the Ancient and undoubted Right of the Crown by many Proclamations Charges all Men under the Crime and Penalties of Treason to forbear the Execution of those Ordinances which were published to Licence their Rebellion and Answers with a wonderful Diligence and Eloquence all the fictitious Pretensions of the Parliament to that Power in their several Remonstrances But though the King had in the judgment of all understanding and uninteressed persons the Juster Cause and the more powerful Pen yet the Faction's Haste which is most efficacious in Civil Discords the Slanders they had raised of Him and impressed in the minds of the People the terrours of that Arbitrary Power which the House of Commons had a long while exercised in the vexatious prosecution of all such as did oppose their imperious Resolves for they would by their Messengers send for the Great Earls and Prime Barons of the Kingdom as Rogues and Felons and weary them and others with a tedious and chargeable Attendance oppress them with heavy and unproportionable Censures and restrain them by Illegal Imprisonments and the hopes of licence and spoil in the ruine of Church and State had so preoccupated the Minds of the inferiour Multitude that neither Law nor Religion could have the least consideration in their practices and those Persons whom His Majesty appointed as Commissioners of Array in few places found that Obedience which was due to the just Commands of a Gracious Prince who vainly expected that Reverence to Justice in others which Himself gave After the experience of their Power in these their Successes at Land and having gotten the whole Navy at Sea being made Masters of the most and greatest Strengths of the Kingdom they then thought it might be safe for them to publish the aims and ends of their most destructive designs which if sooner manifested when the King by His Message of 20. of January from Windsor Castle advised them to prescribe the limits of their Priviledges give full Boundaries to His own Power and propose what was in their judgements proper to make the People happy and most religiously promised an equal tenderness of theirs and the Peoples Rights as of His own and what was for the Publick Good should not be obstructed for His Particular emolument they had justly drawn upon themselves all that popular hatred which they endeavoured to fling upon the King and had been buried under those ruines which they projected for the Grave of Majesty But then the Faction confided not so much in their own force nor were the Vulgar then so blinded with fury as to chuse their own Destruction and therefore to that Message of Peace nothing was returned but Complaints That by such Advisoes their Counsels were disturbed that it was contrary to their unbounded Privileges to be minded of what was necessary But now they were furnished with a Power equal to their Ambition they thought it expedient to confirm their newly-gotten Empire with some pretensions to Peace but with a great deal of Caution that the affectation of it might not disappoint them of their hopes which were all built upon War and Confusion Therefore they formed the Conditions such as the King could not in Honour or Conscience grant them nor expect Peace by them Or if He did they should be instated in such a Grandeur that they might reap for themselves all the reproachful Honours and unlawful gains of an Arbitrary Power the thing they aimed at and leave the King overwhelmed with shame and contempt for their miscarriages in Government These Conditions were digested into Nineteen Propositions which when presented to the King He saw by an assent to them He should be concluded to have deposed Himself and be but as an helpless and idle Spectator of the Miserie 's such Tyrants would bring upon the People whom God had committed to His Trust Therefore He gave them that denial which they really desired and expected and adjusts His refusal in a Declaration wherein He sets forth the Injustice of each Proposition His Answer He sent by the Marquess of Hertford and Earl of Southampton Persons of great Integrity and Prudence with Instructions to Treat in the House of Peers upon more equal Conditions But it behoved the Faction not to let the Kingdom see any way to Peace therefore denying any admittance to those Lords before ever the King's Answer could publickly discover who were the obstructours of the Peoples quiet they Ordered a Collection to be made of Money and Plate to maintain Horse Horse-men and Arms for the ensuing War The specious Pretences for which were the Safety of the King's Person and the taking Him out of the hands of Evil Counsellors the Defence of the Priviledges of Parliament the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the maintenance of the Ancient Laws of the Land Such inviting causes as these inflamed the Minds of the Multitude and filled them with more airy hopes of Victory than the noise of Drums and Trumpets But that which was most powerful were the Sermons of such who being displeased with the present Ecclesiastical Covernment were promised the richest Benefices and a partage of the Revenues which belonged to Bishops Deans and Chapiters These from their Pulpits proclaimed War in the Name of Christ the Prince of Peace and whatsoever was contributed to the spilling of the blood of the Wicked was to build up the Throne of the meekest Lamb and besides the satisfaction they were to expect from the Publick Faith which the Parliament promised there was a larger Interest to be doubled upon them in the Kingdom of Saints that was now approaching Deluded by these Artifices and Impostures People of all Conditions and all Sexes some carried by a secret Instinct others hurried by some furious Zeal and a last sort led by Covetousness cast into this Holy Treasury the Banck for Blood all the Ornaments of their Family all their Silver Vessels even to their Spoons with the Pledges of their first Love their Marriage-rings and the younger Females spared not their Thimbles and Bodkins the obliging Gifts of their Inamorato's from being a part of the Price of Blood But while these Preparations were made at London the King at York Declares against the Scandal that He intended to Levy War against the Parliament calling God to witness how far His desires and thoughts were from it and also those many Lords who were witnesses of His Counsels and Actions do publish to the World by a Writing subscribed with all their Names to the number of Forty and odd that they saw not any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such Design and were fully perswaded that He had no such intention But all was in vain for the Faction chose that the People should be rather guilty of committing Rebellion than only of favouring the Contrivers of it and decreed to try whether by a prosperous Success they could change their Crimes to Vertue Therefore they hastened all
