Topsi-turvy A fourth Argument founded as the rest are upon matter of Jealousie not Equity which they make use of unto the Houses against an Agreement with the King by Treaty is taken from the Divisions of the Parliamentary Party and the Jealousies they have of each other alledging that if the King were returned it is more than probable That each Party would be apt to strive which should most and first comply with him And left this course should be objected against themselves as having taken it formerly for their own Advantage when they had the King with them in the Army they in the next place excuse it thus and say first That they did not seek to the King but were sought unto by him and were drawn into some negative complyances only for prevention of mischiefe to the publique but still profestly refused any thing of Coniunction with him or his Secondly That all their Declarations at that time were but Hypotheticall ana with carefull Caution for the publique Interest Thirdly That they aimed not at the strengthning of themselves by their then preiending for the King The Falshood of all which I shall clearely demonstrate to their everlasting Infamy and give you some briefe Evidences of their double dealing and how that they professed absolutely to close with the legall Interest of his Maiesty As for their publique professions in their Declarations and Proposalls They are so notoriously known unto the world that J need not mention them But their Private hypocriticall Trucking with his Maiesty will be the only Touchstone to try them by And because their Resolutions pretended then for his Maiesty were as high as these are now against him I shall be very punctuall to satisfie all men of the Truth That the world may know what fine white Devills our new Saints are and abhor their Hypocrifie But before I produce my Evidences I must declare whence I had them even from Major Huntington Cromwell's own Major a partaker formerly of his Secrets and so intimate that Oliver was pleased to call him Mistresse and was imployed as a Messenger betwixt the King and him and Ireton That their private Truckings with the King were not Hypotheticall but pretended absolute for his Interest and of their own seeking is manifest by what passed at Caversham where the King was continually sollicited by Messengers from Cromwell and Ireton proffering any thing his Maiesty should desire as Revenues Chaplins Wife Children Servants of his owne visitation of Friends accesse of Letters and by Ireton himself who pleads so cruelly against him in this bloody Remonstrance that his Negative voice should not be medled with all for that he had convinced those that reasoned against it at the Generall Councell of the Army And all this they would doe that his Maiesty might the better see into all their Actions and know their Principles which lead them to give him all those things out of Conscience For that they were not a people hating his person on Monarchicall government but that they did like it as the best and that by this King saying also that they held it a very unreasonable thing for the Parliament to abridge him of them often promising that if his Maiesty would sit still and not Act against them they would in the first place restore him to all these and make him the most glorious Prince in Christendome and that for this end they were drawing up Proposalls which if any power should oppose and there were but six men in the Kingdom that would stand for them Ireton said himself would make the seventh to iustifie and make them good His Maiesty being removed to Wooborne the Proposalls were sent to him by Maior Huntington at which time the King said at first he would not Treat upon them but afterwards yielded and then Ireton Rainsborough Hammond and Rich attended the King at Wooborne debating the whole businesse with him upon the Proposalls upon which debate many of the most materiall things which the King disliked were struck out and many other things much abated by Promises whereupon his Maiesty was pretty well satisfied Afterward his Maiesty being removed to Stoke told Maior Huntington he feared an Ingagement between the Army and City and bade him goe tell Ireton that he would wholly throw himself upon them and trust them for a settlement of the Kingdom which Message being delivered by Maior Huntington to Ireton at Colebrooke he seemed to receive with ioy saying That they should be the veryest Knaves that lived if in every thing they made not good what ever they had promised because the King by his not declaring against them had given them great Advantage against their Adversaries But who I pray you were these Adversaries Even the Presbyterian Party By this then we may iudge them out of their own mouths That they had no other end by their then pretending for the King but to strengthen themselves against the Presbyterians to suppresse their Faction and advance their own So that Iretons own words will witnesse in this Particular against the Falshood of this his Remonstrance When the Army at length began to falter in their proceedings and the King feared they intended not to make good what they had promised he sent Major Huntington to Cromwell to tell him he was unsatisfied with the proceedings of the Army because he understood that himself and Ireton agreed with the house in some late Votes that opposed the Proposalls of the Army It was replyed that they would not have his Maiesty mistrust them for that since the House would goe to high they only concurred with them that their unreasonablenesse might the better appeare to the Kingdom And Cromwell bade Huntington assure the King that if the Army remained an Army his Maiesty should trust the proposalls with what was also promised to be the worst of his Conditions which should be made for him and striking his hand on his Breast in his Chambâ—r at Putney bade the Maior tell the King he might rest confident