in at the window will open the door to greatest Rebellions and Regicides Subjects cutting off the lap of their Kings garment or lesning the Robe of royal Majesty that is their just reputation honour and authority will imbolden them to venture at their heads and throats yea to take away their lives and Kingdoms which David a man after Gods own heart so much abhorred that his heart presently smote him for that cautious essay as petty Treason upon Sauls Vesture which carried with it something of injury and indignity to the King the Lords anointed nor did his justice spare those King-killers who having slain Saul and Ishbosheth Davids enemies thought he had done a meritorious service A mans greatest flatterers enemies and traytors are those in his own breast where proud discontents inordinate lusts and extravagant passions as the populacy rabble and vulgarity of people are prone daily to conspire and mutiny against that Reason and Religion which ought to have a constant rule and soveraignty in the soul I believe many men never intended in their first Schismatical motions so sinfull a conclusion many no doubt are now ready to alter their opinion at the scene and success of affairs yea to think those counsels actions very wicked which they find are become so unprosperous but he sees sins too late who doth it as Adam Cain Judas by retrospection only in the glass of punishment It is best discerned by a forward and direct view in the first access by that prospect which the Word of God and the Laws of the Land give us Had this been done by those blood thirsty and deceitfull men this Piece might have been spared now it will serve on the Anniversary of Englands Lamentation Jan. 30. to excite that just passion of a penitent grief and utter detestation which are due to the memory of so foul a Fact and of those sins which brought us under the stroke of so sore a judgement The grief and horror of which did so perfectly possess my soul when I wrote this Steliteutick in an extasie of sighs tears and indignation that the Reader may easily perceive the deluge of sorrow by the streams of it which run as a torrent with much trouble and unevenness not with that order and smoothness that becomes a quiet and calm temper which had been a sin in me at that time when every soul not stupid or seared in England was filled with extreme grief and horror either for the sin they had done or for the punishment they had deserved or for the duty they had omitted or for the desperate estate of the malicious doers of it whose repentance was scarce to be hoped or prayed for having spoken and acted so many lyes perjuries and sacrileges in hypocrisie seared their consciences caused the enemies of God to blaspheme and prophaned the spotless sanctity of Christian Religion and done despight to the Spirit of grace which they dared to pretend to be the patron of their bloody policy a promoter and approver of their so execrable and accursed practices I shall be glad if any faithfull corrasive here may bring any of them yet living to some sense of their most crying and transcendent sins that if possible they may repent be pardoned by the mercies of God and merits of the Son of God whose precious blood only can cry louder than that of the Kings if this end be not attained of which God knows as yet there have been very few signs yet I have great hope to reach the other end of keeping all good Christians and loyal Subjects for the future from the like degeneration as much as they would avoid Hell and eternal damnation Obedience to Superiours in all things lawfull for the Lords sake is a Christians greatest honourâ— and patience with prâ—yers and tears under unjust pressures is his surest defence all other wayes are but the wanton temptations of the devil and the petulant transports of mens wicked hearts most unworthy of good Christians as all primitive examples teach us whose actions flowing from faith and guided by love must never vary from the paths of piety and loyalty humility and charity which are the way to true peace and eternal happiness And thus I have given thee O Christian Reader an account of my first writing and now publiâ—hing or rather owning this Steliteutick or pious Satyre writ against so 〈…〉 nstrous a sin as that was of Murthering the King Farewel JOH EXON 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A just INVECTIVE Against the MVRTHERERS OF King Charls the First HAve you killed our King and also taken possession