necessary Expences of State and Majesty And though it was most just for Him to expect the Peoples Contribution to their own Safety who were never richer than now nor had they ever more Security for their riches than they now had by His Concessions of Liberty yet knowing how powerfull the Faction alwayes was to disturb the Counsels of Parliament He feared that from their Proceedings the Common Enemies would be incouraged as formerly to higher Insolencies and the envious Demagogues would contemn their own safety to ruine His Honour He also accounted it a great unhappiness to be necessitated to maintain His State by extraordinary wayes and therefore refused to renew Privy Seals and Loans the use of which He debarred Himself of in granting the Petition of Right Therefore consults His Atturney-General Noy whether the Prerogative had yet any thing left to save an unwilling people Noy acquaints Him with Ancient Precedents of raising a Tax upon the Nation for setting forth a Navie in case of danger and assures Him of the Legality of the way in proceeding by Writs to that effect Which Counsel being embraced there were Writs directed to the several Counties for such a Contribution that in the whole might build furnish and maintain 47 Ships for the safety of the Kingdom And by these the King soon secured and calmed the Seas but the Faction endeavoured to raise a Tempest at Land Anno 1635. They complained of Invasions on their Spiritual Liberties because the Bishops endeavoured in these years to reduce the Ceremonies of the Church to their primitive Observance of which a long Prosperity had made men negligent and time had done that to the Spiritual Body which it doth to the Natural daily amassed those Corruptions which at length will stand in need of cure Therefore when they took this proper Method of reforming a corrupted State in bringing things back to their Original Institution both His Majesty and they were defamed with designs of Popery This Tax of Ship-money was pretended a breach to their Civil Liberties and contrary to Law because not laid by a Parliament Therefore those who sought the People's favour to alter the present Government by seeming the singular Patrons of their Rights refused to pay the Tax Anno 1636. and stood it out to a Tryal at Law The Just Prince declined not the Tryal and permitted Monarchy and Liberty to plead at the same Bar. All the Judges of the Land did justifie by their Subscriptions that it was legal for the King to levy such a Tax and their Subscriptions were enrolled in all the Courts of Westminster-Hall And when it came to be argued in the Exchequer-Chamber ten of them absolutely declared for it only two Crooke and Hutton openly dissented from that opinion to which they had formerly subscribed not without the ignominy of Levity unbeseeming their places And as the King was thus victorious in the Law so was He at Sea and having curbed the Pirates He also reduced the Hollanders to a precarious use of His Seas Amidst all these Difficulties and Calumnies the King hitherto had so governed that sober men could not pray for nor Heaven grant in Mercy to a People any greater Happiness than what His Reign did afford The British Empire never more flourished with Magnificent Edifices the Trade of the Nation had brought the wealth of the Indies home to our doors Learning and all good Sciences were so cherished that they grew to Admiration and many Arts of the Ancients buried and forgotten by time were revived again No Subjects under the Sun richer and which was the effect of that none prouder Security increased the Husband-mans stock and Justice preserved his Life none being condemned as to Life but by the lawfull Verdict of those of an equal Condition the Jury of his Peers The poor might Reverence but needed not Fear the Great and the Great though he might despise yet could not injure his more obscure Neighbour And all things were so administred that they seemed to conspire to the Publick good except that they made our Happiness too much the cause of all Civil Commotions and brought our Felicity to that height that by the necessity of humane nature which hath placed all things in motion it must necessarily decline And God provoked by our sins did no longer restrain and obstruct the arts and fury of some wicked men who contemning their present certain enjoyments hoped for more wicked acquisitions in publick Troubles to overwhelm every part of the King's Dominions with a deluge of Blood and Misery and to commence that War which as it was horrid with much slaughter so it was memorable with the Experiences of His Majesties Vertues Confusions like Winds from every Coast at once assaulting and trying His Righteous Soul The first Storm arose from the North and the flame first broke out in Scotland where those Lords who feared they should lose their spoils of Religion and Majesty took all occasions to hasten the publick Misery which at last most heavily lay upon their Country the hands they had strengthened and instructed to fight against their Prince laying a more unsupportable slavery upon them than their most impious Slanders could form in the imaginations of the credulous that they might fear