Ministers of the City and Country may not be the dreggs of that cup of the Prelates vengeance which your Lordship hath so lively expressed in your Speech concerning them (c) or at the worst may not be imputed to the impatience of those their former sufferings you have so largely set forth which is an excuse his Majesty hath been gratiously pleased to make for others in as great a fault And lastly say that for the Letters of the accused Members which you have sayd for your own and then upon the whole matter judge whether without breach of charity which begins at home you may not conceive it possible they may be as innocent as you know your selfe to be and then I hope they may judge the like of you and the King and Kingdome may be of your mind and theirs But how then came they and you and the King and Parliament to have such strange impressions of one another Oh that it were a world to be merry in I should then dare to say pleasantly that I doubt the story of this last yeer may at last prove a Romans of the Devils making in a great part of it But I must be serious and I will therefore say soberly The envious man hath sowne these tares of jealousie and calumny which ever grow up together while his Majestie and his Parliament slept and the watch-men of our Israell slept also in part and in part were otherwise too busy and I and such as I thought good seed sowne in so good a season and ground would spring up of it selfe though we neither watcht nor prayed and it may be gloried and trusted more in those noble Worthies for that name we had given them and it may be they may have been too ready to assume it then in God that instructed them how and when and what to cast into the ground Ex illo sluere retro sublapsa referri Spes c. How should the Devill have upheld his Kingdom if he had not divided this when King and Parliament and priest and people were so well agreed and in some sort almost all inclined to advance the Kingdome of Jesus Christ in it When the Parliament had procured from his Majesty such redresses of the grievances of the Subject as were to their and the Kingdomes abundant satisfaction and yet his Majesty of his superabundant grace desired and desired and urged and pressed to know what they desired more by his so often reiterated Message of the 20. of Ianuary which will be a more lasting monument of his wisdom and goodnesse then any can ever be errected for him by the Prince his Son and when the Kingdom thus far secured and offered to be secured at home at the same time enioyed so universall a peace abroad that it had no visible enemy in the whole world either infidell or Christian as hath been well observed by my Lord your father how should this envious enemy of mankind have hindred us of this Nation from being happy but by kindling fomenting iealousies and dissensions at length blowing them up into a war among our selves What is there never a Loyall Subiect in this Kingdom so famous for Loyalty Are the best men in it become the worst Subiects Are all the godly Ministers in our Church suddenly grown to be Popishly or Seditiously affected Is the most clement of our Kings turned enemy to his Parliament that is to â—is people that is to Himselfe Hath the best Parliament we ever had a mind to traduce to revile to destroy their King Are the many persons of honor and integrity in this Nation all in disesteem with King or Parliament Shall the accused Members one of them (f) being a true Israelite in the beleef of all Israel be made guilty of the treasonable words utterd by any base fellow or other person without their knowledge by an advantage of Law through your Lordships suggestion Or shall your Lordship be found a Traytor through their or any of their instigation for the desperate words vented by any Ruffian that mingled himselfe in his Majesties train without His or your Lordships consent or approbation or for any such like matter Now the Lord rebuke thee O Sathan yea the Lord that hath often miraculously saved this Kingdom rebuke thee The great dexterity your Lordship hath to manage these things I have now suggested and many more will arise in your own thoughts to the same purpose may possibly be so well imployed by the good instructions you may receive from one known to be as able and who may be as willing to have his hand in all this as Ioab was to prepare the widdow of Tekoah to tell her well made tale that his Maiesty may once more be gratiously pleased not only to have the supposed fault of the accused Members wrapped up in the bundle of the unwilling and unknowing errors of his Subjects and so pardoned among the rest but to receive them into his favour Your Lordship remembers your own words that it was a principall â—oy to you to see those persons who had been the prime Actors in the happy Reformation of this Parliament so acceptable at Court Pray to God to give you the same ioy again The Kings admirable clemency hath produced many as great wonders in his Raign My Lord your father is an example in the very point And the Kings heart is still in the same hand that turned it towards him after as great an aversation And if your Lordship once find this great block that lyeth in the way of the peace of the Kingdom begin to stir then put all your own and your friends strength to it Have no doubt that you shall not receive the like favour from the accused Members though you never convey to them the least knowledge of that you have done in their behalfe Solomon hath observed that when a mans wayes please the Lord he maketh his enemies to be at peace with him And a wiser then Solomon hath made a further observation that with what measure we meet it shall be measured to us again which it may be your Lordship or they have found already in ill measure He hath also promised that almes done in secret shall be rewarded openly Stay not here but do your debvoir towards his Maiesties speedy returne to London in reparation of the ill advise you were thought to have given about his withdrawing from thence And if this breach between your Lordship and them the first wound in the representative body of the Kingdom were once perfectly consolidated by a generall pardon and Act of Amnesty why might not his Maiesty safely take his place where he sits as head over that his body without the enacting of any more of these new Laws which one hath lately propounded (g) I hope in respect of the hardnesse of mens beleef as Moses did his Bill of divorce else I must differ from him also in them But I wholly agree
that a man may sooner lose himself then save you that hath the courage to attempt it by going against the stream yet I have so much compassion of your undeserved sufferings in this matter except in that point of discretion I have already noted that I am resolved to adventure my seâ—â— in hope your Lordship will not be wanting either to â—â—â—r selfe or to me in case your Lordship should chance to see me carryed down in another as violent a channell or it may be in the same for doing my good will to help you Which that I may do with the lesse hazard and more hope of successe I must first give the world notice of an error of your Lordships in this matter of Episcopacy from which all the other you have since committed in that businesse have bin derived although I observe that as well in that Speech as in your present Apology your Lordship hath studiously concealed that mistaken principle which hath bin so fertile of other mistakes in you and of you And that is the opinion that Episcopacy was erected by the Apostles and consequently in your Lordships judgement so authorized Iure Divino that it may not be altered whereof your Lordship was once so confident that you wisht it might be made a part of the Catechisme of our Church if I do not misremember For it stands so in my memory ever since I had a cursory sight of the Letters which pass'd between your Lordship and your Cousin Sir Kellam Digby having at that time observed it an hyperbollicall expression which in matters of Religion it is not alwayes safe to use If your Lordship be still of the same judgement which I hope you are not let me presume humbly to advise you to resume the study of both those points by an impartiall perusall of the Bookes have been partly written and partly set forth in the liberty of these last yeers which I am therefore in hope will be sufficient to alter your mind in that matter because they have done mine in the former which is the fairer of them who came to the reading of the Arguments against it with as much prejudice as your Lordship can do having contracted it in part by the great reverence I ever did and do yet bear to the great wisdom learning and piety of Mr. Hooker whom I knew and heard when I was a boy and with whom some friends of mine who in their time were in the number of the ablest men of this Kingdom for wisdom and learning had extraordinary friendship and were also of the same judgement with him In part by the like reverence I bore to Doctor Downham since Bishop in Ireland who put forth a Sermon to shew the Jurisdâ—ction of Bishops over Presbyters was