killed upon no provocation women and maids ravished and their fingers cut off for their rings old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the privities others tortured and had burning matches tied to their fingers to make them confess where their money was women and children and sick and aged persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the fields and barns their sheep cattel and provisions devoured houses ruined or burnt and their horses that should help to plough and do other works of husbandry taken away in so much as some were inforced to blinde and put out their horses eyes that they might not be taken from them Churches that escaped defacing prophaned and made Stables or Gaoles or Victualing or Bawdy houses Monuments defaced and Sepulchers opened as were those of the Saxon Kings at Winchester and the Priests and Ministers not so much as suffered to weep betwixt the Porch and the Altar but their benefices and livelyhoods taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places had their bookes burned and all their means and maintenance plundred from them and those that were newtrals and medled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could either totally undone or cast in prison not for that they did them any hurt but because they might do it and if they were not imprisoned their Lands Money or goods were sure to be in the fault and taken away from them u Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur necesse est ut adsit intentio bona There ought to be a good intention to make the War conscionable which in this appears to fail also For the Charge against the five Members is now as true as it was then they meant to ruine the King and they have done it and to alter the Government and subvert the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and they have done a great part of it and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder x Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus honestis ne salutem quidem turpibus We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by honest and lawful means and not to do soul and dishonest things to procure our safety from which they made fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use of to usher in their pretences their faining of victories and scandaling the King and his actions not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets Battels Towns and Garrisons and making too many Judases of all that were about him will hardly be able to free them or if they could the making use of men and money intended for the support of Ireland and leaving them wallowing in their blood for seven yeares together whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them violating of their oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which many of their members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oathes taken in their Protestation and Nationall Covenant and not so few as one hundred solemn promises and undertakings in their severall Petitions Remonstrances and Declarations forcing the People to take the Protestation and Covenant and compel them as soon as they had taken it to break them and by cousening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries cheat them out of their Religion Loyalty Laws and Liberties will be sure enough to condemn them and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladâ—staus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensigne of publique detestation in the battel wherein he slew him invoked the God of the Christians to help him to revenge so great a treachery there will be more reason now for all that are but Christians or but pretend to any morality to carry in their banner the pourtraict of the Kings bleeding head as it was cut from His shoulders and make War in revenge of the masterpiece and totum aggregatum of all maner of wickedness and perfidiousness who besides all their own and the peoples oaths taken to defend him when those they called Delinquents some few onely which were specially named and excepted for obeying the known Laws of the Land as well as their Oaths and Consciences were never questioned for their lives but suffered to compound for their Estates would not suffer the King that was neither a Delinquent or Excepted Person to enjoy either His Life or Estate though to save his people and keep them from killing one another He had yielded himself and became a Prisoner upon the publique faiâ—h of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland Pax aequa non est recusanda licet victoriae spes adsit y saith Besoldus A good or fitting Peace is not to be refused though the victory were certain And in this also the Parliament will be as far to seek for a justification as in the other For in stead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it they caused men and women in the first year of their War to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a Peace and in the third and fourth year of their War plundred and robbed others that petitioned them but to hearken to it and put out of office and made all as Delinquents in the seventh year of their War that did but petition them for a Treaty with the King and refused all the Kings many very many Messages for Peace not onely when He was at the highest of His success in the war but when he was at the lowest and a prisoner to them and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadful day of Judgement to pity the bleeding conditions of His Kingdoms and people and send propositions of Peace unto Him and quarters and half years and more then a whole year together after the battel of Naseby insomuch as their fellow Rebels the Scotch Commissioners did heavily complain of it were at several times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready