quae sito colore upon no preâ—â—se whatsoever to take arms against their lawful Soveraign yet taking it for good and Orthodox Divinity I conceive there needeth no other Argument but the reciting of his Tyrant to make good my Assertion that the Case would no way concern the King But the Wickednesse Malice and Danger of this Tenent besides the falseness of ir is That having once constituted a Position That by the people the Prince may be hostilelie resisted in such and such Cases and being in such and such a degree wicked and the people likewise therof to be the Judges there is a latitude left to every Sect to every mans Passion or to every mans Interest to fancy to himself that what disliketh him is Impiety Heresie or Oppression And to judge of the measure of his Princes wickedness or if he be not wicked enough yet to resist him by way of prevention lest he should become such For he saith not long after That Tyranny is like an Hectique Feaver which at the beginning is easie to cure but hard to discover but afterward is easily known but is become incurable and therefore must be timely prevented But leaving the wickedness danger and falsenesse of this Doctrine to be considered of admitting it were good and true as is before said let us examin how it is applicable to our present Case He supposeth his Tyrant to be an Enemy to God and Man with so many other Attributes of wickedness and impiety That Nero Caligula Domitian Iulian the Apostate Phalaris and Dionysius may well be ranked in his middle number of Princes that were not of the worst And I conceive that Treason and Malice it self will abhor the applicarion in any sort of his description of a Tyrant unto the King and so consequently of this new Doctrine to our present Case For my self I must avow it that by what I have read in the above-cited Author in Buchanan in Suarez and Mariana and what our Countryman Bishop Bilson hath written I was much confirmed in my Opinion of the unlawfulness of taking Armes against the King * For all rules with Exception confirm in all things but in the things excepted And all these Authors write with great strength against Resistance and taking Armes against the Prinre but only in the Case of Tyranny and the Romanists in case of the Popes deposing of them The latter whereof neither being nor admitted if it were I shall lay aside And shall only shew how far the King is from any of these Wickednesses and Impieties of which they compose their Tyrant I well know that Kings are Men made of the same Paste of flesh and blood with others and subject to the same weaknesses and to the same passions And as Brutus saith our reason can no more be severed from our said passions and infirmities than the soul can be from the Body whilst the man is yet living And thereupon saith We must not expect to have Princes against whom nothing can be said but we must think that all goeth well with us if they be moyennement bons Middlingly good And Commines saith That a Prince whose virtues exceed his vices ought to be esteemed and stiled a good Prince And of Princes it is a good rule Optimus est qui minimis urgetur He is best that hath the fewest faults for some faults being Men they will all have And certainly whosoever shall rightly know the King and be acquainted with his irreprovable Course of life his constant and dayly practice of devotions of Piety will not deny him the Title of a right good Prince And so notwithstanding his misfortunes and the unsuccessfullness of his affairs he will be esteemed when he shall be rightly known and considered without prejudice as he is unto me by reason of my long and near attendance about his Person and of whom I will be bold to say without flattery That having by the space of almost Forty years been conversant in most of the Courts of the Princes of Christendom as a publique Minister and been no uncurious observer of the Deportments of the Princes of my time I never knew any Prince or scarcely any private man in whose life there hath been less reproveable And what is here said I conceive will be abundantly sufficient to shew that if this new Doctrine of hostile Resistance were admitted for good it would in no kind justifie it in this present Case It being only applicable to the worst of men when here it must be made use of against an exemplary good Man and who may be justly numbred amongst the best of Princes As I doubt not but it will clearly appear when the truth of many things which have been suggested against him shall be faithfully set down As there will be occasion to do in the following Discourse And so I shall pass to the next religious Obligation whereby my Conscience hath been restrained from taking armes against the King which is the sacred Tye of the late Protestation and of so many solemn Oaths whereby I have engaged my self before God to bear him true Faith and Alleageance and to defend his Person and all his just Rights and Dignities CHAP. V. Setting down the Obligations and Tyes by solemn