themselves as the Patrons of the peoples Liberties press'd the King to give way to the entrusting the Manage of the State in the hands of four and twenty twelve of them to be of their own Election and the rest to be chosen by himself who in all things else was left a meer Cypher Nay and even in this Case either through Fear or Negligence he fill'd up his number with Montford Glocester and Spencer which errour over and above the weakening of his own Party won to those his late Opposites an Opinion of having got a great Interest in his Favour This Parliament it should seem never dreamt of a Perpetuation for otherwise they might probably have had it for the asking But yet they got what served their Turn for by this one Act he parted with his Right of Electing either publick Officer or private Servant and brought himself under a necessity of dispoyling his Half-Brethren and their Followers banishing them the Realm by an Instrument under his own hand and of commanding his Writ pro Transportatione Fratrum suorum to be directed to the Earles of Hartford and Surry to prohibit their carrying on Board with them either Mony Arms or Ornaments other than in the manner prescribed After their departure he ordered the men of Bristol not to suffer any Strangers or Kinsmen of his to land in their Port but so to demean themselves in this particular as they would answer it to his Lords and him Thus we may see how easily mens Estates do change in an Instant and how difficult a thing it is to enjoy quietly what was gotten unjustly And now Richard Earl of Cornwal and King of the Romans King Henrie's own Brother being at this time beyond the Seas is by Letter tamper'd with underhand to make a shew of Ratifying by Oath and voluntary Consent those former Restrictions of Regal Power which though he submitted to yet would not the Lords suffer either the King or him to enter Dover Castle the Key of the Kingdom they having furnish'd it and most of the other Forts of Reputation and Strength in the Nation with Governours of their own Election and Sworn respectively to the State The like assurance did they also exact of all Sheriffs Coroners Bayliffs and other Publick Ministers examining the Behaviour of many by strict Commission upon Oath hereby to curry Favour with the Vulgar who groaned under their late Extortions But their Chief end in all this was no other as it afterwards appear'd than by displacing the faithful Servants of the King upon pretence of their being teinted with Malignancy to open a way for the introducing of their own Dependents Having thus changed the Sole Power into the Rule of many and those by popular Election too they perswaded themselves that by establishing this Form of limited Monarchy they had wholly supprest all thoughts of hankering afresh after the whimsical humours of licentious Soveraignty But it fell out quite otherwise for now every man began to value himself upon his own Abilities and to crack his Skull upon any Design that might probably enlarge the Boundarys of his Authority and Command The Grandees also fell to rending and lopping off from the Revenues and Segniories of the Crown all such Lands and Manours as bordered upon any of their own Seats pressing upon the Kings Subjects and Tenants to a most insupportable degree of Servitude Insomuch that by raising petite Annuities into great Honours and tearing asunder the Royal Prerogative they made themselves of Subjects whilst they kept within the bounds of Duty so many Tyrants upon the loss of their Loyalty involving the people in an extremity of Slavery and Oppression And yet they bore all with Patience for Custom being the only case of Excess of Misery men were contented to lay the foundation of Servitude by the length of Sufferance which found neither End nor Abatement until the quiet part of the Kings Reign Now Montford Glocester and Spencer the Heads of this Conspiracy having by the late Provisions drawn into the hands of the twenty four Tribunes of the People the entire management of all Affairs and finding this Power to be yet too much dispers'd to answer their Expectations compelled the King to call another Parliament where they got the authority of the Twenty four assigned over to themselves and erected a Triumvirate for their own ends only and not for reforming Abuses and settling the Nation as they at first gave out And thus by the Gratification of these Private Interests the Publick was staid for a time But yet all this Juggle and Artifice was only to make the way the smoother for one of them to become perpetual Dictator Ambition is never so high but that it still labours to advance a step further and that Station which lately seemed Inaccessible is now lookt upon but as a Cocks-Stride that which was Great in the Persute seeming Inconsiderable in the Possession These Three Elect nine Counsellours Three of them at