inclusive Vote as well as the Gentry in the persons of their Trustees their Knights and Burgesses in passing of all things Nor is this Soveraign Surintendent Councell an Epitome of this Kingdom only but it may be said to have a representation of the whole Universe as I heard a fluent well-worded Knight deliver the last Parliameut who compared the beautifull composure of that High Court to the great work of God the World it self The King is as the Sun the Nobles the fixed Stars the Itineant judges and other Officers that go upon Messages 'twixt both Houses to the Planets the Clergy to the Element of fire the Commons to the solid Body of Earth and the rest of the Elements And to pursue this comparison a little
subsidies and the King inclinable to take them The said Vane being the Secretary of State stood up and said His Majesty expected no less then twelve which words did so incense and discompose the House that they drew after them that unhappy dissolution His Majesty being reduced to these straits and resenting still the insolence of the Scot proposed the busines to His Privy Councell who suddenly made up a considerable and most noble summe for his present supply whereunto divers of his domestick servants and Officers did contribut Amongst others who were active herein the Earl of Strafford bestir'd himself notably and having got a Parliament to be call'd in Ireland he went over and with incredible celeritie raised 8000. men who procured money of that Parliament to maintain them and got over those angry Seas again in the compasse of lesse then six weeks You may infer hence to what an exact uncontrollable obedience he had reduced that Kingdom as to bring about so great a work with such a suddennes and facilitie An armie was also raised here which marched to the North and there fed upon the Kings pay a whole Summer The Scot was not idle all this while but having punctuall intelligence of every thing that passed at Court as farre as what was debated in the Cabinet Councel and spoken in the bed-chamber and herein amongst many others the Scot had infinite advantage of us He armed also and preferring to make England the stage of the warre rather then his own countrey and to invade rather then to be invaded He got over the Tweed and found the passage open and as it were made for him all the way till hee came to the Tine and though there was a considerable army of horse and foot at Newcastle yet they never offered so much as to face him all the while At Newburgh indeed there was a small skirmish but the English foot would not fight so Newcastle gates flew open to the Scot without any resistance at all where it is thought he had more friends then foes and who were their friends besides for this invasion I hope Time and the Tribunall of Justice will one day discover His Majesty being then at York summoned all his Nobles to appear to advise with them in this exigence Commissioners were appointed on both sides who met at Rippon and how the hearts and courage of some of the English Barons did boil within them to be brought to so disadvantageous a Treatie with the Scot you may well imagin So the Treatie began which the Scot wold not conform himself to do unless he were first unrebell d and made Rectus in Curia and the Proclamation wherein he was declared Traitour revoked alledging it wold be dishonorable for His Majesty to treat with rebels This treaty was adjourned to London where this present Parliament was summoned which was one of the chiefest errands of the Scoâ—… as some think And thus far by these sad and short degrees have I faithfully led you along to know the tru Originals of our calamities Peregrin Truly Sir I must tell you that to my knowledg these unhappy traverses with Scotland have made the English suffer abroad very much in point of National honour Therefore I wonder much that all this while ther is none set a work to make a solid Apologie for England in some communicable language either in French or Latin to rectifie the world in the truth of the thing and to vindicat her how she was bought and sold in this expedition considering what a party the Scot had here and how his comming in was rather an Invitation then an Invasion and I beleeve if it had bin in many parts of the world besides some of the Commanders had gone to the pot Patricius It is the practise of some States I know to make sacrifice of some eminent Minister for publick mistakes but to follow the thred of my Discourse The Parliament being sate His Majesty told them that he was resolved to cast himself wholly upon the affection and fidelity of his people whereof they were the Representative body Therfore he wished them to go roundly on to close up the ruptures that were made by this infortunat war and that the two armies one domestick the other forrain which were gnawing the very bowels of the Kingdom might be dismissed Touching grievances of any kind and what State was ther ever so pure but some corruption might creep into it He was very ready to redresse them concerning the Ship-money he was willing to pass a Bâ—…ll for the utter abolition of it and to establish the property of the subject therefore he wished them not to spend too much time about that And for Monopolies he desired to have a list of them and he wold damn them all in one Proclamation Touching ill Counsellours either in Westminster-Hall or White-Hall either in Church or State he was resolved to protect none Therefore he wished that all jealousies and misunderstandings might vanish This with sundry other strains of Princely grace he delivered unto them but withall he told them that they shold be very cautious how they shook the fram of an ancient Government too far in regard it was like a Watch which being put asunder can never be made up again if the least pin be left out So ther were great hopes of a calm after that cold Northern storm had so blustered and that we shold be suddenly rid of the Scot but that was least intended untill som designs were brought about The Earl of Strafford the Archbishop of Canterbury the Iudges and divers Monopolists are clapt up and you know who took a timely flight Lord Finch to the other side of the Sea And in lieu of these the Bishop of Lincoln is enlarged Bastwick Burton and Prynn are brought into London with a kind of Hosanna His Majesty gave way to all this and to comply further with them he took as it were into his bosom I mean he admitted to his Privy Councell those Parliament Lords who were held the greatest Zelots amongst them that they might be witnesses of his secret'st actions and to one of them the Lord Say he gave one of the considerablest Offices of the Kingdom by the resignation of another most deserving Lord upon whom they could never fasten the least misdemeanour yet this great new Officer wold come neither to the same Oratory Chappell or Church to joyn in prayer with his Royall Master nor communicat with him in any publick exercise of devotion and may not this be called a tru Recusancie To another he gave one of the prime and most reposefull Offices about his own Person at Court The Earl of Essex and thereby he might be said to have given a Staff to beat himself Moreover partly to give his Subjects an Evidence how firmly he was rooted in his Religion and how much he desired the strenthning of it abroad The treaty of marriage went on 'twixt his eldest daughter and the young
Gentry and Servants and the enemy was hard by ready to face Him At the concluding of the Irish Cessation His Majesty was not there personally present but it was agitated and agreed on by his Commissioner and it hath been held alwaies less dishonourable for a King to capitulate in this kind with his own Subjects by his Deputy then in his own person for the further off he is the lesse reflects upon him 2. Upon the Pacification and Peace with Scotland there was an Amnestia a generall pardon and an abolition of all by-passed offences published there were honours and offices conferred upon the chiefest sticklers in the War At the Cessation in Ireland there was no such thing 3. When the Pacification and Peace was made with the Scots there was mony given unto Them as it is too well knowne But upon the setling of this Cessation the Irish received none but gave His Majesty a considerable summe as an argument of their submission and gratitude besides the maintainance of some of his Garrisons in the interim and so much partly in point of honour 4. At the concluding of the Pacification and Peace with Scotland there was a vigorous fresh unfoiled English Army a foot and in perfect equipage there wanted neither Ammunition Armes Money Cloaths Victuals or any thing that might put heart into the Souldier and elevat his spirits But the Protestant Army in Ireland had not any of all these in any competent proportion but were ready to perish though there had been no other enemy then hunger and cold And this implies a farre greater necessity for the said Cessation 5. In Ireland there was imminent danger of an instant losse of the whole Kingdome and consequently the utter subversion of the Protestant Religion there as was certified both to King and Parliament by sundry letters and petitions which stand upon record There was no such danger in the affairs of Scotland either in respect of Religion or Kingdome therefore there was more piety shown in preserving the one and prudence in preserving the other in Ireland by plucking both as it were out of the very jawes of destruction by the said Cessation We know that in the Medley of mundane casualties of two evils the least is to be chosen and a small inconvenience is to be born withall to prevent a greater If one make research into the French Story he will find that many kinds of Pacifications and Suspensions of Armes were covenanted 'twixt that King and som of his Subjects trenching far more upon regall dignity then this in Ireland The Spaniard was forced to declare the Hollanders Free-states before they could be brought to treat of a truce And now the Catalans scrue him up almost to as high conditions But what need I rove abroad so far It is well known nor is it out of the memory of man in Queen Elizabeths raign that in Ireland it self ther have bin Cessations all circumstances well weighed more prejudiciall to Majesty then this But that which I hear murmured at most as the effect of this Cessation is the transport of som of those Souldiers to England for recruting His Majesties Armies notwithstanding that the greatest number of them be perfect and rigid Protestants and were those whom our Parliament it self imployed against the Irish. But put case they were all Papists must His Majesty therfore be held a Favourer of Popery The late King of France might have bin said as well to have bin a Favourer of Hugonotts because in all his wars he imployed Them most of any in places of greatest trust against the House of Austria wheras all the World knows that he perfectly hated them in the generall and one of the reaches of policy he had was to spend and waste them in the wars Was it ever known but a Soveraign Prince might use the bodies and strength of his own naturall-born Subjects and Liege men for his own defence When His person hath been sought and aimed at in open field by small and great shot and all other Engines of hostility and violence When he is in danger to be surprized or besieg'd in that place wher he keeps his Court When all the flowers of his Crown his royal prerogatives which are descended upon him from so many successive progenitors are like to be plucked off and trampled under foot When ther is a visible plot to alter and overturn that Religion he was born baptized and bred in When he is in danâ—…er to be forced to infringe that solemn Sacramental Oath he took at his Coronation to maintain the said Religion with the Rights and Rites of the holy Anglican Church which som brain-sick Schismaticks wold transform to a Kirk and her Discipline to som chimerical form of government they know not what Francis the first and other Christian Princes made use of the Turk upon lesse occasions and if one may make use of a Horse or any other bruit animal or any inanimat Engine or Instrument for his own defence against man much more may man be used against man much more may one rational Creature be used against another though for destructive ends in a good cause specially when they are commanded by a Soveraign head which is the main thing that goes to justifie a war Now touching the Roman Catholicks whether English Welsh Irish or Scottish which repaire to his Majesties Armies either for service or security He looks not upon them â—…s Papists but as his Subjects not upon their Religion but their allegiance and in that â—…uality he entertains them Nor can the Paâ—…ist be denyed the Character of a good Subject all the while he conforms himself to the Lawes in generall and to those lawes also that are particularly enacted against him and so keeps himself within the bounds of his civil obedience As long as he continues so he may challenge protection from his Prince by way of right and if his Prince by som accident be not in case to protect him he is to give him leave to defend himself the best he can for the law of nature allowes every one to defend himself and ther is no positive law of man can annul the law of nature Now if the Subject may thus claim protection from his Prince it followeth the Prince by way of reciprocation may require assistance service and supplies from the Subject upon all publick occasions as to suppress at this time a new race of Recusants which have done more hurt then ever the old did and are like to prove more dangerous to his Crown and regal Authority then any foreign enemy But whosoever will truly observe the genius and trace the actions of this fatal Faction which now swayes with that boundless exorbitant arbitrary and Antinomian power will find that it is one of their prime pieces of policy to traduce and falsifie any thing that is not conducible to their own ends Yet what comes from them must be so magisterial it must be so unquestionably
such as ev'ry one carrieth by his side or som imaginary thing or chymera of a sword No 't is the polemicall publique sword of the whole Kingdom 't is an aggregative compound sword and 't is moulded of bell-metall for 't is made up of all the ammunition and armes small and great of all the military strengths both by Land and Sea of all the Forts Castles and tenable places within and round about the whole I le The Kings of Engl. have had this sword by vertue of their royall signory from all times the Laws have girded it to their sides they have employed it for repeling all foren force for revenging all forren wrongs or affronts for quelling all intestine tumults and for protecting the weal of the whole body politicke at home The peeple were never capable of this sword the fundamentall constitutions of this Kingdom deny it them 't is all one to put the sword in a mad mans hand as in the peeples or for them to have a disposing power in whose hands it shall be Such was the case once of the French sword in that notorious insurrection call'd to this day La Iaqueris de Beauvoisin when the Pesants and Mechanicks had a design to wrest it out of the Kings hand and to depresse all the Peers and Gentry of the Kingdom and the businesse had gone so far that the peasans might have prevail'd had not the Prelats stuck close to the Nobility But afterwards poor hare brain'd things they desire the King upon bended knees to take it againe Such popular puffs have blowen often in Poland Naples and other places where while they sought and fought for liberty by retrenching the regall power they fool'd themselfs into a slavery unawares and found the rule right that excesse of freedom turns to thraldom and ushers in all confusions If one shold go back to the nonage of the world when Governers and Rulers began first one will find the peeple desir'd to live under Kings for their own advantage that they might be restrain'd from wild exorbitant liberty and kept in unity Now unity is as requisit for the wel-being of all naturall things as entity is for their being and 't is a receiv'd maxime in policy that nothing preserves Unity more exactly then Royal Government besides 't is known to be the noblest sort of sway In so much that by the Law of Nations if Subjects of equal degrees and under differing Princes shold meet the Subjects of a King shold take precedency of those under any Republique But to take up the Sword again I say that the Sword of public Power and Authority is fit only to hang at the Kings side and so indeed shold the Great Seal hang only at his girdle because 't is the Key of the Kingdom which makes me think of what I read of Charlemain how he had the imperial Seal emboss'd alwaies upon the pommell of his Sword and his reason was that he was ready to maintain whatsoever he signed and sealed The Civilians who are not in all points so great friends to Monarchy as the Common Law of England is say there are six Iura Regalia six Regal Rights viz. 1. Potestas Iudicatoria 2. Potestas vitae necis 3. Armamenta 4. Bona adespota 5. Census 6. Monetarum valor to wit Power of Iudicature Power of Life and Death all kind of arming masterless goods Sâ—…issements and the value of money Among these Regalia's we find that Arming which in effect is nought else but the Kings Sword is among the chiefest and 't is as proper and peculiar to his person as either Crown or Scepter By these two he drawes a loose voluntary love and opinion only from his Subjects but by the Sword he draws reverence and awe which are the chiefest ingredients of allegiance it being a maxime That the best mixture of Government is made of fear and love With this Sword he conferrs honor he dubbs Knights he creates Magistrates the Lord Deputy of Ireland the Lord Mayor of London with all other Corporations have their Swords from him and when he entereth any place corporate we know the first thing that is presented him is the Sword With this Sword he shields and preserves all his people that every one may sit quietly under his own Vine sleep securely in his own House and enjoy sweetly the fruits of his labours Nor doth the point of this Sword reach only to every corner of his own dominions but it extends beyond the seas to gard his Subjects from oppression and denial of justice as well as to vindicate the publick wrongs make good the interests of his Crown and to assist his confederates This is the Sword that Edward the third tied the Flower deluces unto which stick still unto it when having sent to France to demand that Crown by maternal right the Counsell ther sent him word that the Crown of France was not tied to a distaff to which scoffing answer he replied that then he wold tie it to his sword and he was as good as his word Nor is this publick sword concredited or intrusted by the peeple in a fiduciary conditionall way to the King but it is properly and peculiarly belonging unto him as an inseparable concomitant perpetual Usher and attendant to his Crown The King we know useth to maintain all garrisons upon his own charge not the peeples he fortifies upon his own charge not the peeples And though I will not averr that the King may impresse any of his Subjects unlesse it be upon an actuall vasion by Sea or a sudden irruption into his Kingdom by Land as the Scots have often done yet at any time the King may raise Volunteers and those who have received his money the Law makes it felony if they forsake his service Thus we see there 's nothing that conduceth more to the glory and indeed the very essence of a King then the Sword which is the Armes and Military strength of his Kingdom wherfore under favour ther cannot be a greater point of dishonour to a King then to be disarmed then to have his Sword taken from him or dispos'd of and intrusted to any but those whom he shall appoint for as à minori ad majus the Argument often holds if a private Gentleman chance to be disarm'd upon a quarrell 't is held the utmost of disgraces much greater and more public is the dishonor that falls upon a King if after som traverses of difference 'twixt him and his Subjects they shold offer to disarm him or demand his Sword of him when the Eagle parted with his talons and the Lion with his teeth and ongles the Apolog tells us how contemptible afterwards the one grew to be among Birds the other among Birds the other among Beasts For a King to part with the Sword politic is to render himself such a ridiculous King as that logg of wood was which Iupiter let down among the froggs for their King at the importunity of