and assured of it Which Message was sent many times to the King from them both but with this addition from Ireton That they would purge and purge and never leave purging the houses till they had made them of such a temper as should doe his Maiesties businesse And rather than they would fall short of what was promised he would ioyne with Cavalier French or Spaniard or any that would ioyne with them to force them to it Yet notwithstanding all this it was not long after that his Maiesty was â—â—gled away into the Isle of Wight where he had not been above 6. dayes but the very same Ireton the godly Promiser standing by the fire side in his Quarters at Kingston and some speaking of an Agreement of Peace likâ— to be made between the King and the Houses now he was out of the power of the Army Ireton replyed with a discontented-counâ—enance That he hoped it would be such a Peace as they might with
are not binding without the Royall Assent However afterwards they fell to practise the contrary as the Breach grew wider betwixt them and His Majesty It being false then which they here suppose viz. That the Kings negative voice hath been the Ground of the Contest in the late Wars for the Houses never so declared all their Arguments following against the King being founded upon a false Supposition are utterly inconclusive though if their Supposition were true I could not allow them as justifiable But I shall not stand to prove that now onely I shall trace them in their own way For they charge the King to have stretched his negative voice so far as to advance his own will and Interest onely in an unlimited power over the lives liberties and goods of the People For this they urge the frequent dissolving Parliaments but if it were true that the frequent dissolution were acted on purpose to invade the Liberty of the Subject as all the World knowes it was not but was occasioned by the petulancy of divers Subjects who under the shelter of Parliamentary priviledge indeavored to establish a Faction contrary to the received customes and policy both of Church and State as the event hath manifested yet what Inconvencie was crept into the Kingdom through the discontinuing of Parliaments for which His Majesty did not graat a Remedy in the beginning of this Parliament And did He not likewise to remove all occasion of Jealousie coâ—cerning the like pressures in time to come give His full and free Consent for the calling of Parliaments hereafter every three yeares whereby all grievances might have a certain Remedy Nay He proceeded so for that to give Satisfaction He granted that fatall Act of eternity to this Parliament that there might not remain the least shadow of Arbitrary power to Himself and therfore it is apparent that the Ground of the Contest betwixâ— Him and the Houses could not be occasioned by any designe on His part for the advancing of an unlimited and unlawful Prerogative by making use of His negative voice either to the dissolution of this Parliament or denying remedy to their Grievances But rather that it was occasioned through a designe on their part after His Majesty had granted so much still to invade more of His just Royall Rights and Prerogatives as the power of the Militia without which He could not be a King c. whereby He was given clearly to understand that they intended to leave Him nothing at all before they would be satisfied Thus having cleared His Majâ—sty from occasioning the former War I shall examine their Charge against Him concerning the later Which say they was raised by Commissions from Himself and the Prince to force the Parliament in a personal Treaty to seek Peace at his will and that to this end the Scots last coming in was procured The malicious vanity of this is very evident seeing He had neither Scale nor opportunity to grant Commissions all men being barr'd of accesse to His Majesty and he utterly ignorant of Affaires and so kept at that time when the Scotish Ingagement was first set on foot and the general discontents of the Kingdom had made them break forth into Insurrections And for what was done by the Prince that cannot be charged upon His Majesty his Highnesse having acted therein for his own Interest as Heir apparent of the Crown which was invaded and rifled by sacrilegious hands and as a dutifull Son for the restitution of his Royall Father from a barbarous Imprisonment By which it is manifest that His Majesty was wholly passive and not at all active in relation to the last War and so this Charge is fully refuted After this they charge His Majesty with refusing the four Bills presented to Him at Carisbrooke Castle upon no other consideration but meer Interest of will and power alone without a Parliament To refute this I shall prove that the Bills were rejected meerly to preserve the Interest of both King Parliament and People according to the Law For as being destructâ—ve to the Legal Interest of the King They were called the four dethroning Bills This will appear by that Bill for the power of the Militia to be in their hands for 20. yeares and after the said term of 20. yeares it prohibited the King or His Heirs to exercise the Militia without the consent of the Lords and Commons but they only to Act and all Bills drawn up by them for levying and raising of Forces to have the Force of Acts of Parliament without the Royall Assent Which Bill if it had been granted as it would have taken away the Kings negative voice invested in Him by Law and made an Ordinance equall to an Act of Parliament so it would have setled an Arbitrary power in the Lords and Commons over the Estates and persons of their Fellow-Subjects and have caused the same miseries to return upon us which happened in the dayes of our Fore-fathers under Henry the third when the 24. Conservators of the Peace were called totidem Tyranni so many Tyrants For what might not our Grandees have done when the Sword had been theirs by