least to make a Quorum who were to dispose of and fortifie Castles and transact other Affairs of the Realm But the Chief Justice Chancellour Treasurer and all other Officers greater or less they reserve the Choice of to themselves binding the King so very strictly to this hard Bargain that he submits to pass an Instrument to them under the Great Seal and Oath whereby he actually discharged them from their Allegiance when ever he should attempt to assume to himself the Royal Dignity declaring it to be lawful in such Case for the whole Nation to rise up as one man and having no Obligation to him by force to reduce him into Order And yet not long after this Prodigy of Fortune whom she had made a wretched Example of her Inconstancy finding no part of his Soveraignty left him but the bare Title and even that precarious too craves Aid of Pope Urbane the fourth against his disloyal Subjects who arm'd him with Excommunications against all that should not forthwith return to their Duty and Cancell'd his Oath and Contract in regard that it was made when he could not properly say that he was at Liberty Force having no power to create a just Interest But the Lords having now imp'd their wings with Eagles Feathers and liking no Game but what was rak'd out of the Ashes of Monarchy boldly make head against their Soveraign And that they might be the better able to cope with him call in the French to their Assistance Thus again did the Commonwealth turn her Sword against her own Breast and invite her antient Enemy to the Funeral of her Liberty so that it was a great Providence that she fell not at this time under a Forreign Yoke Now though these men were much more apprehensive of their own Disgrace than of others Miseries yet could they find no better Pretext for private Interest than that of the Publick Wherefore at the entry of this Rebellion they cryed out for Liberty though when it drew near
A BRIEF SURVEY HISTORICAL and POLITICAL OF THE Life and Reign OF Henry the III. KING OF ENGLAND Dedicated to his most Sacred MAJESTY LONDON Printed for James Vade at the Cock and Sugar Loaf near St. Dunstan's Church in Fleet-street 1680. SACRO-SANCTAE MAJESTATI CAROLI SECUNDI DEI GRATIA MAGNAE BRITANNIAE FRANCIAE ET HIBERNIAE REGIS FIDEI PROPUGNATORIS CHRISTIANAE PACIS PERPETUAE INSTAURATORIS PUBLICAE AUCTORIS AUGUSTI SECURITATIS ET NATI BRITANNICI AD AETERNITATEM NOMINIS ET IMPERII QUAM HUMILLIME D. D. CONSECRATURQUE HOC OPUSCULUM A BRIEF SURVEY OF THE LIFE and REIGN OF Henry the III etc. OPpress'd with the insupportable Calamities of Civil Arms and affrighted at the sodain fall of a Licentious Sovereign who was reported to have been Poyson'd by a Monk all men stood at gaze expecting Peace the Event of their long Desires and Benefit as the Issue of their new Hopes Experience telling us that in every Shift of Princes there are very few either so Mean or so Inopinionative as not to please themselves with some probable Object of Preferment To content all October 19. 1216. a Child ascends the Throne Mild and Gracious but Easie of Nature whose Innocency and natural Goodness protected him throughout the various Perils of his Father's Reign Happy was he in his Uncle William Earl of Pembroke the Guide of his Infancy and no less fortunate for thirty years after whilst Hubert de Burgh Earl of Kent that Fast Servant of King John's against the French both in Normandy and England together with Bygot Earl of Norfolk and others of like Gravity and Abilities had the management of Affairs Publick Distempers were then very few and such only as are incident to all States the Commons greedy and tenacious of Liberty and the Nobility of Rule One violent Storm 't is true was rais'd by some old constant Followers of his Father as Foulk de Brent who though a Forreigner yet held at one time the Earldoms of Nottingham Oxford Bedford and Buckingham Brian de Lisle and some others These being men of turbulent Spirits and that could only Thrive by the Wars were very ill at ease in those days of Sloth as they term'd that Calm of King Henry's Government Beside that the Justice of Peaceable Times urg'd from them to the lawful owners such Lands and Castles as the fury of War had unjustly given them Now perceiving by the Uprightness of the King that Power of Protection should not be made a wrong-doer they broke forth into such a Rebellion as ended not but with their Lives declaring that those their Swords which had set the Crown upon their Sovereign's Head when neither Law nor Majesty could should now secure those Acquests to their Masters when Majesty or Law would not Thus we see how dangerous are too great Benefits of Subjects to their Princes as rendring the Mind incapable of any other sense than that of Merit This Blast being over the Government felt no other affliction than the Common and Invidious Malevolence to Authority Good and Great