Oaths and Protestations of not taking Arms against the King IT will be easily assented unto by all sorts of Christians that Solemn Oaths established by lawful Authority and legally administred and in a matter that is not Malum in se absolutely wicked are the highest and strongest Obligations that can pass from Man to God from Nation to Nation from Subjects to their Prince or Prince to their Subjects or from Man to Man And this is not only so declared in Scripture but was undoubtedly part of that Natural and Moral Law which was by God planted in the heart of Man even from the Creation For we find it in practice before any written Law and by all Nations Heathens and Unciviliz'd and altogether ignorant of the Precepts either of the old or new Testament yet by the light of Nature they held Oaths the most sacred of all Assurances and Perjury amongst the most execrable and detestable of all Impieties Now the Oaths that I and the rest of the Kings Subjects have taken unto him for the serving of him with Loyalty with true Faith and Alleageance for the Adhering to him against all Persons for the defending of his Royal Person for the Maintaining and Upholding of all Rights Dignities and Prerogatives belonging to him or annexed to his Imperial Crown will be clearlyest exprest by setting down the Oaths themselves in terminis which shal be annexed hereunto for not interrupting too long the series of this Discourse Besides the Oaths formerly established by Law at the beginning of this Parliament There was a solemn Protestation propounded by the Houses of Parliament to be taken by themselves and so through the whole Kingdom And was allowed of by the King And this
Protestation was by my self taken in the House of Peers and subscribed by me wherein I Promise Vow and Protest in the presence of God as far as lawfully I may with my Life Power and Estate according to the Duty of my Alleageance to Maintain and Defend his Majesties Royal Person Honour and Estate Now how the taking arms against him and the assailing and pursuing of him in Battel can be for the defence of his Royal Person or the seizing of all his Revenew for the Maintenance of his Estate or the divesting of him of all Power and Authority with so many other sad things that against him have been said and done and which my Pen blusheth to set down can be for the Defence and Maintenance of his Honour or how the Stile of Majesty which in this Pootestation we give him the Usage of him considered can be otherwise judged of but as a Scorn and Derision I understand not sure I am that I took the said Protestation in earnest and with an Attestation of God that I would faithfully perform it And so by his holy Assistance I will ever do according to the express words in the said Protestation with my Life Power and Estate Neither am I in any kind able to conceive how it is possible for any Christian Man that hath taken the former Oaths and Protestation of Adhering Defending and Assisting of the King against all Persons whatsoever to swallow much lesse to digest the new Negative Oath which in the subsequent words I A. B. do swear from my heart That I will not directly nor indirectly adhere unto or willingly assist the King in this War or in this Cause against the Parliament c. I am likewise as much unsatisfied of the late National Covenant how it may stand or be reconciled to these former Oaths and Protestation But in regard that is a Businesse of great Consequence and length I will set down in a Tract apart those Scruples which hitherto have deterred my Conscience from venturing upon it That these Oaths have been established by lawfull Authority they were made and enjoined by free and unquestionable Parliaments whose Acts I speak not of Ordinances but of Acts wherein the Royal Assent hath concurred are of that high and Soveraign Authority that the Law admitteth of no Plea nor averment against them And this I am confident will be by all acknowledged They have likewise been legally administred by the Ministers that by the said Acts have thereunto been appointed and ordained and for the Justness and Righteousness of them the Confirming of them by so many several Acts of Parliament by which Laws no person can have a Voice in Parliament but stands to all intents and purposes as a person that had not been elected or returned if he sit in the House before he have taken the said Oaths And the continuing of the enjoyning of them by the Houses unto this day must clear all Dispute or Question of that kind For the Houses do not admit of Members unto their Houses nor Officers into their places until they have first taken the said Oaths in such sort as by the Statutes is ordained So that it is clear that they are aswell as others satisfied in the goodnesse of them Besides the subject matter of these Oaths is just and righteous in it self being only in pursuance of those duties of Obedience which are commanded us both by the Law of God and the Land and which are extra juramentum