Act of Parliament Besides if the King had given them His Sword they might have taken all the rest of the Propositions demanded without a Treaty Nor had the granting the four Bills been destructive onely to the legall Interest of the King and the liberty of the People but also to the Freedom of Parliament one of the four being for Adjournment of both Houses to any other place besides Westminster c. Which was a Plot of the Grandee-Faction in the Houses and Army to gain power of Adjourning the Houses from time to time to or near the Head Quarters of the Army where those Members that would refuse to be of their Party should neither sit with accommodation nor safety and so be shaken off at last which had been a new way of purging the Houses and so His Majesties passing those four Bills would have been destructive likewise to the Interest and Freedom of Parliament Whereby it appears that His Majesty in rejecting those Bills was not swayed with any consideration of establishing His own will and power above or without a Parliament but with a tender respect onely to His own Legal Rights the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament and the Liberties of the People Having hitherto manifested the vanity of all their Suppositions and in particular those by way of Charge against His Majesty I shall in the next place examine their Inferences against Him which being raised upon such sandy Grounds cannot stand For taking all for granted which they say they first affirm That there can be no just ground of a Treaty or accommodation with the King First because by perverting the Trust reposed in him to the hurt and prejudice of the Generality and indeavouring to establish himself in a tyrannical power he hath forfeited all that trust and power and doth set the
A PLEA for THE KING AND KINGDOME By way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army Presented to the House of Commons on Monday Novemb. 20. Proving that it tends to subvert the Lawes and fundamentall Constitutions of this Kingdom and demolish the very Foundations of Government in generall Seneca Prosperum ac faelix Scelus virtus vocatur Ius est in Armis Merc. Prag Now prosp'rous mischief makes it good Against both LAVV and REASON Not to spill ROYALL-LOYALL Blood But to be Conquer'd's TREASON Printed in the Yeere 1648. To the Commons assembled in Parliament Gentlemen SInce the Abettors of this Remonstrance have had the confidence to addresse themselves and prescribe Rules to you in such peremptory language give me leave under your favour and connivence to publish an Answer thereunto by Pen since for ought I see you dare not give it your selves by word of mouth because if you should declare a sense contrary to theirs as in honor and conscience you must they have as good as told you in plain termes that they will make your House too hot to hold you I observe their Remonstrance is founded upon these principles that their own Faction whom alone they call the well-affected and the honest men excluding all others are the People Secondly that their Interest is the only Interest of the People Thirdly that the Safety of the People is to be respected before any Kings or Governers or Governments whatsoever Lastly that themselves are the only competent Judges of the Peoples Safety and so by consequence may drive on their Designe against all Powers and Forms of Government and Law whatsoever upon pretence of that old Aphorisme Salus Populi suprema Lex the safety of the People is the soveraigne Law which hath been the fruitfull mother of Rebellions in all ages to serve the corrupt ends of ambitious persons who usually fisht in troubled waters to attain those ends which they could not hope for in a setled State of Commonweales and Kingdoms And such now it is apparent to all the world were some of you in the beginning of this Parliament from whose plea and practices this upstart Faction have learned to rebell against your selves upon the very same principles and pretences that you first bandied against his Maiesty I need not repeat here how they have terrified and quell'd you from time to time as often as you durst but offer to speak your consciences in the behalf of the Publike against their corrupt and private Interest But all that is past is nothing to what they have presented to you now wherwith they have affronted you to your very faces in this Remonstrance Do they not challenge you as inconstant to your own Votes and Resolutions perfidious to that trust reposed in you and such as will not or know not which way to settle the just Rights and Liberties of the People And therefore they undertake to new-mold the fundamentall Constitutions of the Kingdom and conjure you to comply with them and renounce your King or any Agreement with him and settlement by him or otherwise they say they shall be constrained to set a period to your Authority and provide themselves of another Parliament which shall be elected of persons of their humor and so establish themselves in a kind of legall Tyrannie by the Law of their own wills and the Sword It is high time Sirs then to look about you and vindicate the Lawes of the Land the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament and the just Rights of the People thus impiously invaded Acquit your selves like men and if you must perish it will be your glory and Crowne in the midst of calamity that you suffer in defence of the Liberties of your Country Proceed to an happy Accommodation with his Majesty He hath granted more than ever the world supposed you would have demanded then let not those Differences which he by his Concessions hath brought into so narrow a Compasse hinder a Peace any longer but meet him now at length with an honorable Complyance and leave the successe to God who will scatter those that delight in War and to this end how small soever the meanes be at present yet ere long you shall have the hearts