relations so that where blood and the nearest consanguinity can not find security of councel and action it is in veine for a Prince to hold himselfe safe in many councellors great emperours Princes and generals in these our dayes who have made use of councellors as to heare the opinions of every on of them but they had never effected such great attempts as they did had they not kept the result of al in there owne harts until the very houre which they intended the enterprize may I be on ce blessed with the sight of your Majesty I shal be more plaine in my expressions then now I am for that I ossend some so much that this poore booke could not find a presse until the soarings were a little clipped and if by my expressions and confessions which I shal then lay open to your Majestyes judgement Ishal not irritate your displeasure but merit your gracious pardon it wil engage mee too make the greater discovery es which I shal for beare to any what ever but my owne Prince But thus much I shal presume on in the interim that your Majesty be cautions of some neare you and then feare not those farre from you And let this be a cave at to the Dutch for no question if it be possibly to corrupt any of there greatest States which God for bid those of Westminster wil not be wanting to the ut most of there endeavours and stocks which England with greife may say are to great great Prince cast of such sychophants as I sayd already whose persons are with your Majesty and there harts in the treasury of your enemies looke on those I bee seech your Majesty on my knees that have lost there fathers brothers and kindred nay al there estates for doeing you service and your roy al father I say cast not not of your nobility and true harted gentry they have ever beene formerly accounted ornaments to a crowne the on and propps thereunto the other and al of most honourable respects in a republicke Although I must confesse in these our latter dayes even as some deadly hem locke hath appeared in fertile ground and the richest ore hath beene digged out of barren soyle even so hath vertuons and honourable spirits proceeded from meane parentage and appeared so in your service and base and ignoble discended from Honourable progenitors who have formerly appeared as starres for there Princes but now gone out as snusses of candles against them wherefore wel sayd a holy man nobility of birth maney times begets ignobility of mind and untimely honour hinders many from honourable attempts but to such nobility and such councellours I conclude thus which I desire may be a caveat to the remaining honest of Lords and privy councellors that greatnesse can not exempt them from the vengeance of God nor al the wealth in the Parliaments treasury bye them there from which commandement contrary to there knowledge and conscience that they should honour God and be true to ther King they doe thus presumptuously transgresse which is neither Gods commandement cannot deterre nor Gods Word advise them nor his judgements feare them I wil say as Saint John writes in the 12. Chap. of the revolations the 11. verse he which is fylthy let him by fylchy still Wherefore most gracious Sr I be seech you to leave such councellours in time least your Majesty be left by them in the lurch A stander by many times sees more then he that playeth as your Majesty hath beene too often already Now gracious King be pleased too give a poore subject of your Majestyes leave to set downe a few advertisements for the procuring your owne rights and Kingdoms And first of al Sr I be seech your Majesty as to descend so much as to addresse your selfe to your people in a he avenly way of peace and goodnesse by way of declerations and remonstrances making there in a Covenant with God to follow your vowes and protestations made or to be made to your subjects although they have beene stubborne and stisse necked hitherto against you yet behold and see what the Lord God of hosts may doe with there harts for great Sr thinke not to overcome them by sword so easily as by word no no they have beene so long embrueng there hauds in bloods on af another that there harts are hardned against forra igners you may bring in they may be sooner smitten with your assuance to them that as you redeme your rights carefully you wil not only spend them wisely but that you wil first of all settle the protestant religion amongst them in the purity therof according to the best reformed churches that when your Majestyes time shal come when you must give an account to the King of Kings of your vicegerency and Steward ship the God of al Gods may say to you welcomely Euge bone serve and give your gracious selfe a Crowne of glory which shal never fal from the head of your Majesty and that your people may have just cause to mourne for suchan earthly losse and rejoyce that you are els where in glory remaining for ever hereafter which that your Majesty may attaine unto here and hereafter God of his mercy graunt Amen 2. Next that your Majesty promise to rule over them with love and not by feare the loving way of government being easy and safe but Tyranny is ever accompanied with care and terror O Sr carry this saying in your breast Ama impera Qui terret plus ille