obligantia obliging in themselves though there were no Oath It is further to be observeed That besides the legal penalties that may be injoyned for the refusing or breaking of rhese Oaths they contain something further than temporal Punishment can reach unto they carry with them The heavy Iudgement of God declared in Scripture against the breakers of solemn Oathes And in this Case there is yet much more added for we accompany the breach of them with the most horrid and fearfull Execration that any Christians can draw upon themselves renouncing the Help and Protection of God Almighty and the Benefit of our Reemption contained in the Holy Gospel if we fail in the performance of them which I understand to be quantum in nobis est if we do not indeavour to do the utmost in our power to keep them But voluntarily for Fear or Interest not only to break them but to do that which by the very plain words is contrary to the said Oaths and is contrary to that sence in which I took them as I understand the taking of armes against the King to be with many other things of necessity following thereupon I durst not adventure upon that which my Conscience judged so great an Impiety CHAP. VI Setting down the unlawfulness of Hostile Resistance drawn from Humane Laws HAving thus set down those Reasons which deterred my Conscience from making Hostile Resistance unto the King which have been deduced out of the Word of God the Doctrine and Practice of holy Men and the Obligation of sacred Oaths I shall now propose my Scruples drawn from humane Laws but especially from the Laws of our Kingdom By the Common Law of England many things were Treason But because the Common Law is not composed in one intire body or Text and it was difficult for the unlearned and Lay-People to inform themselves exactly and distinctly what was Treason and what was not the goodness of the King and the wisedom of the Parliament in the time of Edw. the 3. was such that for the avoiding of the insnaring of the People in so high a Penalty and Destruction as followeth the being convicted of Treason It was thought fit that all those things which for the future should be esteemed or adjudged Treason should be particularly and distinctly set down in one Law and exclusively to all things else which was accordingly done in the Statute of the 25 Edw. 3. And in case it should so fall out that any matter should arise besides those particulars specified in the said Statute No judgement should passe thereon but it should be reserved till the next Parliament But for those Cases in the said Statute expressed they were enacted to be Treason and so to be adjudged by the ordinary course of Iustice And in regard that in the troublesome and disorderly time of Richard the 2. the prevailing party which still swayed the Parliament had made and unmade many several Treasons as suited to the Designs and Interests of those that had the Power In the first year of Hen. the 4. all those newsprung-up Treasons were revoked and abolished and Treason again reduced to the Statute of 25 Edw. the 3. The like inconveniences growing in the Wars betwixt the Houses of York and Lancaster and afterwards by the fierceness of Hen. the 8. who upon the alterations he had made in Religion had so insnared the Subject that the Protestants of the reformed Religion could not by reason of the six Atticles escape the
Fire nor the Roman Catholiques by reason of the Oath of Supremacy the Halter Whereupon it was again desired by the Houses that Treason might be reduced into a certainty according to the Statute of the 25 of Edw. the 3. which was accordingly so enacted the 2. of Phil. and Ma. And all these three Statutes 25 Edw. 3. 1 Hen. 4. and 2 Phil. and Ma. are yet in force In which the attempting of any thing against the Kings Person the adhering to the Kings Enemies the leavying War against the King The seizing of any of his Forts or his Ships Royal The Counterfeiting of the Kings Hand or his great or privy Seal with many other particulars are so explicitely and clearly enacted to be high Treason That whosoever should be guilty of the Fact would have as ill a Plea to plead That â—unius Brutus Buchanan or any of our new Doctors did hold and maintain by their writings That it is lawfull in such and such Cases to take Armes against the King and so consequently in all the other particulars specified in the said Statute As a Felon that had rob'd upon the high way would have to plead that Theft by the Law of God is not punishable by death for which he would not want likewise his * Authors But such as have been acquainted with the Courses held with those that have been Indicted and Arraigned for Treason will know That to be proceeded against only upon the plain and clear letter of the Law is to have favourable Iustice And he shall have the Kings Atturny and the learned Counsel with Eloquence and great strains of Wit by Deductions and Inferences as though they had lost the day if the Accused should be