though those which they sent to Oxford Uxbridge Newcastle and Hampton-Court were but substantially and materially the same with their nineteen Propositions which they made unto the King before the Earl of Essex was made their General and in all the Treaties made Propositions for themselves and the Soveraignty and great offices and places of the Kingdom but would neither for Gods sake or their Kings sake or their Oaths or Consciences sake or the Peoples sake or Peace sake which the people petitioned and hungred and thirsted for alter or abate one Iota or tittle of them but were so unwilling to have any Peace at all as six or seven Messengers or Trumpeters could come from the King before they could be at leisure or so manerly as to answer one of them but this or that Message from the King was received and read and laid by till a week or when they would after and the Kings Commissioners in the Treaties must
VERITAS INCONCUSSA OR A most certain Truth asserted THAT KING CHARLES THE FIRST Was no MAN OF BLOOD But a MARTYR For His People Together with a sad and impartial enquiry whether the King or Parliament began the War which hath so much ruined and undone the Kingdom of England and who was in the defensive part of it By FABIAN PHILIPPS Esq Exoritur aliquod majus è magno malum Nondum ruentis Ilii fatum stetit SENEC Tragoed in Troade Act. 3. LONDON Printed by Richard Hodgkinson in the Year 1649. and reprinted by Thomas Newcomb and are to be Sold by William Place at Grayes-Inn-Gate 1660. Though CHARLES be added to their heaps of slain They cannot prove that Abel murder'd Cain He dy'd a Martyr for his Peoples good Vote what they can they 're guilty of his blood But their 's the sin His the eternall Glory And Truth commends to Time his lasting Story TO THE KING' 's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY Most Gracious Soveraign IT having been the Cardo quaestionis or too much a question betwixt your Royal Father and His Parliament to whom the sin of our late Civil Wars and miseries with the bloody and horrid consequences thereof did belong though without question He was no way guilty of it but was a Martyr and sufferer in it and the guilt and profit of that great and crying sin being so inlaid and riveted in the promoters thereof as it was not only by time and successes which are not seldom the encouragers and supporters of it become to be the interest of a great part of that Faction or people but to be miscalled Piety Religion good affection and Godliness it self and yet sticks as a Leprosie to those and their seed that were more wicked then the covetous but unbloody Gehazi and if God of his mercy do not cleanse them from it will transmit it with an impenitency to boote which we do not finde entailed upon Gehazi's to their posterities The ensuing vindication of your Royal Father that he was not the Contriver Author and Beginner of that War which hath so undone and Harassed these three Nations was for the most part written by me a little before His Martyrdom and finished and published about the moneth of April 1649. in the midst of a fiery persecution and ruining of all that did but act or write or do any thing on His behalf and now re-printed and come abroad again may if publiquely owned under your Majesties gracious Patronage after Your happy restauration and the peoples sense and sight of their sin and follies be more instrumental in the conviction converting of many of those misguided zelots or thriving sinners then it was or could be before they had tasted and been so long acquainted with miseries and release them out of the prisons of that self-conceitedness and opiniastretè wherein Satan hath cunningly lodged and imprisoned their deluded Souls making them believe that they are in the Church way to Heaven when as without a timely repentance they are but going down to the place of everlasting burnings and is now the more necessary for that no longer ago then in April last a printed and publique Address was as impudently as wickedly made by a Seditious party calling themselves the most faithful friends and servants in the Common-cause to the Lord General Monck and the Officers of the Army under his Command to perswade them upon false and mistaken grounds out of their Loyalty by telling them That though it were possible that they should forget the publique Interest and their own yet certainly God would not all the injuries and oppressions done by that Family which pretends to the Government of these Nations to His Church and people in these and other Nations And though the Inscription of Exit Tyrannus which was fixed over the place where the Statue of the late King formerly stood at the Exchange hath been blotted out by the Rabble yet it was written with the Pen of a Diamond in the hearts of many thousands and will be so hereafter in the Adamantine Roles of Fame and History And that one of the great Incendiaries and Capital Offenders could very lately and since the Parliaments voting of him to be excepted desire and make means for a Pardon but being put to shew his repentance by a publique retractation in order to the obtaining of your Majesties favor would rather be without it then forsake his former opinions and that there are too many amongst those many that made acclamations and seemed to rejoyce in Your Majesties return to Your Throne and most ancient and undoubted Rights who have not changed their Spots but counterfeiting Loyalty to get blessings they never deserved can outdo a Proteus or the greatest of Dissemblers and onely keep their vomit to make a Cordial of when they shall but espy an opportunity to lick it up again and think themselves as infallible as they fancied the Spirit to be which deluded them To convert whom if possible and those too too many who have