timet sors illa Tyranno convenit And truly Deare Sr. could your Majesty be but quiet a while longer your gracious selfe should soone see this saying sulfilled in the now oppressours of your people there exorbitant oppressions wil force the oppressed to take an advantage of shaking of the yoke they are now under as not being able to beare any longer neither wil Gods justice suffer the sway which is grounded on there cruel Tyranny to continue Now to these two principles which I begge your Majesty to harken unto let mee speake to my country men concerning them Remember fellow commoners that you by Gods ordinance and humane lawes are the true and lawful subjects of this King who now you deraine his rights and your owne due obdience from For heis your naturally borne King and these you now yeild obedience unto in al there false edicts have surruptiously gotten the stasse of government over you and accordingly usurpe there authority under pretence they have gotten it by conquest but alas they have not conquered there King nor you but it was you that conguered your selves in conquering your Prince and those you fought against Next remember good country men and repent as you wil answer at the dreadfull day of judgement when al your now usurping rulers and your actions of treason and murthers must be accounted for of your holding downe your Prince by the haire of the head whilst these bloodsucking rulers cut it of from
more of truth then wonder which the church of God mourneth for such discords where in her best earthly Saints lye murthered by you religion through out the world accuseth your errors and you who seeme to be professours accuse religion by which meanes Heretickes Schismatickes and Blasphemors Turkes insidels and pagans in sult over Gods children and al of you over the church But wherefore have you thus betrayed the honour of God and battered his inheritance O looke ye vipers what Kazienzen saith ubi nost est pax non est Mundus But I feare the saying of Iehu is upon you what have you to doe with peace The people have just cause to say of you nay God himselfe may say you Hatter him with your praiers and wound him with your swords you have the voyce of Iacob but the hands of Esau the visage of innocent Abel but the harts of murtherous Cain for you have made bonefires of whole townes in the 3. Kingdomes and exhibited emblemes of your inflamed minds to the world and al at the same time when you seeme to congratulate your thankefulnesse to the Lord but in these things you make God your stalking horse for whilst you seeme to burne in cense whole townes are turned in to smoake O your weapons reake not with the blood of Turkes but in the hartbloods of your native King and fellow subjects O what a miserable resolution have you cloathed your selves with even to destroyall rather then be destroyed Are you to be called ministers of State are you to be called peace makers and physitians of a commonwealth no rather to be called firebrands of a Kingdome or in more law like termes States barrators who have blasted the happinesse of 3. Kingdomes by your litigious Iuglings and you have deluded the people thereof into an universal sorrow and complaint groaning under the heavy pressures of your taxations being tilted as empty barrels in there fortunes by your avaritious and arbitrary exactions And those who have escaped your swords you have bereaved of there estates which must cause famine inevitably to depopulate by lingring deathes others who escaped and yet under your power live as in apresse under your tyrannous calamity So that al not only being sequestred from light and conversation of that which concernes there soules but are also sequestred from there country habitations that they are in a worse condition then the soules of the ayre neither having rest nor food you are not only sufficed here with but your thirsty blood sucking soules like the lapathae and Centaures who in warring seeke nothing but warre such are your haughty minds that you thirst after the blood of your neibouring countryes of Scotland and Ireland nay those being dry land territories can not quench your thirsts wherefore you make warre on the seas and with those who were at peace with al the world until such time as your pride forceth them to adfence and I doubt not but they being borne under awatery climate may satiate your bloody Stomackes and the Sulphering heat of your bound lesse consciences with water enough which the Lord of hosts grant they may cutt of as a curse from the earth and make good the saying of the Apostle Cutt them downe cut them downe why cumber they the ground Now according to my promise let mee whisper a word or two to my blind ignorant and wilful countrymen to such as when there King having so often ventured his life for the saving theres they like barbarians and the worst of heathens requited good with evil O countrymen remember Worcester businesse and remember that from the first entrance of his Majesty out of Scotland through great dangers and hardship by carlile and so a long to Worcester that not 3. hundred of you came into the assistance casting of al duty and allegiance to your Prince but contrarily you stocked into the helpe of those that