acquitted stretch the litteral Text beyond what it can rationally or honestly bear and speaking as they say for the King no man dares reprove or restrain them But to suppose that any Allegation of Conscience or the Opinion of learned Authors nay if it were Texts out of Scripture against the explicite letter of the Law would be heard or admitted were a great Ignorance But he would be told as I know some have been That all other things were Matters dehors Nothing to the purpose The issue was only factum or non factum And truly wofull experience had taught me to be wary in humane prudence not to imbarque my self in a Business wherin my Conscience was not only altogether unsatisfied but if I should ever be brought to a legal Tryal upon it mine own Judgment told me I could have nothing to say in mine own Defence of Justification or that could preserve my Self and Posterity from total Ruine and Destruction but Prevailing and Victory Which at the most could but protect but could not make a bad Cause good But besides humane Prudence and fear of Punishment there is a Conscientious Tye of obeying the Law we being taught to obey not only for wrath but for Conscience sake S. Paul saith That if there had been no Law there had been no sinne which sheweth That the breaking of just Laws and legally established is sin For the supream Powers therein are chiefly disobeyed who are supposed to command more Authoritatively by their Laws than by their Verbal Commands Further as the Laws are so positive against Resistance and taking Arms against the King so likewise have the Laws been as carefull to Protect and thereby to Incourage the Subject to adhore unto their King for it is provided by the Stat. 11 of Hen. 7. Cap. 1. That from henceforth no manner of person or persons whatsoever he or they be that attend upon the King and Soveraign Lord of this Land for the time being in his Person and do him true and faithfull service of Allegience in the same or be in other places by his Commandement in his Wars within this Land or without That for the said deed true duty of Allegeance he or they be no wise Convict or Attaint of high Treason nor of other offences for that Cause by Act of Parliament or otherwise by any Process of Law whereby he or any of them shall lose or forfeit Life Land Tenements Rents Possessions Hereditaments Goods Chattels or any other things but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any Vexation Trouble or Losse And if any Act or Acts or other Process of the Law hereafter thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance That then that Act or Acts or other Process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void Provided alwaies That no Person or Persons shall take any benefit or advantage by this Ast which shall hereafter decline from his or their said Allegeance So that if they that have served the King with Fidelity according to the Law shall by their prevailing fellow-Subjects be attainted and their Estates forfeited and disposed of at their pleasure It must be by some such Transcendent Power as must be above all Laws For as by the Law no Subject ought either to be attainted or lose his Estate for serving the King in his Wars so can no Confiscations by the Law belong to any but unto the King or such as derive their Right from him It is true in the Heat and Contestation of War it is usual that whatsoever Goods or Wealth the souldier can lay hands upon is de facto esteemed good Purchase But after the War is ended the Law useth then to recover her Force And setled Inheritances in all former Civill Wars in England have never been disposed of by the Arbitrary Power of the prevailing Party although they were Kings claiming the Crown by Title and might have Right to Confiscations but by legal Convictions and due course of Law much more in the Case of Subjects taking Arms against their King which is alwaies in the beginning stiled and proclaimed Rebellion by the King that they Oppose untill Success or Treaty qualifie that Name That they should not content themselves with a General Pardon and Act of Oblivion and the settlement of the Government for the future to their reasonable Content and Security for themselves and their Estates But that Inheritances must be confiscated and disposed of by them and such persons as they shall please without legal Tryal and as it were by Proscription or Decimation be by a Vote designed to loss of Life and Estate without Pardon or Mercy What greater Cruelty could have been used towards them if they had faln into the hands of the Turk or most merciless Conquerour especially if it shall be considered that in this Case no Neutrality could be admitted nor the most peaceable-minded man avoid the being ingaged For as by the Law it is Treason to take Armes against the King by the above-recited Statutes so by the Statute of the 19 Hen. 7. It is loss of all Honours Castles Lordships Mannors Lands Tenements and other Hereditaments c. not to take Armes for the King and