instituted by the Apostles when I was a young man at Cambridge where he was before that in great and good fame but chiefly by the presumption that the Addresses make at the foot of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus as Bâ—shops were of Saint Pauls own writing because I found them in my Greek Testament For if that be first admitted there is some appearance of their having beene Diocesans by the authority thereby given them to appoint and rule over Presbyters in the Churches committed to their charge But if this be an abuse as I have been convinced that it is since I returned with an hoary head to a new examination of this Book controversie when the sword was taken up to decide it in Scotland then there will be no firme ground for a Diocesan Bishop found in the whole Scripture but much to the contrary as hath been learnedly proved by Master Bayne that succeeded Mr. Perkins at Cambridge in the Answer he made to Doctor Downham written soon after which I never saw till these last yeers brought it to light but hath bin the Treasury out of which the Scriblers of this licentious age have stollen almost all they have of worth to which they have added little besides unfit language which they had not from him whose name I cannot suffer to passe my pen without this Elogy that he was the most accomplished Preacher I ever yet heard in all my life having heard very many of many Nations and the man that to mee seemed most in Heaven while he prayed that my eyes ever saw I beseech your Lordship to take the paines to read his short Tract upon my recommendation and that of Gersom Bucer upon the same subject not despising the rest which have shewed themselves on either side in this controversie since some of our Prelates have not been ashamed indicere bellum Episcopale and then to do me the honour to let me know whether you persevere in that you wrote to your Cousin Sir Kenâ—lme for I have cause to believe it is a tenet set on foot in our Church at the beginning of the raign of of our late Soveraign of famous memory not because it was believed by them that directed others to broach it among us but out of a politique design wherein the Jesuits had an unseen hand invented first out of fear that his Majesty who had abolished Episcopacy in Scotland might at one time or other bee ingaged to doe the like in this Kingdom and when they found it tooke with his Majesty then imployed further to work upon his pious and bountifull heart for the reintroducing of Episcopacy in that Kingdom an Act of Royall magnificence and princely piety and if your Lordships opinion of the necessity of Episcopacy in all Churches as founded in divine right can be maintained at the height as no doubt was powerfully instilled into his Majesty an Act as well pleasing to God as glorious before men And in the raigne of the King our Soveraign that now is whom God long preserve it is evident that the same Doctrine hath been imployed to the ingaging of his Majeâ—ty notwithstanding all the reluctancy of his most eminent clemency to undertake a War against our brethren and his most loyall subjects of that his native Countrey with an upright heart For admitting your Lordships Tenet which it is manifest was infused into the King as an undoubted truth there could be no question of the justice of that War on his Majesties part of which I forbear to make any further mention least it should prove a controvension of the Act of oblivion although I humbly conceive there is something besides exceeding necessary to be thought upon by His Maiesty and that Kingdom and this seeing God Almighty is not bound by that act O Lord whether do we run through the darknesse that is in us if we once depart but a little from the light of thy holy word And where can we stay our wandring steps When both the war with this and the troubles in that Kingdom were through his Maiesties goodnesse and wisdom at length sweetly composed by an utter and eternall abolition of Episcopacy there as Antichristian in the opinion of that Church yet
very point Else it had not been possible that the Ambassadors of the Prince of peace one great part of whose instructions is to perswade all the Subjects of his Kingdome if it be possible and as much as in them lieth to have peace with all men should have opened their purses so wide on the on side and their mouths on the other to the beginning furtherance and continuance of so unnaturall a war And that no one of them that I have heard of being all I hope the sonnes of Abraham should have remembered us of whose words of his Let thâ—re be no strife I pray thee between me and thee nor between my hâ—rd-man and thy herd-man for we be brethren though the Canaanite and Perezite dwell in the Land and are in great expectance to continue their possession if not to drive us out through the advantâ—ge of this great contention between us for no greater a matter then I have sayd Else it had not been possible that learned and godly men of this Coat on both sides (a) whose onely businesse it is to preach the Gospell and to advance the Kingdome of Heaven should first have played the busie bodyes in taking upon them to resolve conscience in a cause depending meerly and entirely upon a point of our Law and then to have been so unhappy in this undertaking as to have done much more harme than good to that side respectively for which they have appeared if they also had not been as much blinded that have been misled by them Else it had not been possible that among so many wise and religious men versed in affairs of State as are to be found in this Kingdom one onely (b) to my knowledge seeing it thus misâ—rably distracted by the involuntary seduction of silly sheep following their seduced Shepheards should have put pen to paper to reduce them into the right way that he also shâ—uld have mistaken it who beside his saying that which is of great disadvantage to the cause for which he pleads hath layd such a foundation that the whole liberty of the Commons of England may be in danger to be overthrowne by that superstruction he hath set upon it And therefore as one of them I must here protest against his building for my part Else it had not bin possible that all the many sollicitous endeavours used by his Maiestie and the Parliament to prevent the kindling of a civill war while the fire was yet raked up in ashes and to extinguish it when it was but newly broken forth should by the encounter of a certaine fatall kind of Antiperistasis on both sides have rather encreased then abated the heat of the smothering fire and like water sprinkled to quench have made it rise up again into a more furious flame Else it had not been possible that so good a KING and so good a PARLIAMENT who had agreed in the enacting of more good Lawes for the ease of the Subject then ever any before them did in a like space of time should upon so small an occasion have come to disagree so far that they should have charged one another with a respective purpose to introduce an unlimited Arbitrary power over us and to destroy one another with the confessed apparent hazard of the kingdom of Irâ—land Else it had not been possible that Arms should have been taken up by King and Parliament in defence of all and every the very same things and that men who had taken a voluntary Protestation to defend all the same things and one another in the defence of them should thereby have thought themselves rather obliged to kill and slay one another as they did at Edge-hill and in many other places before and since in the pursuance of their own private respective sence then to Petition a publike agreement about the meaning of some words of great latitude and very extendible in the said Protestation and in the mean time for a peace about the thing signified by them To the reducing of all which incomprehensible possibilities into act our sins indeed had made this kingdom â—inder but the fiâ—st spark came from your Lordship in the generall belâ—ef of the peoplâ— And if I undeâ—stand their disposition your offer to put your sâ—lf upon your Tryall whether it were you or no whâ—n the fire which now rageth so fiercely shall be utterly extinguished will hardly obtain the charity you implore in the mean time If any thing will do it the notice may be taken of your bestirring your sâ—lf with all your might and diligence â—o help and get help to quench it if you shall really and fervently imploy your own and all your friends hands to that purpose is the most likely way to save your reputation with them Your Lordship knoweth what hath been râ—ported to His Majesty of a Speech of Master Pyms That what disservice soever any man hath done formerly if his present actions wâ—re such as brought benefit to the Commonwealth he ought not to be quâ—stioned for what was past but cherished and protected And his Majestie giveth an example of some persons by whose mis-information and advise the last unhappy meeting in Parliament was disolved who are now looked upon undeâ— another Character I suppose for their good service in this Up and be doing the like and the Lord be