Men may preserve themselves from Guilt but not from Envy being still shot at by the Aspiring of those that look upon themselves as less in Employment than they are in Desert These Vapours however did ever vanish without much trouble so long as the Helm was steered by Temperate Spirits and the King squar'd his Actions by the Rule of Good Counsel and not of Young Passionate or single Advice Thirty years being now past and gone and none of the old Guides of the Kings Youth left alive but de Burgh a man in whom nothing of Worth was wanting save Moderation his length of days gave him the advantage of Sole Power his Ambition furnishing Desire and Art to keep out others This drew upon him the implacable malice of a great many which was yet further augmented by the fresh Honours and Offices that the King was then pleas'd to confer upon him Time had now wrought a Revolution as in it self so in the Hearts of the People who had forgotten the late Sufferings of their Fathers and labour'd under the surfeit of a long Peace which having probably let in some Abuses the Commons to whom the Present seems ever worst take the Alarm fall to commending the past Ages they never remembred and condemning the Present though equally ignorant of the Disease of it and of the Remedy With these idle and usual Humours struck in some of the young Nobility that were warm and over weening though altogether as unskilful as the rest these fall to sullying the Wisdom and Integrity of the Court-Officers by magnifying each casual mishap into a Crime and exposing every Blemish in Government and then having their Heads fill'd with certain Ideas and Phantastick Forms of Commonwealths they flatter themselves that they are able to mold any State according to these general Rules which in particular Application do still appear to be but idle and gross Absurdities Being thus puft up in Opinion of their own worth they begin to cast about how to get into Employment a thing they had long desired and now do sue for and probable it is that the farthest of their Aim as yet was to be quiet Instruments in serving the Crown had they then been look'd upon as fit and well deserving But the King having been tutor'd into a just veneration for the Counsels of the Aged States-Men and reflecting that such Green Heads were fitter for disordering than setling Affairs either deny'd or delay'd their Requests for Princes will ever chuse their Ministers Equal to not above their Business Creatures that are only theirs out of meer Election otherwise without Friends or Power Amongst this unequal Medly there were of the Nobility the Earls of Pembroke Glocester and Hertford darlings of the Rabble some of them upon the score of their Fathers Merits whose memories were held Sacred as pretended Pillars of Publick Liberty and opposers of encroaching Monarchy Of the Gentry were Fitz-Geoffrey Bardolph Grisley and Fitz-John Spirits of as much Arrogance and Aâ—â—imony as Camp Court Country the places from whence they were Elected could afford any These were for attempting by open Force what the other sought to effect by Artifice but yet they were all of them equally Impatient to behold their Ends thus frustrated and that so long as the King followed the Advice of the Earl of Kent there would be no hopes of obtaining their desires Wherefore they became frequent in their Consults and Cabals day and night and at last Sommery and Spencer two that were far in Opinion with the rest as being Gentlemen of Forreign Education and bâ— qualifi'd than was usual for men of those times gave it as their Advice that the surest way to remove de Burgh that great and good Obstacle out of the way of their Advancement would be to pry narrowly into his Actions and side with his Opposite Peter Bishop of Winchester an ill man but in favour with the King backing the
Motion with this suggestion that the worthiest being driven out by the worst they should be able either to mate him with his own Vice which the higher he advanc'd would still be the more visible and so remove him at pleasure or else by suffering the King to deliver himself up to such bad Ministers as would lose him the Hearts and Affections of his People they might thus plain the way to their own Preferment Thus they projected the compassing of that by troubling the State which so long as it was at quiet they despair'd of obtaining and so far did the success answer Expectation that Spencer dy'd in actual Rebellion Justiciarius Angliae against his Master This advice now being approv'd and put in Practice the corrupt and ambitious Bishop is by money and address easily brought over to the Party and Articles are in all hast forged and presented against the Earl charging him with wasting the Royal Treasure the sale of crown-Crown-Lands and what these doubtful times held Capital his allowing any thing that might create a Rupture