pass by were left unto the Iustice of the Parliament without the Kings Protecting or Interposing for any one of them CHAP. VIII A Vindication of the King against that false and injurious Aspersion of unsettledness in his Religion THe second main and important point that hath been made use of to the Kings Disadvantage and by which the Hearts of the People have been most alienated from him was chiefly by ill informed Ministers in the Pulpit who have most untruly suggested an unfirmness and unsettledness in the King in point of his Religion and an inclination in him to overthrow the true reformed Protestant Religion established by the Laws of the Kingdom and to introduce Popery This I must confess was so far from planting in me any thing to the Kings Prejudice That by so much the more it confirmed me in my Duty and Affection towards the King by how much of mine own knowledge this wicked Aspersion was false and injurious For in that point of the Kings Religion few men living had the Cause or could have the means to be so perfectly informed of it as my self For besides that from his Youth upward I had been an eye-witness of his Education being in the King his Fathers time admitted as a Gentleman of his Bed-chamber I was for divers years imployed in the Treaty of a Mariage for him with a Princess of a differing Religion And was to that purpose his Fathers Ambassador in Spain when the King then Prince arrived there in Person And it is true that the Spaniards had conceived great hopes of his becomming a Romish Catholique wherein there wanted not incouragement both from divers in England and from some about him and for the effecting of it there was no industry omitted by them but the learnedst men in Spain were imployed to satisfie him And he was by Artifice brought to set a Conference with the said Divines upon Tearms of great Disadvantage For one Wadesworth that had been an English Minister and was then become a Romish Catholique was put upon him for his Interpreter neither had he the Assistance of any learned man with him Yet gave he so good an Account of his own Religion and answered so pertinently the Objections of the others as was much beyond the expectation of all that were present at the said Conference But seeing himself still pressed in that kind Although the King of Spain assured him that with this one thing all difficulties were overcome and that he would sign him a Blanck in all things else yet not to entertain them with any further hopes he positively declared his Resolution to remain unremoveable in his own Religion and would afterwards admit of no more Conferences in that kind and certainly if any earthly consideration could have been prevalent with him he had then such Motives as might have wrought upon him For besides the Disgrace of failing in his first Enterprice especially an Enterprise of Love and in his own Person the Princess was of that Merit and her Value of him such And his satisfaction of her Virtue and his Affection to her Person so great that nothing but point of Religion could have made him leave her behind him For it was declared unto him that in Case he would conform himself in point of Religion no Dispensation from the Pope would be then needfull but the Mariage should be consummate without any further expectation from Rome as soon as he should desire it But he thereupon declared that he would rather expect the Dispensation and resolved to imploy his indeavours that way and so presently sent one Mr. Andrews a Servant of his to Rome to cause Mr. George Gage that was then there solliciting of the Dispensation to procure the dispatch thereof with all possible diligence and Letters were written unto him by the Princes Order to desire him that if there were at Rome any Opinion of the Princes becomming a Roman Catholique and upon hope thereof any Retardment of the granting the Dispensation he should undeceive them in that point and press the Dispensation upon the Articles of Religion agreed upon The Prince was then moved by the Spanish Ministers to write unto the Pope in answer of some Letters which the Pope had sent unto him and to move him for the granting of the Dispensation and the Letters were brought ready drawn unto him and some passages there were from which some hope might be gathered that in time when it might be thought more seasonable than at the present lest it might be thought he had changed his Religion for a Wife he would not be unwilling to receive further satisfaction in the Catholique Religion all which he strook out and wrote only a Letter of Civility such a one as he thought fit to write to one from whom he was to receive favour in a Business that he most desired and without whom there was no possibility of obteining it unless he would have conformed himself in point of Religion which he being resolved not to do he thought it fit to apply himself unto the Pope by all fair and amiable means and particularly in promising not to be severe against