you cry dayly tyrannizeth over you whose confusions in your cuppes you drinke and the health and prosperity of your Prince yet you are the first that would cutt his Majestyes throat for did you not endeavour it at Worcester when you came to the assistance of Cromwel by Thousands and when that your King had lost the day you were worse enemies to his nobility and gentry then any of Cromwels men nay you hunted after the life of his then dis comfited Majesty like as the hunter doth after his prey raping and plundering al before you beating the braines out of the meaner sort and hurrying the greater after you had sufficiently robbed them to some traiterous committee or other for are ward O Country-men thinke you not that you must answer for these in humane bloody acts for these robberies and murthers you then formerly have committed contrary to the commandements of thou shalt not steale thou shallt doe no murther Who is it for that you have runne a hazard of damnation of bodyes and soules it is even for those whose power can be no other by the lawes of God and man then a robbed usurping power so that other nations have just cause now to say Quales Magistri tales servi But he hold and read there petition presented to his Majesty whom they wilfully murthered on the 16. day of Iuly 1642. there you shal find that these usurpers then called God of heaven and earth to witnesse that they would defend his Majesty from all harmes and dangers etc. and that they would confirme your lawes and redeeme your lost liberties veiw likewise his Majestyes reply to this petition that he should not count himselfe safe until they had layd downe there armes and delivered up his townes and magazines which they detained from him and that the tumults of London were suppressed then veiw the replication of these now usurpers to that replication dated the 29. of Iuly That they desired his then Majesty to accept of this there just reply that they could not discharge the trust reposed in them for the safety of the King and Kingdome marke that country men King and Kingdome neither could they yeeld to these demands of his Majestyes for say they in that replication they tooke up armes and the possession of such townes and maguzines for the security of religion the safety of his Majestyes person of the Kingdome and Parliament all which they saw to be in most eminent danger Marke againe al these resolutions and there in they likewise desire that the King would returne to his court af whitehal assuring him that his royal person should be as safe there as in any other place they having assurance of the loyalty of the city of London to his Majesty and to that purpose they have taken care to prevent al danger which his Majesty may justly apprehend Countrymen by this petition and the 2. replications with the order of Parliament made there on Die Iovis Iul. 30. 1642. ordered by the Lords assembled in Parliament that the petition and replication of the
and as plyny writeth An acreon was choaked with the stone of a Raysin and Marius with a haire in a messe of milke yea I read of Plinie himselfs perished by a stronge fire of mount Vevesus Whilst he was seeking to know the reason thereof some ends there lives in laughing as Valerius Maximus others by sneezing and as I began with a King of England I wil end with a King of England whom weread was buggered with a hot spitt through a horne into his fundament up into his body but this was a cruel act of privacy but never did you read or heare of any Prince or King murthered after such a manner as Charles the I. was on the 30. day of Ianu. 1648. about 2. of the clocke in the afternoone niether did I ever heare or read of any Kings or princes so much laid snares for so much betrayd as there have beene together vide King Iames King Charles the I. and King Charles the II. And if you wil force me to beleive there hath I must confesse there hath beene tracheries which haue beene acted against Kings and Princes but stil have beene discovered before execution as Caesar whose life was taken from him as he was goeing to the senate house yet it was discovered to him in a letter before if he had read it to have beleeved it so many plotts there was against the late Queene Elisabeth some dangerous ons against King Iames but put them altogether they reach not at the throngs of treacheries in this our age For the cheifest of your Royal Fathers Nobility Dread Soveraigne and gentry nay whom he made Noble and whom he preserved from perishing nay let mee goe higher some whom he by his gracious goodnesse redeemed from death which they were condemned unto by Iustice for treason against him selfe and others formurther These very people being chosen councellours to him not only betrayed him from there very beginning of there trusts reposed in them as to the loosing his peoples harts but also in the renting his Kingdomes and al the territories thereunto belonging from him and his posterity nay not resting there but in the conclusion casting of the name of treachery they presumed to take away his life under the colour of Iustice by a Pylate and pharisaical judges openly to condemne him in the same Hal whre they should justly haue died formerly and then executed