exceeded the gain-sayings of Korah Dathan and Abiram been greater gainers by it and to lead them into the right way and guard as well as I could Piissimi Regis Cineres the ashes and memory of my late Soveraign from the violation scandals and injuries which those who are rightly called Phanaticks are never a weary to put and cast upon them hath been and is the design aswell as the duty of him who having not come in only at the eleventh hour but laboured all that he could in the other part of the morning or day in the vineyard of Loyalty shall never cease to be a lover and servant of that Truth and Reason which enjoyns it And Your MAJESTIES Loyal and Obedient Subject FABIAN PHILIPPS TO HENRY BELL A PRINTER Arrogating to himself to be the Author of this Book HENRY BELL YOu might have contented your self with that unjust and now too common liberty taken by some Printers and Booksellers in abusing of Authors Readers and People by a false imposition of names and many counterfeit pieces and selling of one thing for another which in the want and absence of the good and Kingly Government of England and a Court of Star-Chamber which in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr had limited the Printers in the City of London not to exceed the number of twenty two of which who were then named are now only left alive our late unruly and licencious Times allowed you for in our formerly well-ordered dayes of a peaceable subjection to a most gracious King Books were as in most other Kingdoms of Europe to be licenced before they could be printed and the Printers and Stationers knew not at least durst not put in practise those grand Cheates which of late too many of them have put upon the people nor did use as many tricks in their Trades as the devil could invent or provide for them by printing and publishing books manuscripts
it 192 CHAP. VIII VVHether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have got instead of them 205 ERRATA Which escaped the Press PAg. 120. l. 15. read their for they p. 118. l. 20. Saxon for Sixon p. 122. l. 22. interfere a. KING CHARLES The first No Man of Blood BUT A Martyr for his People THat there hath been now almost seven years spent in Civil Wars abundance of Blood-shed and more Ruine and Misery brought upon the Kingdom by it then all the several Changes Conquests and Civil Wars it hath endured from the time of Brute or the first Inhabitants of it every mans woful experience some onely excepted who have been gainers by it will easily assent unto No mervail therefore that many of those who if all they alledge for themselves that they were not the cause of it could be granted to be true might either have hindred or lessened it would now put the blame of so horrid a business from themselves and lay it upon any they can perswade to bear it And that the Conquerours who would binde their Kings in Chains and their Princes with fetters of Iron and think they have a Commission from Heaven to do it the guilt of it being necessarily either to be charged upon the Conquerors or conquered are not willing to have their triumphant Chayres and the glories as they are made believe that hang upon their shoulders defiled with it but do all they can to load their Captives with it But howsoever though the successe and power of an Army hath frighted it so far out of question as to charge it upon the King and take away his life for it by making those that must of necessity be guilty of the fact if He should have been as in all reason He ought to have been acquited of it the onely Judges of him It may well become the judgement and conscience of every man that will be but either a good Subject or a Christian not to lend out his Soul and Salvation so much on trust as to take those that are parties and the most ignorant sort of mens words for it but to enter into a most serious examination of the matter of Fact it self and by tracing out the footsteps of Truth see what a conclusion may be drawn out of it In pursuance whereof for I hope the original of this Sea of blood will not prove so unsearchable as the head of Nile we shall enquire who first of all raised the Feares and Jealousies Secondly represent set down the truth of the matter of Fact and proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the tumultuous and seditious coming of the People to the Parliament and Whitehall until the 25. Aug. 1642. when he set up his Standard at Nottingham and from the setting up of his Standard until the 13 Septemb. 1642. when the Parliament by their many acts of hostility and a negative and churlish answer to his propositions might well have put him out of hope of any good to be obtained from them by messages of Peace sent unto them Thirdly whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppresse or punish a rebellion of the People be tied to those rules are necessary to the justifying of a war if it were made between equals Fourthly suppose the war to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it Fifthly whether the Parliament in their pretended magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against insurrections treasons and rebellions as they are pleased to call them Sixthly who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it Seventhly who laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen it Eightly whether the Conditions proffered by the King would not have been more profitable for the People if they had been accepted and what the Kingdom and People have got in stead of it CHAP. I. Who first of all Raised the Fears and Jealousies THe desiring of a guard for the Parliament because of a tale rather then a plot That the Earl of Crawford had a purpose to take away the Marquis of Hamiltons life in Scotland the refusing of a legal guard offered by the King and His