those of his Religion thereby to facilitate with the Pope the granting of the Dispensation All which Diligences he might have excused by his Conformity for then no Dispensation would have been needfull And hereby no further hope remaining in the Court of Spain or at Rome of his altering his Religion the Dispensation was granted upon the Articles formerly agreed on in point of Religion These Letters have been published and translated into several Languages which though I cannot say corruptly yet strained as much as might be to his disadvantage And it is probable that the like Letters of Complyance to the Pope may have been procured in the Treaty of the Match with France wherein the Popes Dispensation was likewise held necessary But all are Arguments of the Kings firmness in his Religion when he would rather undergo the trouble and delay of the Dispensation than by his Conformity to have effected what he desired without any difficulty or further hazard and this hath been fully confirmed ever since by his profession and living in the Reformed Religion established in the Church of England from which no man can say with truth that he hath prevaricated in the least tittle Besides this great proof of his firmness and settledness in his Religion his constant and daily Practice both in Publique and Private in the exercise of his Devotions may and ought to give satisfaction to all that consider him without prejudice For his resorting twice every day to Publique Prayors and twice a week at least to Sermons and his frequent receiving of the Holy Sacrament is publiquely known unto all but his private Devotions to those only that are of nearer Attendance about his Person who well know that he never faileth morning nor evening to retire himself to his private Prayers and upon Occasions in the day time
bound unto towards the King The sum of them being briefly thus 1. I understood Hostile Resistance against the King to be expresly prohibited by the word of God both in the old and new Testament 2. I should have gone against the Doctrine and Practice of the Primitive Church and against the present Tenents and Confessions of Faith of all the Reformed Churches 3. Admitting the Maxims of those hot-headed men either Romanists or Protestants that have written in favour of Subjects taking Arms against their Prince to be true as they are false and condemned by their own Churches respectively yet in this Case they could be no Arguments to me For that their Doctrine and Principles are in no kind applicable to the present matter in Fact 4. I should have directly broken all those solemn Oaths which I had so often taken of Fidelity and Allegeance to the King 5. I should have gone against the Laws of the Kingdom by which to take Arms against the King or to adhere to his Enemies c. is made Treason 6. I should have been failing in the Obligations of Honor and Gratitude 7. I should have transgressed against Moral Honesty and natural Iustice to have fought against the King as an unjust and an irreligious Man whom I knew to be in more than an ordinary measure Iust and Religious So that if I should have broken through all these Duties of Religion of Oaths of Loyalty of Laws of Gratitude and Moral Honesty by doing presumptuously against my Conscience how could I but have feared to be made as miserable in the next World as I should have remained despâ—cable in this And howsoever this may be judged a severe Censure ' It is only against my self as I say in the beginning of this Discourse Men may upon differing Painciples go differing waies And I cannot be so uncharitable as to think so many grave learned and noble Personages would break through so many plain Duties under which they had formerly lived And unto which they had not only sworn but conformed themselves But that they had either found out or had had revealed unto them some such things for the satisfaction of their Consciences as God hath not yet been pleased I should attain unto If I may see them in writing I shall peruse them willingly And if I shall find in them but so much Reason as may induce me to believe that upon their own Principles and not by Fear Interests or likelyhood of prevailing their Consciences may have been perswaded that way Although I disapprove their said Principles and still retain mine own yet I shall say Bonâ intentione mali sunt which though it doth not justifie an evill Action yet it doth in some measure excuse and lessen the Offence St. Paul was a great * Persecutor of the Church But because he did it out of abundance of Zeal * He obtained Pardon for that he did it ignorantly Our Saviour saith to his Disciples The time will come that whosoever killeth you will think they do God good service And those very Murtherers would have been in much better Case than I should have been that should have sinned presumptuously and against the perswasion of mine own Conscience whereas they had the Glory of God for their end though upon false Principles And certainly