with you You cannot yet be charged to have so much as occasioned the dissolution of this once happy Parliament through mis-information Preserve it from the danger some wise men think it is in of being destroyd and all Parliaments in it and why may you not hope this good service may preserve you I know your Lordship can never incline to follow the example upon the unworthy principles of some men that have given it you have upon all occasions expressed a truly noble heart and such a one will never suffer you to entertain base thoughts of complying and striking in with those that have the favour of the time without any regard of the wayes taken by them or of making your self and your interest or subsistence the measure of your judgement and proceedings in affairs of State you say you walk by other rules and I beleeve it You have been then most zealous and fervent for the Liberties of the Subâ—ect when the power of the Court was most prevalent and for the rights of the Crown when popular License was most predominant And if there should be yet another revolution of those Orbs whereof I can make no good judgement in the low valley where I live but I do not like the Phaenonema which appear to me there I am confident the remembrance of the great comfort you received in your countries acceptation of your fiâ—st attempts in its service at a time when the Court was at highest will be an effectuall motive to engage you in the same course again the rather for your being so little indebted to the world for good usage in the time of your
afflâ—ction which will be an excellent Foil to set off the lustre of your magnanimity And in the mean time what can be more noble then for your Lordship to become the secret advocate of those men of whom by common fame you stand charged to have been the secret Accuser Or who can be so powerfull an Advocate for them with his Majestie Or wherein can you do the King more true service then in doing them good offices to His Majesty so far as you may with truth I hope with truth so much may be sayd by your Lordship of them and by them of your Lordship as may satisfie the King and Kingdom of all your loyalties to His Majestie and to your Countrey if you were once put into that way which I wish some abler man would endeavour but I will shew my good will to the work The time is not long since your conversation was and you made or endeavoured to make your friendships with those whose experience and abilities were most eminent for the publick service Some of the accused Members in all appearance were some of those men I will not despair to live to see your friendship with them redintegrated the more firmly by the great breach hath hapned between you In any thing that was necessary or but probably pretendâ—d to be necessary for the Common-wealth you never differed in the least degree If this be true as by that I have heard otherwise for my part I beleeve it they have opportunity and ability to make it knowne to the two Houses of Parliament and how the repoâ—t of this is like to spread and be multiplyed among the Common people in all Countries if it were once dâ—rivablâ— from such considerable Authors your Lordship hath had experience by the contrary But in improvements in reall alterations which were to be governed by prudentiall motives you were not alwayes of one mind I am sorry for it but I do not wonder at it I should have had greater suspition of you and them if you had not sometimes differed in such points I know a man to whom our late Soveraign King Iames of famous memory gave a great Schooling for his presuming to differ from his Maiestie in hiâ— iudgement of his affairs that either answered or had much ado to forbear answâ—ring that although his Maiestie was incomparably the most politick and best Prince in Europe yet he that made shew of being allwayes in all things of his mind in his affairs of State was either a foole or a knave The reason of which Apothegme may satisfie his Maiesty that now is and all his people of your and their wisdome and integrity to both their service the rather in respect of the variety of your opinions concerning it Your Lordship it seemeth went by a good rule not to be too hardy to incline to great mutations in State But he was one of the wisâ—st men of his age (a) for judgement that observed that Time is the greatest innovator and then asked if time of course alter things to the worse and wisdom and Counsell shâ—ll not alter them to the better what shall be the end My Lord no man is a greater admirer of the wisdom our Ancâ—stors have shewed in the ancient constitutions of this Kingdome than I according to the small measure of my understanding in them And yet since time hath made so great an alteration in the Domestick grounds of some of their prudent constitutions and our neighbour Kingdomes are so much altered too from what they were in former ages I will be bold to say That neither the King nor Kingdome can attain to that greaâ—nesse nor happinesse which all good Subiects ought to wish unto them both without a great alteration by mutuall free consent in things concerning them both from ancient customes and present Statutes By that light your Lordship and the publicke proceedings have given me I guesse that in this point your Lordship was too short in thinking that as soon as the Trienniall Bill was passed in the procuring whereof you had so great a part all our other desires would effect themselves and that we were freed from all publick fears And they on the other side after the passing of the Act for the continuance of this Parliament were perhaps too long before they came to be of your mind That there was then no more to be thought on but how in a gratefull return to his Ma to advance his honour and plentyâ— as you have often heard those principall Intendents of the publicke good most solemnly professe they intended But I will not engage my selfe in this so bold discourse further than this That if your Lordship be as I am absolutely of opinion that they do yet most sincerly intend what they so solemnly professed your Lordship ought to do them right to his Majesty in that point wherein you shall do as much to your selfe Your Lordship relateth no particular difference but one in the bâ—sinesse of the Church and to that I will restrain my selfe In that you say having had frequent consultations with the chiefest Agents for a Reformation and finding no three men to agree upon what they would have in the place of that they all resolved to remove you agreed not with the prevailing sence having not hardinesse enough to incline to a mutation which would evidently have so great an influence upon the peace prosperity and interest of the Kingdom This very reason of your Lordships would have prevailed with me to incline to a mutation yet if this were your only consideration which I should beleeve if I had not heard of another mentioned at the beginning of this Answer Or if this and that joyned together were all your motives to stand so stiff for the retention of Episcopacy what honest wise man can blame you for it For me I have not wit enough to find your fault And yet I am so much of another iudgement that I conceive the peace and prosperity of this Kingdom diseased as now it is will not be perfectly recovered without an utter abolition of Episcopacy though a reduction thereof to the pattern of the primitive institution of Diocesans may possiâ—ly be a fitter remedy for the present distemper between which two â— am much divided in my own thoughtsâ— but I rather propeâ—â—d to an abolition I think the reasons which have been given by the Church and Counsell of Scotland (b) to this purpose very considerable But that which moveth me mâ—st is the great swarm of Sectaries wch is up among us which certainly will ner'e be well hâ—ved under an Archbishops Pall or a Bishops Miterâ— if peradventure they may be gotten under any government which I conceive to be a matter of infinite importance to the quiet of this Church and â—tate And I see it is so apprehended by his Maiestie For they are all agreed that Bishops are Antichristian The two small Books of one Non-conformist have operated more