as Prince For the Parlement-men afterwards made themselfs Land-Lords of the whole Kingdom it hath bin usual for them to thrust any out of his freehold to take his bed from under him and his shirt from off his very back The King being kept thus out of one of his Townes might suspect that he might be driven out of another therfore 't was time for him to look to the preservation of his Person and the Country came in voluntarily unto him by thousands to that purpose but he made choice of a few only to be his gard as the Parlementeers had done a good while before for themselfs But now they went otherwise to work for they fell a levying listing and arming men by whole Regiments and Brigades till they had a very considerable Army afoot before the King had one Musqueteer or Trooper on his side yet these men are so notoriously impudent as to make the King the first Aggressor of the war and to lay upon Him all the bloud that was split to this day wherein the Devil himself cannot be more shamelesse The Parliamenteers having an army of foot and horse thus in perfect Equipage 't was high time for the King to look to himself therefore he was forced to display his royal Standard and draw his sword quite out Thus a cruel and most cruentous civil war began which lasted near upon four years without intermission wherein there happen'd more batta les sieges and skirmishes then passed in the Nether-lands in fourscore years and herein the Englishmen may be said to get som credit abroad in the world that they have the same bloud running in their veines though not the same braines in their sculls which their Ancestors had who were observed to be the activest people in the field impatient of delay and most desirous of battaile then any Nation But it was one of the greatest miracles that ever happen'd in this Land how the King was able to subsist so long against the Parlamenteers considering the multiplicity of infinite advantages they had of him by water and land for they had the Scot the Sea and the City on their side touching the first he rushed in as an Auxiliary with above 20000. Horse and Foot compleatly furnish d both with small and great ammunition and Arms well cloth'd and money'd For the second they had all the Kings ships well appointed which are held to be the greatest security of the Island both for defence and offence for every one of them is accounted one of the moving Castles of the Kingdom besides they had all the other standing stone-Castles Forts and tenable places to boot Concerning the last viz. the City therein they had all the wealth bravery and prime ammunition of England this being the only Magazin of men and money Now if the K. had had but one of these on his side he had in all probability crush'd them to nothing yet did he bear up strangely against them a long time and might have done longer had he kept the campane and not spent the spirits of his men before Townes had he not made a disadvantagious election of som Commanders in chief and lastly had he not had close Traitors within dores as well as open Rebels without for his very Cabinet Councel and Bed-Chamber were not free of such vermin and herein the Parlementeers spent unknown sums and were very prodigal of the Kingdoms money The King after many traverses of war being reduced to a great strait by crosse successes and Counsels rather then to fall into the hands of the Parlementeers withdrew himself in a Serving-mans disguise to the Scots army as his last randevous and this plot was manag'd by the French Agent then residing here A man wold think that that Nation wold have deem'd it an eternal honour unto them to have their own King and Countrey-man throw himself thus into their armes and to repose such a singular trust in them upon such an Extremity but they corresponded not so well with him as he expected for though at first when the Parlamenteers sollicited their dear Brethren for a delivery of the Kings person unto them their note was then if any forein petty Prince had so put himself upon them they could not with honour deliver him much less their own native King yet they made a sacrifice of him at last for 800000. Crownes wherupon Bellieure the French Ambassador being convoyed by a Troop of horse from the King towards London to such a stand in lieu of larges to the souldiers he drew out an half Crown piece and ask'd them how many pence that was they answered 30. He replyed for so much did Iudas betray his Master and so he departed And now that in the cours of this Historical Narration I have touch'd upon France your Eminence may please to understand that nothing almost could tend more to the advantage of that K. then these commotions in England considering that he was embark'd in an actuall war with the House of Austria and that this Iland did do Spain some good offices among other by transport of his treasure to Dunkerk in English bottomes whereunto this King gave way and sometimes in his own Galeons which sav'd the Spaniard neer upon 20. in the hundred then if he had sent it by way of Genoa so that som think though France made semblance to resent the sad condition of her Neighbour and thereupon sent the Prince of Harcour and the foresaid Monsieur Bellieure to compose matters yet she never really intended it as being against her present interest and engagements yet the world thinks it much that she shold publiquely receive an Agent from these Parlamenteeres and that the French Nobility who were us'd to be the gallantest men in the world to vindicate the quarrels of distressed Ladies are not more sensible of the outrages that have bin offer'd a daughter of France specially of Henry the greats But to resume the threed of my Narration the King and with him one may say England also being thus bought and sold the Parlamenteers insteed of bringing him to Westminster which had put a Period to all distempers toss'd him up and downe to private houses and kept the former Army still afoot And truly I think there was never Prince so abus'd or poor peeple so baffled and no peeple but a purblind besotted peeple wold have suffred themselves to be so baffled for notwithstanding that no Enemy appeer'd in any corner of the Kingdome yet above 20000. Tagaroones have bin kept together ever since to grind the faces of the poor and exhaust the very vitall spirits of town and Countrey and keep them all in a perfect slavery Had the Parlament-men when the Scots were gone brought their King in a generous and frank way as had well becom'd Englishmen to sit among them and trusted to him which of necessity they must do at last as they had gain d more honor far in the world abroad so they had gain'd more
that there was neither Scot or Puritan had then any stroke in England Yet for all their disobedience and grumblings against their Liege Lord the King this peeple are exactly obedient to their new Masters of the House of Commons though they sit there but as their Servants and entitle themselfs so and also though in lieu of the small scratches which England might happily have receiv'd before all which the King had cur'd these new masters have made such deep gashes in her and given her such deadly wounds that I believe are incurable My Lord I find by my researches that there are two great Idolls in this Kingdom the greatest that ever were they are the Parliament and the Pulpit t is held High treson to speak against the one and the whole body of Religion is nailed unto the other for there is no devotion here at all but preaching which God wot is little better then prating The abuse of these two hath bin the source of all the distempers which now raign touching the latter it hath serv'd as a subvervient Engin to prop up the power and popularity of the first these malicious Pulpit-men breath out nothing thence but either sedition schisme or blasphemy poor shallow brain'd Sciolists they wold question many things in the old Testament and find Apocrypha in the New And such is the violence wherewith the minds of men and women are transported towards these Preachmen and no other part of devotion besides that in all probability they will in time take a surfet of them so that give this giddy peeple line enough ther will be no need of Catholique Arms to reduce them to the Apostolick Church they will in time pave the way to it themselves and be glad to return to Rome to find out a Religion again There was here before as I am informed a kind of a face of a Church there were some solemnities venerations and decencies us'd that a man might discover som piety in this peeple there was a publick Lyturgie that in pithy Pathetical prayers reach'd all occasions the Sacraments were administred with som reverence their Churches were kept neat and comly but this nasty race of miscreants have nothing at all of sweetnesse of piety and devotion in them 't is all turn'd to a fatuous kind of zeal after more learning as if Christianity had no sobriety consistence or end of knowledg at all These silly things to imitat the Apostles time wold have the same form of discipline to govern whole Nations as it did a chamberfull of men in the infancy of the Church they wold make the same coat serve our Savious at 30. yeers which fitted him at three 'T is incredible how many ugly sorts of heresies they daily hatch but they are most of them old ones newly furbish'd they all relate to Aerius a perfect hater of Bishops because he could not be one himself The two Sectaries which sway most are the Presbyterians and Independents the Presbyterian is a spawn of a Puritan and the Independent a spawn of the Presbyterian there 's but one hop 'twixt the first and a Iew and but half a hop 'twixt the other and an Infidell they are both opposit to Monarchy and Hierarchy and the latter wold have no Government at all but a parity and promiscuous confusion a race of creatures fit only to inhabit Hell and one of the fruits of this blessed Parlement and of these two Sectaries is that they have made more Jewes and Athiests then I think there is in all Europe besides but truly my Lord I think the judgments of Heaven were never so visible in any part of the Earth as they are now here for there is Rebell against Rebell House against House Cittie against Army Parlement against Scot but these two Sectaries I mean the Presbyterian and Independent who were the fire-brands that put this poor Iland first in a flame are now in most deadly feud one against the other though they both concur in this to destroy government And if the King had time enough to look only upon them they would quickly hang draw and destroy one another But indeed all Christian Princes shold observe the motions and successes of these two unlucky Incendiaries for if they shold ligue together again as they have often plaid fast and loose one with another and prevail here this Iland wold not terminat their designs they wold puzzle all the world besides Their Preachmen ordinarily cry out in the Pulpit ther is a great work to be done upon earth for the reforming all mankind and They are appointed by Heaven to be the chief Instruments of bringing it about They have already bin so busie abroad that with vast sommes of money they brought the Swed upon the Dane and the very Savages upon the English Cavaliers in Virginia and could they confederat with Turk or Tartar or Hell it self against them they wold do it they are monstrously puff'd up with pride that they stick not to call themselfs Conquerors and one of the chief ringleaders of them an ignorant home bred kind of Brewer was not ashamed to vant it publiquely in the Commons House that if he had but 20000. men he wold undertake to march to Constantinople and pull the Ottoman Emperour out of the Seralio Touching the other grand Idoll the Parlement 't is true that the primitive constitution of Parlement in this Iland was a wholesom piece of policy because it kept a good correspondence and clos'd all ruptures 'twixt the King and his peeple but this thing they call Parlement now may rather be term'd a cantle of one or indeed a Conventicle of Schismatiques rather than a great Counsell 't is like a kind of headless Monster or som estropiated carkas for ther is neither King nor Prelat nor scarce the seventh part of Peers and Commons no not the twelfth part fairly elected nevertheless they draw the peeple specially this City like so many stupid animalls to adore them Yet though this institution of Parlement be a wholsom thing in it self there is in my judgment a great incongruity in one particular and I believe it hath bin the cause of most distempers it is That the Burgesses are more in number than the Knights of the Shires for the Knights of the Shires are commonly Gentlemen well born and bred and vers'd in the Laws of the Land as well as forren Governments divers of them but the Burgesses of Towns are commonly Tradesmen and being bred in Corporations they are most of them inclining to Puritanism and consequently to popular Government These Burgesses exceeding the Knights in number carry all before them by plurality of Voices and so puzzle all And now that I have mentioned Corporations I must tell your Lordship that the greatest soloecism in the policy of this Kingdom is the number of them especially this monstrous City which is compos'd of nothing els but of Corporations and the greatest errors that this King specially his Father
farther as the heavenly Bodies when three of them meet in Conjunction do use to produce some admirable effects in the Elementary World So when these three States convene and assemble in one solemne great Iunta some notable and extraordinary things are brought forth tending to the welfare of the whole Kingdom our Microcosme HE that is never so little versed in the Annals of this I le will find that it hath bin her fate to be four times conquered I exclude the Scot for the scituation of his Country and the Quality of the Clime hath been such an advantage and security to him that neither the Roman Eagles would fly thither for fear of freezing their wings nor any other Nation attempt the work These so many Conquests must needs bring with them many tumblings and tossings many disturbances and changes in Government yet I have observed that notwithstanding these tumblings it retained still the forme of a Monarchy and something there was always that had an Analogy with the great Assembly of Parlement The first Conquest I find was made by Claudius Caesar at which time as some well observe the Roman Ensignes and the Standard of Christ came in together It is well known what Lawes the Roman had He had his Comitia which bore a resemblance with our Convention in Parlement the place of their meeting was called Praetorum and the Laws which they enacted Plebiscita The Saxon Conquest succeeded next which were the English there being no name in Welsh or Irish for an English man but Saxon to this day They also governed by Parlement though it were under other names as Michel Sinoth Michel Gemote and Witenage Mote There are Records above a thousand years old of these Parlements in the Reigns of King Ina Offa Ethelbert and the rest of the seven Kings during the Heptarchy The British Kings also who retain'd a great while some part of the Isle unconquered governed and made Laws by a kind of Parlementary way witnesse the famous Laws of Prince Howell called Howell Dha the good Prince Howell whereof there are yet extant some British Records Parlements were also used after the Heptarchy by King Kenulphus Alphred and others witnesse that renowned Parliament held at Grately by King Athelstan The third Conquest was by the Danes and they govern'd also by such generall Assemblies as they do to this day witnesse that great and so much celebrated Parlement held by that mighty Monarch Canutus who was King of England Denmark Norway and other Regions 150 years before the compiling of Magna Charta and this the learned in the Laws do hold to be one of the specialst and most authentick peeces of antiquity we have extant Edward the Confessor made all his Laws thus and he was a great Legis-lator which the Norman Conquerour who liking none of his sons made God Almighty his heir by bequeathing unto him this Island for a legacy did ratifie and establish and digested them into one entire methodicall Systeme which being violated by Rufus who came to such a disastrous end as to be shot to death in lieu of a Buck for his sacriledges were restor'd by Henry the first and so they continued in force till King Iohn whose Reign is renowned for first confirming Magna Charta the foundation of our Liberties ever since which may be compar'd to divers outlandish graffes set upon one English stock or to a posie of sundry fragrant flowers for the choicest of the British the Roman Saxon Danish and Norman Laws being cull'd and pick'd out and gathered as it were into one bundle out of them the foresaid Grand Charter was extracted And the establishment of this great Charter was the work of a Parliament Nor are the Lawes of this Island only and the freedome of the Subject conserved by Parlement but all the best policed Countries of Europe have the like The Germanes have their Diets the Danes and Swedes their Rijcks Dachs the Spaniard calls his Parlement las Cortes and the French have or should have at least their Assembly of three States though it be growne now in a manner obsolete because the Authority thereof was by accident devolv'd to the King And very remarkable it is how this happened for when the English had taken such large footing in most parts of France having advanced as far as Orleans and driven their then King Charles the seventh to Bourges in Berry the Assembly of the three States in these pressures being not able to meet after the usuall manner in full Parlement because the Countrey was unpassable the Enemy having made such firme invasions up and down through the very bowels of the Kingdom That power which formerly was inhaerent in the Parlementary Assembly of making Laws of assessing the Subject with Taxes subsidiary levies and other impositions was transmitted to the King during the war which continueth many years that entrusted power by length of time grew as it were habitual in him and could never after be re-assumed and taken from him so that ever since his Edicts countervaile Acts of Parlement And that which made the businesse more feasable for the King was that the burthen fell most upon the Communalty the Clergy and Nobility not feeling the weight of it who were willing to see the Peasan pull'd down a little because not many years before in that notable Rebellion call'd la jaquerie de Beauvoisin which was suppressed by Charles the wise the Common people put themselves boldly in Arms against the Nobility and Gentry to lessen their power Adde hereunto as an advantage to the work that the next succeeding King Lewis the eleventh was a close cunning Prince and could well tell how to play his game and draw water to his own mill For amongst all the rest he was said to be the first that put the Kings of France Hors de page out of their minority or from being Pages any more though therby he brought the poor peasans to be worse than Lacquays and they may thank themselfs for it Neverthelesse as that King hath an advantage hereby one way to Monarchize more absolutely and never to want money but to ballast his purse when he will so ther is another mighty inconvenience ariseth to him and his whole Kingdom another way for this peeling of the Peasan hath so dejected him and cowed his native courage so much by the sense of poverty which brings along with it a narrownesse of 〈◊〉 that he is little usefull for the war which put 's the French King to make other Nations mercenary to him to fill up his Infantery Insomuch that the Kingdom of France may be not unfitly compared to a body that hath all it's bloud drawn up into the arms breast and back and scarce any leâ—…t from the girdle downwards to cherish and bear up the lower parts and keep them from starving All this seriously considered ther cannot be a more proper and pregnant example than this of our next Neighbours to prove how infinitly necessary