hands and Purses of Thousands to assist you I am not ignorant that your Debates and Resolutions are extremely stagger'd by a pack of Sectaries which have crept into the House to that purpose by undue elections and that you feare if you should declare against the designe of this Remonstrance they should take this occasion to purge you out of the House and make use of the same way of unjust elections to put others in your Places But howsoever put it to the venture and do your duty As for me I should reckon it the greatest glory I could be born unto to be accounted worthy to suffer in so noble a Cause and since they are arrived to this height of Impiety to tread all Authority under foot as well yours as the King s do you but agree with his Majesty upon just and equall Termes then whatever I have been heretofore I shall list my selfe henceforth For King and Parliament Mercurius Pragmaticus Novem. 27. 1648. A Plea for the King and Kingdom by way of Answer to the late Remonstrance of the Army THe Contexture of this tedious Remonstrance is much like that of the new Government which they aime at having neither forme nor fashion in it and is so replenished with confused Repetitions that it brings more trouble to recollect the scattered Fancies into some orderly Frame than to blast them with a Confutation No lesse than 60. Pages are spent in a Preamble before they come to the things intended and all to win the world quorum magn apars capitur Ambagibus with a world of smooth Pretences the vanity whereof I shall indeavour to demonstrate in a few sheetes which they have wrap't up in so many that when the Monster appeares without disguise it may become abominable in the eyes of all good men In the first place they insinuate their tender Regard to the Priviledges and freedom of Parliament in not interposing in their Councells and determinations c. For the falshood of this I shall give you two Instances of famous or rather in famous memory The first is taken out of their Remonstrance dated June 23. 1647. at S. Albans wherein they threatned to march up against the Parliament in case the 11. Members were not suspended the House by a short certain day and their desires not granted The second may be collected out of the prodigious carriage of the Army and their Creatures in the Houses when the Ordinance was debated for nulling and making void all things whatsoever done in the absence of the two Renegado Speakers when they ran to the Army This Ordinance was set forward by the Army-party and had been debated five or six severall times and still rejected in the Negative yet they brought it in play
again still and not being able to prevail by reason they had recourse to Menaces and Threats Sollicitor S. Johns threatned that they must have recourse to the power of the Sword the longest sword take all since they were ingaged to live and die with the Army Sir Arthur Haslerige said then some heads must flie off and he feared the Parliament of England would not save the Kingdom of England so that they must look another way for safety They could not satisfie the Army but by declaring all void ab Initio and the Lords were so far ingaged that no middle way would serve And when it was answered that this was an Appeale from the Parliament to the Army then the Threats were re-doubled by Sir John Evelyn Junior Sir Harry Vane Junior Prideaux Gourdon Sir Harry Mildmay Scot Holland and divers others When nothing would doe at length the Speaker pulled a Letter out of his pocket together with the Remonstrance from the Army full of vilanous Language and Threats against those Members that sate while the two Speakers were in the Army calling them pretended Members charging them in generall with Treason Treachery and Breach of Trust And protested that if they should presume to sit before they had cleared themselves that they did not give their Assents to such and such Votes they should sit at their perill and be taken prisoners of Warr and tryed at a Councell of Warr. Certainly never any King of England ever offered so great a violence to the fundamentall priviledges of Parliament as to deny them the liberty of voting yea and no freely And yet this very same Army hath the confidence to alledge their tender regard of the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament And that the world may take notice how they intend to behave themselves toward the Houses in time to come in the very next Paragraph you may read a strange kind of construction of that old abused Maxim Salus populi suprema Lex which they say many have made use of in these times but none with so much justice as themselves and of this they make their successe the only Argument in justification of their Rebellion against both King and Parliament as if happy events were the only Touchstones of lawfull enterprizes and that by these God had given the verdict on their side Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu Facta not and a putat And therefore they proceed to pronounce themselves magisterially to be the onely competent Judges of the safety of the People which to be is the inseparable Prerogative of the supreme Magistrate or Magistrates only in all Governments whatsoever And in prosecution of their humor they do as good as tell the House in case those pretences of danger be not remedied and those remedies which they remonstrate not followed they shall not feare to make such Appeales to God that is their sword as formerly they have done From whence we may collect these following tenets destructive to all Government First That the People or as the case now stands that part of the People which are prevalent in Armes are the true and sole Judges of their owne safety Secondly That they may appeale to the Sword against the Authority of their Governers in order as they conceive to the publique safety which two Conclusions if admitted must needs open a Gap to perpetuall Faction