dele I. p. 13. l. 11 12. read as all other kingdoms and States in Europe have also p. 18. l. 5. for if that read that if p. 20. l. 14. for the Law read our Law p. cad. l. 16. for retraction read retractation p. 21. l. 2. after you did adde or at least was done p. 24. l. pen after written adde and cousenting thereunto p. 27. l. 21. for minde read mine p. 32. l. 2. for were read was p. cad. l. 20. for tare read care Lesser faults may be amended by every Reader (a) And truly though much may be said in praise of Her magnanimity and dexterity to comply with Her Parliaments and for all that come off at last with honor and profit yet wee must ascribe some part of the commendation to the wisdom oâ— the times and the choice of Parliament men For I finde not that they were at any time given to any violent or pertinacious dispute elections being made of grave and discrâ—et persons not factious and ambitious of fame such as câ—me not to the House with a malâ—volent spirit of contention but with a preparation to consult on the publike good and rather to comply then to contest with Her Majesty Neither do I finde that the House was at any time weakned andâ— pestered with the admission of too many yong heads as it hath been of later times which remembers me of Recorder Martiâ—s Speech about the tenth of our late Soveraign Lord K. Iames when there were accounts taken of forty Gentlemen not above twenty and some not exceeding sixteen which moved Him to say that it was the ancient custome for old men to make Laws for yong ones but that then he sâ—â— the case altered and that there were children elected unto the great Councell of the Kingdom which came to invade and invert Nature and to enact Laws to govern their Fatheâ—s Vide râ—liquâ— Sir Robert Naunton his Fragm. Râ—gal p. 9. There is a like passage in Sir Henry â—ootens paralel between the late Duke of Buckingham and the late Lord of Essâ—x (a) I wish this Kingdom all the prosperity and happinesse in the world I did it living and now dying it is my wish I do now professe it from my heart and do most humbly recommend it unto every man here and wish every man to lay his hand upon his heart and consider seriously whether the beginning of the happinesse of a Kingdome should be written in letters of blood I fear you are in a wrong way and I desire Almighty God that no one drop of my blood may rise in judgement against you viz. Lord of Straffords Speech at his death (b) My Lords what I have yet sayd unto you hath bin chiefly grounded upon the apprehensions and feares of our future dangers I shall say something of the unhappinesses of our present estate wich certainly standeth in as much need of relief and remedy as our fears doe of prevention for although the King and People were fully united that all men that now draw severall wayes should unanimously set their hand to the work yet they would finde it no easie task to restore this kingdom to a prosperous and comfortable â—ondition If we take into our consideration the deplorable estate of Ireland likely to drain this kingdom of men and treasure if we consider the debts and necessities of the Crown the ingagements of the kingdom the great and unusuall Contributions of the people the which although they be not so much to their discontent for that they have been legally raised yet the burthen hath not been much eased Let us likewise consider the distractions I may almost call them confusions in point of Religion which of all other distempâ—rs are most dangerous and destructive to the peace of a State Besides the publique calamities let every particular man consider the distracted and discomfortable estate of his own condition for mine own part I must ingenuously profâ—sse unto your Lordship That I cannot finde out under the different Commands of the King and the Parliament any such course of caution or warinesse by which I may promise to my self security or safety I could give your Lordship many instances of the inconsistencie and impossibility of obeying these Commands But I shall trouble you onely with one or two The Ordinance of Parliament concerning the Militia now in so great agitation commandeth all persons in Authority to put it in execution and all others to obey it according to the Fundamentall Laws of the land The King declareth it to be contrary to the Fundamentall Laws against the Liberty of the Subject and Rights of Parliament And commandeth all His Subjects of what degree soever upon their Allegiance not to obey the said Ordinance as they will answer the contrary at their perills So likewise in point of the Kings commanding the attendance of divers of us upon His person whereunto we are obliged by severall relations of our services and oaths In case we comply not with His Commands we are liable to His displeasure and the losse of those places of honour and trust we hold under Him If we obey His Commands without the leave of the Parliament which hath not alwayes been granted we are liable to the censure of Parliament and of both these we want not fresh Examples So that certainly this cannot but be acknowledged to be an unhappy and uncomfortable condition I am sure I bring with me a ready and obedient heart to pay unto the King all those duties of loyalty allegiance and obedience which I owe unto Him And I shall never be wanting towards the Parliament to pay unto it all those due Rights and that obedience which we all owe unto it But in contrary Commands a conformity of obedience to both is hardly to be lighted on The Reconciliation must be in the Commanders and the Commands not in the obedience or the person that is to obey And therefore untill it please God to blesse us with a right understanding betwixt the King and Parliament and a conformity in their Commands neither the Kingdom in publique nor particular men in private can be reduced to a safe or comfortable condition Earl of Bristolle Speech May 20. 1642. Vide reliqua (a) Let every man purge his heart clear of al passions I know this great and wise body politicke can have none but I speak to individuals froÌ„ the weaknesse which I find in my selfe Away with al personal animosities Away with all flatteries to the people in being the sharper against him because he is odious to them Away with all fears lest by the sparing of his bloud they may be incenst away with all such considerations as that it is not fit for a Parliament that one accused by it of Treason should escape with life Let not former vehemence of any against him nor fear from thence that he cannot be safe while that man lives be an ingredient in the sentence of any one of us Of all these
AN ANSWER TO The Lord George Digbies Apology for Himself Published JAN 4. Anno Dom. 1642. Put into the great Court of Equity Otherwise called THE COURT OF CONSCIENCE upon the 28th of the same Moneth BY Theophilus Philanax Gerusiphilus Philalethes Decius Woe to the world because of offences for it must needs be that offences come but woe to the man by whom they come MATTH. 18.7 Woe to thee that spoilest and thou wast not spoiled when thou shalt cease to spoil thou shalt be spoiled ISAY 33. 1. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword Here is the patience and faith of the Saints REV. 13. 10. Neverthelesse when the son of man cometh shall he finde faith on the earth LUKE 18. 8. LONDON Printed for A. R. 1642. THE ANSVVER TO THE Lord George Digbies Apology for himself published JAN 4. Anno Dom. 1642. LORD DIGBIES APOLOGY IT may be wondred at that after well nigh a yeers groaning under the most insupportable burthen of publike displeasure and censure I should now consider my self so much as in a generall calamity to make an Apologie to the world or should hope that at a time when so great clouds of jealousie and disesteem hang over persons of the most cleer and unblemished reputations any thing I can say may reconcile me to those affections which have been transported with so much violence to my prejudice But whosoever knoweth me well and the great trouble of minde I indured when I found my sâ—lf by what demerit God is my judge I cannot guesse fallen from that proportion of esteem with my Couâ—try of which I was prouder then I can be of any worldly preferment into so â—minent a degree of disfavour with the representative body therâ—of upon whose wisdom and Authority no man hath looked with more revâ—rence and veneration that I was marked out as an Enemy to the Commonwâ—alth I am sure cannot but expect from me some discovery of that sence and that I should at least indeavour to distinguish my misfortunes from my faults whereby such who are not engaged in a peremptory uncharitablenesse may finde cause to change the Opinion they have taken upon trust of me Nor am I out of hope that the experience men have since had of the times inclination to calumny by declining of so many persons of Honour and integrity in the popular estimation may at the last open a way to so much justice and ingenuity on my behalf that all meâ— may discern in their own right that if they shall so credulously consent upon geeerall discourses to sacrifice a third mans honour and reputation they shall open a door to let in ruine to themselves and may quickly lose the advantage of their own innocence I shall begin my unfortunate story from the beginning of this Parliament refleâ—ting no further back upon the precedent then in a remembrance of the great comfort I then received in my Countries acceptation of my first attemptsâ— in its service at a time as some were pleased to expresse it when the Court was at the highest whether to work upon mens ambitions or fears Before that time I am sure I was as unacquainted with Action as with Envie having kept more company with books then with men and being so well content with that society that I had as little ambition as merit to improve my condiâ—ion To this Parliament I was sent on the bâ—half of the Country wherein I livâ—d and truly if I brought any passion or affection thither with me it was my former warmth improved against