protestation to be as careful of their safety as of the safety of His Wife and Children The dream of a Taylor lying in a ditch in Finsbury fields of this and the other good Lord and Common-wealths-men to be taken away The training of horses under ground and a plague-plaister or rather a clout taken from a galled horse-back sent into the House of Commons to Mr. Pym A designe of the Inhabitants of Covent-Garden to murther the City of London News from France Italy Spain and Denmark of Armies ready to come for England and a supposition or feaverish fancy That the King intended to introduce Popery and alter Religion and take away the Laws and Liberties of the people and many other the like seditious delusions the People so much as their misery will give them leave have now found out the way to laugh at either came from the Parliament party or were cherished and turned into advantages by them For they had found the way and lost nothing by it to be ever jealous of the King And whilest he did all he could to shew them that there was no cause for it they who were jealous without a cause could be so cunning as to make all the haste they could to weaken Him and strengthen themselves by such kind of artifices But He that could not choose but take notice that there were secret ties and combinations betwixt his English and Scottish subjects the latter of whom the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax themselves understood to be no better then Rebels and therefore served in places of Command in His Majesties Army against them That Sir Arthur Haselrig had brought in a Bill in Parliament to take the Militia by Sea and Land away from him saw himself not long after by a printed Remonstrance or Declaration made to the People of all they could but imagine to be errours in his government arraigned and little lesse then deposed The Bishops and divers great Lords driven from the Parliament by Tumults Was inforced to keep his gates at White-hall shut and procure divers Captains and Commanders to lodge there and to allow them a table to be a guard for him and had been fully informed of many Trayterous Speeches used by some seditious mechaniques of London as that It was pitty He should raigne and that The Prince would make a better King was yet so far from being jealous or solicitous to defend himself by the sword and power which God had intrusted him with as when he had need and reason enough to do it he still granted them that he might not seem to deny what might but seem to be for the good
of his People every thing they could reasonably ask of him or he could but reasonably tell how to part with though he could not be ignorant but an ill use might be made of them against himself As the putting down of the Star-Chamber and high Commission Court the Courts of Honour and of the North and Welch marches Commissions for the making of Gunpowder allowing them approbation or nomination of the Lievetenant of the Tower and did all and more then all his Predecessors put together to remove their jealousies And when that would not do it stood still and saw the game plaid on further Many Tumults raised many Libels and Scandalous Pamphlets publiquely printed against His Person and Government and when he complained of it in Parliament so little care was taken to redress it as that the Peoples coming to Westminster in a Tumultuous maner set on and invited by Pennington and Ven two of the most active Mechanick Sectaries of the House of Commons it was excused and called a Liberty of Petitioning And as for the Libels and Pamphlets the licensing of Books before they should be printed and all other restraint of the printing presses were taken away and complaints being made against Pamphlets and Seditious books some of the Members of the House of Commons were heard to say The work would not be done without them and complaints being also made to Mr. Pym against some wicked men which were ill affected to the Government he answered It was not now a time to discourage their Friends but to make use of them And here being as many jealousies and fears as could possibly be raised or fancied without a ground on the one side against all the endeavours could be used on the other side to remove them We shall in the next place take a view of the matter of Fact that followed upon them and bring before you CHAP. II. The Proceedings betwixt the King and the Parliament from the Tumultuous and Seditious coming of the People to the Parliament and White-Hall till the 13. of September 1642. being 18 dayes after the King had set up His Standard at Nottingham WHen all the King could do to bring the Parliament to a better understanding of Him did as they were pleased to make their advantage of it but make them seem to be the more unsatisfied that they might the better mis-represent Him to the People and petition out of his hands as much power as they could tell how to perswade him to grant them and that he had proofs enow of what hath been since written in the blood and hearts of His People That the five Members and Kimbolton intended to root out Him and His Posterity subvert the Laws and alter the Religion and Government of the Kingdom and had therefore sent His Serjeant at Arms to demand their persons and Justice to be done upon them In stead of obedience to it an order was made a That every man might rescue them and apprehend the Serjeant at Arms for doing it which Parliament Records would blush at And Queen Elizabeth who was wont to answer her better composed Parliaments upon lesser occasions with a b Cavete ne patientiam Principis laedatis caused Parry a Doctor of the Civil Laws and a Member of the House of Commons by the judgement and advice of as sage and learned a privy Council and Judges as any Prince in Christendom ever had to be hanged drawn