and Rebellion forasmuch as the People who are ever floating and apt to find Fault will upon such a liberty never be content and satisfied with their Governers Neverthelesse upon these Anarchicall Grounds they proceed in the next place to tax the House for quitting their Votes of non-Addresse unto his Majesty and admitting of a personall Treaty and hereunto they subjoyne no lesse than three notorious Fictions to strengthen the Votes of Non-Addresse and gain them a new Reputation to the prejudice of the Treaty First they steele their Fore-heads with this bold Assertion that the House was in a condition of Freedom and not Acted beyond their own Judgements nor by any Impulsion from the Army when they passed those Votes Secondly that before the passing of those Votes the People and Soldiery were full of discontents and distempers throughout the Kingdom but that after the passing of them they were re-setled in good Order and discipline and the whole Affaires of the Kingdom in an hopefull posture for a Settlement Thirdly That when the Houses recalled those Votes and took Resolutions for a Treaty their Judgement was not with due and former Freedom c. To the first I answer and shall make it evident that the Parliament was acted beyond their free Judgments and by Impulsion from the Army when the 4. Votes of Non-Addresse were passed in either House For the designe of these Votes was driven on first in the Army Sir Harry Vane Junior Sir John Evelyn of Wilts Nath. Eines and Soll. S. Johns having been imployed by the Independent Grandees to joyne with a select Committee of the Army to debate the meanes of procuring the passage of those 4. Votes in the House which when they had contrived they hastned to put in execution at Westminster having a pat occasion offered them on Monday January 3. when the King's Answer of deniall to the four Bills presented to him in the Isle of Wight came to be debated in the House of Commons At which time Commissary Ireton the wise pen-man of this Remonstrance made bold to speak the sence of the Army under the notion of many thousand godly men who had ventured their lives to subdue their Enemies and said The King had denyed safety unto his people by denying the foure Bills That subjection to him was but in lieu of his protection to his People which being denyed they might well deny any more Subjection to him and settle the Kingdom without him That it was now expected after so long patience they should shew their Resolution and not desert those valiant men who had ingaged for them beyond all possibility of Retreat and would never forsake the Parliament unlesse the Parliament forsook them first And what was the intent of this I pray you but to deliver the sence of the Army against the King and to insianute a cunning close Threat that if they did not joyn Issue with them they should be look't upon as Enemies But when divers exceptions were taken at this Speech of Ireton's and the Debate drawing to an up-shot his Father-in-law Cromwell be ought up the Reare in very furious Laâ—guage and to signifie that the Gainsayers must expect more then words he laid his hand upon his sword and stood in a threatning posture saying It was now expected the Parliament should defend and govern the Kingdom by their own power and resolutions and not teach the people any longer to expect safety and government from an obstinate man whose heart God had hardned That those men who had defended the Parliament from so many dangers with expence of their Bloud
the People But if we do but scand the Proceedings of the Abbettors of this Remonstrance since their Faction came in power the World cannot produce greater or more odious Examples of Hypocrisie Treachery and fained Protestations then they have manifested by their Breach of Faith and Promise with the King and Kingdom as I shall prove in due place by and by Another Argument of theirs why an Agreement now cannot be safe is The Facility of a Prince's finding occasion and quarrel after such an Agreement to make a Breach when he 〈◊〉 his Advantage And this they fear the King may easily do for several Reasons which I shall but touch because I must be brief First because the King is conceived to be in prison still at least not so free as he ought to be during the Treaty it being so expressed by the Prince in his Declaration in Answer to the Earl of Warwick's Summons and so nothing can be concluded now but may upon that pretence be broken hereafter Besides they say The Inlargement now afforded the King with the pettit State added is but a Mock-liberty and Counterfeit of State onely to set him up in a colourable posture to Treat but not being free from Force be cannot be so free in what he grants as to render it oblieging when granted Where take notice of the desperate Hypocrisie and cunning of these Followes that they should declaime against Force as rendring the Treaty in vaine when themselves have put this Force upon it so that it is evident That all those additional Forces lately joyned to the ordinary Guards of the Iland were sent thither unpurpose to raise a prejudice upon the Treaty that so they might have some plausible Pretence to except against an Agreement by it Secondly Because if the King comes in with the Reputation of having long sought Peace by a Personal Treaty he will be looked upon as the Repairer of Broaches the Restorer of Trade Peace and Plenty and if the Army should keep up as it must to be maintained by Taxes then the Houses and they would be lookâ—ed on as Opprâ—ssors and so the Jealousies and Discontents of the People be raised and 〈◊〉 against them and make them apt to joyn Issue with the Kings Interest again against the Publike Let the World take notice of this strange way of Arguing Because the King is like to be hugg'd and beloved by his People therefore they cannot trust Him but fear by His Interest in their Afflictions they may be called to Accompt