those pressures and the persons who begot those pressures which were grievous to the people and against these I will without vanity say that I brought as great a resolution to discharge my consciâ—nce and my duty as any man in that Assembly and had the happinesse for some moneths to receive that testimony My conversation was and I made or indâ—avoured to make my friendships with those whose experience and abilities were most eminent for the publike service and to the reputation and authority of these men I confâ—sse for a while I gave my sâ—lf up with as much submisâ—â—on as a man could without resigning the use of his own understanding In any thing that was necessary or but probably pretended to be necessary for the â—ommonwealth we never differed in the least degree but in improvements in â—â—â—ll alterations which were to be governed by prudentiall motives we were â—ot alwayes of one minde And whosoever remembreth the passages of that time must call to minde that the first declination I sufferd from the interest I seemd to have was in the businesse of the Church in which having bad frequent consultations with the chiefest agents for a Reformation and finding â—o thrâ—e men to agree upon what they would have in the place of that they all resolved to remove I agreed not with the prevailing sense â—aving not hardiâ—esse enough â—o incline to a mutation which would evidently have so great an inâ—â—uenâ—â— upon the peace prosâ—erity and interest of the whole kingdom And thus from tâ—e first debate of Eâ—iscopacy upon the London Petition all men 〈◊〉 the date of my unmâ—rited favour began to expire ANSWER MY LORD YOur Lordships Apology published the fourth of Ianuary hath at length found the way into the Wildernâ—sse where I dwell and I shall hereby give your Lordship and the world an account of the effect it hath upon me with that freedome which becometh a most humble but faithfull serâ—â—nt of your Lordships and a man that hath sit consideration of a thing which certainly is sufficiently understood by all men and yet by the little regard had thereunto may seem a mystery of State which is that as this Kingdom remaining in that admirable constitution wherein it hath been founded and maintained by the wisdom of our Ancestors cannot be happy till there be a perfect right understanding settled between the King and the Parliament so there is little hope of our recovering such an intelligence between them so long as those persons which are in most credit with the one are still in least with the other rising in their respective favours like Buckets in a Well which hath hitherto been the peculiar infelicity of his Majesties Raign as the contraryâ— was the felicity of that of Queen Elizabeth of glorious memory which His Majesty and we all sigh after and a great part of the cause thereof If therefore we have enough of the present miseries under which we lye groaning almost at the last gaspe in stead of pursuing private animosities and fomenting publick jealousies which hath bin our work too long the Court ought to use all possible endeavours to possesse His Majesty with a good opinion of the Parliament and of the eminent persons in both Houses thereof and they ought to labour as hard to bring His Majesty and those Ministers of his upon whom he reposeth
much passion I desire to save a noble young Lord of such eminent abilities as may be of great use to the King and Kingdom from sincking in his reputation which will make them altogether uselesse to the publick I will adventure to take your Lordship by the hand and to try whether I can raise you out of this puddle also when I have first opened my selfe to be the same man that made the larger Answer to your Lps Speech to the Bil of Attainder of the sayd unhappy Lord which was intended to have been sent to you so timely that if your Lordship had thereby received satisfaction in your Scruples you might have acknowledged as much in the House of Commons whereof you were then a Member and so have escaped their censure in a fayrer way then you did by climbing up into the House of Peers at that time For so that is understood But the throng of lesser Pamphlets was so great that before this could passe the Presse which I am made believe it could not in a month and more your Lordships Speech ranne the fortune you know and another briefer Answer thereunto got through Of which misadventure I was much more sorry for your Lordships sake than mine own though by this meanes I also may possibly have been censured either for insulting upon a noble person cast down which I should hate my self for if it were true or for having taken the advantage of such a time to publish my Answer when it was not safe for your Lordship to make any Reply But since your Lordship hath adventured on other actions and writings more dangerous then your defence need to be as your Lordship may mannage it I humbly beseech your Lordship to take it into your consideration whether you may not do well to make a Replication thereunto for the reasons I shall now give your Lordship and which I am perswaded ought to have the same force with you which they have with me They are if that your Lordship do yet persist in your opinion that you had sufficient grounds to alter your first judgement of the Lord Straffords cause you ought to make a further clear deduction of them to the world partly for that unfortunate Lords sake partly for your owne a little for your servants and a great deale for your Countryes sake For to begin with the last as being of greatest concernment in it self and I beleeve in your Lordships esteem also If your Lordship who have now had good leisure and great cause to revolve all your late words and actions in your most serious thoughts and to bring all the stirrings of your conscience upon every one of them to a strict examination be still of the same mind you were when you so solemnly washed your hands from the blood of the Lord of Strafford which he at his death charged home upon this Kingdome (a) then it cannot be but you must needs fear that it lyes upon this Land and in your apprehension may be one cause of the present unhappy condition thereof which hath beene so well foreseen and expressed by my Lord your father (b) And may you then or can you in such a time as this keep the reason of your fears to your self which for ought you can know may have the same operation in the hearts of those to whom you then so lively represented the hainousnesse of the sin of committing murther with the sword of justice if you think you can convince them thereof I need not tell your Lordship the force of naked truth not to bee told when it comes armed with so compleat an eloquence as â—od hath given your Lordship And if you could thereby worke the like change in the rest of my Lord of Straffords Judges which was wrought in you have they not power to review their owne proceedings and to repeal the Bill of Attainder they passed in this cause your Lordship knowes this is usuall in the Republick of Venice and if there be no president in our State of any man restored to his blood by the same Parliament which attainted him which I am not learnd enough to know I conceive such a new president were well made as many other have been by the wisdom of this Parliament by 〈◊〉 and not by the examples of former every Parliament ought to be guided For me if your Lordship shall prove to me that your grouuds remain firm after all my endeavours to shake them and withall if with the helpe of the many great Lawyers were of your Lordships opinion you can make a satisfactory Answer to the learned argument of Mr. Solicitor by which I was much cleared and confirmed in the judgement unto which I was lead by meer reason without having the light of the Law I here professe that I shall hold my selfe much obliged to your Lordp. for disabusing me and bound in conscience to make a retraction of my Answer in Print since I gave way to the printing thereof And I believe Master Saint-Iohn will be of the same mind the fame I have heard of his Religion being no lesse then that of his Law and the alteration of his opinion may prove a principall verb in theâ— construction of the Parliament concerning that case Your Lordp hath therefore no want of forreign inducements to imploy your best thoughts in this disquisition By the same labour your Lordp. may rectifie your own reputation in this matter which ought to be more tender to you now then ever as I see it is And if you can make it appear that you were in the right you shall wrong the Parliament more then yet you have done by entertaining the least doubt that you may thereby hinder your repatriation with them which I wish you had not done by other courses It is ever better for the wisest Counsells and States as well as men to retract an error then to maintain it But if on the other side your Lordship doth now perceive that you might have condemned the Earl os Strafford with as free a heart as you accused or prosecuted him for a Traytor then my Lord a good conscience will need no prompter to tell you that you owe the King and Kingdom a publique confession of your judgement as now informed in reparation of that high wrong you did His Majestie and the Parliament by publishing your Protestation in print when you were of another minde nor that you have much worke to do at home which can be done by no other and which it doth infinitely concern you not to slubber over I need not tell you my reason yet because the most watchfull conscience may need jogging sometimes I most humbly beseech your Lordship to give me leave without offence to entreat you first to take a re-view of your Speech by the light you now have from Master Solicitor and then to set before your eyes that part of the preface wherin you wished peace of conscience to your selfe and the