and quartered for Treason in the c old Palace of Westminster when the Parliament was sitting would have wondred at And 4 January 1641. desiring only to bring them to a legal tryal and examination went in Person to demand them and found that his own peaceable behaviour and fewer attendants then the two Speakers of the Parliament had afterwards when they brought a whole Army at their heels to charge and fright away eleven of their fellow Members had all maner of evil constructions put upon it and that the Houses of Parliament had adjourned into London and occasioned such a sedition amongst the People as all the Trained bands of London must guard them by Land when there was no need of it and many Boats and Lighters armed with Sea-men and murdering pieces by water and that unlesse He should have adventured the mischief and murder hath been since committed upon him by those which at that time intended as much as they have done since it was high time to think of his own safety and of so many others were concerned in it having left London but the day before upon a greater cause of fear then the Speakers of both Houses of Parliament in July 1647. to go to the Army retires with the Prince His Son whom the Parliament laboured to seise and take into their custody in His company towards York 8. January 1641. A Committee of the House of Commons sitting in London resolved upon the question d That the actions of the City of London for the defence of the Parliament were according to Law and if any man should arrest or trouble any of them for it he is declared to be an enemy to the Common-wealth And when the King to quiet the Parliament 12 Jan. 1641. was pleased to signifie that for the present he would waive his proceedings against the five Members and Kimbolton and assures the Parliament that upon all occasions He will be as careful of their Priviledges as of His Life or His Crown Yet the next day after they Declared the Lord Digby's coming to Kingston upon Thames but with a Coach and six horses in it e to be in a Warlike maner and disturbance of the Common-wealth and take occasion thereupon to order the Sheriffes of all Counties in England and Wales with the assistance of the Justices of Peace and trayned bands of the several Counties f to suppresse any unlawful assemblies and to secure the said Counties and all the Magazines in them 14 January 1641. g The King by a second Message professeth to them he never had the least intention of violating the least priviledge of Parliament and in case any doubt of breach of Priviledges remain will be willing to clear that and assert those by any reasonable way His Parliament shall advise him to But the Design must have been laid by or miscarried if that should have been taken for a satisfaction and therefore to make a quarrel which needed not they Order the morrow after a Charge and Impeachment to be made ready h against Sir Edward Herbert the Kings Attorney General for bringing into the House of Peers the third of that instant January by the Kings direction a Charge or Accusation against Kimbolton and five Members c. i In February 1641. Seize upon the Tower of London the great Magazine and Store-house of the Kingdom and set some of the trained bands of London commanded by Major General Skippon to guard it 1. March 1641. Petition for the Militia and tell
beginning of this Parliament accepted of one for the County of York Gave his People to understand That He had awarded the like Commissions into all the Counties of England and Dominion of Wales to provide for and secure them in a legal way lest under a pretence of danger and want of Authority from His Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should be drawn and engaged in any opposition against Him or His just Authority But 21 June 1642. e The Lords and Commons in Parliament Declaring The design of their Propositions of raising horse and moneys was to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Kings Authority and Person and that the Forces already attending His Majesty and His preparations at first coloured under the pretence of a guard being not so great a guard as they themselves had constantly for 6. moneths before did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary disign so as at this time also they do not charge the King with any maner of action of War or any thing done in a way or course of War against them and gave just cause of fear and jealousie to the Parliament being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make a War against their Soveraign did forbid all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and other Officers to publish His Majesties said Letter to the City of London And declare that if He should use any force for the recovery of Hull or suppressing of their Ordinance for the Militia it should be held a levying War against the Parliament and all this done before His Majesty had granted any Commission for the levying or raising of a man and lest the King should have any maner or provision of War to defend himself when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault Him Powder and Armes were every where seized on and Cutlers Gun-smiths Sadlers and all Warlike Trades ordered not to send any to York but to give a weekly account what was made or sold by them And an Order made the 24. day of June 1642. That the Horses which should be sent in for the Service of the Parliament when they came to the number of 60. should be trained and so still as the number increased 4. July 1642. The King by His Letter under His signe Manual commanded all the Judges of England in their circuits f to use all means to suppresse Popery Riots and unlawful assemblies and to give the People to understand His Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Kingdom and not to