of his Goods Lands and Kingdoms O ye blood-thirsty and deceitful men Is this your Sion that must be built with Royal blood and your Jerusalem that must be raised with such detestable iniquiry O ye painted Sepulchers will no bones serve to fill you but those of your King You ravening Wolves whom God hath suffered to uncase your selves of your Sheeps Cloathing can nothing satiate your cruel Appetites and Hydropick Thirst but only the flesh and blood of our King whom with merciless hands and hearts in an impudent Triumph you have murdered before the Face of God and his Subjects whose Royal Posterities and peoples Lives and Estates you now hope to devour without any opposition or gainsaying So cruelly heavy and barbarous is that Iron Scepter with which you think to rule this Nation nor allowing any fair and legal plea for either Kings or Peoples Lives Liberties Estates or Religion but beyond all Papal and Mahumetane Tyranny you usurp over our Souls no less than our Bodies and seek now by slavish fears and sinful Agreements to make to make us all as much the Children of the Devil as your selves whose Consciences no doubt like Cain's tell you your desperate and damnable Estate having sinned against the light of God and his holy Spirit some of you so impudently and maliciously as justly excludes all hope of pity or pardon from God and Man having first treacherously betraied then barbarously murthered both your and our King Go on you Apollyons you Abaddons in the Spirit of Antichrist to fill up the measure of your Abominations till you are drunk with blood and stumble and fall together O you Locusts the blackest smoak and noisomest vapour that ever the breath of the bottomless pit exhaled or sent forth into the Christian world your Maiden faces in your first seemingly modest and fair pretensions to the King and Kingdom have now brought on the poisonous Scorpions of you Tails after many cunning windings of flattery perjury and hypocrisie Behold the fruits of your Oaths Prayers Fastings your Illuminations Raptures and the Sacred madnesses of your Prophets are they not as the Grapes of Sodom sour and unsavoury seting on edge the teeth of all men that have any taste or relish of true piety Are these the practices of Saints of spiritual and seraphick minds of men living in God and in Christ by the Spirit
exercised indeed their Donatistical and Anabaptistical frauds and fucies chiefly upon the vulgar to the ruine of many thousands of the Country people and Citizens But you like so many Ravilliacks are not content to have spoilâ—d so many Noble and flourishing Families to have exhausted so many plentifull Estates to have made so many mourning Widows and Fatherless Children to have destroyed the lives and sucked the blood of so many Christians your fellow-Subjects but you must in one day swallow up the two Houses of Parliament in another murther the King in a third cut off the right and inheritance of the Crown from the Undoubted Heir and all the Kings Children At last you conspire to tempt us all by your simple and foolish Paper falsly called The Agreement of the People to joyn with you in the utter overthrowing of our Laws Liberties and the whole frame of this antient and renowned Kingdom whose weight you will find too heavy for such weak Atlases as you will shortly appear both in Counsel and in Power who are only wise to doe wickedly and strong to shed or drink the bloud of your King and Country-men Your Cruelty hath fulfilled the wish of Caligula at one blow to cut off the head of three Kingdoms and with him all Monarchy to make way for your Polemocracy a Military Tyranny or Schismatical Anarchy Thus have you been profound to deceive skilfull to destroy our Souls faint within us because of such treacherous dealers such hideous Murtherers into whose snares the breath of our nostrils is fallen and in whose deep dissembling pits the Annoynted of the Lord our meek patient and most Christian King is swallowed up under the shadow of whose just Authority Princely wisdom and judicious piety we hoped to have been safe How doth this sometime famous and flourishing Kingdom now sit as a Widow oppressed desolate despised full of unexpressible lamentations The bitterness and gall of your cruel Hypocrisie hath entred into filled and overwhelmed our Souls How is she that was the Joy Crown and Queen of all Nations the Envy or Emulation of all Christian Churches now become the horror and astonishment of her Neighbours