for all their Doings Observe likewise that they make it their Interest to keep their King in prison the Kingdom out of Settlement and the People in perpetual Taxes and Payments to support these their Taskmasters in their new established Tyranny in opposition to His Majesty So that the People of England so long as they have no King shall have neither Trading Peace nor Plenty Thirdly they insinuate how easie it is not onely for a Prince to make a Breach to the prejudice of the publike Interest but also the hazard of those that ingaged for it against Him by making use of the Peoples Affections after an Accommodation For they say 't is possible the People may yield them up a sacrifice to appease the King and his inraged Party Here indeed the shoe wrings Them and the Curse of Cain pursues Them supposing their Iniquities are greater then can be forgiven and being of the same Faith with the Italian Atheist that Injuries done to Princes may sleep a while in their mâ—mories but revive again sooner or later as they finde an Opportunity to Revenge Them Some Examples there are indeed of this Nature but very few among the Princes of this Nation The most notorious Rebellion next to this that ever was in our Iland happened against Henry the third whose sufferings were parallel to those of King CHARLES in every point He was bandied against in Parliament driven thence forced to Surrender the Royal Authority into the hands of twenty four Persons taken Prisoner and carried up and down in an Army afterward was confined close upon the very same Pretences and so continued till the People being tired out by the new Tyrants in Arms and Taxes he recovered their Affections and His Crown both together And now when the chief Ring-leaders expected nothing but Revenge from their abused Prince He pardoned those lives which were forfeited to His Mercy not so much as one man of them being executed but had a general Act of oblivion and liberty to sue out their Pardons upon very moderate Fines of which incomparable piece of Clemency that ancient Record called Dictum de Kenelworth remains a Monument to this day And though the Beateseus of our Age being conscious of their heinous guilt might hope as little for pardon as those their Elder Brethren yet I am confident were our King restored to His pristine power they should all of them the worse of them even the very Cromwelites among them taste of the same Bounty and Mercy For look upon him impartially in all the Passages of his life and you may dismisse him with a Quo nihil in terris clementius aspicit aether even with this Character that the world cannot produce a more rare patern of piety patience and humanity But suppose that we grant all they pretend to That King 's are such faithlesse Creatures as they would make them and that our King intended to make a Breach hereafter and to recover that by Fraud which he lost by Force and to be revenged c. yet what ground of Iealousie will be left when their safety is so fairely provided for in the Propositions of both Houses For if there be an Agreement upon them his Maiâ—sty it is apparent to all the world must return so naked and devested of all power and with his hands so tyed behind him that he will remaine no more but a Cipher of Kingly power not able to help himself or friends and become far lesse than Buchanan's King or a Duke of Venice He will not have so much as a voice in the Senate nor an Office in the Common-wealth nor so much Power left as the meanest petty Constable further than his Guardians shall be pleased to indulge him his Person and regall Authority being wholly surrendred up to them in Wardship Hence then we may justly conclude against the sence of the Remonstrance that were the King led by principles of Falshood and Revenge yet being so bound up in point of power by the Propositions it will be safe as well as iust for the Houses to make an Agreement with him by the Treaty I am sure it must be done one time or another why then not now an Accommodation with the King being the only Basis of a settlement in the Nation except the Houses have so little courage as to comply with our Remonstrants and let it continue no longer a Kingdome but change the whole Frame of Government and turn all
a good conscience fight against them both By these fore going Passages then it appeares plainly to the shame of this Râ—monstrance First that the Army first sought to the King and not he to them Secondly that their dealings with the King were pretended as high and absolute for his Interest as ever were the indeavours of his own party And lastly That their only aim in all this was to give advantage to suppresse the Presbyterian party and advance their own and then to cast off the King and domineer over him and his People This last Particular will be more cleare by that saying of Cromwell's in his Chamber at Kingston when he had plaid all his Prankes and brought his design to perfection That he knew nothing to the contrary but that himself was as able to govern the Kingdom as Hollis and Stapleton did before him So that you see Dominion and Rule was the only end of this unparallel'd Hypocrisie he and his Son Ireton being both apt Schollars of Machiavell and follow his rules who counsells those that meane to effect great matters to make small reckoning of keeping their words and to know by their craft to turn and wind men about Also that such men ought not to keep their faith given when the observance there of turnes to the disadvantage of their designes and the occasions that made them promise are once past Likewise that it is advantagious to seeme pittifull faithfull mild religions and of integrity and indeed to be so Provided they be of such a composition that if need require them to use the contrary they can and know how to apply themselves thereto and now and then to doe contrary to faith charity humanity and religion and to have a mind so disposed as