cryed up and branded to be the most infamous Projectors and Monopolizers of the land as Hamilton Holland c. are not only at liberty but crept into favour and made use of Peregrin Hath the house of Commons power to commit any but their own Members without conference with the Lords Or hath any Order or Ordinance of one of the Houses singly or of both conjunctly power to enjoin a virtual binding generall obedience without the Royal consent Patricius The power of Parliament when King Peers and Commons which is the whole Kingdom digested as it were into one volum is indefinit but what either of both Houses can do of themselves singly or joyntly without the King who is the life of the Law especially when a visible faction reigns amongst them I will not determin tantas componere lites non opis est nostrae But for my own opinion I think it is as impossible for them to make a Law without the King as it was for Paracelsus to make a human creture without coition of both sexes The results of Parliament without the Royall consent are as matches without fire And it is an incontroulable principle that the old Law must be our guide till new be made nor is any Act of the Subject justifiable but what is warranted by the old But to proceed in the tru discovery of these Domestick scissures my Lord of Stafford being gone we hop'd fair weather wold follow He who was the cause of the tempest as they pretended being thrown over-board but unluckie mists of jealousie grew thicker and thicker Yet the Scots were dismist having had Fidlers fare meat drink and money for eleven long moneths together So His Majesty went to Scotland where the Parliament ther did but ask and have any thing though it be the unquestionable Prerogative of Majesty to grant or deny Petitions and to satisfie his conscience before any Councell whatsoever But during his sojourn ther this formidable hideous Rebellion brok out in Ireland which though it may be said to be but an old play newly reviv'd yet the Scene was never so Tragicall and bloody as now for the Barbarismes that have bin committed ther have bin so sanguinary and monstrously savage that I think posterity will hold them hyperbolicall â—…when History relates them The Irish themselves affirm ther concurr'd divers causes to kindle this fire One was the taking off of Strafforâ—…s head who awd them more then any Deputy ever did and that one of his Accusations shold be to have used the Papists ther too favourably Secondly the rigorous proceedings and intended courses against the Roman Catholiques here in England Lastly the stopping of that Regiment of Irish who was promised by His Majesties Royall Word and Letter to the King of Spain who relying upon that employment rather then to beg steal or starve turned Rebels And that which hath agravated the Rebellion all this while and heightned much the spirit of the Irish was the introduction of the Scot whom they hate in perfection above all people els And intended lastly the design spoken of in our Parliament to make an absolute Conquest and Nationall Eradication of them which hath made them to make vertue of necessity and to be valiant against their wills Peregrin Indeed I heard that Act of staying the Irish Regiment considering how the Marquesses de Velada and Malvezzi and Don Alonso de Cardenas who were all three Ambassadours here for the King of Spain at that time having by reliance upon the sacred Word and Letter of a King imprested money and provided shipping for their transport and bin at above 10000. Crowns charges I say this Act was very much censured abroad to the dishonour of His Majesty and our reproach Patricius I am very sorry to hear it Well Sir His Majesty by His presence having setled Scotland was at his return to London received with much joy and exultation but though he was brought in with a Hosanna at one end of the Town he found a Crucifige at the other For at Westminster ther was a Remonstrance fram'd a work of many weeks and voted in the dead of night when most of the moderat and well-thoughted Members were retired to their rest wherein with as much aggravation and artifice as could be the least moat in Government was exposed to publick view from the first day of His Majesties Inauguratâ—…on to that very hour Which Remonstrance as it did no good to the Publick but fill peoples heads with doubts their hearts with gall and retard the procedure of all businesse besides so you may well think it could expect but cold entertainment with His Majesty who hoped his great Councel according to their often deep protestations had done something for his welcom home that might have made him the best beloved King that ever 〈◊〉 amongst his people Peregrin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ther is no Government upon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 up of mâ—…n but is subject to corruption there is no Court of judicature so cleane but some cobwebs may gather in it unlesse an Act of Parliament could be made to free and exempt men from all infirmities and errour It cannot be denied but Scotland might have something to complaine of though I think least of any and so leapt first into the pooll to be cur'd and what she fish'd besides in those troubled waters 't is too well known England also no doubt might have some grievances which his Majestie freely offered not onely to redresse for the present but to free her of all feares for the future from falling into relapses of that kinde but to redresse grievances by Armes by plunging the whole countrey into an intestine warre this makes the remedy worse then the malady it is as if one would go about to cure a sick body by breaking his head or let him blood by giving him a dash on the nose it is as mad a tricke as his was who set the whole House a fire to roast his egs But truly Sir in my opinion his Majesty at his return from Scotland might have justly expected some acts of compliance and gratitude from his Parliament considering what unparallel'd acts of grace he had pass'd before Patricius His Majesty did not rest there but complied further with them by condescending to an act for putting down the star-chamber Court the high Commission the Court of honour nay he was contented his own Privy Councell should be regulated and his forests bounded not according to ancient Prerogative but late custome nay further he pass'd a Bill for the unvoting and utter exclusion of the Spirituall Lords from the Parliament for ever whereby it cannot be denied but by the casheering of 25 votes at a clap and by excluding the Recusant Lords besides who subsist most by his grace he did not a little enervat his own prerogative Adde hereunto that having placed two worthy Gentlemen Biron and Lunsford Lieutenants of the Tower he remov'd them both one after the other and was content to put in
in the intervall Then after other choice portions of Scripture and passages relating to our Redemption and endearing unto us the merits of it with a more particular Confession of our Faith we are dismissed with a Benediction So that this Liturgy may be call'd an Instrument of many strings whereon the sighing soul sends up varions notes unto heaven It is a posie made up of divers flowers to make it the more fragrant in the nostrills of God Now touching your Bishops I never knew yet any Protestant Church but could be content to have them had they meanes to maintaine the Dignitie which the Churches of France with others have not in regerd the Reformation beg an first among the people not at Court as here it did in Engl. For unlesse ther be som Supervisers of Gods house endowed with eminent authority to check the fond fancies and quench the false fatuous fires of every private spirit and unlesse it be such an authority that may draw unto it a holy kind of awe and obedience what can be expected but confusion and Atheisme You know what became of the Israelites when the wonted reverence to the Ark and the Ephod and the Priest began to languish amongst them For the braine of man is like a garden which unlesse it be fenced about with a wall or hedge is subject you know to be annoyed by all kinde of beasts which will be ready to runne into it so the braine unlesse it be restrain'd and bounded in holy things by rules of Canonicall authoritie a thousand wild opinions and extravagant fancies will hourely rush into it nor was there ever any field so subject to produce Cockle and Darnell as the human brain is rank and ready to bring forth tares of Schism and Heresie of a thousand sorts unlesse after the first culture the sickle of Authority be applyed to grub up all such noisom weeds Patricius Yet this most antient dignity of Bishops is traduced and vilified by every shallow-pated petty Clerk and not so much out of a tru zeal as out of envy that they are not the like And touching our Liturgy wherof you have bin pleas'd to give so exact a Character people are come to that height of impiety that in som places it hath bin drown'd in other places burnt in som places torn in pieces to serve for the basest uses nay it hath bin preached publickly in Pulpits That it is a piece forg'd in the devils shop and yet the impious foul mouth'd Babbler never was so much as questioned for it Nor did the Church only eccho with these blasphemies but the Presse was as pregnant to produce every day som Monster either against Ecclesiasticall or Secular Government I am asham'd to tell you how som bold Pamphleters in a discourse of a sheet or two wold presume to question to dispute of and determin the extent of Monarchik jurisdiction what sturdy doubts what sawcy Quaeries they put what odd frivolous distinctions they fâ—…am'd That the King though he was Gods Anointed yet he was mans appointed That he had the commanding not the disposing power That he was set to rule over not to over-rule the people That he was King by human choice not by divine Charter That he was not King by the Grace of God so much as by the suffrage of the people That he was a Creaturâ—… and production of the Parliament That he had no implicit trust nor peculiar property in any thing That populus est potior Rege That Grex lege lex est Rege potentior That the King was singulis major universis minor wheras a successive Monarch Uno minor est Iove Sometimes they wold bring instances from the States of Holland sometimes from the Republick of Venice and apply them so impertinently to absolute and independant Royalty But I find that the discourse and inferences of these grand Statists were bottom'd upon four false foundations viz. That the King of whom they speak must be either a Minor and Idiot an insufferable Tyrant or that the Kingdom they mean is Elective None of all which is appliable either to our most gracious and excellently qualified King or to his renowned Kingdom which hath bin always reputed an ancient successive Monarchy govern'd by one Suprem undeposeable and independent head having the Dignity the Royall State and power of an Imperiall Crown and being responsible to none â—…ut to God Almighty and his own 〈◊〉 â—…or his actions and unto whom a Body â—…olitick compacted of Prelates 〈◊〉 and all degrees of people is naturally subject but this is a theam of that transcendenâ—…y that it requires a serious and solid Tractat rather then such a slender Discourse as this is to handle But I pray excuse me Sir that I have stept aside thus from the road of my main narration I told you before how the clashing 'twixt the Commission of Array and the Militia put all things in disarray throughout the whole Kingdom The Parliament as they had taken the first Military gard so they began to arm first and was it not high time then for His Majesty to do some thing think you yet he essayed by all ways imaginable to prevent a war and to conquer by a passive fortitude by cunctation and longanimity How many overtures for an accommodation did he make How many Proclamations of pardon How many elaborat Declarations breathing nothing but clemency sweetness and truth did drop from his own imperious invincible pen which will remain upon Record to all ages as so many Monuments to his eternall glory Yet som ill spirit stept still in between his Grace and the abused Subject for by the peremptory Order of Parliament O monstrous thing the said Proclamations of Grace and other His Majesties Declarations were prohibited to be read fearing that the strength and truth of them wold have had a vertue to unblind or rather unbewitcht for Rebellion is as the sin of Witchcraft the poor besotted people What deep Protestations and holy Vowes did he reiterate that the main of his designs was to preserve the tru Protestant Religion the known Lawes of the Land and the just priviledges of Parliament How often did he dehort and woo the City of London his imperiall Chamber from such violent courses so that she may be justly upbraided with the same words as the Prince of peace upbraided Ierusalem withall London London How often wold I have gathered thee as a â—…en doth her chickens under her wings yet thou wouldst not How often did he descend to acknowledg the manner of demanding the one and five Members in his publick Remonstrances and if ther was an errour in the proceedings how oft did he desire his Great Councell to direct him in a course how to go on in the Empeachment which they never did but wold reserve the priviledge to themselves to be judge and party Peregrin Can your Parliament protect high Treason I am sure the character of an Ambassadour cannot which the late French Ambassadour who
government of Church and state into what mold they pleased and ingrosse the chiefest offices to themselves And from these imaginary invisible dangers proceeded these visible calamities and grinding palpable pressures which hath accompanied this odious Warre ever since Peregrin Herein methinks your statists have shewne themselves politique enough but not so prudent honest for Prudence Policy though they often agree in the end yet they differ in election of the meanes to compasse their ends The one serves himself of truth strength of Reason integrity and gallantnesse in their proceedings the other of fictions fraudulence lies and other sinister meanes the work of the one is lasting and permanent the others worke moulders away and ends in infamy at last for fraud and frost alwaies end foule But how did they requite that most rare and high unexampled trust his Majesty reposed in them when he before passed that fatall Act of continuance a greater trust then ever English King put in Parliament How did they performe their solemn promise and deepe Protestations to make him the most glorious at home and abroad the richest and best belovedst King that ever raigned in that Island Patricius Herein I must confesse they held very ill correspondence with him for the more he trusted them the more diffident they grew of him and truly Sir herein white differs not so much from black as their actions have been disconsonant to their words Touching the first promise to make him glorious if to suffer a neighbouring Nation the Scot to demand and obtain what they pleased of him if to break capitulations of peace with a great forrein Prince the French King by the renvoy of the Capuchins and divers other Acts if to bring the dregs and riffraffe of the City to domineere before his Court-gate notwithstanding his Proclamations of repressing them if to confront him and seek his life by fire and sword in open field by open desiance and putting him upon a defensive war if to vote his Queen a Traytresse to shoot at her to way-lay her to destroy her if to hinder the reading of his Proclamations and the sleighting of his Declarations enclosed in Letters sign'd and seal'd with his own hand for fear they shold bring the people to their wits again if to call them fetters of gold divellish devises fraught with doctrines of division reall mistakes absurd suppositions though ther never dropt from Princes pen more full more rationall and strong sinewy expressions if to suffer every shallow-brain'd Scolist to preach every Pamphletter to print every rotten-hearted man or woman to prate what they please of him and his Queen if to sleight his often acknowledgment condissentions retractions pronunciations of Peace and proffers of Pardon if to endeavour to bring him to a kind of servile submission if to bar him of the attendance of his Domestiques to abuse and imprison his messengers to hang his servants for obeying his Commission if to prefer the safety and repute of five ordinary men before the honour of their King and being actually impeach'd of Treason to bring them in a kind of triumph to his House if for subjects to Article Treat and Capitulate with him if to tamper with his Conscience and make him forget the solemn sacramentall oath he took at his Coronation if to devest him of all regall rights to take from him the election of his servants and officers and bring him back to a kind of minority if this be to make a King glorious our King is made glorious enough Touching the second promise to make him the richest King that ever was if to denude him of his native rights to declare that he hath no property in any thing but by way of trust not so much property as an Elective King if to take away his customs of inheritance if to take from him his Exchequer and