govern by any Arbitrary way and that if any should give the King or them to understand of any thing wherein they held themselves grieved and desired a just reformation He would speedily give them such an answer as they should have cause to thank Him for His Justice and favour But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parliament commanding g That no Sheriff Mayor Bayliff Parson Vicar Curate or other Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London not many dayes before having been imprisoned for proclaiming the Kings Proclamation against the bringing in of Plate c. should publish or Proclaim any Proclamation Declaration or other Paper in the Kings Name which should be contrary to any Order Ordinance or Declaration of both Houses of Parliament or the proceedings thereof and Order h That in case any forces should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the Peace thereof they should be suppressed by the Trained bands and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Hull whilest the King is at York i seizeth on a Ship coming to Him with provisions for His houshold takes Mr. Ashburnham one of the Kings Servants prisoner intercepts Letters sent from the Queen to the King and drowneth part of the Countrey round about the Town k which the Parliament allows of and promise satisfaction to the owners 5 July 1642. They Order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every Countey and list the Horse under Commanders and the morrow after Order 2000. men should be sent to relieve Sir John Hotham in case the King should besiege him to which purpose Drums were beat up in London and the adjacent parts to Hull The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance instructions drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lieutenants of the several Counties to tender the Propositions for the raising of Horses Plate and Money Mr. Hastings and divers of the Kings Commissioners of Array impeached for supposed high Crimes and misdemeanours and a Committee of five Lords and ten of the House of Commons ordered to meet every morning for the laying out of ten thousand pounds of the Guild-hall moneys for the buying of 700. Horse and that 10000. Foot to be raised in London and the Countrey be imployed by direction of the Parliament and the Lord Brook is furnished with 6. pieces of Ordinance out of the Tower of London to fortifie the Castle of Warwick And 9. July 1642. Order That in case the Earl of Northampton should come into that County with a Commission of Array they should raise the Militia to suppresse him And that the Common Councel of London should consider of a way for the speedy raising of the 10000. Foot and that they should be listed and put in pay within four dayes after 11. July 1642. l The King sends to the Parliament to cause the Town of Hull to be delivered unto Him and desires to have their answer by the 15. of that moneth and as then had used no force against it But m the morrow after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings Person and both Houses of Parliament and n those who have obeyed their Orders Commands in preserving the true Religion the Laws Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom and that they would live and dye with the Earl of Essex whom they nominate General in that Cause 12. July 1642. Declare That they will protect all that shall be imployed in their assistance and Militia And 16. July 1642. Petition the King o to forbear any preparations or actions of War and to dismisse His extraordinary guards to come nearer to them and hearken to their advice but before that Petition could be answered wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should be delivered to Him He would no longer have an Army before it and should be assured that the same pretence which took Hull from him may not put a Garrison into Newcastle into which after the Parliaments surprise of Hull He was inforced to place a Governour and a small Garrison He would also remove that Garrison and so as His Magizine and Navy
vvas ended and Shooting them to Death but for vvords or intentions And if this and many things more which might be said of it be not enough what means so many Sequestrations and the bleating and lowing of mens Sheep and Oxen taken away from them since the War was ended but for words spoken either for the King or against them husbands and fathers undone for what their wives or children did without their privity the Maior of London divers Aldermen Imprisoned but upon a suspicion of joyning with the Scots or acting in pursuance of the Covenant which they forced them to take or else would have undone them for refusing of it Garrisons and Armies with Free-quartering and Taxes kept up and the people like sheep devoured to maintain them so much complaining in our streets and the taking away from some all their lands from others what they pleased and enforced many thousands to compound for their lands estates for joyning with the Kings forces or for being forced to send provisions to them when they took up Arms some in pursuance of the Covenant and others of them to deliver the King out of prison causing the Souldiers not only to cut and kill divers of the County of Surrey in the very act of petitioning the Parliament for a Treaty of Peace with the King and Sequester many of them for putting their hands unto it with disabling the Citizens of London for bearing any Office in the Citty or Common-wealth for but putting their hands to the Petition for the Treaty though Cromwell himself had not long before set on some to petition for it and the ruine and undoing of two parts of three in the Kingdome very many of whom did nothing actually in the Wars but were only sacrified to their pretended reasons and jealousies of State do