from the King by calumniating the King's Government raising fears of Tyranny and Idolatry forming and spreading seditious Libels The Author or at least the Abettor of one of which was found to be the Lord Balmerino a Traytor by nature being the Son of one who had before merited death for his Treasons to King James yet found that mercy from him as the Son now did from King Charles to have his Life and Estate continued after condemnation Yet this perfidious man interpreted the King's Clemency for his own Vertue and he that had dared such a Crime could not be changed by the Pardon of it and as if he had rather received an Injury than Life he was the most active in the approaching Rebellion Anno 1637. For the Rabble that delights in Tumults were fitted by this and other Boutefeus for any occasion of contemning the King's Authority though His designs that were thus displeasing to the Nobless were evidently for the benefit of the Populacy and at last took fire from the Liturgy something differing from ours lest a full consent might argue a dependency upon the Church of England which some Scotish Bishops had composed and presented to the King for the use of their Church which the King who was desirous that those who were united under His Command might not be divided in Worship confirmed and appointed to be first read July 13. at Edinburgh a City always pregnant with suspicions and false rumours But it was entertained with all the instruments of Fury that were present to a debauched multitude for they flung cudgels and sticks at the Dean of Edinburgh while he was performing his Office and after that was done re-inforc'd their assault upon the Bishops whom the
against the King now complained that the Honour and Safety of Parliaments was indangered by Petitious But all their Tyranny upon the complaining Nation prevailed nothing but to provoke them to a higher Indignation and more frequent Petitions And when they perceived they dealt with men obstinate to their own Interests which were not to be gained but by the Publick ruine they fly from Prayers to Arms and intitle their just War For the Liberty of King and People And in several places as in Kent Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cornwall York-shire Wales and at last in Surrey multitudes take Arms for this Righteous Cause The Navy also fall off and setting Rainsbrough their levelling Admiral on Shore seventeen Ships deliver themselves up to the Prince of Wales The Scots likewise by an Order of their own Parliament send into England to recover the Liberty and Majesty of the King an Army under Hamilton But all was in vain God had decreed other Triumphs for His Majesty and to translate Him to another Kingdom For the English being but tumultuarily raised having no train of Artillery or Ammunition considerable were soon supprest by a veterane Army provided with all necessaries The Scots either through weakness or wickedness of their Commanders who made so disorderly a march that their Van and Rear were forty miles asunder were easily worsted by Cromwell who surprised their main Body and Hamilton was taken Prisoner Cromwell follows the scattered Parties into Scotland where they were likewise assaulted by Argyle a domestick Enemy and forced to submit those Arms the Parliament had put into their hands to the Faction of that false Earl who calls another Parliament from which all were excluded that in the former Voted for the King's Delivery and all the Orders of that Convention made void Cromwell had the Publick Thanks and the Private Faith of Argyle to endeavour as opportunity permitted the extirpation of Monarchy out of Scotland The Navy also deserts the Prince being corrupted by the Earl of Warwick who was appointed for this Service and when he had ingloriously bought off their Faith to their lawfull Prince himself was ignominiously cashiered by the Conspirators These great disappointments and overthrows of just Enterprises men variously attributed to different Causes Some to the Perfidiousness others to the Weakness of those that managed them as also to the Treachery of some Presbyterians who in hatred to the Army first incouraged and then in Jealousie of the Royallists basely deserted them For the Rabbies of the Kirk cursed Hamilton in the beginning of his Enterprise Another sort thought them unhappy because the greatest part of the Undertakers were such that formerly had either fought against the King or else had betrayed Him and God would not now bless their unexpiated Arms. And some to the Fate of the Kingdom which God had decreed to give over to numerous and impious Tyrants because of their unthankfulness and impatience under so Incomparable a Prince But while these things were managed by the Army that were now at a distance and Cromwell's Terrors were greater in Scotland than here the less guilty Parliament-men seriously considering how impatient the People who in London and other places had gotten innumerable Subscriptions to a Petition for a Personal Treaty now were of those Injuries that were done to their Sovereign how hateful themselves grew because they had betrayed and inslaved their own Privileges together with the Liberties of the Subject to an insatiable and Phanatick Army and how an evident Ruine attended even their Conquests of Him whom it was unlawful to assault did at last though too late contrary to the clamours of their Factious and Democratick Members Repeal those Votes which they had formerly made of No more Addresses to the King This being passed in both Houses they afterwards with a strong Consent Vote a Treaty with the King in Honour Freedom and Safety The Factious Party in the Parliament found themselves too few and weak to oppose this impetuous tendency of the Two Houses and the whole Kingdom to Peace But yet they endeavoured to frustrate the labours of their more sincere Members and to bassle the People's just desires of it by imposing many unequal Conditions and obstructive restrictions For they procured that the Treaty should be in the Isle of Wight