round about the pity and calamity of all her friends the scorn reproach hissing and triumph of all her Enemies Nor is there any helper comforter or Deliverer left till God take the matter into his own hands and plead the cause of the King and Kingdom against those proud Goliahs whose uncircumcised hearts and lips out of a riot and superfluity of wickedness have blasphemed our God destroyed our King laid waste and exhausted the Kingdom and turned this Church into a Den of Thieves O Lord arise O Lord consider O Lord hear the voice of our sighs tears and prayers let the cry of the blood of our King and our people come up to Heaven have mercy on us for we are brought very low Our gracious King the Husband of the Kingdom the Father of his Subjects the Prâ—â—erver of our Laws the Patron of Religion the Protector of the Church you have treacherously and barbarously murthered the two Houses of Parliament whose weakness perverseness unevenness inconstancy and cowardise God hath seen disliked judged and punished you have forcibly invaded scattered and oppressed notwithstanding all your special Engagements to them both of duty and promise commission and trust The loyalty and love of the people you every where either with terror and cruelty seek to suppress and smother so that they shall not dare to petition for redress or complain of those endless calamities which they suffer under your tyranny or else making lyes your hope and refuge with forged semblances of complyant Petitions and counterfeit Gratulations you falsly and impudently pretend the concurrent Votes of the Countreys and the Communities approbation to your most abominated practices When God knows and even your selves in your bloody dissimulation cannot be ignorant that the generality of all men in all places of all degrees doe from their Souls utterly abhor deprecate and detest your execrable Counsels and accursed Actions which have thus brought upon us the abomination of desolation through the damnable deceivableness of your unrighteousness Nor doe we believe that your pride and tyrannous hypocrisie either finds any comfort in them or much considers those papers which seem to own you or applaud your wicked deeds further than they may carry on your strong delusions with the vulgar whom you know to be neither very wary of evil nor very steady in what is good If you had the general Consent of the Vulgar which you know you have in no sort yet neither is their judgement any good rule to measure the Morality of your actions nor their inconstant pleasure any rest of honour vertue or piety But indeed you as well as we are sadly conscious that all those clamorous Petitions for Justice by which you would seem as by Oracles of your own inspiring to be fatally directed and divinely incouraged in your Cruelties and Treasons were nothing else but the strokes of the Lions own tayl the more to enrage himself the very froth and scum which arose only from the zealous activity and boylings of your own bloody Faction who restl 〈…〉 Devils continually go about seeking whom they may deâ—â—iâ—e and destroy we are well assured that your Schismatical crew of Regicides are no more to be compared to the people of England than the Gleanings may be to the Harvest or Canters Thieves Beggars and Juglers to the sober and setled Dwellers in this Kingdom No every honest man who hath any sense of piety loyalty modesty pitty or humanity left in his Soul as you have none takes up Jacobs words against you Cursed beyour wrath for it is fierce and your anger for it is cruel Into the secrets of these men let not our Souls enter Lord lay not the guilt of the sins of these men to the Charge of the People of this Kingdom No let the blood of our pious patient and most Christian King be upon you and your Abettors for ever who as without any sense of Loyalty Pity or Charity so without any shadow as well as substance of Justice having neither Law Rule nor any due Authority first by Fraud and unheard of Insolency seized upon his Majesties person afterward by Flatteries Lies and Terrours sought to deceive him At last by meer Force and beast-like Crueltie have massacred and as so many horrid Assassinates utterly destroyed him And all this after many fawnings and shews of loyal and tender regard toward his Majesty and his Royal Family as both your first Proposals and your after Agitations honestly and very providentially discovered by Major Huntington do declare In which all men now plainly see that you did but make way by the Fox to let in the Wolf and by your Dalilah to bring the Philistims upon our Sampson Yea after his Majestie was not only entred into and advanced in a Treaty with the two Houses agreeable to their