there cruel murther on him at the gates of his owne court and onascaffold openly in the face of his owne people as if he had beene a traitor to himselfe nay they cutt his sacred life of in the most ignominous way that could be inmagined even as the greatest traitor that ever was since England received christrianty even by the hand of the common Hangman belonging to Tyburne O prodigious Monsters whose persons and actions shal be some what laid forth in this booke when I come to my advise to the poore blinded people but they are more at large painted out to the life in my booke intituled The banis hed mans complaint comming forth Should I begin at the sust of King Iames and so descend to this very day of al the treacheries which have beene acted at home in councels and a broad against the States of the 3. Kingdomes I should be in a laborinth and weary the readers patience wherefore I wil but cull out some remarkable on s and indeed but poynt at some of them enough for for your gracious Majesty to perseive what is meant in the whole Did not your royal Father of Blessed memory al though so crusified by his owne subjects put his whole trust of the managing the whole affaires of his Kingdomes in to the hands of his councel and was he not betrayed before ever a Parliament was called by some of them sworne privy councellers was it not plainely seene that there was a Spanish purse alwaies open a mongst them was not the Spanish faction moulded so high with the riches of the Indies that never since Queene Elizabeth died revenge could be endeavoured against the insolent but subtile Spaniard And was not there a French pox in other some of his councellours causing a rottennesse in there harts to the Keeping his then Maiesty from maiking warres regaining the lost claime of that Crowne and when at last some more honest then the rest did perswade an army to besent over did not then golden french Pistols by treacheary overcome the English Steele whose edge formerly was a terrour to al nations And with leave Great Prince was not your royal Father betrayed in al his privy councels councels of warre and in his very bedchamber at Yorke Shrewsbury and Oxford was there ever any thing of consiquence acted there in nay but spoke on or was ever designe but intended on his Enemies in the field or upon any Garrison but it was presently sent away to the General or Scontmaster General of his Enimies or to the Commander in cheife of the next Garison of Enemies or if time would premit to the committy of safety then sitting at Darby House was it not that your Fathers Enimies there treasury was greater then his they having the revenues of al his the Royal Queenes your then Princely selfe with your Brothers the Duke of Yorke and most of al the nobility and greatest gentery in the whole Kingdome besides there dayly assesments and loanes and subsidies with many other extraordinary taxes as excises of al things together with the infinite and vast summes of monyes raised on Bishops Deanes and chapters lauds enough to purhase whole Armyes Townes and Cities as in conclusion they did for were not thereby whole Armyes Cities Garisons of Townes and Forts sold to his then Maiestyes and now continuing yours are not the proverbes too too much veryfied in these latterdayes Monyes makes the mare to goe and an asse laden with gold shal enter in to the strongest city or towne what ever and the golden Key unlocke the strongest gates that are yes your Maisty sees and feeles the truth hereof For no sooner was the sacred life of your deare Father and our soveraigne taken away but immediatly messages weere sent to some about your sacred selfe for the holding of correspondency with them at Westminster which the very businesse of Bredah speakes something thereof for no sooner was anything done altough never so privatly thought but with in 3. dayes the whole result was at Whitehal that once a royal seat for our Kings and Queenes but now a denne of thieves which would have beene made good to your Maiesty by some what wished happinesse to you at the hague but truth was crusshed in the shel and those blasted for there good intentions But pardon mee Gracious Sr. that I am so plaine I most humbly beseech your gracious Majesty I must now goe a long with your Maiestyes councellours from Bredah into Schotland from whence I must tel your gracious goodnesse there was dayly postings betweene some of your
have enough to bestow on there owne edifices but nothing to bestow on the repairing the Temples of God but rather pulling downe the churches as they doe dayly amongst you reedifiing there owne buildings as it is in Agge the 1. and the 4. verse It is time for your selves to dwell in your houses and this house to lye waste O such wretched cormorants who doe not onely let the houses of God liewaste but utterly pul them downe and purchase lands with the spoyles thereof yet these sacrilegious persons are accounted by you good Christians yet you sticke and adhere to them who make there buildings as it is spoken in the 6. chap. of Ioshua and the 26. verse Not laying the foundations thereof in the blood of there bodyes but in the spoyle of there soules which God in the conclusion wil make them as swallowes