to turn and take the advantage of all winds and fortunes These are Maximes which the godly ones of our Age have thriven by this is the Gospel which our new Saints have practised to attaine unto this height of Tyrannys And now nothing will satisfie but the destruction of that gracious Prince to whom they made such high promises Hee must be brought to the Block to secure their Ambition or else have at the Parliament For it is a professed Maxim of their own as Maior Huntington hath discovered That it is lawfull to passe through any formes of Government for the accomplishing of their ends and therefore either to purge the Houses and support the remaining Party by power everlastingly or put a period to them by Force Nor doth Maior Huntington only discover this but themselves do as good as declare thus pag. 45. when they make another Argument against the safety of an Accommodation with his Maiesty because say they if the King return and this Parliâ—ment continue long and unlimited he will be able to make a party among them Nay say they he hath bid fair for it among the Commons already the Lords are his own out of question therfore we dare not trust the King among them which is as much as to say that if they close with the King they shal not sit any longer but be dissolved by Force which must be looked for at last it being a necessary preparative to that devilish design of bringing al under the military power that is the Power of themselves and their Creatures And therefore it is that they declare for a dissolution of this Parliament after a certaine time and they will so order the matter that the next Parliament ensuing shall be altered from the fundamentall Forme to be meerly popular and none but those of their own Faction to be elected and then farewel for ever the glory of the kingdom But more of this by and by when I come to examine the severall Propositions in the close of their Remonstrance Their last Argument against the safety of an Accommodation by this Treaty is because no Provision is made by the Houses against the Impunity of Kings in time to come so as that they may remaine accountable for their Actions and lyable to Iustice or against the Impunity of this King in particular which they conceive would be the only meanes of security to themselves and the publique and here they take occasion to inveigh against those maxims of our Law that say the King can doe no wrong which were founded upon the same equitable Considerations of Policie in our own as in other Kingdoms it having been presumed ever by all Legislators That Kings who are the common Fathers of the people cannot be so unnaturall as to doe any thing willingly to their preiudice and that if by accident they did yet for the reverence due to royall Maiesty it should rather be imputed to the ill Councell of those about them than their own Inclination forasmuch as if a Soveraign Prince should be left lyable to Accompt in a Criminall way it would introduce confusions in government and the putting it once in execution would bring more dammage and Inconveniences upon the Common-wealth than all the Enormities and Tyrannies he could commit throughout his whole Reigne Upon which considerations it is that all wise Statesmen of our own and other Nations have reckoned Impunity as a part of the Princes Prerogative and inseparable from his Crown and Dignity And therefore away with the vanity of these puny Politicians whom nothing will satisfie but that transcendent piece of Treason on which the Jesuits themselves durst never venture to bring the sacred persons of Kings to publique tryall and Execution Having heitherto driven on the designe of their Remonstrance not upon matter of equity but Iealousies concerning their own security and prosecuted it so farre as that to save themselves from supposed afterclaps of Revenge they make it lawfull to destroy their Prince they in the next place proceed to answer what may be obiected against this Course from the Covenant which binds all that have taken it to the preservation of the Kings person and Authority This they say is not to be understood absolutly but in a way subordinate to Religion and the publique Interest which were the principall and supreme matters ingaged for by Covenant as appeares by that Clause viz. In the preservation of the true Religion and liberties of the kingdoms It hath been alwayes feared that some such use would be made one time or other of that clause of the Covenant And therefore it was that many learned and pious men refused the taking of it witnesse those incomparable Reasons of the Vniversity of Oxford against it among which this is one that they knew not what construction might be put upon that large clause to the preiudice of his Maiesties royall person and authority But though they indeavour to make a nose of wax of it and turne it any way by interpretations most suitable to their Antimonarchicall principles and Designs yet they cannot found any pretence thereupon to subvert the Lawes of the Land and Fundamentall constitutions of the Kingdome the Covenant obliging in