expiate the sin and shame of their former Errours and Defaults which have produced such sad and abhorred Effects to break the Strength to extirpate the Persons to oppose the Designs and to revenge the Villanies which have been with an high hand committed against God the King the Parliament the Laws and the Kingdoms by these Miscreants men alwayes of desperate Fortunes but now of so desperate Minds and Manners that all their paths lead to the Chambers of Death and their steps are descending to the pit of Hell From which the Lord in Mercy deliver the people of this Nation by prospering our Rightful King and by his Valour and Vertues redeeming us speediy from the sins sufferings and tyrannies of these blood-thirsty and deceitful men with whom no Agreement can be made by any man who doth not desperately resolve to sin against the Holy Ghost and eternally damn his own Soul Lam. 5. 16. 16. The Crown is fallen from our head Wo unto us that we have sinned For this our heart is faint for these things our eyes are dim Eph. 5. 11. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather reprove them Consilia callida inhonesta prima fronte laeta Tractatu dura eventu tristia Lecit FINIS In Martyrium CAROLI PRIMI Magnae Britaniae Regis invicti Jan. 30. 1648. IN fandis refer as damno scelerique dolorem Musa parem qualis luctu sub morte Josiae Ingenti vallem compleverat Hadarimmon Qualis ab irriguis oculis seu fonte perenni Uberibus manet lachrymis noctuque diuque Qualem continuo rorans pia lumina fletu Optabat Vâ—tes deplorantissimus olim Sit modus hic nescire modum quô postera discat Impia gens quantum sceleretur sanguine Regis Regis ab antiquis oriundi Regibus at Qui Tantum alios superans virtute antiquior omnes Quantum lenta solent celsae viburna cupressus Ut scopulus mediis Neptuni in fluctibus ingens In coelum tollens sublimia culmina nullis Exuperanda undis immotus pectore forti Perstat immensis haerens radicibus omnc 〈…〉 Oceani frangit rabiem nâ—â— territus unquam Conjuratorum ventorum praelia temnit Talem Te sensêre Tui Te Maxime Regum Vidimus invictâ conatus mente ferentem Hostiles variâ tentato mole malorum Inconcussa manet victrix patientia sacro Horrore insuetum complêsti Carolus orbem Aurea quae pulchro pînxti dictamina libro Tam pravi caecique malis Lux super aevi Unicus implêsti vitae moderaemine passus Quas alii fingunt aerumnas ultima mortis Humanam superant sortem miracula sancta Rex idem Martyr Trino Diademata clarus Altior exurgens summ â mens ambitionâ— Martyrium imperio junxit Quartamque Coronam Stellis non gemmis fulgentem sumâ—re pergit Impavidus Christi Sponsae mirandus Alumnus Coetibus Angelicis proprior mortalia longè Despicit Ante pedes facinus deforme Rebellûm Dum prostrata jacet Majestas Regia surgit Celsior è tenâ—bris splendens Augustior istis Comminuit quantum Satanae vel militis ira Omni-potens tantum Numen virtutibns auxit Gratia grandescit collo minor atque corona Carolus evafit Magnus Ludibria Trunci Ridet Rex humilis sequitur vestigia Christî Formosum in latâ vidistis valle Leonem Quem trepidi cingunt Pastores Rusticus horror Magnanimum sequitur telo clamore lacessens Non hominum non illa canum petulantia terret Gradivum generos a fugam quia bestia nescit Degenerem motu nullo blanditur at ille Constans incedit gressu vultuque minaci Arduus insidias strepitusque aspernit inanes Inveniet facietve viam sibi conscia virtus Per fastiditos sic Te tulit impetus Hostes Ingentem Regni Genium dumque agmine circum Sacrilegûm spectant crudelia schismaticorum Immortalis abis Regna ad meliora Monarcha Lusit fatalim mens impenetrabilis ictum Plectitur illaesus poena est victoria fanguis Non minus innocuum decorat quà m purpura Regem Tutatur quem non potuerunt Scepira securis Non dolor Hunc non irae movet non Carceris horror Non tristis comitem squallor non Monstra profani Judicii non scommata sputa culumnia pulsus Erectum laedunt animum purissima lympha Mille modis agitata niâ—et Patientia totum Possidet ac pleno sic fatur Numine Turbam Tetrius in vosmet quam in me pâ—ccabitis illa Vulnera me cruciant potius quae saeva paratis In proprias animas quà m quae in mea corpora cives Non Deus hoc vobis non sancta oracula mandant Infandum facinus Quamvis