and not at London that it should be by Commissioners and not immediately with the two Houses as was Petitioned The Propositions that were sent to be Treated were the same which had before been offered to the King at Hampton-Court and were then rejected by Him and also condemned by the Army it self as too unjust The Commissioners were so streightned in Power that it was not lawful for them to soften any one of the Conditions of Peace not to alter the Preface or change the Order of the Propositions nor to debate a Subsequent till the Precedent were agreed on They could conclude nothing they were only to propose the Demands urge Reasons for the Royal Assent receive the King's Answer and refer all in writing to the Parliament whose slow Resolves and the delays of sending were supposed would consume that narrow measure of time which was appointed to debate so many and so different things for they were limited to forty days The Commissioners they sent were Five of the Lord's House and Twelve of the Commoners and with them some of their Presbyterian Ministers who were to press importunately for their Church-Government to clude the King's Arguments for Episcopacy and only to impose not to dispute their own With all these upon so many several and different Propositions some relating to the Law of the Land others to Reason of State and some to the practice of the Apostolical Primitive Churches the King was to deal without publick assistance For though He was permitted the Ministry of some Officers of State Counsellours and Divines yet were they but of private advice and to stand behind the Curtain He only Himself was to speak in the Debate and singly to manage matters of Policy with their most exercised Statists and the points of Divinity with their best-studied Divines The Vulgar to whom the Arts of these men were not so obvious were much pleased with the Name of a Treaty and now hoped to exchange their Servitude under so many importunate Tyrants for the moderate and easie Government of one Lawful King Others that had a clearer insight and observed with what difficulties it was burthened hoped for no benefit from it Because that if His Majesty should I not Consent as they believed He would not then He would be the object of the popular impatience And if He should Consent He that now was thought to be most injuriously dealt with would then be conceived not to deserve the Pity even of His Friends nor could He gain any other thing by His Concessions than to be ruined with more Dishonour So that considering both the inviolable Integrity of His Majesty and the implacable Malice of His Enemies
Unanimously even the Democratick Lords not dissenting did reject the Bill as Dangerous and Illegal This so highly provoked the Fury of the Faction that they meditated a severe revenge and for the present blotted out those Peers whose Names they had before put into their Ordinance to make their Court more splendid After this they did also rase out the names of the Judges of the Land for they being privately Consulted concerning these Proceedings against the King although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other Artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hert ford shire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Army's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with Thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Politie wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hopes raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Hardress Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetrated their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely prosecuted those that endeavoured it In considence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these Publick Abhorrencies and detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they Enacted their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment A Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecuter of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's Cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same Metal John Cooke A needy man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a tedious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhor These were their Chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steele another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clerks and Cryer were so obscure that the world had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the Publick Preparations In private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter of their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensignes of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared to confirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Society it is reported upon the King's offering to give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council of theirs did decree to use their whole Interest and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second Debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traitor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgement of Considering men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined from the safest Arts of Empire it was in the neglect of a just Severity on Seditious persons whom the Laws