Mint if to thrust him out of his own Towns to suffer a lowsie Citizen to lie in his beds within his Royall Castle of Windsor when he himself would have come thither to lodg if to enforce him to a defensive war and cause him to engage his Jewells and Plate and so plunge him in a bottomlesse gulph of debt for his necessary defence if to anticipate his revenue royall and reduce him to such exigents that he hath scarce the subsistence of an ordinary Gentleman if this be to make a rich King then is our King made sufficiently rich Concerning their third promise to make him the best belovedst King that ever was if to cast all the aspersions that possibly could be devised upon his Government by publique elaborat remonstrances if to suffer and give Texts to the strongest lung'd Pulpiteers to poyson the hearts of his subjects to intoxicat their brains with fumes of forg'd jealousies to possesse them with an opinion that he is a Papist in his heart and consequently hath a design to introduce Popery if to sleight his words his promises his Asseverations Oaths and Protestations when he calls heaven and earth to witnesse when he desires no blessing otherwise to fall upon himself his wife and children with other pathetick deep-fetcht expressions that wold have made the meanest of those millions of Christians which are his vassals to be believed if to protect Delinquents and proclaim'd Traytors against him if to suscitate authorise and encourage all sorts of subjects to heave up their hands against him and levy armes to emancepate themselves from that naturall allegiance loyalty and subjection wherein they and their fore-fathers were ever tyed to his Royall Progenitors if to make them swear and damn themselves into a rebellion if this be to make a King beloved then this Parliament hath made King Charles the best beloved King that ever was in England Peregrin I cannot compare this Rebellion in England more properly then to that in this Kingdom in King Iohn's time which in our French Chronicle beares to this day the infamous name of Iaquerie de Beauvoisin The Peasans then out of a surfeit of plenty had grown up to that height of insolency that they confronted the Noblesse and Gentry they gathered in multitudes and put themselves in armes to suppresse or rather extinguish them and this popular tumult never ceased till Charles le Sage debell'd it and it made the Kings of France more puissant ever since for it much increased their Finances in regard that those extraordinary taxes which the people imposed upon themselves for the support of the war hath continued ever since a firm revenue to the Crown which makes me think of a facecious speech of the late Henry the Great to them of Orleans for wheras a new imposition was laid upon the Townsmen during the league by Monsieur de la Chastre who was a great stickler in those wars they petitioned Henry the fourth that he wold be pleased to take off that taxe the King asked them Who had laid that taxe upon them they said Monsieur de la Chastre during
highly magnified in some of your publick Speeches who were at first brought in for Hirelings against the King for them offer themselves now to come in against them for the King Your Lordship cannot be ignorant of the sundry clashes that have bin 'twixt the City and their Memberships and 'twixt their Memberships and their men of War or Military Officers who have often wav'd and disobeyed their commands How this tatterdimallian Army hath reduc'd this cow'd City the cheated Country and their once all-commanding Masters to a perfect passe of slavery to a tru Asinin condition They crow over all the ancient Nobility and Gentry of the Kindom though ther be not found amongst them all but two Knights and 't is well known ther be hundreds of privat Gentlemen in the Kingdom the poorest of whom is able to buy this whole Host with the Generall himself and all the Commanders But 't is not the first time that the Kings and Nobility of England have bin baffled by petty companions I have read of Iack Straw Wat Tyler and Ket the Tanner with divers others that did so but being suppressed it tended to the advantage of the King at last and what a world of examples are ther in our story that those Noblemen who banded against the Crown the revenge of heaven ever found them out early or late at last These with a black cloud of reciprocall judgments more which have come home to these Reformers very doors shew that the hand of divine justice is in 't and the holy Prophet tells us When Gods judgments are upon earth then the inhabitants shall learn justice Touching your Lordship in particular you have not under favour escap'd without some already and I wish more may not follow your Lordship may remember you lost one Son at Bridgenorth your dear Daughter at Oxford your Son-in-Law at Newbury your Daughter-in-Law at the Charter-house of an infamous disease how sick your Eldest son hath bin how part of your house was burnt in the Country with others which I will not now mention I will conclude this point with an observation of the most monstrous number of Witches that have swarm'd since these Wars against the King more I dare say then have bin in this Island since the Devil tempted Eve for in two Counties only viz. Suffolk and Essex ther have bin near upon three hundred arraign'd and eightscore executed as I have it from the Clerks of the Peace of those Counties what a barbarous devilish office one had under colour of examination to torment poor silly women with watchings pinchings and other artifices to find them for Witches How others call'd spirits by a new invention of villany were conniv'd at for seizing upon young children and 〈◊〉 them on shipboard where having their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were so transform'd that their 〈◊〉 could not know them and so were carryed over for new schismaticall Plantations to New-England and other Seminaries of Rebellion My Lord ther is no villany that can enter into the imagination of man hath bin left here uncommitted no crime from the highest Treason to the meanest Trespasse but these Reformers are guilty of What horrid acts of prophanes have bin perpetrated up and down the Monuments of the dead have bin rifled Horses have bin watered at the Church Font and fed upon the holy Table Widows Orphans and Hospitals have bin commonly robb'd and Gods House hath bin plunder'd more then any with what infandous blasphemies have Pulpits rung one crying out that this Parliament was as necessary for our Reformation as the comming of Christ was for our Redempâ—…ion Another belching out that if God Almighty did not prosper this Cause 't were fitting he shold change places with the Devil Another that the worst thing our Savoour did was the making of the Dominical prayer and saving the Thief upon the Crosse. O immortal God is it possible that England shold produce such Monsters or rather such infernal fiends shap'd with humane bodies yet your Lordship sides with these men though they be enemies to the Cross to the Church and to the very name of Iesus Christ I 'le instance only in two who were esteem'd the Oracles of this holy Reformation Petrs and Saltmarsh The first is known by thousands to be an infamous jugling and scandalous villaine among other feats he got the Mother and Daughter with Child as it was offered to be publickly proved I could speak much of the other but being dead let it suffice that he dyed mad and desperate yet these were accounted the two Apostles of the times My Lord 't is high time for you to recollect your self to enter into the private closet of your thoughts and summon them all to counsel upon your pillow consider well the slavish condition your dear Country is in weigh well the sad case your liege Lord and Master is in how he is bereav'd of his Queen His Children His Servants His Liberty His Chaplains and of every thing in which there is any comfort observe well how neverthelesse God Almighty works in Him by inspiring Him with equality and calmnesse of mind with patience prudence and constancy How Hee makes His very Crosses to stoop unto Him when His Subjects will not Consider the monstrousnesse of the Propositions that are tendred him wherein no lesse then Crown Scepter and Sword which are things in-alienable from Majesty are in effect demanded nay they would have him transmit and resign his very intellectuals unto them not only so but they would have him make a sacrifice of his soul by forcing him to violate that solemne sacramentall Oath hee took at his Coronation when hee was no Minor but come to a full maturity of reason and judgement make it your own case My Lord and that 's the best way to judge of His Think upon the multiplicity of solemne astringing Oathes your Lordship hath taken most whereof directly and solely enjoyne faith and loyalty to his Person oh my Lord wrong not your soule so much in comparison of whom your body is but a rag of rottennesse Consider that acts of loyalty to the Crown are the fairest columns to bear up a Noblemans name to future ages and register it in the temple of immortality Reconcile your self therefore speedily unto your liege Lord and Master think upon the infinit private obligations you have had both to Sire and Son The Father kiss'd you often kisse you now the Sun lest he be too angry And Kings you will find my Lord are like the Sun in the heavens which may be clouded for a time yet he is still in his sphear and will break out againe and shine as gloriously as ever Let me tell your Lordship that the people begin to grow extream weary of their Physitians they find the remedy to be far worse then their former disease nay they stick not to call some of them meer Quacksalvers rather then Physitians Some goe further say they are no more a Parliament then a Pye-powder
Court at Bartholmew-Fair ther being all the essentiall parts of a true Parliament wanting in this as fairnesse of elections freedome of speech fulnesse of Members nor have they any head at all besides they have broken all the fundamental rules and Priviledges of Parliament and dishonoured that high Court more then any thing else They have ravish'd Magna Charta which they are sworn to maintain taken away our birth-right therby and transgressed all the laws of heaven and earth Lastly they have most perjuriously betrayed the trust the King reposed in them and no lesse the trust their Country reposed in them so that if reason and law were now in date by the breach of their Priviledges and by betraying the said double trust that is put in them they have dissolved themselves ipso facto I cannot tell how many thousand times notwithstanding that monstrous grant of the Kings that fatall act of continuance And truly my Lord I am not to this day satisfied of the legality though I am satisfied of the forciblenesse of that Act whether it was in his Majesties power to passe it or no for the law ever presupposeth these clauses in all concessions of Grace in all Patents Charters and Grants whatsoever the King passeth Salvo jure regio salvo jure coronae To conclude as I presume to give your Lordship these humble cautions and advice in particular so I offer it to all other of your rank office order and Relations who have souls to save and who by solemn indispensable Oaths have ingaged themseves to be tru and loyall to the Person of King Charls Touching his political capacity it is a fancy which hath bin exploded in all other Parliaments except in that mad infamous Parliament wher it was first hatched That which bears upon Record the name of Insanum Parliamentum to all posterity but many Acts have passed since that it shold be high and horrible Treason to separat or distinguish the Person of the King from His Power I believe as I said before this distinction will not serve their turn at the dreadful Bar of divine justice in the other world indeed that Rule of the Pagans makes for them Si Iusjurandum violandum est Tyrannis causâ violandum est If an Oath be any way violable 't is to get a Kingdom We find by woful experience that according to this maxime they have made themselves all Kings by violation of so many Oaths They have monopoliz'd the whole power and wealth of the Kingdom in their own hands they cut shuffle deal and turn up what trump they please being Judges and parties in every thing My Lord he who presents these humble advertisments to your Lordship is one who is inclin'd to the Parliament of Engl. in as high a degree of affection as possibly a free-born Subject can be One besides who wisheth your Lordships good with the preservation of your safety and honour more really then he whom you intrust with your secretest affaires or the White Iew of the Upper House who hath infused such pernicious principles into you moreover one who hath some drops of bloud running in his veins which may claim kindred with your Lordship and lastly he is one who would kiss your feet in lieu of your hands if your Lordship wold be so sensible of the most desperat case of your poor Country as to employ the interests the opinion and power you have to restore the King your Master by English waies rather then a hungry forrein people who are like to bring nothing but destruction in the van confusion in the rear and rapine in the middle shold have the honour of so glorious a work So humbly hoping your Lordship will not take with the left hand what I offer with the right I rest From the Prison of the Fleet 3. Septembris 1644. Your Lordships truly devoted Servant I. H. HIS Late MAJESTIES Royal DECLARATION OR MANIFESTO TO ALL FORREIN PRINCES AND STATES Touching his constancy in the Protestant Religion Being traduced abroad by some Malicious and lying Agents That He was wavering therin and upon the high road of returning to Rome Printed in the Year 1661. TO THE Unbiass'd REDER IT may be said that mischief in one particular hath somthing of Vertue in it which is That the Contrivers and Instruments thereof are still stirring and watchfull They are commonly more pragmaticall and fuller of Devices then those sober-minded men who while they go on still in the plaine road of Reason having the King and knowne Lawes to justifie and protect them hold themselfs secure enough and so think no hurt Iudas eyes were open to betray his Master while the rest of his fellow-servants were quietly asleep The Members at Westminster were men of the first gang for their Mischievous braines were alwayes at work how to compasse their ends And one of their prime policies in order thereunto was to cast asspersions on their King thereby to alienat the affections and fidelity of his peeple from him â—…notwithstanding that besides their pubâ—…ick Declarations they made new Oaths and protestations whereby they swore to make Him the best belov'd King that ever was Nor did this Diabolicall malice terminat only within the bounds of his own Dominions but it extended to infect other Princes and States of the Reformed Churches abroad to make Him suspected in his Religion that he was branling in his belief and upon the high way to Rome To which purpose they sent missives and clandestine Emissaries to divers places beyond the Seas whereof forren Authors make mention in their writings At that time when this was in the height of action the passage from London to Oxford where the King kept then his Court was so narrowly blockd up that a fly could scarce passe some Ladies of honor being search'd in an unseemly and barbarous manner whereupon the penner of the following Declaration finding his Royal master to be so grosly traduced made his Duty to go beyond all presumptions by causing the sayd Declaration to be printed and publish'd in Latin French and English whereof great numbers were sent beyond the seas to France Holland Germany Suisserland Denmark Swethland and to the English plantations abroad to vindicat his Majesty in this point which produc'd very happy and advantagious effects for Salmtisius and other forrin writers of great esteem speake of it in their printed works The Declaration was as followeth CAROLUS Singulari Omnipotentis Dei providentia Angliae Scotiae Franciae Hiberniae Rex Fidei Defensor c. Universis et singulis qui praesens hoc scriptum ceu protestationem inspexerint potissimum Reformatae Religionis cultoribus cujuscunque sint gentis gradus aut conditionis salutem c. CUM ad aures nostras non ita pridem fama pervenerit sinistros quosdam rumores literasque politica vel perniciosa potiùs quorundam industriâ sparsas esse nonnullis protestantium ecclesiis in exteris partibus emissas nobis