justissima summi Dextra patet suplex hanc prono exosculor ore Vos tamen injustos graevior vindicta manebit Qui genus humanum mortalia temnitis arma At sperate Deum memorem fandi atque nefandi Castigatvehemens faelicia crimina poena Deprecor ultorem mea vota novissima Christo Pro vobis patriâque meâ cum sanguine fundam Dixerat dicto citius prostratus atrocem Imperturbato Rex invictissimus ictum Sustinuit vnltu Diriguêre omnes imo suspiria ducunt Pectore quê is hominum quê is non adamantinae corda Non dolor aut lachrimae vastus stupor occupat orbem Ingenuum irato suffusum triste pudore Erubuit coelum pallentia lumina condens Antiquae periit sic illustrissima Gentis Gloria vix oculis unquam reparabile nostris Occubuit lumen Domini quem dextra sacrâret In Regem extinxit diro manus improba ferro Publica libertas Decora omnia Religionis Sanctus honos unâ pereunt collapsa ruina Singula quae tantâ fuerant suffulta columna In Chaos horrendum lapsos nox opprimit atra Cum tenebris pondus Terras Astraea reliquit Sanguine pollutus Divi Lex sancta recessit Militis incubuit trucis insatiata libido Omnia diripiens paupertate ambitiosa Cui stravere viam Regni perjuria dira Sic Lupus Vulpes tecti ambo pellibus Agni Insidiis fallunt non vincunt Marte leonem Tam claro ut possint satiari sanguine fauces Quoque magis possint factis obtendere velum Justitiae miles procerum plebisque senatum Relliquias vulgi rudis informisque Tumultus Dissipat in sulsis toga cedere cogitur Armis Carnifices dant jura prius suffragia deinde Liberiora petunt sequitur sententia tristis Corripit incusat condemnat destruit idem Judex Testis Miles Subjectus Hostis Tantum Relligio tantum nova lumina possunt Persuadere mali lucis tum Lucifer almae Nomen Effigiem simulat quùm perditus error Ingruit tenebras cupiens effundere vero Immanes animos ad atrocia crimina ducit Principis hinc sanguis libandus subditus iras Non putat averti superûm nisi tanta litetur Victima non alio ritu placabile numen Sanguinei celebrant sancti maculata cruoré Dextra Fraterno Patris Regisque
Votes and the general desires of all his Subjects under the most solemn National security and Publick Faith which could be given or pass between a King and his Subjects or indeed any honest men But even when his Majesties great wisdom and goodness had so far brought all things to a fair closure and happy Agreement that the two Houses were satisfied and resolved to proceed upon his Majesties Concessions as a firm ground of Peace to the Kingdom Yet after all these publique Civil and Sacred Obligations which lay upon the two Houses and the Kingdom on your selves as well as any and all of us for you to seize again upon his Majesties person without any pretended Authority and with your Iron hands and Adamantine hearts to ravish and pull him out of the arms and embraces of his Subjects violently to hale and tear him from the reviving love and loyalty of the two Houses and his People thence to hurry and toss him to and fro to what inhospitable places and desolate Prisons you listed there to deprive him not only of all things proportionable to his quality as a King but even of those civil accommodations which ought to be allowed to any Gentleman though an Enemy and a Captive of War which the King never was not being taken by force but rendring himself to the professed love and sworn loyalty of his Subjects After this with a sacrilegious mockery of Justice in the highest affronting of God the King the Parliament and the three Kingdoms by an unheard of and most horrid Outrage and riorous force to oppress and utterly destroy the remaining honour freedom and power of the two houses and in despite of them to erect a new Court of Justice as you most unjustly term it for which you have no colour of Law from God or Man no precedent in this or any other Christian Kingdom no ground or pretence of Parliamentary consent or Authority of either Houses whose Members three parts of four at least you forcibly detained and deterred from fitting in the House of Commons the Lords being unanimously against you by all which methods of cunning and violence you seek like Absalom the contradiction between whose name and actions very well fits your affected but undeserved title of Saints to intrude your selves into a Judicative as well as a Military power as if Hangmen and Executioners should usurp the sears of Judges who are not fit to be of a Jury since their interest and advantage like yours lying in the