between King and People as his prevailing upon the King to revoke all Patents granted in his Non-age and enforcing the People not to pay according to their Ability or the merit of the Grant but whatever the Minister himself should think fit to extort De Burgh clear'd himself of all the Branches of this Accusation save only the Last under which he worthily perish'd for such Acts as fill the Princes Coffers are still the destruction of their first Inventers Bad times we see corrupt good Counsels and prevail upon the best Ministers to truckle to the Lusts of their Masters Therefore this King is not wholly to be excused that could so easily give way to the blasting the former Services of so faithful an Officer for that wherein himself was chief in fault But Princes are naturally more variable and sooner cloyed than other men their favours are more transitory and as their minds are Large so they without much difficulty overlook their first Choice limiting their Affections to their Satisfactions Winchester is now mounted into the Saddle and Governs all taking for his Prime Instrument Peter de Rivallis such another as himself displaces the Natives and advances his Country-men Poictovins and Britains into Offices of the greatest Trust and Benefit and draws the King into an ill Opinion of his People Nothing touching the English so much to the Quick as to be domineer'd over by Forreigners Here it was that Injustice became the Arbiter of Common Equity the Law lay gasping at the foot of Faction Peace at the mercy of the Seditious and Oppression stept into the Bench to pronounce upon points of Right and Honesty so that the Plot of the tumultuous Barons by this means advanc'd it self without so much as a Rub And had not the Loyal Part of the Bishops calm'd all by humble and dutiful Perswasions and by representing to his Majesty that his supporting the Power of a Person whose insolent Carriage had but lately lost to King John his Father Normandy the Love of his People and in that his Crown and who at that very season was no less industrious in tempting himself to reject in Passion the just Petitions of his faithful Subjects the Case amongst many others of Pembroke the Earl Marshal the Common Rights of whose Office were unjustly with-held from him would inevitably provoke Discontents and endanger the Weal of the Kingdom the Rebellious Lords had questionless gain'd their End by exasperating and emproving this Distemper into a Civil War Denials of Princes are ever to be suppli'd with gracious Usage thereby if not to cure the sore yet at least to mitigate the Sense of it But it is best of all that all Favours proceed directly from themselves and only Refusals and things of Bitterness from their Ministers Thus now are the Strangers all remov'd and banish'd Rivallis's Extortions examin'd by many strict Commissions of Enquiry the proud Bishop of Winchester turn'd off in disgrace is brought to experiment that Power founded upon Injustice is but short-liv'd and that in the Favour of Princes there is no Medium or Subsistence betwixt the Highest of all and Precipitation But the Lords finding themselves still by this Reformation frustrated of their evil Designs began again to cherish the late grounds of the Peoples Disgusts by scattering querulous and ambiguous Speeches against his Majesty depraving and questioning his Discretion and Government and seeking by all the means and arts imaginable to ingratiate and glorifie themselves with the sordid Rabble Insomuch that the King whose Nature was too mild for such turbulent Spirits was oblig'd afresh to cast himself upon the Advice and Love of Forreigners since no condescentions could purchase it at Home where many demean'd themselves like Tutors and Controllers few like Subjects and Counsellers God we know governs the Hearts of Princes and sends them such Ministers as the quality of the Subject meriteth for Montford a French-man became the next Object of the Kings Delight being a Gentleman of choice Blood Education and Feature And to so fond a degree did the heady affection of the Sovereign dote upon him that in his very Entrance into Grace he made him Earl of Leicester to the general dissatisfaction of the Nobility and gave him to the no less offence of the Clergy by violating the Rights of the Church his Vow'd Vail'd Sister to Wife Some have denied this Act of the Kings to be more than common Policy as making the Tie of his Favorites Dependency the strength of his Assurance so Both at his will But Montford growing wanton upon this dallyance of his Master forgets Moderation Discretion in Youth seldom attending great and sodain Fortunes He takes the manage of all Publick Affairs into his own hand and engrosseth the disposal of all Favours and Preferments so that all suites are address'd to him and the King becomes in effect but as a Cipher set to add to this