every foure and twenty houres I am also the Fountaine of Heate and Light which though I use to dispence and diffuse in equall proportions through the whole Universe yet there is difference 'twixt objects a Castle hath more of my light then a Cottage and the Cedar hath more of me then the Shrub according to the common axiom Quicquid recipitur recipitur ad modum recipâ—…entis But touching the Moon the second great Luminary I would have you know that she is dearest unto mee therefore let none repine that I cherish her with my beams and confer more light on her then any other Touching the malignant Planets or any other Star of what magnitude soever that moves not in a regular motion or hath run any excentrick exorbitant course or that would have made me to move out of the Zodiak I put them over unto you that upon due legall examination and proof they may be unspher'd or extinguished But I would have this done with moderation I would have you to keep as neer as you can between the Tropiques and temperate Zones I would have things reduced to their true Principles I wold have things reformed not ruin'd I would have the spirit of malice and lying the spirit of partiality and injustice the spirit of tyranny and rigour the base spirit of feare and jealousie to be farre from this glorious Syderean 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 redress of grievances you prove your self the greatest grievance at last and so from Starrs become Comets Lastly I would have you be cautious how you tamper with my Soveraign power and chop Logicke 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 into a serious deliberation of things and Apollo himself continued his presence and sate often amongst them in his full lustre but in the meane time whilest they were in the midst of their consultations many odde Aspects Oppositions and Conjunctions hapned between them for some of the Sporades but specially those mongrel small vulgar stars 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 the Morning-Star with him to retire himself and in a just indignation to withdraw his Light from the Synod so all began to be involv'd in a strange kind of confusion and obscurity they groaped in the dark not knowing which way to move or what course to take all things went Cancer-like retrograde because the Sun detained his wonted light and irradiations from them MORALL Such as the Sun is in the Firmament a Monarch is in his Kingdom for as the Wisest of men saith In the light of the Kings Countenance ther is life and I believe that to be the Morall of this Astrean Fable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 OR The Great Councell of BIRDS UPon a time the Birds met in Councell for redresse of som extravagancies that had flown unto the volatill Empire Nor was it the first time that Birds met thus for the Phrygian Fabler tells us of divers meetings of theirs And after him we read that Apollonius Thyaneus undertook the interpretation of their language and to be their Drogoman They thus assembled in one Great Covie by the call of the Eagle their unquestioned hereditary King and by vertue of his Royal Authority complaints were brought that divers Cormorants and Harpies with other Birds of prey had got in amongst them who did much annoy and invade the publick liberty sundry other Birds were questioned which caused some to take a timely flight into another aire As they were thus consulting for advancement of the common good many Rooks Horn-Owles and Sea-Gulls flock'd together and â—…luttered about the place they were assembled in where they kept a hideous noise and committed many outrages and nothing cold satisfie them but the Griffons head which was therfore chopt off and offered up as a sacrifice to make them leave their chattering and to appease their fury for the time They fell foul afterwards upon the Pies who were used to be much reverenced and to sit upon the highest pearch in that great Assembly they called them I dolatrous and inauspitious Birds they hated their mix'd colour repined at their long train they tore their white feathers and were ready to peck out their very eyes they did what they could to put them in Owles feathers as the poor Sheep was in the Woolfs skin to make them the more hated and to be star'd and hooted at whersoever they passed The Pies being thus scar'd presented a Petition to the royall Eagle and to this his great Counsell that they might be secured to repaire safely thither to sit and consult according to the ancient Lawes of the Volatill Empire continued so many ages without controllment or question in which Petition they inserted a Protest or Caveat that no publique act shold passe in the interim This Supplication both for matter and form was excepted against and cryed up to be high Treason specially that indefinite Protest they had made that no Act whatsoever shold be of any validity without them which was alledged to derogate from the High Law-making power of that Great Counsell and tended to retard and disturb the great Affaires which were then in agitation so the poor Pies as if by that Petition they had like the Black-bird voided Lime to catch themselves according to the Proverb Turdus cacat sibi malum were suddenly hurryed away into a Cage and after ten long Moneths canvassing of the point they were unpearch'd and rendered for ever uncapable to be Members of that Court they were struck dumb and voice-less and suddenly as it were blown up away thence though without any force of powder as once was plotted aginst them But this was done when a thin number of the adverse Birds had kept still together and stuck close against them and also after that the Bill concerning them had bin once ejected which they humbly conceived by the ancient order of that Court could not be re-admitted in the same Session They Petitioned from the place they were cooped in that for heavens sake for the honour of that noble Counsell for Truth and Justice sake they â—…eing as free-born Denisons of the aiery Region as any other Volatills whatsoever their charge might be perfected that so they might be brought to a legall triall and not forced to languish in such captivity They pleaded to have
afford you som satisfaction and enlighten you more in the Irish affaires The allegeance I owe to Truth was the Midwife that brought it forth and I make bold to make choice of you for my Gossip because I am From the prison of the Fleet 3. Nonas April is 1643. Your true servant I. H. Mercurius Hibernicus THere is not any thing since these ugly warrs begun whereof there hath been more advantage made to traduce and blemish His Majesties actions or to alienate and imbitter the affections of his people towards Him to incite them to armes and enharden them in the quarrell than of the Irish affaires whether one cast his eyes upon the beginning and proceedure of that warre which some by a most monstrous impudence would patronize upon their Majesties or upon the late Cessation and the transport of Auxiliaries since from thence There are some that in broken peeces have written of all three but not in one entire discourse as this is nor hath any hitherto hit upon those reasons and inferences that shall be displayed herein But he who adventures to judge of affaires of State specially of traverses of warre as of Pacifications of Truces Suspensions of Armes Parlies and such like must well observe the quality of the times the successe and circumstance of matters past the posture and pressure of things present and upon the Place the inducement or enforcement of causes the gaining of time the necessity of preventing greater mischiefes whereunto true policy Prometheus like hath alwaies an eye with other advantages The late Cessation of Armes in Ireland was an affaire of this nature a true Act of State and of as high a consequence as could be Which Cessation is now become the Common Subject of every mans discourse or rather the discourse of every common Subject all the three Kingdomes over And not onely the subject of their discourse but of their censure also nor of their censure onely but of their reproach and obloquy For the World is come now to that passe that the Foot must judge the Head the very Cobler must pry into the Cabinet Counsels of his King nay the Distaffe is ready ever and anon to arraign the Scepter Spinstresses are become States-women and every peasan turned politician such a fond irregular humour reignes generally of late yeers amongst the English Nation Now the Designe of this small discourse though the Subject require a farre greater volume is to vindicate His Majesties most pious intentions in condescending to this late suspension of Arms in His Kingdome of Ireland and to make it appeare to any rationall ingenious capacity not pre-occupied or purblinded with passion that there was more of honour and necessity more of prudence and piety in the said Cessation than there was either in the Pacification or Peace that was made with the Scot. But to proceed herein the more methodically I will lay downe first The reall and true radicall causes of the late two-yeers Irish Insurrection Secondly the course His Majesty used to suppresse it Lastly those indispensable impulsive reasons and invincible necessity which enforced His Majesty to condescend to a Cessation Touching the grounds of the said Insurrection we may remember when His Majesty out of a pious designe as His late Majesty also had to settle an Uniformitie of serving God in all his three Kingdomes sent our Liturgie to his Subjects of Scotland some of that Nation made such an advantage hereof that though it was a thing only recommended not commanded or pressed upon them and so cald in suddenly againe by a most gracious Proclamation accompanied with a generall pardon Yet they would not rest there but they would take the opportunity hereby to demolish Bishops and the whole Hierarchy of the Church which was no grievance at all till then To which end they put themselves in actuall Armes and obtained at last what they listed which they had not dared to have done had they not been sure to have as good friends in England as they had in Scotland as Lesly himself confessed to Sir William Berkley at Newcastle for some of the chiefest Inconformists here had not onely intelligence with them but had been of their Cabinet-counsels in moulding the Plot though some would cast this war upon the French Cardinall to vindicate the invasion we made upon his Masters dominions in the Isle of Rets as also for some advantage the English use to do the Spâ—…niard in transporting his Treasure to Dunkerk with other offices Others wold cast it upon the Iesuit that he shold project it first to â—…orce His Mâ—…jesty to have recourse to his Roman Catholick Subjects for aid that so they might by such Supererogatory service ingratiate themselves the more into his favour The Irish hearing how well their next Neighbouâ—…s had sped by way of Arms it filled them full of thoughts and apprehensions of fear and jealousie that the Scot wold prove more powerful hereby and consequently more able to do them hurt and to attempâ—… waies to restrain them of that connivency which they were allowed in point of Religion Now ther is no Nation upon earth that the Irish hate in that perfection and with a greater Antipathy than the Scot or from whom they conceive greater danger For wheras they have an old prophesie amongst them which one shall hear up and down in every mouth That the day will come when the Irish shall weep upon English mens graves They fear that this prophesie will be verified and fulfilled in the Scot above any other Nation Moreover the Irish entred into consideration that They also had sundry grievances and grounds of complaint both touching their estates and consciences which they pretended to be far greater than those of the Scots For they fell to think that if the Scot was suffered to introduce a new Religion it was reason they shold not be so pinched in the exercise of their old which they glory never to have altered And for temporall matters wherin the Scot had no grievance at all to speak of the new plantations which had bin lately afoot to be made in Conaught and other places the concealed lands and defective titles which were daily found out the new customs which were imposed and the incapacity they had to any preferment or Office in Church and State with other things they conceived these to be grievances of a far greater nature and that deserved redresse much more than any the Scot had To this end they sent over Commissioners to attend this Parliament in England with certain Propositions but those Commissioners were dismissed hence with a short and unsavoury answer which bred worse bloud in the Nation than was formerly gathered and this with that leading case of the Scot may be said to be the first incitements that made them rise In the couâ—…se of humane actions we daily find it to be a tru rule Exempla movent Examples move and make strong impressions upon the fancy precepts are not so
powerful as precedents The said example of Scotland wrought wonderfully upon the imagination of the Irish and filled them as I touched before with thoughts of emulation that They deserved altogether to have as good usage as the Scot their Country being far more beneficial and consequenly more importing the English Nation But these were but confused imperfect notions which began to receive more vigour and form after the death of the Earl of Strafford who kept them under so exact an obedience though som censure him to have screwed up the strings of the Harp too high insomuch that the taking off of the Earl of Straffords head may be said to be the second incitement to the heads of that insurrection to stir Adde hereunto that the Irish understanding with what acrimony the Roman Catholicks in England were proceeded against since the sitting of our Parliament and what further designes were afoot against them and not onely against them but for ranversing the Protestant Religion it self as it is now practised which som shallow-braind 〈◊〉 do throw into the same scales with Pâ—…pery They thought it was high time for them to forecast what shold become of Them and how they shold â—…e 〈◊〉 in point of conscience when a new Deputy of the Parliaments election approbation at least shold come over Therfore they fell to consult of som means of timely prevention And this was another moâ—…ive and it was a shâ—…ewd one which pâ—…sht on the Irish to take up Arms. Lastly that Army of 8000. men which the Earl of Strafford had raised to be transported to England for suppressing the Scot being by the advice of our Parliament here disbanded the Country was annoyed by som 〈◊〉 those stragling Souldiers as not one in twenty of the Irish will from the sword to the spade or from the Pike to the plough again Therfore the two Marquesses that were Ambassadors here then for Spaine having propounded to have som numbers of those disbanded forces for the service of their Master His Majesty by the mature advice of his privy Counsell to occur the mischiefs that might arise to his Kingdom of Ireland by those loose casheer'd Souldiers yielded to the Ambassadors motion who sent notice hereof to Spain accordingly and so provided shipping for their transport and impressed money to advance the business but as they were in the heat of that 〈◊〉 His Majesty being then in Scotland 〈◊〉 wâ—…s a sudden stop made of those promised troops who had depended long upon the Spaniards service as the Spaniard 〈◊〉 doâ—…e on theirs And this was the last though noâ—… the least fatal cause of that horrid insurrection All which particulars well considered it had bin no hard matter to have bin a Prophet and standing upon the top of Holy-Head to have foreseen those black clouds engendering in the Irish aire which broâ—…e out afterwards into such fearful tempests of bloud Out of these premises it is easie for any common understanding not transported with passion and private interest to draw this conclusion That They who complyed with the Scot in his insurrection They who dismissed the Irish Commissioners with such a short unpolitick answer They who took off the Earl of Straffords head and delayed afterwards the dispatching of the Earl of Leicester They who hindered those disbanded troops in Ireland to go for Spain may be justly said to have bin the tru causes of the late insurrection of the Irish and consequently it is easie to know upon the account of whose souls must be laid the bloud of those hundred and odde thousands poor Christians who perished in that war so that had it bin possible to have brought over their bodies unputrified to England and to have cast them at the doores and in the presence of som men I believe they wold have gushed out afresh into bloud for discovery of the tru murtherers The grounds of this insurrection being thus discovered let us examine what means His Majesty used for the suppression of it He made his addresses presently to his great Counsel the English Parliament then assembled which Queen Elizabeth and her progenitors did seldom use to do but only to their Privy Counsel in such cases who had the discussing and transacting of all foreign affaires for in mannaging matters of State specially those of war which must be carryed with all the secrecy that may be Trop grand nombre est encombre as the Frenchman saith too great a number of Counsellours may be an incumber and expose their results and resolutions to discovery and other disadvantages wheras in military proceedings the work shold be afoot before the Counsels be blazed abroad Well His Majesty transmitted this business to the Parliament of England who totally undertaking it and wedding as it were the quarlel as I remember they did that of the Palatinate a little before by solemn vote the like was done by the Parliament of Scotland also by a publick joynt Declaration which in regard ther came nothing of it tended little to the honour of either Nation abroad His Majesty gave his royal assent to any Propositions or acts for raising of men money and arms to perform the work But hereby no man is so simple as to think His Majesty shold absolutely give over his own personal care and protection of that his Kingdom it being a Rule That a King can no more desert the protection of his own people then they their subjection to him In all his Declarations ther was nothing that he endear'd and inculcated more often and with greater aggravation and earnestness unto them then the care of his poor Subjects their fellow-Protestants in Ireland Nay he resented their condition so far and took the business so to heart that he offered to passe over in person for their relief And who can deny but this was a magnanimous and King-like resolution Which the Scots by publick act of Counsel did highly approve of and declared it to be an argument of care and courage in his Majesty And questionless it had done infinite good in the opinion of them that have felt the pulse of the Irish people who are daily ore-heard to groan how they have bin any time these 400. years under the English Crown and yet never saw but two of their Kings all the while upon Irish ground though ther be but a salt 〈◊〉 of a few hours sail to pass over And much more welcom shold His Majesty now regnant be amongst them who by general tradition They confess and hold to come on the paternal side from 〈◊〉 by legal and lineal descent who was an Irish Prince and after King of Scotland wheras the title of all our former Kings and Queens was stumbled at alwaies by the vulgar His Majesty finding that this royall proffer of engaging his own person was rejected with a kind of scorn coucht in smooth language though the main businesse concerned himself nearest and indeed solely himself that Kingdom being his own hereditary Right