Vertue took care they should not be gluttonous for He delighted not in Sawces or Artifices to please the Palate and raise the Lust but all was sincere and solid and therefore He never was subject to a Surfeit He alwayes mingled Water with His Wine which He never drank pure but when He eat Venison and He was so nice in observing the bounds of Sobriety that most times Himself would measure and mingle both together He did usually at every Meal drink one Glass of Beer another of Wine and a third of Water and seldom drank between His Meals These though Ordinary Vertues were yet eminent in Him since they could not be corrupted by the Power not the Flatteries of Fortune And they are therefore mentioned to gratifie Posterity for men are curious to know all even the minute Passages of Great and Vertuous Persons Being free from Incontinency and Intemperance the gulphs of Treasure and Drayners of the Largest Exchequer His Frugality He had no other Vice to exhaust the Publick Stock and so necessitate Him to sill it up by Oppressions but He would by Frugality make His Revenue sufficient for the Majesty of the Crown and the Necessities of the State His own Nature indeed inclined Him to Magnificence but the Vices of others did instruct Him to moderate Expences For He had found the Treasury low and the Debts great in His beginnings He was assaulted with two expensive Wars from the two great Potentates of Furope and the Faction had obstructed the usual way of Supplies by Parliaments Therefore He was to find a Mine in Vertue and by sparing from Vanities make provisions for necessary and glorious Enterprises which He did effect for in that short time of Peace which He enjoyed He satisfied all the Publick Debts so furnished and increased His Navy that it was the most considerable in the whole World supported His Confederate the King of Sweden and by Money inabled him for the Victories of Germany and so fill'd His own Treasury that it was able of it self to bear the weight of the first Scotch Expedition without the Aids of the Subject who were never more able to contribute to their own safety nor ever had more reason the swellings of that Nation breaking all the Banks and Fences of their Liberty and Happiness But the King would let them see that as by His Government He had made them rich He would also keep them so by His Frugality But those whose first care was to make Him necessitous and the next odious did brand it with the name of Covetousness which was as False as malicious For He never spared when Just Designs call'd for Expences and was magnificent in Noble Undertakings as in the Repair of Paul's He was alwayes Gratefull although those men who measured their Services not by their Duties or their Merits but by their Expectations from His Fortune thought Him not Liberal He chose rather not to burthen His People by Subsidies than load particular Servants with unequal Bounties For Good Princes chuse to be loved rather for their Benefits to the Community than for those to private persons And it may be Vanity and Ostentation but not Liberality when the gifts of the Prince are not proportioned to the Common Necessity His sparings were like those of Indulgent Fathers that His Subjects as Children might have the more He never like subtle and rapacious Kings made or pretended a Necessity for Taxes but was troubled when He found it The Contributions of Parliament He esteemed not the increase of His peculiar Treasure but the Provisions for the Common Safety of which He would rather be accounted a Steward than a Lord. When Faction and Sedition so deluded the People that they could not see the preservation of the whole consisted in contributing some small part He freely parted with His own Inhertance to preserve intire to them the price of their Sweat and Labour As He had these Moral Vertues which are both the signatures of Majesty His Intellectual Abilities and the Ornaments of a Royal Spirit so He was no less compleat in the Intellectual His Understanding was as Comprehensive as His Just Power and He was Master of more sorts of Knowledge than He was of Nations How much He knew of the Mysteries and Controversies of Divinity was evident in His Discourses and Papers with Henderson and those at the Isle of Wight where He singly Disputed for Episcopacy one whole day against Fifteen Commissioners and their Four Chaplains the most experienced and subtle members of all the Opposite Party with so much Acuteness and Felicity that even His Opposers admired Him He so dexterously managed His Discourse with the Ministers that He made it evident they perswaded Him to that which they themselves judged unlawfull and had condemned as Sacriledge when they pretended to satisfie the Scruples of His Conscience and to assure Him He might safely alienate the Church-Lands And the Commissioners sensible how unequal their Ministers were to discourse with Him for ever after silenced them and permitted no Disputes but by Papers At that time He exceeded the opinion of His friends about Him One of them said in astonishment that Certainly God had inspired Him Another that His Majestly was to a Wonder improved by His Privacies and Afflictions But a third that had had the Honour of a nearer Service assured them that the King was never less only He had now the opportunity of appearing in His full Magnitude In the Law of the Land He was as knowing as Himself said to the Parricides yet was no boaster of His own Parts as any Gentleman in England who did not profess the Publick Practice of it especially those Parts of it which concerned the Commerce between King and People In that Art which is peculiar to Princes Reason of State He knew as much as the most prosperous Contemporary Kings or their most exercised Ministers yet scorned to follow those Rules of it which lead from the Paths of Justice The Reserves that other Princes used in their Leagues and Contracts to colour the breaches of Faith and those inglorious and dark Intrigues of subtle Politicians He did perfectly abhor but His Letters Declarations Speeches Meditations are full of that Political Wisdom which is consistent with Christianity He had so quick an Insight into these Mysteries and so early arrived to the Knowledge of it that when He was young and had just gotten out of the Court and Power of Spain He censured the weakness of that Mysterious Council For He was no sooner on Shipboard but the first words He spake were I discovered two Errors in those great Masters of Policy One that they would use Me so Ill and another that after such Vsage they permitted Me to Depart As those former parts of Knowledge did inable Him to know Men and how to manage their different humours His Skill in all Arts. and to temper them to a sitness for Society and make them serviceable to