Lady Mary Queen of Scots our Kings Grandmother so likewise is his own case at present being at the mercy of a mercilesse petty Faction that have usurped the power of the Kingdome into the power of their hands cry up their own corrupt Interest to be the Interest of the Kingdome Themselves to be the People and so by a new kind of Logick conclude him to be the publique Enemy of the People and a Tyrant because they have no way to establish their own Tyranny but by destroying His Person under pretence of Justice and cashiere Kingly Government to introduce a new Forme of their owne wherein themselves will be Princes In order whereunto it is and not out of any consideration of equity for in this there can be none that they would bring His Majesty to publique Execution because they well know this one stroke would give the fatall Blow to Monarchy For it would take away the very life of Majesty which consists in the Impunity or exemption from penall Statutes Subject a King once to be judged and condemned by the People upon any pretence whatsoever then it followes presently that the power is declared in their Hands and so the Kingly Government is defunct and changed ipso facto to a popular And therefore it is apparent that the Army by Remonstrating against their King and demanding Him thus to Justice intend no lesse then the ruine of Monarchy and the rearing up of a kind of a military-democraticall Forme of Government which by abolishing our old Lawes and leaving none but that of the Sword must needs be absolutely Tyrannicall over our Estates Lives and Liberties This is the true drift of their first Proposition Give ear and regard O ye Commons of England lest under a specious pretence for the Liberty of the People which Cromwell himself once called a meer Chimaera and a thing not to be contended for ye be drawne into Parricide and perpetuall Slavery Nor doe they rage only against the Person of the King but in the second Proposition they endeavour to shake off His Posterity and therefore they propound these harsh Conditions concerning the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York either to yeild themselves up to their mercy at a certaine day to acquit themselves of their Capitall Delinquency as they call it or else to be at their discretion whether they shall follow their Royall Father to the Shambles These are fine Conditions for the two Princes to be summoned in upon are they not But knowing these wil never be accepted this Summons is but pretended to blear the eyes of the People and insinuate their Guilt if they refuse to appear that so they may exclude the next Heires of the Crown the more plausibly in order still to their designe of changing the Government And therefore it is likewise that in this Proposition they demand the Revenue of the Crown may continue still in Hucksters hands and the Pomp of it be suspended to make amends they say for publique Debts which are all in the Pockets of their Faction and repaire the losses of the People but indeed to be shared among them and their Creatures who usurpe the name and reputation of the PEOPLE all which whosoever seriously considers will see these things are but preparatory to the cashiering of Kingly Government In Order to this designe still it is also That in the third and fourth-Propositions they demand the bringing of His Majesties Principall Friends to the Block not reckoning themselves safe as long as their Heads are on their shoulders And for the rest that have served Him though they claw with them in pressing that moderate Fines may be set upon them for Delinquency yet they deprive them of their native Birth-rights so long as shall seeme good unto these new Conquerors and so they shall be no more but in the condition of Slaves to this insolent Faction all over the Kingdome And thus you see what is the designe and like to be the Issue of their pretended publique Justice Next they proceed to propound towards the Settlement of the Kingdome both in relation to the Parliamentary and Kingly power in time to come First as the Parliamentary they demand That some reasonable and certaine period may be set to this Parliament by which time that Supreme Trust in them may return unto the People That is themselves and their Faction for They only will be the People But the People of England may do well to consider that the King being outed of all Power there is no visible Authority left at present but that in the two Houses who are now the only Bulwarks against military Tyranny and the dissolving them before the King be re-invested will leave us all in the power of the Army and then as that Leveller Major White said at Putney in the Generall Councell for he knew it was designed then and could not chuse but utter it there will be no visible Authority left in the Kingdome but the power of the Sword which will introduce a new Parliament of its own Creatures as appeares by what followes wherein they exclude all from the power of Election or being elected that are not of their Faction And so farewell the Government and glory of our Nation For proof of this observe next what they propound concerning the Sucession of future Parliaments First that none shall be capable of electing or being elected that have ingaged against the publique Interest nor any that oppose them in this Agreement Secondly that Elections may be so distributed as to render the House of Commons as near as may be a Representative of the whole People and that the certainty of the Peoples meeting to Elect may be provided for So farewell the ancient Legall way of Electing by the Kings Writ or Summons it being inherent in the Prerogative of all Kings to call and dissolve the Supreme Assemblies If this course also be taken to give all men voices in Electing then it will seldome happen that they wil ever agree which will be the cause of innumerable Riots and Confusions at every Election Thirdly That it be declared that the Representatives of the People by them Elected shall have the Supreme Trust and Power as to making of Lawes So farewell the Negative Voice of the King and Nobility and with it the Ancient and Legall Constitutions of Parliament Lastly They propound that our Kings in time to come may be Elective and upon their Coronation disclaime any Negative Voice to the determinations of the said Representatives and subscription to this Agreement And so instead of Kings they would set up meere Scare-crowes of Royaltie But alas this is to amuse the People with the name of King when as they intend no such matter for an Elective Kingship without a Negative Voice is none at all it being a received Maxim among all Polititians That there is a necessity the Supreme Power should reside in the hands of one or of few or of many