Understanding also what base sinister use ther was made of this insurrection by som trayterous malevolent persons who to cast aspersions upon His Majesty and to poyson the hearts of his people besides publick infamous reports counterfeited certain Commissions in His Majesties name to authorize the businesse as if he were privy to it though I dare pawn my soul His or Her Majesty knew no more of it then the great Mogor did Finding also that the Commissioners imployed hence for the managing and composing matters in that Kingdom though nominated by the Parliament and by their recommendation authorized by His Majesty did not observe their instructions and yet were conniv'd at Understanding also what an inhumane design ther was between them and the Scot in lieu of suppressing an insurrection to eradicat and extinguish a whole nation to make booty of their lands which hopes the London Adventurers did hugge and began to divide the Bears-skin before he was taken as His Majesty told them an attempt the Spaniard nor any other Christian State ever intended against the worst of Savages The conceit wherof inâ—…used such a desperate courage eagerness and valour into the Irish that it made them turn necessity into a kind of vertu Moreover His Majesty taking notice that those royal Subsidies with other vast contributions wherunto he had given way with the sums of particular Adventurers amongst whom som Aliens Hollanders were taken in besides the Scot to share the Country were misapplyed being visibly imployed rather to feed an English Rebellion then to suppress an Irish Nay understanding that those charitable collections which were made for the reliefe of those distressed Protestants who being stripped of all their livelihood in Ireland were forced to fly over to England were converted to other uses and the Charity not dispensed according to the Givers intention Hearing also that those 5000. men which had been levyed and assigned to goe under the Lord Wharton the Lord of Kerry Sir Faithfull Fortescue and others were diverted from going to the west of Ireland and imployed to make up the Earl of Essex Army And having notice besides that the Earl of Warwicke had stayd certaine ships going thither with supplies and that there was an attempt to send for over to England some of those Scottish Forces which were in Ulster without his privity Lastly His Majesty finding himself unfitted and indeed disabled to reach those his distressed Subjects his owne royal armie all his navall strength revenues and magazines being out of his hands and having as hard a game to play still with the Scot and as pernicious a fire to quench in England as any of his Progenitors ever had Receiving intelligence also daily from his Protestant Nobility and Gentry thence in what a desperate case the whole Kingdome stood together with the report of the Committee that attended His Majesty from them expresly for that service who amongst other deplorable passages in their petition represented That all means by which comfort and life should be conveyed unto that gasping Kingdome seemed to be totally obstructed and that unlesse 〈◊〉 reliefe were afforded His loyall Subjectâ—… there must yeeld their fortunes for a prey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a sacrifice and their Religion for a 〈◊〉 to the mercilesse Rebels His Majesty as it was high time for 〈◊〉 taking into his Princely thoughts those wofull complainrs and cryes of his poore Subjects condescended at last to appoint some persons of honour to heare what the Irish could say for themselves as they had often petitioned and God forbid but the King of Ireland should receive his Subjects petitions as well as the King of Scotland But His Majesty being unsatisfied with what they propounded then the Lord Marquess of Ormond marched with considerable Forces against them and though he came off with honour yet no reliefe at all comming thither for many moneths after from the Parliament here who had undertaken the businesse and had received all the summes and subsidies with other unknown contributions to that end matters grew daily worse and worse To sum up all His Majesty receiving express and positive advice from his Lord Justices and Counsell of State ther that the whole Kingdom was upon point of utter perdition which was co-intimated the same time to the Parliament here by a special letter to the Speaker I say His Majesty finding that he had neither power of himself it being transmitted to others and that those Trustees did misapply that power and trust he had invested in them for the time to make good their undertaking for preservation of that his fruitfull Kingdome being impelled by all these forcible reasons His Majesty sent a commission to the Lord Marquesse of Ormond his Lievtenant Generall a most known sincere Protestant to hearken to a treaty according to their petition and if any thing was amisse in that treaty in poynt of honour as it shall appeare by comparing it with others there was none we know whom to thank For out of these premises also doth result this second conclusion That they who misapplied those moneys and mis imployed those men which were levyed with His Majesties royall assent for the reduction of Ireland They who set afoot that most sanguinary design of extirpating at least of enslaving a whole ancient Nation who were planted there by the hand of Providence from the beginning They who hindred His Majesties transfretation thither to take cognizance of his own affairs and expose the countenance of his own royall person for composing of things They They may be said to be the true causes of that unavoydable necessity and as the heathen Poetsings The Gods themselvs cannot resist Necessity which enforced His Majesty to capitulat with the Irish and assent to a Cessation It was the saying of one of the bravest Roman Emperours and it was often used by Henry the Great of France Her Majesties Father That he had rather save the life of one loyall Subject then kill a hundred Enemies It may well be thought that one of the prevalentst inducements that moved His Majesty besides those formerly mentioned to condescend to this Irish Cessation was a sense he had of the effusion of his own poor Subjects blood the hazard of the utter extirpation of the Protestants there and a totall irrecoverable losse of that Kingdome as was advertised both in the petition of the Protestants themselves the relation of the Committee imployd thither to that purpose and the expresse letters of the Lords Justices and Counsell there To prove now that this Cessation of arms in Ireland was more honourable and fuller of Piety Prudence and Necessity then either the Pacification or Peace with the Scot. I hope these few ensuing arguments above divers others which cannot be inserted here in regard of the force intended brevity of this Discourse will serve the turne 1. In primis When the Pacification was made with Scotland His Majesty was there personally present attended on by the floure of His English Nobility
their croaking 't is to make him a King of clouts or as the Spaniard hath it Rey de Havas a Bean King such as we use to choose in sport at Twelfnight But my hopes are that the two present Houses of Parliament for now they may be call'd so because they begin to parley with their King will be more tender of the honour of their Soveraign Liege Lord which together with all his Rights and Dignities by severall solemn Oaths aud by their own binding instruments of Protestation and Covenant not yet revok'd they are sworne to maintaine and that they will demand nothing of him which may favour of Aspertè or force but what may hold water hereafter But now touching the Militia or Sword of the Kingdom I think under favour the King cannot transfer it to any other for that were to desert the protection of his people which is point blank against his Coronation Oath and his Office What forren Prince or State will send either Ambassador Resident or Agent to him when they understand his Sword is taken from him What reformed forein Church will acknowledg Him Defendor of the Faith when they hear of this Nay they who wish England no good will will go near to paint him out as not long since another King was with a fair velvet Scabbard a specious golden hilt and chape but the blade within was of wood I hope that they who sway now will make better use of their successes Many of them know 't is as difficult a thing to use a victory well as to get one ther is as much prudence requir'd in the one as prowesse in the other they will be wiser sure then turn it to the dishonor of their King it being a certain rule that the glory of a Nation all the world over depends upon the glory of their King and if he be any way obscur'd the whole Kingdom is under an eclipse I have observed that among other characters of gallantry which forein Writers appropriat to the English Nation one is that they use to be most zealous to preserve the Honor of their King I trust that they who are now up will return to the steps of their Progenitors both in this particular and divers other that their successes may serve to sweeten and moderat things and suppress the popular Sword which still rages And it had bin heartily wished that a suspension of Arms had preceded this Treaty which useth to be the ordinary fore-runner and a necessary antecedent to all Treaties for while acts of hostility continue som ill-favour'd newes may intervene which may imbitter and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor can it be expected that the proceedings will go on with that candor and confidence while the old rancor is still in action 't is impossible a sore shold heal till the inflamation be taken away To cast water into a wound instead of oyle is not the way to cure it or to cast oyle upon a fire instead of water is not the way to quench it poor England hath had a consuming fire within her bowels many years she is also mortally wounded in all her members that she is still in a high Fever which hath made her rave and speak idle a long time and 't is like to turn to a Hectic if not timely prevented I pray God she may have no occasion to make use of the same complaint as Alexander the Great made when he was expiring his last Perii turba Medicorum too many Physitians have undon me To conclude in a word ther is but one only way under favor to put a period to all these fearful confusions it is to put the great Master-wheel in order and in its due place again and then all the inferior wheels will move regularly let the King be restor'd and ev'ry one will come to his own all interests will be satisfied all things quickly rectified till this be done 't is as absurd to attempt the setling of peace as if one shold go about to set a Watch by the gnomen of an horizontall Diall when the Sun is in a cloud I. H. AN ITALIAN PROSPECTIVE Through which GREAT BRITAIN Without any MULTIPLYING ART May cleerly See Her present DANGER And foresee Her future DESTRUCTION If not timely prevented Perditio tua ex Te Anglia Paraenesis Angliae O England specially thou besotted City of London if Thou be'st not quite past cure or grown careless and desperat of thy self if the least spark of Grace or ray of Reson be yet remaining in Thee be warn'd be warn'd by this stranger who having felt thy pulse and cast thy water very exactly discovers in Thee symptoms of inevitable Ruine if thou holdst on this cours Divers of thy own children oftentimes admonish'd Thee with tears in their eyes and terror in their hearts to recollect thy self and return to thy old road of obedience to thy Soverain Prince But They have bin little regarded Let a Foreiners advice then take place and make som impressions in Thee to prevent thy utter destruction From the prison of the Fleet 2. Aug. 1647. I. H. AN ACCOUNT OF THE Deplorable and Desperat condition THAT ENGLAND stands in Sent from LONDON Anno 1647. To the LORD FRANCISCO BARBERINI Cardinal of the most holy Apostolick See and Protector of the English Nation at his Palaces in Rome MY last to your Eminence was but short in regard I had been but a short time in this Countrey I have now made a longer sojourn here and taken a leisurely information of all matters therefore I shall give your Eminence an account proportionably For by conversation with the most indifferent and intelligenc'd men and by communication with the Ambassadors here resident I have taken some paines to pump out the truth of things and penetrat the Interest of all parties And truly I find that That angry star which hath lowr'd so long upon Europe in generall hath been as predominant and cast as direfull aspects upon this poor Iland as it hath done upon any other part Truly my Lord in all probability this peeple have pass'd the Meridian of their happinesse and begin to decline extreamly as well in Repute abroad as also in the common notions of Religion and indeed in the ordinary faculty of Reason I think verily the Ill Spirit never reign'd so much in any corner of the earth by those inhumane aud horrid things that I have observ'd among them Nor is it a petty Spirit but one of the greatest Cacodâ—…mons that thus drives them on and makes them so active in the pursuance of their own perdition To deduce matters from their Originall Your Eminency may please to understand that this King at his accesse to the Crown had deep debts to pay both of His Fathers and his own he was left ingaged in a fresh warre with Spain and had another presently after which France and both at one time but he came off well enough of those Afterwards never any Countrey flourished in that envied
happinesse and wanton kind of prosperity This City of London was grown to be the greatest Mart and mistress of trade of any in the world Insomuch as I have been certainly inform'd the King might have spent meerly upon His customes 4000 crowns a day Moreover she had a vast bank of money being made the scale of conveying the King of Spains treasure to Flanders Insomuch that in a few yeers she had above ten millions of his moneys brought hither which she might have remitted in specie or in marchandize and for which this King had five in the hundred for coynage Yet could he not get beforehand with the world having a sister with so many Nephews and neeces having a Queen with diverse children of His own at least 16 of the Blood-Royall to maintaine with divers profuse Courtiers besides which made Him more parsimonious then ordinary The Warres then growing more active 'twixt Spaine and France as also 'twixt Holland and Spaine both by Land and Sea and divers great Fleets of Men of War as well French who were growne powerfull that way as Dunkerkers Spaniards Hollanders and Hamburgers appearing daily in His narrow Seas and sayling close by His Chambers the world wondred this King had no greater strength at Sea in case that any of the foresaid Nations should doe him an affront as some of them had already done by denying to dash their Colours to his Ships Insomuch that in Holland and other places he was pasquill'd at and pourtrayed lying in his cradle lullaby'd and rock'd asleep by the Spaniard Hereupon being by advertisements from his Agents abroad and frequent advice of His Privie Councell at home made sensible of the danger and a kind of dishonour he was faln into and having intelligence that the French Cardinall began to question his title to the Dominion of the narrow Seas considering He employed no visible power to preserve it He began to consult of meanes to set forth a royall Fleet but in regard the Purse of the Crowne was lightly ballasted and that he had no mind to summon the three Estates because of some indignities he had received in former Parliaments by the Puritan party a race of people averse to all Kingly Government unlesse they may pare it as they please his then Atturney Generall Noy a great cryed-up-Lawyer put it in his Head to impose an old Tax called Ship-mony upon the Subject which the said Lawyer did warrant upon his life to be Legall for he could produce divers Records how many of his Progenitors had done the like The King not satisfied with his single opinion refer'd it to his learn'd Council they unanimously averred it to be agreeable to the Law of the Land yet this would not fully satisfie the King but He would have the Opinion of His twelve Judges and they also affirmed by their single vouches the said Tax to be warrantable Hereupon it was imposed and leavied but some refusing to pay it there was a suite commenc'd during which all the Judges were to re-deliver their opinions joyntly and the businesse being maturely debated and canvased in open Court divers months and all arguments produc'd pro con nine of the said twelve Judges concluded it legal Thereupon the King continued the imposition of the said Tax and never was mony imployed so much for the Honour and advantage of a Countrey for he sent out every Summer a royall fleet to scowre and secure the Seas he caused a Galeon to be built the greatest and gallantest that ever spread saile Nor did he purse up and dispose of one peny of this money to any other use but added much of his own Revenues yeerly thereunto So the world abroad cried up the King of England to be awake againe Trade did wonderfully encrease both Domestic and forrein in all the three Kingdomes Ireland was reduced to an absolute Settlement the Arrears of the Crown payed and a considerable Revenue came thence cleerly to the Exchequer of England every year the salaries of all Officers with the pay of the standing Army â—…here and all other Charges being defrayed by Ireland her self which was never done before Yet for all this height of pappinesse and the glorious fruites of the said Ship-money which was but a kind of petty insensible Tax a thing of nothing to what hath hapened since there were some foolish peeple in this Land which murmured at it and cryed nothing else but a Parliament a Parliament and they have had a Parliament since with a vengeance But before this occasion it was observed that the seeds of disobedience and a spirit of insurrection was a long time engendring in the hearts of som of this peace-pampred People which is conceived to proceed from their conversation and commerce with three sorts of men viz. the Scot the Hollander and the French Huguenot Now an advantage happened that much conduced to necessitate the convoking of a Parliament which was an ill-favoured traverse that fell out in Scotland For the King intending an Uniformity of Divine worship in all His three Kingdoms sent thither the Liturgy of this Church but it found cold and course entertainment ther for the whole Nation men women and children rise up a gainst them Here upon the King absolutely revoked it by Proclamation wherein He declared 't was never His purpose to press the practise therof upon the Consciences of any therfore commanded that all things shold be in statu quo prius but this wold not serve the turn the Scot took advantge hereby to destroy Hierarchy and pull down the Bishops to get their demeans To which purpose they came with an Army in open Field against their own Native King who not disgesting this indignity Mustred another English Army which being upon the confines of both Kingdoms a kind of Pacification was plaistred over for the present The King returning to London and consulting His second thoughts resented that insolency of the Scots more then formerly Hereupon He summons a Parliament and desires aid to Vindicat that Affront of the Scot. The Scot had strong Intelligence with the Puritan Faction in the English Parliament who seemed to abet his quarrel rather then to be sensible of any national dishonour received from him which caused that short-lived Parliament to dissolve in discontent and the King was forced to find other means to raise and support an Army by privat Loanes of His nobler sort of Subjects and Servants The Scot having punctual Advertisements of every thing that passed yea in the Kings Cabinet Councel was not idle all this while but rallies what was left of the former Army which by the Articles of Pacification a little before should have bin absolutely dismissed and boldly invades England which he durst never have done if he had not well known that this Puritan party which was now grown very powerful here and indeed had invited him to this expedition wold stand to him This forein Army being by the pernicious close machinations