Figure the more of Number Great is the Errour of a Prince when the Hope of the Subject comes to recognize it self beholden to the Servant for that which ought to be acknowledg'd as the immediate Bounty and Goodness of himself And though they are not to be deny'd the privilege of advancing above the rest some trusty Friend to whom they may communicate their nearest Passions yet ought they so to temper the Current of Favour as not to darken the Lustre of their Regalities The Great and Gravest Men beholding the unworthy thus to deal alone in that which ought of Right to have pass'd through their hands and to step over all their heads to the greatest Honours and Offices began to repine but upon second thoughts they ran along with the rising Grace of the Kings Half-Brethren though Strangers hoping by this way of proceeding to divide that Power which otherwise they saw it impossible to Break. Yet Leicester being confident of his Masters Love and impatient of bearing either Rival in
Favour or Partner in Rule opposeth them all But he found at length in his Ebb of kindness the fortune of others and that the King could with as much ease transfer his Phansie as he had settled his Affections And in truth extraordinary must needs be the Artifice and Address of that man that is able to keep himself aflote in the stream of a Monarchs good Opinion in regard that the change of his Will which for the most part is strongly influenc'd by Phansie and soon cloyed is hardly to be arrested To effect this the Favorite must solely attend the Honour and Service of his Master and abandoning all other Considerations insinuate himself into his inward Inclinations winding into a necessity of Employment by discharging the Offices of most Secrecy in reference either to publick Service or the Princes peculiar Pleasures He must also be careful to suppress Competitors by the hands of others conceal in Publick his own Greatness by counterfeit Affectations of Humility and in his persute of Authority he is to cast a shew as if his Promotions were the work of others or of Conveniency rather than of any great Ambition of his own But now upon this Advantage the Reines of Rule were possess'd by the ambitious Lords and entrusted as Henry Knighton says in the hands of the Kings Half-Brethren Adam Guido Godfrey and William the King contenting himself being left to act his own part as before with the Shadow only and License of a great Fortune And to say the truth he was ever Wyer-drawn when he was so happy as to have about him such worthy Servants as would urge and suggest things that were for his Honour But these Masters on the contrary being puff'd up with the conceit of having no Superiour made it their business by gentle Words and Flatteries to seduce the unsteady mind of the King from the Path of Reason thereby to gain to themselves the privilege of doing what they list So that they fell immediately to filling the Courts of Justice and Places of Trust with their own Country-men exacting of whom how and what they would wasting the Publick Treasure and Crown Lands to the enriching of themselves and dependents setting Prices upon all Offences and squaring the Law according to the Rulâ— of their own Breasts And upon any Complaint of the Subject the usual Reply of their Servants was How'le ye help your self for the Kings Pleasure 's in my Masters Pocket Nay to so insupportable a degree of Licentiousness did these Strangers proceed that they seem'd rather to have entr'd the Land by Conquest â—han upon Invitation they enforc'd upon the great men not Obedience only but Servitude and reduced the meaner sort to so wretched a degree of Poverty that they might justly say they had nothing Yet lest the Groanes of his People and the wickedness of his Ministers should come to the King's Ear by the means of good and able Men they deny all such the least Access Suspicion being the best preserver of her own Deserts still keeps a strict eye upon those that have a due sense of Honour and Virtue as fearing them most Thus by the Inhability of the Prince the Government becomes a Prey to these Lawless Minions which occasions infinite Corruptions and Disorders in all the Members of the State all presuming upon his weakness do endeavour to grasp at an Arbitrary Authority that they may make Profit of it and easily permit the encreasing of Ill as the ready way to make their own Fortunes These Confusions were usher'd in by a Famine and that so violent an one that the king is forc'd to direct Writs to the several Counties to bury their Dead they were so Numerous The Dearth continues and then fell the Sword to raging so terribly that no man durst walk abroad without Arms all the Villages being left as a Prey to the tumultuous Rabble who raving up and down by the Connivance of such as ought to have suppress'd them it plainly appear'd that the Factious