and innocence with so much passion as may keep them company may well be allowed to breath it self with so much freedom as to present to the world with a true and sensible life my sufferings upon whomsoever the injustice and inhumanity may light of having opprest and bowed down to the earth a young man and all his hopes by such undeserved calamities ANSWER The next misfortune your Lordship insisteth on is your having been charged in generalll with High-Treason the impeachment in particular bearing onely that you had appeared in a warlike manner to the terror of the Kings Subjects at Kingstone upon Thames and the amendment of that charge by putting in that you had levyed War against the King upon a question raysed by a Lord or two learned in the Law whether that former accusation would amount to Treason or no To this I need to say little because I may well presume that the two Houses of Parliament in some sort interessed in this your Lordships complaint though not of them yet of the persons trusted by them will not faile to give convenient satisfaction unto your Lordship and the world at the sollicitation of those persons to me unknowne concerning whom your Lordship thinketh you may as you doe put a question whether they be so full of Honour ingenuitie or integritie or so free from passion malice interest or affection as they are thought without offence of both or either House of Parliament or any reflection upon the opinion or resolution of either of them All I will or indeed can say as to the matter above recited is but this That whether your Lordp. appeared there with six Coach-horses or six score horses whether your Lordships businesse to that place where those many Souldiers and Commanders who waited on their Majesties to Hampton Court and from thence went to Kingston upon Thamâ—s for lodging were only upon a message of the Kings to 40 or 50 Gentlemen among them expressing his Majesties good acceptance of their service Whether those forty or fifty were totally strangers to your Lordp. to which point also the Intelligencer telleth an unhappy tale and by name whether Colonell Lunsford were till then so great a stranger to your Lordp. that you had never exchanged twenty words with him in all your life are all matters of fact and the truth of them must remain upon proof For if there can be no more proved against your Lordship then you write then admitting it to be true which I find in the Remonstrance of the Lords and Commons prepared long before but ordered to be published upon the second of November last That there were at Kingston at that time waggons loaden with Pistolls Carbines and Ammunition great horses armed with Pistolls And though the Officers to whom it seemeth your Lordship was sent together with the Souldiers and Cavaliers were some hundreds your Lordp. in this Apology avoweth they were many And though they were listed and taken into pay and an invitation made to such Gentlemen as would mount and maintain themselves for a month by a promise that afterwards they should be taken into pay and be his Majesties Guard for their lives And though the unrâ—ly company assembled there discharged their Pistolls and threatned the Inhabitants that they would have the heads of some of them within four dayes to the great terror and amazement of the poor people And though all this put together may amount to a warlike appearance and preparation which that Remonstrance leaveth every man to judge yet how it should concerne your Lordp if you had no further hand in all this or in any part thereof then you have confessed under the favour and correction of both Houses of Parliament I must here prosesse as yet informed I am not able to comprehend And if your Lordship have misinsormed me and the world therein I think you have done your self as ill a turn as the worst of your supposed enemies could have done you But whereas your Lordship complayneth that the examination of these things were referred to a Committee of your sharpest enemies and that the great mistake of six Coach horses turned into six score horses was not suffered to be rectified by other witnesses there who affirmed the truth to these two parts of your Lordships complaint I have one Answer to make which is that if in them both your Lordp. had any wrong it ought not to be imputed either to any prevalence of your particular unhappinesse or to the credit of your enemies but to be reputed among the common calamities which may befall any subject of this Kingdom by reason of the ancient customes thereof which seem exceeding strange to all strangers that hear of them among whom I have often had much a do to maintain their fitnesse and equity and yet the wisdom of this State hath not hitherto found sufficient cause to alter so ancient constitutions The one of them is the manner of naming Committees in Parliament in which all men see there is exceeding great inequality and too much left to the care of the Clearke who hath more power by much therein then any Member of the House of Commons But how to remedy this without running the hazard of other as great or greater inconveniencies it may be is not so easie to devise Which notwithstanding I have often heretofore and upon this occasion do now wish that honourable House to whom nothing that can be better ordered by humane prudence is impossible would take into mature deliberation The other is that ancient Maxime of our Law Non accipitur juramentum contra Regem by reason whereof if it be rigorously observed as for ought I know it is ever in all tryalls upon life and death in inferiour Courts the honour life and estate of the greatest subject how innocent soever may be in danger if two of the meanest men in the whole Kingdom shall combine so secretly to take it away that there can be no discovery of their conspiracy whereat strangers use to hold up their hands and blesse themselves For it seemeth the Committee above mentioned had the equity of that rule of Law in their eye for their direction and that your Lordship had not all the favour shewed you to the Earl of Strafford who was allowed to produce witnesses and crosse examine such as were produced against him and in troth I believe had as much favour as was ever shewed to any subject in his case which is and will ever be one great justification of the proceedings against him whatsoever may break forth in time to shew his innocence But my Lord lesse favour may be shewed to divers persons accused of the same crime without any ingredient of private malice or revenge to the one of them And yet he that feeleth the hurt of the difference is under a strong temptation to apprehend those to be his private enemies whom he observeth to be keen in pursuing him although their consciences may bear them
you have had but equall dealing with others And as for the amendment of the charge I believe your Lordship may one day find that your assembling of Cavaliers at Kingston upon Thames for in those words it is expressed in the third Remonstrance of the Parliament was understood by the Lords and Commons at that time to be a sufficient discovery of your mind to engage His Majesty into a civill war So sufficient that his Majesties coming to the House of Commons in the manner he did His retiring from London to Hampton Court and the appearing of those persons in a warlike manner at Kingston upon Thames who having been so assembled by your Lordship waited upon his Majesty thither were by the Parliament both Houses being then full thought sufficient grounds for the committing of the custody of the Town of Hull and of the Magazine there to Sir Iohn Hotham and for his possessing himselfe thereof by their Authority Notwithstanding his Majestie having sent my Lord the Earl of Newcastle to take the government of that Town upon him all which you may observe in the Remonstrance above mentioned As you may also another passage I suppose very worthy to be seriously reflected upon by your Lordship amounting to that on their own part which my Lord your father calleth ultimam admonitionem on his Majesties part to wit That if those malignant spirits your Lordship by perusing the place may see whom they intend shall ever force us to defend our Religion the Kingdome the Priviledges of Parliament and the Rights and Liberties of the Subject with our swords the blood and destruction that shall ensue thereupon must