sufficiently proclaim and reâ—…ain the vvoful Registers to after generations of this lamentable assertion If the King could have gotten but so much leave of his mercy and tender-heartedness to his people as to have used but the five hundreth part of the Parliaments jealousies sharp and merciless authority in the managing of this war so much of his Kingdomes and people had not been undone and ruined nor the Parliament put to so much labour to coyne faults and scandals against him nor to wrest the Laws to Non-sense and the Scriptures to Blasphemy to justifie their most horrid act of Murdering him but for seeking to preserve the Laws and Liberties of his people who are now cleerly cheated out of them And here our miseries tels us we must leave them and in the next place shall remember for indeed it is so plain it needs no enquiry CHAP. VI Who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it THe abundant satisfaction wch the King had offered them from his first summoning of the late Parliament to their dissolving of themselves by dissolving Him who gave them all their Life and Being that which he did and all which he would have done So many Declarations Answers and Messages penned by himself intending as much as his words could signifie and were believed and understood by all at that time that were not interessed or engaged against him and by many of the eagrest of them also that had no hand or lookt to have any profit in the murthering of him for a Tryal of a King without either Warrant or Colour of Scripture or the Laws of the Kingdome or the consent of the major part of the people if that could have authorized it cannot nay will not by all the world and after ages be otherwise interpreted unless we shall say Ravillae might have justified his killing of Henry the Fourth of France if he had but had the wit to have framed or fancied a Supreme Court of Justice and have Sentenced him before he had done it will be as Pillars and lasting Monuments of this Truth The King was the only desirer of Peace and laboured and tugged harder for it then ever Prince or King Heathen or Christian since Almighty God did his first dayes work did ever do with Superiors Equals or Subjects and it will be no wrong certainly to David whose sufferings are so much remembred in all Christian Churches complayning so bitterly That he sought peace with those that refused it and in the mean time prepared for War against him Yo say the King did suffer more and offer more and oftner for peace then ever he did for any thing is extant or appearing to us for surely so many messages of peace as one and twenty in two years space from the 5 of December 1645. to the 25. of December 1647. sent to the Parliament after so many affronts and discouragements must needs excuse him that offered all could be imagined to be for the good and safety of his people and condemn those that not only from time to time refused it but adhered so much to their first intentions as all the blood and ruine of the people could not perswade them to depart with the least punctillio of it though the King before the Isle of Wight Treaty offered so much for the Olive-Branch as to part with the Militia for the terme of his life and in a manner to un-King himself and was afterwards content to do all that his Coronation Oath Honour and Conscience could possibly permit him to do and to purchase a peace for his people would have perswaded his Innocence to have born the shame reproach of what his enemies were only guilty of in so much as the Lord Say himself and most of his ever craving never safe enough Disciples confessed that the King had offered so much as nothing more could be demanded of him They therefore that can but tell how to divide or put a difference betwixt white and black night and day and the plainest contraries must needs also acknowledg That the King offered all and the Parliment refused all the King was willing to part almost with every thing and the Parliament would never part with any thing the King was willing for the good of his people to give away almost every thing of his own but the Parliament would never yeild to part with any thing was not their own And thus may the account be quickly cast up between the King and that Parliament who would have saved and kept the people from misery and who was most unwilling to make an end of it But that we may not too hastily give the Sentence and try the business as they use to do at the Council of War or the new invented way of Justice sitting with their wil or the Sword only in one hand and no Ballance at all in the other We shall in the next place examine CHAP. VII Who laboured to Shorten the War and who to Lengthen it THe odds vvas so great betvvixt what the Parliament laboured to get and the King to keep as that vvhich swayes the balance in most mens actions vvill
notwithstanding all that made shift to throw a message or Declaration to his people made up like a ball out of the place of his close Imprisonment at Carisbrook was not like to desire the lengthening that war wch he did all he could to avoid and offered so much to make an end of but on the contrary if we take inour consideration the more then Gothish unheard of inhumane cruelties acted and done by the Parliament against their better fellow Subjects their Plundrings Sequestrations and racking of every mans estate they pleased to call Delinquents severities in all their actions standing upon every punctilio or word or superscription of a Letter and not abating a tittle of their demands as if they had been the Decalogue or some other place of Scripture though rivolets of blood hundred thousand of ruined families and thronged hospitals of sick and wounded men Widows and Fatherless cryed aloud to them for peace and their killing and murthering those that but