Lords whom the King suspected had fomented and given Life to the Commotion Seditious Peers ever bringing Fewel to such Popular Fires Neither was the Church it self without a busie Part in this Tragical Scene For the Bishops of Worcester and Lincoln being well-wishers to Montford and his Faction were far engaged In such Designs Church-men are never wanting and the distast of the establish'd Government as well Ecclesiastical as Civil will ever be a Knot of Strength for such unquiet Spirits who are as greedy after Innovations in the Church as in the State and ever crying up some new Model of Policy or other such as is most relishing to the giddy Multitude who at this time were mightily offended and not without reason neither at the new Courts of the Clergy their Pomp Rapaciousness and the Extortions of the Pope This was a fair pretext for the factious part of the Clergy so far to persue the Orders Ceremonies and Constitutions of the Church with bitter Speeches and Invectives that some of them incur'd the sentence of Excommunication at Rome and of Treason at Home they enjoyning the Earl of Leicester as he tendered his Salvation to maintain the Cause meaning his Rebellion to the very Death and asserting that the Peace of the English Church was never to be establish'd but by the Material Sword But that could never surely be the soundest Doctrine what ever might be pretended which was only to be propagated by War and Licence seeing the first Church contrarywise grew up by Fasting and Prayer True Piety obliges the Subject to desire a Good Sovereign but to bear with a Bad one and take the Burthen of Princes with a bended Knee so in time to deserve Abatement rather than resist Authority Church-men ought not always therefore to be our Oracles as to matters of Loyalty and Allegeance they may safely inform us of our Duty in difficult Poynts of Religion and where an humble ignorance is a secure knowledge we may rely upon them but they are not to be harken'd to in their clamorous Harangues against Authority Now to remedy all these Confusions and supply the Kings necessities a Parliament was call'd at last much to the liking of those Lords who as little meant to Relieve the King as they did to Heal the State their End at that time being only to lay open at Home the Poverty of their Master lessen his Reputation Abroad and in those times of Privilege to breath out their Passions freely Here they began to twit him with the Wrong he had done to the Publick in engrossing the choyce of the Chief Justice Chancellour and Treasurer who ought not they said to have been Elected but by the Common Counsel of the Realm highly applauding the Resolution of the Bishop of Chichester in refusing to surrender the Great Seal but in Parliament where he receiv'd it Then they charge him with having conferr'd all the places of Trust and Profit in his disposal upon Forreigners and
leaving his English Subjects unrewarded with having ruin'd the Merchants Trade by the introducing of Maletolts and imposing of Heavy Customs with having violated the Common Liberty by Non obstantes in his Patents thereby to secure Monopolies for his private Favorites with having taken the Bread out of the Peoples mouths and forced away their Horses from the very Plow with sending his Justices into the Country to oppress and fleece the People by fob'd Actions and false Accusations telling him that Sr. Robert de Pursloe had extorted great Summs of money from the Borderers of his Forrests upon pretence of Encroachments So that they were amazed they said to hear that he should now demand Relief of them since the Commonalty was so miserably pill'd pol'd and empoverish'd by the multitude of former Contributions that they were incapable of making any sort of supply And therefore they suggested to him that they being able to prove his needless Expences since the Kingdom began to be oppress'd to have amounted to above eight hundred thousand pound it was but fitting that he should call to account and pluck from his Favorites who had gleaned the Treasure of the Kingdom and shared the old Crown-Lands amongst themselves Several of them having in a short space from the Inheritance of an Acre advanced into the Possession of an Earldom instancing in the Case of one Mansel an inferiour Clerk who rose from Nothing to spend at the rate of four thousand Marks beside fifty Promotions that he had engross'd in the Church in annual Revenue they being of Opinion that more moderate Fees ought to have contented a Pen-man that was no better qualified than with the ordinary fruits of a Writing-School Yet they assured his Majesty after all that if a Reasonable Supply would suit with his Occasions they were ready so far to testifie their Obedience in that particular as his Behaviour should fairly merit setting a day says Matt. Paris by which the King was to redress the Abuses