be wholly cast upon their account God and our consciences tell us that we are clear and we doubt not but God and the whole world will clear us therein By this your Lordship may fully discern that the charge intended to be made good against you is no lesse then having been an instrument at least of some other greater malignants to incite His Majesty to the beginning of a civill war which will not fayle to prove levying War against the King if it can be proved against you And how far those Letters of your Lordships in which you are so confident that upon an impartiall survey there will not be found so much as an opinion as unto peace or war yet being layed to other evidences may serve to induce your Peers to find you guilty of the making of such a Warre may be seene in time the great bringer of truth to light APOLOGY Since that time other Letters of mine or Copies of Letters possibly never sent have had the same fortune and been published to the world and to shew the follies and indiscretions of a man enough in her disfavour before with Glosses and Comments to informe the people how much of the dangerous and pernicious Counsells pretended to be then and still on foot had passed through my hands and how great an enemy I am to Parliaments to this latter most grievous and venemous imputation I hope God will have preserved me some kind of Autidote in mens memories of what part I had the happinesse to bear in the passing of the Trienniall Bill and to it I shall only say thus much that I have had the honour to be a Member of the one House and must presume to think My self still a Member of the other that I value the honour the dignity and the priviledges of both infinitely above the pleasures and benefits of life and if I ever wilfully contributed or shall ever consent to the prejudice of either I wish the desires of all my enemies may fall upon me To that of my having had so great a hand in ill Counsells which are expressed to be of his Majesties removing from London to a place of safety and the like I shall be bold to say that the Letter to the Queens Majesty from whence my enemies would make the inference hath not with any confidereâ— the least propending of advice any way but is meerly an account of mine own intentions to apply my self to His Majesties service either by absence or attendance according to course that His Majesty in his wisdom should thinke fit to take Every body knowes I never had the honor to be a Counsellor neither have I presumed without being questioned by his Majesty to interpose in his affairs when he hath graced me with any question I have answered with the freedom of a Subject and a Gentleman But had I been a Counsellor having seen what I have seen and heard what I heard I who have known such Members of both Houses marked out by the multitude for blessings and such for sacrifice I who can say with truth that such of that Rabble cryed out the Kings is the Traitor such that the young Prince would govern better I who can prove that a Leader of those people in the heat and violence of the tumult cryed out that the King was not fit to live Had I been a Counsellor what had I been as the learning of Treason was then understood should I not have advised his Majesty to withdraw to a place of safety not from his Parliament but from that insolent and unruly multitude who had already brought into so much hazard the persons and the liberty of this till then most happy Parliament and not staying there did so lowdly threaten ruine even to the sacred person of the King Advertise his Majesty I did of the danger advise him I could not I had neither the ability nor the authority In my Letter to the Queen at her first coming into Holland it was observed that in that expression of welcoming her from a Country not worthy of her I â—â—ewed much venime and rancour to my own Nation I meant it not and must appeale to those who are best acquainted with the Civility of language whether the addresse might not be comely to any Lady of quality who should upon any not pleasing occasion leave one Country for a while to reside in another And I hope ere long to wellcome Her Majesty back from a place not so unworthy of her unto this Nation most worthy of her without either disparagement to Holland or complement to those to whom the unworthy of that Letter was intended For the charge of boldnesse and presumption in some expressions of those Letters though I might be glad to compound my treason for incivilitie since the suspicion of that depends upon the right understanding of language and connexion of words it will be no disrespect to any through whose hands they have passed to believe that as they were otherwise intended by me so that they are capable of other interpretation However if in truth mis understanding or ill breeding bath produced the other I hope the conclusion will only be that I am an ill Courtier or an ill Secretary both which I do humbly confesse not that I am no good English man no good Subject If in any
it that through that default onely and for no other fault he forfeited the great credit he had in the House before and occasioned an untimely and most unhappy dissolution of that Parliament It may be the like adventure hath befallen as wise a man in a tryall for his life But I will give no more examples nor make any other then this generall application That which hath happened once or twice may have hapned thrice and may happen a fourth time And yet why should I hold my self thus in the clouds I will adventure to descend to a particular confession that my selfe among many thousand other of the Kings loyall subiects have been exceedingly offended with your Lordship for having had so deep a hand as hath been seen under your own in the ill advise of his Maiesties removing so far from the Parliament for distance of place doth naturally induce a proportionable distance in affection between the best friends if the time of absence be not very carefully entertained with all possible meanes to maintain their amity at the height but if there were any jarre between them before and they come to wrangle about that by letters it is almost impossible to prevent an utter breach between them though they be men of the best tempered spirits Besides this it hath ever been my simple opinion that if His Maiesty after his returne from Dover had given over all thoughts of retiring to Yorke and gone directly to London he might have been able to have quite broken the stroÌ„g combinatioÌ„s conspiracies his Maiesty supposeth were made against him into so many pieces by his royall presence and the help of his Nobles and of those many generous persons in the House of Commons who would have lent willing hands to so needfull a work that it could not have been in the power of the Devil himself to repiece the poor wormes so dissevered for the best among them would have been found no other if he had once lifted up his head against the King his Soveraign But my imagination of the unadvisednesse of the advise given his Maiesty to quit his Saddle having been founded on the confident beleef I ever had that his sacred Person was in no danger by those foolish disorderly friskes of the unmannaged rude people of his Royall City till I saw your Lordships Apology His Maiesties Declaration conteyning nothing but generalls to that purpose I am now quite out of patience that the particulars I therein find to the contrary should have been kept up so long to the infinite preiudice of his Maiesties service of his good peoples quiet and of your Lordships honor who certainly need not have suppressed your knowledge so long nor have now made so dainty of owning the advise given his Maiesty to retire to a safe place if there were so iust a cause of fear that His Maiesties life which is of more worth then ten thousand of ours might have been in danger in the tumults at London But now I find I can proceed no further in doing your Lordship that service which I hope you see I have hitherto endeavoured without taking notice to you of a thing of which I perceive you have studiously declined the mention and which I should be as unwilling to touch as you it being the head of that bile which putteth you to the greatest pain you are in if the King and Kingdome were not in as much upon the same occasion In which respect I am resolved to put a launcet into it when I have first most humbly prayed God upon my knees that my so doing may through his blessing be to the ease of his Majesty of your Lordship and of us all and not to the hurt of any body which he is my witnesse is my sincere and onely intention if I know my own heart Which that your Lordship may not thinke I resolve on impertinently before the time I must first shew you how farre the matter is prepared It cannot be unknowne to your Lordship though in your Apology you seem to make your selfe ignorant that common fame hath from the beginning accused you to have bin the suggestor to his Majesty of the accusation put in by his Atturney against the Lord Kimbolton and the five worthy Members of the House of Commons Or if it be possible this