nests which in the winter fall downe of themselves and wil you yet thinke upon such people wil you stil deny your obedience to your King who would there on doe as Noah did after the stood who built an alter to the Lord Gen. the 8. and the 20. verse I wil here conclude deare countrymen with this my last advise to thee Which is That thou forsake this pretended Parliament who have brought thee to this miserable condition that they have left no authority in England able to settle peace your lives fortunes being liable to there lustful wils by illegal accusations blanke impeachments threatning declarations who have put out the eyes of the Kingdome the two universities of Oxford Cambridge knowing that learning is a steppe to Religion both to your lawes liberties and al enemies to there barbarons irrational and illegal way of Government al which when you tooke part first with these members wee that have Christianity doe beleive that you were seduced by these faire pretences of defending Religion King lawes and liberties which they first held to you and you thereby being unwilling to have a Parliament conquered by the sword and consequently your selves and you not thinking that they could so farre prevaricate as to conspire against King Parliament and your selves to the utter subversion of al lawes liberties and the fundamental Government of the Land betraying religion unto Heretickes and Schismatikes sharing the spoyles of 3. Kingdomes betweene them now resolving to enrich themselves more in forraigne Lands I say that as my selfe was once at the first blinded you my countreymen had no intention they should be so farre intrusted as you have found to your greife they have engaged you before you were aware but thinke it not yet too late to draw backe your feet and yet stippe the bridle out of your mouthes with which bit they thinke they have you at there checke having girt the saddle so fast to your galled backes and they as ranke riders mounted who have not only spurred you out of your estates lawes and liberties but wil spurre you into hel by new oathes Treasons Covenants c. If you take not the more heed and be not the more resolute for now they have Squeezed what they can out of the Kings party they cal them home beginning to make up there bottomelesse vessels ful out of your estates who have beene there freinds Now I have shewed you the Lyon whome they hunted after the Lord of the forrest not only to be sicke and weake and so become a prey to them he is not only goared by the oxe bitten by madd doggs and kicked by Asses and as our saviour was spittedon by pharises but even as our saviour was become a prey and crusified for our sinnes so was your King for your lawes liberties and the sinnes of the whole three Kingdomes Now to al Christian Princes I speake to you especially of blood or the same religion which this martired King Charles the first was Looke I say you neibouring Kings and Princes upon this sad example unheard of President and unparelled violence and the Lord graunt you may apply it to your owne soules and lay your councels and forces in conjunction to make examples of such murtherous subjects thereby you shal not only feare your owne people from the like attempt but reestablish him who no doubt may be able to helpe any of your greatnesses in such or any other distresse and I am confident wil be willing to his utter most power And you wil have O Princes the hearts and praiers of al our gracious Kings leidge people in his three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland for your redemption of them likewise from slavery and bondage to which I cry Amen FINIS THE EPILOGUE And declaration of the penman Most Gracious Souveraigne TO shew your gracious Majesty that I love my country so much that I could devote my selfe to death for it as the Decij in Rome have done and that I resolve to be such Quem neque pauperies neque mors neque vincula terrent I in the presence of God and in the name of al the freeborne commoners of England doe declare that there is no legal Parliament in England nor lawful Government in Scotland and Ireland that there is not 495. Commoners by names of Knights and Burgesses neither is there a house of Lords nor is there a King with out any of which by the knowne lawes of England petition of right by which Kings formerly knew what was theres and the subjects theres nor by there ordinances remonstrances and declarations made in the yeares 1642. 1643. where in they declared they intended not neither could they make law without his them Majestyes consent I doe farther protest against those arbitrary exacting and usurping few members remaining at Westminster that what ever they have done or shal doe as thay now are is void and null by law ab initio and of none of effect by there owne doctrines and judgements declared in there ordinance made by them the 20. of August 1647. where in they made void ab initio al votes ordinances and orders passed by the then Lords and Commons from the 26. of Iuly 1647. to the 6. of August following when there speaker with some other renegadoes of them huried away to the army then at Windsor and this faith I resolve to live and die in as Your Majestyes loyal subject Wendy Oxford