and Corruptions of his Court and work into the good Opinion of the Nobles The time being come and he having ratified afresh the Great Charter admitted into his Councel some persons of the Commons Election and promised for the future to apply himself for Counsel to Natives not Forreigners they at length granted him such an Allowance as left him at their Devotion for a further Supply Thus Parliaments that Before were ever a Medicine to heal up any Rupture in the Princes Fortunes grew now to be worse than the Disease malignant Humours being more predominant in them than well-composed Tempers The King having by this fully discovered the Drift of his rebellious Lords and finding that they took advantage of his Necessities to enslave him begins now to act the good Husband closeth his hand of Waste and resolves though too late to bear himself upon his own Legs But this Experience is still pernicious to the Private and dangerous to the Publick Weal of a State as not being able to do but by undoing nor to discern Order till Disorder shews it And yet still Alas such was his easiness and flexibility when he came to be prest hard by his French Minions that he was not capable of witholding his hand from their insatiable Desires and endless squanderings Insomuch that it then became a By-word Our Inheritance is possess'd by Aliens and our Houses by Strangers Dependents upon a King that is excessive in Largesses become exorbitant in their Demands measuring them not by Reason but example Past favours are never reckon'd upon nor any Bounty valued but what is purely Future and look how much a Prince disables himself by Giving so much the poorer he is of True Friends such Prodigality in a Sovereign ever concluding in the Spoyl and Plunder of his Subjects But before the King would again submit himself to so many bold and strict Inquiries of his Disloyal Subjects as he had endured the last Parliament he resolves to try and undergo all shifts and extremities that necessity and a great mind could impose upon him First therefore he exposes the crown-Crown-Lands then his Jewels to sale pawns Gascoyn and after That his Imperial Crown And when his Credit would serve him no longer having so often fail'd of his word nor any thing of his own left to raise mony upon he then pawns the Jewels and Ornaments of St. Edwards Shrine and at the long run being destitute of means to defray the Charge of his Court was forced to break up house and with his Queen and Children to press upon the Charity of his Subjects for his Daily Bread Having thus by Improvidence again reduced himself to this low Ebb the Rebellious Lords grew more and more intractable in Confidence that the Sovereign Power would now at last inevitably fall a prey to their ambitious Machinations which that it might the sooner come to pass they coveted nothing more passionately than to drive the King into Want that so they might constrain him to call a Parliament as phansying to themselves that Subjects at such times seem more than they should be Princes less In order hereunto they take a great deal of pains to propagate false and seditious Rumours of the Kings intention to repair his broken Fortunes by the Ruine of those of his Subjects and that having nothing left of his own he might and intended to force from others further insinuating that Princes will never Want so long as the people has the means of supplying them This scandalous Aspersion had the wished for Effect for it troubled the State and the flame would questionless have advanced Higher had not the King asswag'd it by Proclamations wherein he declared that he was not insensible of the evil Arts that had been made use of to seduce his Liege People into an ill Opinion of his Person and Government by false and groundless Suggestions and Surmises of his designing to oppress them in their just Liberties and Proprieties by such undue practises he said they laboured to withdraw them from their Duty and Allegeance He caution'd them to give no heed to and beware of such malicious Disturbers of the Publick Peace and assured them that he had made his Letters Patent purely to the end that they might be satisfied as to his readiness and resolution to defend them from the oppression of the Great Lords and inviolably to maintain to them their lawful Customs Privileges and Immunities in every Branch of them But for all this yet he found that Majesty and Right were not to be kept aslote without Purse and Power and that himself wanted so much of Both as was requisite for stopping the Breach in his own Revenue and his Subjects Loyalty Wherefore lie betakes himself at length to the Bosom of his People for Relief and Counsel He called a Parliament at Oxford where his necessities encountered so many undutiful Demands that he was forced to surrender to their rebellious Will his Royal Power For the Commons looking upon