should have been kept from your ears which hath certainly been the voyce of the people for about a yeer your Lordship may finde so much in expresse termes in the publick intelligence of two weeks of this January with this addition that you were the Adviser of his Majesty to come in person to the House of Commons in a hostile manner with four hundred armed men upon the fourth of January last To which it may be thought your Lordship had some reference by making the fourth of this January the date of the publication of your Apology But my Lord this darke intimation which it may be you may expound in that manner in time to come doth not cannot serve your turne at the present For the plain truth is I tell it you for your service and hope you will take it so you may as well rayse a dead man out of his grave as rayse your selfe or your reputation from the hate and infamy under which you and it lye by any thing you can say or do or all your friends â—or you untill this popular odious and infamous imputatioâ— the heavy gravestone of your good name be removedâ— And that as the world goes cannot be done now by any imprecation of your own no not of his Majâ—sties that you were not the man except his Majesty shall produce some other very probable Author of the suggâ—stion And I much doubt whether that will be sufficient to acquit you For that unhappy word which fell from your pen long ago Where Traytors have so great a sway â— and which you would now excuse as an eruption of passion or an expression of discontent vented only to a brother yet layd to the relation you have made in your Apology of the danger in which his Majesties person and the persons and liberty of this till then happy Parliament were respectively involved by the Tumults of which his Majesty chargeth the accused Members to have been the Contriversâ— and for that reason chiefly Traytors I doubt hath made such an impression in mens minds that you would hardly be excused though some other should take this burthen wholly upon him I am sure if you were the man and have proof as you say you have of the treasonable words spoken by a Leader of the people in the heat and violence of the tumult and if withall you can prove that the tumult in which they were spoken was an unlawfull assâ—mbly and contrived by all or any of the accused Members and if this would have been sufficient to have â—ound them or any of them guilty of Treason as by what I have heard to be Law in another case
I thinke it would then your delaying to take this matter upon you before your self came to be accused of high Treason was the greatest mis-adventure I shall speak great words but I thinke I shall make them good which ever befell your Lordship or this Kingdome by the space of the last 500. yeers Your Lordship for your owning of the suggestion upon which the Members of both Houses were impeached of Treason before your being impeached of the same crime had preserved your estate life and honour from that hazard and your reputation from that stain which it got by this mishap and which will be exceeding hard to be gotten out The Kingdome which to my understanding never was in so miserable an estate since the last Conquest as at this present and into this so lamentable an estate let me write it without offence till you have read my reason I conceive it is fallen meerly and wholly by this omission of your Lordships if you were the secret Accuser of those your brethren For they are all wise enough to know that no man legally accused can ever be cleared in his reputation without being acquitted from the crime layd to his charge in a faire legall Triall And this certain danger would undoubtedly have been of so much more regard to men of untainted fame then the hazard the most innocent persons may possibly run through false witnesses or a corrupted Jury that in that respect no doubt they would have desired to have been brought to such a Triall which it seemeth was intended by his Majestie Neither could they if they would have avoided it by pretence of priviledge of Parliament if any part of their accusation legally charged on them had been such as may now seem to be insinuated in your Lordships Apology or as some of the Articles preferred against them do import if I do not misremember them For the Lords and Commons this very Parliament in their Petition to his Maiesty delivered the sixteenth of Iuly following desired no more but that nothing done or spoken in Parliament or by any Person in pursuance of the Commands and Directions of both Houses of Parliamentâ— be questioned anywhere but in Parliament Which sure would not have kept any Member of either House from being proceeded against by Inditements preferred at the Common Law if any of them could have been proved to have been the Contrivers of the Tumult mentioned in your Lordships Apologie or of Treating with any forreign power to invade this Kingdome which was one of the Articles as I remember for I cannot at present recover a sight of them So that upon the whole matter I humbly conceive that supposing your Lordship to have been the Accuser of the six Members of Parliament which your own confession that you advertised his Majestie of the danger in which his sacred personâ— and divers Parliament mens were by those tumults of which his Majesty chargeth them to have been the Contrivers put to the rest I have formerly observed doth well nigh bring home to you I cannot see how you can avoid the unhappinesse of being reputed the sole occasion at least of the miserable condition in which this Kingdome now is For since his Majestie out of his Princely desire of the continuance of the Peace of his People was gratiously pleased to have wholly deserted any prosecution of the accused Members and since his Honour would as I humbly conceive have been as well saved by the producing as it was by the suppressing of the particular suggestions against them though they should have been acquitted by Parliament it is not easie to imagine any sufficient cause why his Majâ—sty denyed the Petition of both his Houses of Parliament to declare the suggestors according to the Law in that case provided besides his care of your Lordshipâ— in retribution of your care of him which was or might be a truely princely consideration of his Majesties but such a one as I should have bin most humbly instant with his Majestie not to have taken of me had I been in your place I have faithfully represented to your Lordship the hard condition wherein you are lodged in common esteem and I wish from my heart it were as easie for me to help you out as it hath been to shew you how you came into it But I doubt that will prove a much harder matter to do in these two latter then I found it in the two former parts of your Apology yet my making an attempt can do you no harm and it may do you some good if I can but shâ—w you that you are not in a right way to help your self you say you returned into England not with so much joy to see your Country indeed there was small cause of joy to be seen there at that time as hope to be admitted upon your humble Petition to his Majesty for a fair regular impartiall vindication of your innocence But if any man should aske why you then procured his Maiesties licence to transport your selfe out of England into another Country what can you answer For in truth my Lord I know not the common opinion of the world being that it was in part to decline such a Triall Indeed to do you right I must observe that in your fiâ—st Letter to tâ—e Queens Maiâ—stie written soon after your landing on the other side it appears you had already some thoughts of returning But it appears too that you intended it not till you should hear that the King had betaken himselfe to a safe place as you found him at your returne where he might avow or protect his servants And my Lord I pray did not his Majâ—stie avow many other his faithfull servants that were no Delinquents and protect them well enough in the place where he resided when your Lordship left the Court Therefore you added From rage I mean and violence for from Justice I shall never implore it But what cause had you to feare rage or violence from which even the Lord Strafford was carefully and easily protected at his Triall In your Letters to Sir Lewis Dives you expresse your selfe a little more fully as one brother would do to another Thus God knowes I have not a thought towards my Country to make me blush much lesse Criminall But where Traitors have so great a sway the honestest thoughts may prove most treasonable This was the fiâ—st time that ever I heard of the danger of honest thoughts of the danger of treasonable thoughts I had read before in a Sermon of Solomons But where was it that Traitors had so great a sway at that time was it in the House of Commons They either could or would have done no more but accuse you and if Traitors had so great a sway among them their accusation would have had the lesse credit either with the Lords or with the World Was it in the House of Peers I know your Lordship will not say that was your intendment for if you