upon his affections then I beleeve they will ever do hereafter But to proceed the King having bin a good while prisoner to the Parlement the Army snatch'd him away from them and som of the chiefest Commanders having pawn'd their soules unto him to restore him speedily in lieu thereof they tumbled him up and down to sundry places till they juggled him at last to that small Ile where now he is surrounded with a gard of strange faces and if happly he beginns to take delight in any of those faces he is quickly taken out of his sight These harsh usages hath made him become all gray and oregrown with hair so that he lookes rather like som Silvan Satyr then a Soverain Prince And truly my Lord the meanest slave in St. Marks gallies or the abjects Captif in Algier bannier is not so miserable as he in divers kinds for they have the comfort of their wifes children and frends they can convey and receive Letters send Messengers upon their errands and have privat discours with any all which is denied to the King of great Britain nay the young Princes his children are not permitted as much as to ask him blessing in a letter In so much that if he were not a great King of his passions and had a heart cast in on extraordinary Mould these pressures and those base aspersions that have bin publiquely cast upon him by the Parlement it self had bin enough to have sent him out of the world e're this and indeed 't is the main thing they drive at to torture his braine and tear his very heart strings if they could so that whereas this foolish ignorant peeple speak such horrid things of our Inquisition truly my Lord 't is a most gentle way of proceeding being compar'd to this Kings persecutions As the King himselfe is thus in quality of a captif so are all his Subjects becom perfect slaves they have fool'd themselfs into a worse slavery then Iew or Greek under the Ottomans for they know the bottom of their servitude by paying so many Sultanesses for every head but here people are put to endless unknown tyrannical Taxes besides plundering and Accize which two words and the practise of them with storming of Towns they have learnt of their pure Brethren of Holland and for plundrings these Parliamenteer-Saints think they may robb any that adheres not to them as lawfully as the Iewes did the Egyptians 'T is an unsommable masse of money these Reformers have squandred in few years whereof they have often promis'd and solemnly voted a publick account to satisfie the Kingdom but as in a hundred things more so in this precious particular they have dispens'd with their Votes they have consumed more treasure with pretence to purge one Kingdom then might have served to have purchas'd two more as I am credibly told then all the Kings of England spent of the public stock since the Saxon Conquest Thus have they not only begger'd the whole Island but they have hurld it into the most fearfull st Chaos of confusion that ever poor Countrey was in they have torn in pieces the reines of all Government trampled upon all Lawes of heaven and earth and violated the very Dictamens of nature by making Mothers to betray their Sons and the Sons their Fathers but specially that Great Charter which is the Pandect of all the Laws and Liberties of the free-born Subject which at their admission to the House they are solemnly sworn to maintain is torn in flitters besides those severall Oaths they forg'd themselfs as the Protestation and Covenant where they voluntarily swear to maintain the Kings Honour and Rights together with the established Laws of the Land c. Now I am told that all Acts of Parlement here are Lawes and they carry that Majesty with them that no power can suspend or repeal them but the same power that made them which is the King sitting in full Parlement these mongrell Polititians have bin so notoriously impudent as to make an inferiour Ordinance of theirs to do it which is point-blanck against the very fundamentals of this Government and their own Oaths which makes me think that there was never such a perjur'd pack of wretches upon earth never such Monsters of mankind Yet this simple infatuated peeple have a Saint-like opinion of these Monsters this foolish Citie gards them daily with Horse and Foot whereby she may be sayd to kisse the very stones that are thrown at her and the hand whence they came which a dogg would not do But she falls to recollect her self now that shee begins to be pinch'd in Trade and that her Mint is starv'd yet the leading'st men in her Common-Councell care not much for it in regard most of them have left traffiquing abroad finding it a more easie and gainefull way of trading at home by purchasing Crown or Church lands plunder'd goods and debts upon the Publick Faith with Soldiers debenters thus the Saints of this Iland turne godlinesse into gaine Truly my Lord I give the English for a lost Nation if they continue long thus never was ther a more palpable oblaesion of the brain and a more visible decay of Reason in any race of men It is a sore judgment from heaven that a people shold not be more sensible how they are become slaves to Rebells and those most of them the scumm of the Nation which is the basest of miseries how they suffer them to tyrannize by a meer arbitrary extrajudicial power o're their very souls and bodies o're their very lifs and livelihoods how their former freedom is turn'd to fetters Molehills into Mountains of grievances Ship-money into Accize Justice into Tyranny For nothing hath bin and is daily so common amongst them as imprisonment without charge and a charge without an accuser condemnation without apparance and forfeitures without conviction To speak a little more of the King if all the infernal fiends had ligu'd against him they could not have design'd or disgorged more malice They wold have laid to his charge his Fathers death as arrand a lie as ever was forg'd in hell they wold make him fore-know the insurrection in Ireland wheras the Spanish Ambassador here and his Confessor who is a very reverend Irish-man told me that he knew no more of it then the grand Mogor did they charge him with all the bloud of this civil war wheras they and their instruments were the first kindlers of it and that first prohibited trade and shut him out of his own Town They have intercepted and printed his privat Letters to his Queen and Hers to him Oh barbarous basenesse but therin they did him a pleasure though the intent was malitious their aim in all things being to envenom the hearts of his people towards him and this was to render him a glorious and well-belov'd Prince as likewise for making him rich all which they had vow'd to do upon passing the Act of Continuance But now they have made
Countries that symbolize with them in qualities in temperature of air and clime as well as in nature of soil The Inhabitants also of those places which are so perpendicularly opposit do sympathize one with another in disposition complexions and humors though the Astronomers wold have their East to be our West and so all things vice versa in point of position which division of the Heaven is onely mans institution But to give an account of the strange progresse my soul made that night the first Country she lighted on was a very low flat Country and it was such an odde amphibious Country being so indented up and down with Rivers and arms of the sea that I made a question whether I shold call it Water or Land yet though the Sea be invited and usher'd in into som places he is churlistly pen'd out in som other so that though he foam and swell and appear as high Walls hard-by yet they keep him out maugre all his roaring and swelling As I wandred up and down in this Watry Region I might behold from a streight long Dike wheron I stood a strange kind of Forrest for the trees mov'd up and down they look'd afar off as if they had bin blasted by thunder for they had no leafs at all but making a nearer approach unto them I found they were a nomberlesse company of Ship-Masts and before them appear'd a great Town Amsterdam incorporated up and down with Water As I mus'd with my self upon the sight of all this I concluded that the Inhabitants of that Country were notable industrious people who could give Law so to the angry Ocean and occupie those places where the great Leviathan shold tumble and take his pastime in As my thought ran thus I met with a man whom I conjectur'd to be 'twixt a Marchant and a Mariner his salutation was so homely the air also was so foggy that methought it stuck like cobwebs in his Mustachos and he was so dull in point of motion as if the bloud in his veines had bin half frozen I began to mingle words with him and to expostulat somthing about that Country and people and then I found a great deal of down-right civilities in him He told me that they were the only men who did miracles of late years Those innumerable piles of stones you see before you in such comly neat frabriques is a place said he that from a Fish Market in effect is come to be one of the greatest Marts in this part of the world which hath made her swel thrice bigger theâ—… she was 50. years ago and as you behold this floating Forrest of Masts before her mole so if you could see the foundations of her houses you shold see another great Forrest being rear'd from under-ground upon fair piles of timber which if they chance to sink in this Marshy soil we have an art to scrue them up again We have for 70. years and above without any intermission except a short-liv'd truce that once was made wrastled with one of the greatest Potentates upon Earth and born up stoutly against him gramercy our two next neighbour Kings and their Reason of State with the advantage of our situation We have fought our selfs into a free-State and now quite out of that ancient allegeance we ow'd him and though we pay twenty times more in taxes of all sorts then we did to him yet we are contented We have turn'd war into a Trade and that which useth to beggar others hath benefited us Besides we have bin and are still the rendevous of most discontented Subjects when by the motions of unquiet consciences in points of Religion or by the fury of the sword they are forc'd to quit their own Countreys who bring their arts of Manufacture and moveables hither Insomuch that our Lombards are full of their goods and our banks superabound with their gold and silver which they bring hither in specie To secure our selfs and cut the Enemy more work and to engage our Confederats in a war with him we have kindled fires in every corner and now that they are together by the Eares we have bin content lately being long woo'd thereunto to make a peace with that King to whom we once acknowledged vassalage which King out of a height of spirit hath spent 500. times more upon us for our reduction then all our Country is worth But now he hath bin well contented to renounce and abjure all claimes and rights of Soverainity over us In so much that being now without an enemy we hope in a short time to be masters of all the comerce in this part of the world and to eat our Neighbours out of trade in their own Commodities We fear nothing but that exces of Wealth and a surfet of ease may make us careles and breed quarrells among our selfs and that our Generall being married to a great Kings daughter may Here he suddenly broke the threed of his discourse and got hastily away being haul'd by a ship that was sailing hard by Hereupon my soul took wing again and cut her way through that foggy condens'd aire till she lighted on a fair spacious cleare Continent a generous and rich Soile mantled up and downe with large woods where as I rang'd to and fro I might see divers faire Houses Townes Palaces and Castles looking like so many Carkases for no humane soul appear'd in them methought I felt my he art melting within me in a soft resentment of the case of so gallant a Countrey and as I stood at amaze and in a kind of astonishment a goodly personage makes towards me whom both for his comportment and countenance I perceiv'd to be of a finer mould then that companion I had met withall before by the trace of his looks I guessed he might be som Nobleman that had bin ruin'd by som disaster having acosted him with a fitting distance he began in a masculin strong winded language full of aspirations and tough collision of Consonants to tell me as followeth Sir I find you are a stranger in this Countrey because you stand so agast at the devastations of such a fair piece of the Continent then know Sir because I beleeve you are curious to carry away with you the causes thereof that these ruthfull objects which you behold are the effects of a long lingring war and of the fury of the Sword a cruentous civill War that hath rag'd here above thirty yeares one of the grounds of it was the infortunate undertaking of a Prince who liv'd not far off in an affluence of all earthly felicity he had the greatest Lady to his wife the besâ—… purse of money the fairest Stable of horse and choicest Library of books of any other of his neighbour Princes But being by desperat and aspiring counsells put upon a Kingdom while he was catching at the shadow of a Crown he lost the substance of all his own ancient possessions by the many powerfull alliances he had which
Parliament by force and remove ill Counsellours from about him long before he put up his Royal Standard and the Generall then nam'd was to live and die with them and very observable it is how that Generalls Father was executed for a Traytor for but attempting such a thing upon Queen Elizabeth I mean to remove ill Counsellors from about her by force 'T is also to be observed that the same Army which was rais'd to bring him to his Parliament was continued to a clean contrary end two years afterwards to keep him from his Parliament 'T is fit it should be remembred who interdicted Trade first and brought in Forraigners to help them and whose Commissions of War were neere upon two moneths date before the Kings 'T is fit it should be remembred how His Majesty in all His Declarations and publick Instruments made alwaies deep Protestations that 't was not against his Parliament he raised Armes but against some seditious Members against whom he had onely desired the common benefit of the Law but could not obtain it 'T is fit to remember that after any good successes and advantages of his he still Courted both Parliament and City to an Accommodation how upon the Treaty at Uxbridge with much importunity for the generall advantage and comfort of his peeple and to prepare matters more fitly for a peace he desired there might be freedom of Trade from Town to Town and a Cessation of all Acts of Hostility for the time that the inflammation being allayed the wound might be curâ—…d the sooner all which was denyed him 'T is fit to remember how a Noble Lord The Earl of Southampton at that time told the Parliaments Commissioners in His Majesties Name at the most unhappy rupture of the said Treaty That when he was at the highest he would be ready to treat with them and fight them when he was at the lowest 'T is fit the present Army should remember how often both in their Proposalls and publick Declarations they have inform'd the world and deeply protested that their principall aime was to restore His Majesty to honour freedom and safety whereunto they were formerly bound both by their own Protestation and Covenant that the two Commanders in chief pawn'd unto him their soules thereupon Let them remember that since he was first snatch'd away to the custody of the Army by Cromwells plot who said that if they had the Person of the King in their power they had the Parliament in their pockets I say being kept by the Army He never displeas'd them in the least particular but in all his Overtures for Peace and in all his Propositions he had regard still that the Army should be satisfied let it be remembred that to settle a blessed Peace to preserve his Subjects from rapine and ruine and to give contentment to his Parliament He did in effect freely part with His Sword Scepter and Crown and ev'ry thing that was proprietary to him Let it be remembred with what an admired temper with what prudence and constancy with what moderation and mansuetude he comported himself since his deep afflictions insomuch that those Commissioners and others who resorted unto him and had had their hearts so averse unto him before return'd his Converts crying him up to be one of the sanctifiedst persons upon earth and will not the bloud of such a Prince cry loud for vengeance Bloud is a crying sin but that of Kings Cryes loudest for revenge and ruine brings Let it be remembred that though there be some Precedents of deposing Kings in his Kingdom and elsewhere when there was a competition for the right Title to the Crown by some other of the bloud Royall yet 't is a thing not onely unsampled but unheard of in any age that a King of England whose Title was without the least scruple should be summon'd and arraign'd tryed condemned and executed in His own Kingdom by His own Subjects and by the name of their own King to whom they had sworn Alleagiance The meanest Student that hath but tasted the Laws of the Land can tell you that it is an unquestionable fundamentall Maxime The King can do no wrong because he acts by the mediation of his Agents and Ministers he heares with other mens eares he sees with other mens eyes he consults with other mens braines he executes with other mens hands and judges with other mens consciences therefore his Officers Counsellors or favorites are punishable not He and I know not one yet whom he hath spar'd but sacrificed to Justice The Crown of England is of so coruscant and pure a mettall that it cannot receive the least taint or blemish and if there were any before in the person of the Prince it takes them all away and makes him to be Rectus in curia This as in many others may be exemplified in Henry the Seventh and the late Queen Elizabeth when she first came to the Crown 't was mention'd in Parlement that the attainder might be taken off him under which he lay all the time he liv'd an Exile in France it was then by the whole house of Parlement resolv'd upon the question that it was unnecessary because the Crown purg'd all So likewise when Queen Elizabeth was brought as it were from the Scaffold to the Throne though she was under a former attainder yet 't was thought superfluous to take it off for the Crown washeth away all spots and darteth such a brightnesse such resplendent beams of Majesty that quite dispell all former clouds so that put case King Iames died a violent death and his Son had been accessary to it which is as base a lie as ever the devil belch'd out yet his accesse to the Crown had purged all This businesse about the playster which was applyed to King Iames was sifted and winnow'd as narrowly as possibly a thing could be in former Parlements yet when it was exhibited as an Article against the Duke of Buckingham 't was term'd but a presumption or misdemeanure of a high nature And 't is strange that these new accusers shold make that a parricide in the King which was found but a presumption in the Duke who in case it had been so must needs have been the chiefest Accessary And as the ancient Crown and Royall Diadem of England is made of such pure allay and cast in so dainty a mould that it can receive no taint or contract the least speck of enormity and foulenesse in it self so it doth endow the person of the Prince that weares it with such high Prerogatives that it exempts him from all sorts of publique blemishes from all Attainders Empeachments Summons Arraignments and Tryalls nor is there or ever was any Law or Precedent in this Land to lay any Crime or capitall charge against him though touching civill matters touching propertie of meum and tuum he may be impleaded by the meanest vassall that hath sworn fealty to him as the Subjects of France and Spaine may against