Petitioned for it and a foundation laid of a new War may last as long as that of the Netherlands and Germany There will be enough and enough again to insure us of this most cleer and evident truth That the King did all he could and more then any man else would have done to obtain peace and the Faction or Parliment all they could to avoid it for certainly if there be any rules of Learning Truth or Reason left us to judge by He must be sequestred of all his brains that can but endeavour to make a doubt whether the King did not more resemble the true mother of the Child in the case before Solomon who did so much and offered to part with so much to save the life of it then the Parliament that would have it more divided and to be cut and torn all to bits and pieces and would do nothing at all to save but every thing to destroy it And now we have seen a King undone and imprisoned for his endeavours to protect his people and bring again beloved Peace to those that would not entertain it and heard the report of his murther for most of the peoples eyes have not seen it nor have their hearts acted in it we shall as most men do after they have lost a good offer or oportunity enquire CHAP. VIII Whether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have goâ— instead of them IN order to which though so woful and over-and-over-bitterly-Tasted Seen Felt Heard and Understood-experiences of the miseries wch have come unto us by the Parliaments not accepting the gracious offers conditions wch the King made unto them may make it to be as needless to enquire of them as for a man to ask where to find Pauls Steeple in London when he is in Pauls Church-yard or to enquire for the Sun in the Dog-dayes when he and every man else may see or feel the effects of it we shall be content to consider what the King offered and what the Parliament would have had him to grant What the King would have done and what the Parliament have done and by that see which would have been the better bargain The King like a pater patriae offered over and over to grant all manner of Laws and Liberties which might be good and wholsome for his people and only denyed to grant those things the granting whereof as he said himself vvould alter the Fundamental Lavvs and endanger the very foundations upon vvhich the publick happiness and vvelfare of his people were founded and constituted or to give them stones instead of bread or Scorpions instead of Fishes But the Parliament meaning to feed the people neither vvith bread nor fishes ask the Royal Svvord Crown and Scepter Coronation-Oath and Conscience and an Arbitrary povver to Govern and Domineere over their fellow Subjects and to enslave those that trusted them And though the King had already granted enough to preserve the Lavvs Lives Religion and Liberty of the people and vvas so vvilling almost at any rate to purchase a peace for himself and his people as he vvas content to part vvith his Svvord and Militia and divers other parts of his Regality during his life Yet that vvould not serve the turne t vvas Naboths Vineyard not Ahabs Fast wch made all the business The Faction or Partie in the Parliament that pretended so much to deny themselves and to dote upon the people do notwithstanding all they can to continue the War and to cozen and force the peoples blood estates and conscience out of them and they must never give over paying of Taxes fighting and fooling till they enable them to imprison their King and not only murder him but thousands and many ten thousands of their fellow Subjects and the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people And now that they have done more then the men of the Gunpowder-treason ever intended to do and that all England are become like sheep without a Shephard wandring on the mountains and thousands of Wolves by Votes and Ordinances and mis-called Acts of Parliament appointed to feed them four or five years sad experience in the Wars of the Parliament against the King and almost as much more time spent in setling subduing the people making them like Camels to kneel down to take up their burdens labour and travel hard and endure hunger and thirst under them yet yield up the veines to be pricked for blood to enable their drivers to furnish them with a new supply of burdens when they shall be discharged of what they have laid upon them may easily shew us a difference as big as a mountain betwixt our old good Laws and Liberties enjoyed under a gracious King who had an Estate of inheritance large enough of his own besides an Oath to oblige Him to protect us and a Hell upon Earth and the most Slavish of all the governments which were ever yet put upon a Nation by men of as little Wit and Estates as they have honesty having no other obligations upon them but their own abhominable designs and interests For which of the people unless those that have traded in their neighbours blood and ruine but hath made their complaints of their undoing The Religion of the Kingdom once so glorious is now cut into fancies and blasphemies the Churches where God was wont to be worshipped either defaced pulled down or made Stables for horses the Laws of the Kingdom which were consonant to the Word of God and had in them the Quintessence of all which could be found to be extant in the Laws of Nature Nations Civil Laws or rectified Reason and whatsoever the wisdom and care of all former Kings in Parliament or the usage and customes of this or any other neighbouring Nations could bring to its perfection and were wont to nourish and preserve peace and property among us voted out or into that sense or the other
accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every â—0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1â— de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.