destruction of others will easily tempt them to condemn any man At length you make a shift to pack not a high Court of Justice as you shamelessely style it but the basest Conventicle of Injustice that ever was in the World In which all Cards of honour being shuffled out you turn up such Knaves only for Trumps as will best play your game A very Medly and Rapsody of the most ignorant shallow cowardly cruel weak debauch'd and insolent Fools or Athiests Hypocrites Traytors and Tyrants that ever usurped power over any honest and innocent man Your President Bradshaw and your Solicitor Cook are commonly known and branded to be men of as corrupt Souls as any lived in their profession Their most trayterous and covetous villanies not allowing the least pretence of ignorance â—n the Laws which are in no Case more clearly expresly and severely contrary than in this of taking away the Kings life wherein they against all Law Duty and Conscience were as Judas's chiefly employed At last upon the wicked most unjust and cruel Sentence of these Mercenary Un-authorized and Tyrannous Sycophants and Hucksters of Justice who must needs have their Commission from him that is the Father of Lyes the false Accuser the Old Murtherer the deceiving Serpent the Roaring Lyon the Red Dragon the Dead Sea of Cruelty and the sink of all Confusion the Damned and Damning Devil and not from God the Fountain of Justice the Father of Mercy the Institutor of Order the Author of Peace and the Commander of subjection to lawfull Kings in any notion imaginable further than the Divel may have Commission from God permitting and limiting the activity but not approving the iniquity of his rage and malice to compell such a King so Great a Monarch of three Kingdoms their Undoubted Soveraign Lord to submit to their arraignment Accusations and Sentence who were most of them his declared and desperate Enemies without allowing him the liberty of protesting against their confessed Usurpation and Non-authority or of pleading for his own both Innocency and well known Privilege Soveraignty and unquestionable Immunity according to the Laws of God and of this Kingdom which are expresly against their trayterous and tyrannous proceedings as well as the nulliâ—y of their Authority After this without any remorse or pity to their and our King to force a person of so excellent worth wisdom vertue honour and Majesty to how down at the feet of so vile persons and then to Chop off his Head which was Sacred Crowned and Anoynted as rightfull King over them and all his Subjects in his Dominions A Butchery so barberous that the common Headsmran abhorted to do it nor may we think those bloody Zealots were willing he should deprive them of the pleasure of cutting the throat of such a Sacrifice to inaugurate them in their Royal Priesthood by which their Schismatical fury pretends a title against or above all Lawfull Kings and Governours What Words what Tears what Sighs what oppressive Thoughts what secret and un-utterable Reflections of most stupified and astonished Souls are sufficient to measure the Immensity to weigh the burden to express or conceive the horror of this outragioussin and most flagitious villany Poor Prince after so many delusions so many lying Addresses made by the chief Engines and movers of the Army after so much patience so great demonstrations of excellent wisdom meekness calmness and Christian gentleness to his very Enemies and Jaylours under infinite reproaches injuries and indignities even to the very spitting in his face after all those gracious condescendings by which he had reduced himself almost to the very shadow and bare name of a King saving that he had gained the highest and most absolute Empire in the renewed love loyalty of the most and best of his Subjects that he might please all secure and satisfie all purchase Peace for all at any rate but the price of his Conscience Yet after all these infinite demonstrations of goodness capable to have softned even Devils themselves to be thus butchered by a Souldiery and Schismatical cruelty to be brought to publique execution without any help or redemption from Parliament or people who generally abominated so horrid inhumane unseen and unheard of a Spectacle whose Publique Faith besides their Personal Allegiance was engaged for his Majesties honour and safety what heart can be large enough to equal the sorrow what Eyes can be Fountains sufficient to deplore so unmerited a Fate befalling so