be writ but upon his seal'd paper with sundry other exactions yet his subjects are still as obedient and awful unto him they are as conformable and quiet as if he were the most vertuous and victorious Prince that ever was and this they do principally for their own advantage for if ther were another Governour set up it would inevitably hurle the whole Countrey into combustion and tumults besides they are taught that as in choice of Wives so the Rule holds in Governments Seldome comes a better Touching the Originals of Government and ruling power questionless the first among Mankind was that Naturall power of the Father over his Children and that Despotical domestique surintendence of a Master of a house over his Family But the World multiplying to such a Masse of peeple they found that a confused equality and a loose unbridled way of living like â—…rute animals to be so inconvenient that they chose one person to protect and govern not so much out of love to the â—…erson as for their own conveniency and advantage that they might live more regularly and be secur'd from rapine and opâ—…ression As also that justice might be administted and every one enjoy his own without fear and danger such Governâ—…urs had a power invested accordingly in â—…hem also as to appoint subservient able Miâ—…isters under them to help to bear the â—…urden Concerning the kinds of Government â—…ll Polititians agree that Monarchall is the best and noblest sort of sway having the neerest analogy with that of Heaven viz. A supreme power in one single person God Almighty is the God of Unity as well as of Entity and all things that have an Entity do naturally propend to Unity Unity is as necessary for a well being as Entity is for a Being for nothing conduceth more to order tranquillity and quietude nor is any strength so operative as the united The fist is stronger then the hand though it be nothing but the hand viz. The fingers united by contraction The Republick of Venice which is accounted the most Eagle-ey'd and lastingst State in the World foâ—… she hath continued a pure Virgin and shin'd within her watry Orb nere upon thirteen Ages is the fittest to give the World advice herein for if ever any have brought policy to be a Science which consists of certitudes this State is Shee who is grown aâ—… dexterous in ruling men as in rowing of 〈◊〉 Gally But whereas the vulgar opinion is that the common peeple there have a sharâ—… in the Government 't is nothing so for he Great Counsel which is the maine hing whereon the Republick turns is composeâ—… onely of Gentlemen who are capable bâ—… their birth to sit there having passed twenty five years of age To which purpose they must bring a publick Testimonial that they are descended of a Patrician or noble Family But to return to the main matter this sage Republick who may prescribe rules of Policy to all Mankind having tryed at first to Govern by Consuls and Tribunes for som years she found it at last a great inconvenience or deformity rather to have two heads upon one body Therefore She did set up one Soveraign Prince and in the Records of Venice the resons are yet extant which induc'd her thereunto whereof one of the remarkablest was this We have observed that in this vast University of the World all Bodies according to their several Natures have multiplicity of Motions yet they receive vertue and vigour but from one which is the Sun All causes derive their Originals from one supreme cause we see that in one Creture there are many differing Members and Faculties which have various functions yet they are all guided by one soul c. The Island of Great Britain hath bin alwaies a Royal Isle from her first creation and Infancy She may be said to have worn a Crown in her Cradle and though She had so many revolutions and changes of Masters yet She continued still Royal nor is there any species of Government that suits better either with the quality of the Countrey and Genius of the Inhabitants or relates more directly to all the ancient Lawes Constitutions and Customs of the Land then Monarchal which any one that is conversant in the Old Records can justifie Britannia ab initio mundi semper Regia regimen illius simile illi caelorum Concerning the many sorts of Trustâ—… which were put in the Supreme Governor of this Land for ther must be an implicite and unavoidable necessary Trust reposed in every Soveraign Magistrate the power of the Sword was the chiefest and it was agreeable to Holy Scripture he shold have it where we know 't is said The King beareth not the Sword in vain The Lawes of England did ever allow it to be the inalienable prerogative of the Soveraign Prince nor was it ever known humbly under favour that any other power whatsoever managing conjunctly or singly did ever pretend to the power of the publick Sword or have the Militia invested in them but this ever remained intire and untransferrible in the person of the Ruler in chief whose chiefest instrument to govern by is the Sword without which Crownes Scepters Globes and Maces are but bables It is that Instrument which causeth tru obedience makes him a Dread Soveraign and to be feared at home and abroad Now 't is a Maxime in policy that ther can be no tru obedience without Fear The Crown and Scepter draw only a loose kind of voluntary love and opinion from the people but 't is the sword that draws Reverence and awe which two are the chiefest ingredients of Allegeance it being a principle that the best Government is made of Fear and Love viz. when by Fear Love is drawn as threed through the eye of a Needle The surest Obedience and Loyalty is caused thus for Fear being the wakefullest of our passions works more powerfully in us and predominates over all the rest primus in orbe Deus fecit Timor To raise up a Soveraign Magistrate without giving him the power of the sword is to set one up to rule a metall'd Horse without a Bridle A chief Ruler without a Sword may be said to be like that Logg of Wood which Iupiter threw down among the Froggs to be their King as it is in the Fable Moreover One of the chiefest glories of a Nation is to have their Supreme Governor to be esteem'd and redouted abroad as well as at Home And what Forren Nation will do either of these to the King of England if he be Armless and without a Sword who will give any respect oâ—… precedence to his Ambassadors and Ministers of State The Sword also is the prime Instrument of publick protection therefore that King who hath not the power of the Sword must have another Title given Him the Protector of his peeple Now in a Successive hereditary Kingdom as England is known and acknowledged to be by all Parties now in opposition There are
three things which are inalienable from the Person of the King They are 1. The Crowne 2. The Scepter 3. The Sword The one He is to carry on His Head the other in His Hand and the third at His Side and they may be termed all three the ensignes or peculiar instruments of a King by the first He Reignes by the second He makes Lawes by the third He Defends them and the two first are but bables without the last as was formerly spoken 1. Touching the Crown or royal Diadem of England ther is none whether Presbyterian Independent Protestant or others now in action but confess that it descends by a right hereditary Line though through divers Races and som of them Conquerours upon the Head of Charles the first now Regnant 't is His own by inherent birth-right and nature by Gods Law and the Law of the Land and these Parliament-men at their first sitting did agnize subjection unto Him accordingly and recognize Him for their Soveraign Liege Lord Nay the Roman Catholick denies not this for though there were Bulls sent to dispense with the English Subjects for their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth yet the Pope did this against Her as he took Her for a Heretick not an Usurpresse though he knew well enough that She had bin declared Illegitimate by the Act of an English Parliament This Imperial Crown of England is adorned and deckd with many fair Flowers which are called royal Prerogatives and they are of such a transcendent nature that they are unforfeitable individual and untransferrable to any other The King can only summon and dissolve Parliaments The King can only Pardon for when He is Crowned He is sworn to rule in Mercy as well as in Justice The King can only Coyn Money and enhance or decry the value of it The power of electing Officers of State of Justices of Peace and Assize is in the King He can only grant soveraign Commissions The King can only wage War and make Out-landish Leagues The King may make all the Courts of Justice ambulatory with His Person as they were used of old 't is tru the Court of Common Pleas must be sedentary in som certain place for such a time but that expired 't is removeable at His pleasure The King can only employ Ambassadours and Treat with forraign States c. These with other royal Prerogatives which I shall touch hereafter are those rare and wholsom flowers wherewith the Crown of England is embellished nor can they stick any where else but in the Crown and all confess the Crown is as much the King 's as any private man's Cap is his own 2. The second regall Instrument is the Scepter which may be called an inseparable companion or a necessary appendix to the Crown this invests the King with the sole Authority of making Lawes for before His confirmation all results and determinations of Parliament are but Bills or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are but abortive things and meer Embryos nay they have no life at all in them till the King puts breath and vigour into them and the ancient custome was for the King to touch them with His Scepter then they are Lawes and have a vertue in them to impose an obligation of universall obedience upon all sorts of people It being an undeniable maxime That nothing can be generally binding without the King 's royall assent nor doth the Law of England take notice of any thing without it This being done they are ever after styl'd the Kings Lawes and the Judges are said to deliver the King's judgments which agrees with the holy text The King by judgment shall stablish the Land nay the Law presumes the King to be alwaies the sole Judge Paramount and Lord chief Justice of England for he whom He pleaseth to depute for His chiefest Justice is but styl'd Lord chief Iustice of the Rings â—…ench not Lord chief Justice of England which title is peculiar to the King Himself and observable it is that whereas He grants Commissions and Patents to the Lord Chancellour who is no other then Keeper of His Conscience and to all other Judges He names the Chief Justice of his own Bench by a short Writ only containing two or three lines which run thus Regina Iohanni Popham militi salutem Sciatis quod constitutmus vos justiciarium nostrum Capitalem ad placita coram nobis terminandum durante beneplacito nostro Teste c. Now though the King be liable to the Laws and is contented to be within their verge because they are chiefly His own productions yet He is still their Protector Moderator and Soveraigne which attributes are incommunicable to any other conjunctly or separately Thus the King with His Scepter and by the mature advice of His two Houses of Parl. which are His highest Councel and Court hath the sole power of making Laws other Courts of judicature doe but expound them and distribute them by His appointment they have but Iuris dati dictionem or declarationem and herein I meane for the Exposition of the Lawes the twelve Iudges are to be believed before the whole Kingdom besides They are as the Areopagites in Athens the chief Presidents in France and Spaine in an extraordinary Iunta as the Cape-Syndiques in the Rota's of Rome and the Republique of Venice whose judgments in point of interpreting Lawes are incontroulable and preferred before the opinion of the whole Senate whence they received their being and who hath still power to repeal them though not to expound them In France they have a Law maxime Arrest donné en Rebbe rouge est irrevocable which is a Scarlet Sentence is irrevocable meaning when all the Judges are met in their Robes and the Client against whom the Cause goes may chafe and chomp upon the bit and say what he will for the space of twenty foure howers against his Judges but if ever after he traduces them he is punishable It is no otherwise here where every ignorant peevish Client every puny Barister specially if he become a Member of the House will be ready to arraign and vie knowledge with all the reverend Judges in the Land whose judgement in points of Law shold be onely tripodicall and sterling so that he may be truly call'd a just King and to rule according to Law who rules according to the opinion of his Judges therefore under favour I do not see how his Majesty for his part could be call'd injust when he leavied the Ship-money considering he had the Judges for it I now take the Sword in hand which is the third Instrument of a King and which this short discours chiefly points at it is as well as the two first incommunicable and inalienable from his Person nothing concernes his honor more both at home and abroad the Crown and the Scepter are but unweildy and impotent naked indefensible things without it There 's none so simple as to think there 's meant hereby an ordinary single sword
committed was to suffer this Town to spread her wings so wide for she bears no proportion with the bignes of the Iland but may fit a Kingdom thrice as spacious she engrosseth and dreins all the wealth and strength of the Kingdom so that I cannot compare England more properly than to one of our Cremona geese where the custom is to fatten only the heart but in doing so the whole body growes lank To draw to a conclusion This Nation is in a most sad and desperat condition that they deserve to be pittied and preserved from sinking and having cast the present state of things and all interests into an equal balance I find my Lord ther be three ways to do it one good and two bad 1. The first of the bad ones is the Sword which is one of the scourges of heaven especially the Civill sword 2. The second bad one is the Treaty which they now offer the King in that small Island wher he hath bin kept Captif so long 〈◊〉 which quality the world will account him still while he is detain'd there and by thaâ—… Treaty to bind him as fast as they can anâ—… not trust him at all 3. The good way is in a free confiding brave way Englishmen-like to send for their King to London where City and Country shold Petition him to summon a new and free full Parlement which he may do as justly as ever he did thing in his life these men having infring'd as well all the essentiall Priviledges of Parlement as every puntillio of it for they have often risen up in a confusion without adjournment they had two Speakers at once they have most perjuriously and beyond all imagination betrayed the trust both King and Country repos'd in them subverted the very sundamentals of all Law and plung'd the whole Kingdom in this bottomless gulf of calamities another Parlement may haply do som good to this languishing Island and cure her convulsions but for these men that arrogat to themselfs the name of Parlement by a local puntillio only because they never stir'd from the place where they have bin kept together by meer force I find them by their actions to be so pervers so irrational and refractory so far given over to a reprobat sense so fraught with rancor with an irreconcileable malice and thirst of bloud that England may well despaire to be heal'd by such Phlebotomists or Quack-salvers be sides they are so full of scruples apprehensions and jealousies proceeding from blacâ—… guilty souls and gawl'd consciences that they will do nothing but chop Logic with their King and spin out time to continue their power and evade punishment which they think is unavoidable if ther shold be a free-Parlement Touching the King he comports himself with an admired temper'd equanimity he invades and o're-masters them more and more in all his answers by strength of reson though he have no soul breathing to consult withall but his own Genius he gains wonderfully upon the hearts and opinion of his peeple and as the Sun useth to appear bigger in winter and at his declension in regard of the interposition of certain meteors 'twixt the eye of the beholder and the object so this King being thus o're-clouded and declined shines far more glorious in the eyes of his people and certainly these high morall vertues of constancy courage and wisdom come from above and no wonder for Kings as they are elevated above all other peeple and stand upon higher ground they sooner receive the inspirations of heaven nor doth he only by strength of reason out 〈◊〉 them but he wooes them by gentlenesse and mansuetude as the Gentleman of Paris who having an Ape in his house that had taken his only child out of the cradle and dragged him up to the ridge of the house the parent with ruthful he art charmed the Ape by fair words and other blandâ—…ments to bring him softly down which he did England may be said to be now just upon such a precipice ready to have her braines dash'd out and I hope these men will not be worse natur'd then that brute animal but will save her Thus have I given your Eminence a rough account of the state of this poor and pittifully deluded peeple which I will perfect when I shall come to your presence which I hope will be before this Autumnal Equinox I thought to have sojourn'd here longer but that I am grown weary of the clime for I fear there 's the other two scourges of heaven that menace this Island I mean the famin and pestilence especially this City for their prophanness rebellion and sacriledge It hath bin a talk a great while whether Anti-Christ be come to the world or no I am sure Anti-Iesus which is worse is among this people for they hold all veneration though voluntary proceeding from the inward motions of a sweet devoted soul and causing an outward genuflection to be superstitious insomuch that one of the Synodical Saints here printed and published a Book entitling it against Iesu Worship So in the profoundest posture of reverence I kisse your vest as being London this 12 of August 1647. My Lord Your Eminences most humbly devoted I. H. A NOCTURNAL PROGRES OR A PERAMBULATION Of most COUNTREYS IN CHRISTENDOM Perform'd in one night by strength of the Imagination Which progresse terminats in these North-West Iles And declares the woful Confusions They are involv'd at present The progress of the Soul by an usuall DREAM IT was in the dead of a long Winter night when no eyes were open but Watchmens and Centinels that I was fallen soundly asleep the Cinq-out-Ports were shut up closer then usually for my senses were so trebly lock'd that the Moon had she descended from her watry Orb might have done much more to me then she did to Endymion when he lay snoaring upon the brow of Latmus Hill nay be it spoken without prophanenesse if a rib had bin taken out of me that night to have made a new moâ—… of a woman I shold hardly have felt it Yet though the Cousin German of death had so strongly seiz'd thus upon the exterior parts of this poor Tabernacle of flesh my inward parts were never more actif and fuller of employments then they were that night Pictus imaginibus formisque fugacibâ—… adstat Morpheus variis fingit nova vultibus ora Methought my soul made a sally abroad into the world and fetch'd a vast compas she seem'd to soar up and slice the air to cross seas to clammer up huge Hills and never rested till she had arriv'd at the Antipodes Now som of the most judicious Geometricians and Chorographers hold that the whole Mass of the Earth being round like the rest of her fellow Elements ther be places and poizing parts of the Continent ther be Peninsulas Promontories and Ilands upon the other face of the Earth that correspond and concenter with all those Regions and Iles that are upon this superficies which we read