presumptuous sins being as it were a defying of God are of greater Provocation And I shall recommend unto those whose Consciences have led them another way that Imborn Charitable principle of the Law of Nature as well as of the Gospel Quod tibi fieri non vis alteri ne feceris Whatsoever ye would that men should to do you do ye even so unto them And if Conscience shal be a discharge or supersedeas unto them against known Duties against Oaths and Established Laws Let Conscience in me grounded upon so many Reasons as in this Discourse are set down be likewise pleadable for the doing of those Duties to which I conceived my self obliged both by the Law of God and Man and which hitherto both they and I have practised CHAP. XII All the former Reasons applyed to the present Case of King Charles with a positive opinion thereupon THese have been the Motives of setling my Conscience in the Opinion that I shall briefly here set down deduced from the Principles of this Discourse which upon this individual Case is That neither upon pretext of Religion Personal Vices Excesses in Government nor any other Colour or Pretext whatsoever the Subjects of the Crown of England may withdraw their Obedience or make Hostile Resistance to King CHARLES the present King Being by Right of Inheritance justly possessed of the Crown His Title no way depending either upon his Divine or Moral Vertues And the said Subjects having received him and acknowledged him for their only Supreme Governor done him Hommage and sworn to him Faith and Allegeance absolutely and without Condition As for other Kings or Potentates whether Elective Kingdoms or Kingdoms that at the Erection of them were received by the first King upon Express Covenant and only with a Conditional Obedience as is pretended by those of Aragon and others of these I shall not speak Neither shall I adventure to speak of those Catholique Kings and Princes which acknowledge in spiritual matters a Superiour Iurisdiction in the Pope over them And he pretendeth as hath been before set down by necessary Relation and Dependency of the Temporal upon the Spiritual to have a Temporal Power over them in ordine ad spiritualia and hath often put this his Claim in Practice by accompanying his spiritual Censure of Excommunication with the Sentence of discharging Subjects of their obedience to their Princes and so consequently of deposing them Herewith I shall not meddle None of these cases being applicable to the present Case of King CHARLES who is no Elective King but holdeth his Crown by an unquestionable Title of Succession derived to him by Descent from his Ancestors for the space of more than six hundred years Neither was there ever any Pact or Condition with him or any of his Ancestors of forfeiture in Case of misgovernment or wickedness And breach of Covenants forfeiteth not an Ordinary Estate unless there be an express Clause and Condition of forfeiture which in this Case neither was nor ever can be pretended It is true that his Ancestors and himself have limited and restrained their Legal Right by many Concessions and Laws in some Cases as The making of Laws without Consent of Peers and People and the levying of Mony c. which he cannot violate without great Injustice as shall be after shewn But no such Pact or Covenant can be produced or pretended whereby upon breach he forfeiteth his Soveraignty or maketh it justifiable for his Subjects to take Arms against him or to inflict Punishments upon his Person either by deposing Death or Imprisonment The Case likewise of Catholique Princes no way concerneth him who acknowledgeth in
the Pope no such Superior Jurisdiction Neither if he did are there any such Ecclesiastical Censures issued out against him as might warrant so much as his Catholique Subjects to take arms against him So that whatsoever Pretences may be in some Cases concerning such Princes as I have above specified wherein I shall not presume to deliver any Opinion yet in the present Case of King CHARLES there can be no colourable pretence of taking arms against him or of deposing him which I understand to be in effect when he is divested oâ— his just Regal Power Or of the imprisoning of his person which I understand to be not only when he is in Bonds or lockt up in a Room but when the liberty of going and the freedom of speaking is restrained to such places or persons as others shall please and he remain under the Guard of Armed men not of his own choosing but imposed upon him by others It must be acknowledged that the Kings of England derive their Title and Right from William the Norman who although he came in by Conquest yet his Successors considering that a Right acquired by Force may likewise be recovered by Force by those upon whom the forceable Intrusion was made were pleased by way of pact and stipulation to limit and qualifie that Imperium absolutum which is acquired by Conquest And the People of England thereupon did submit themselves to his Government and became his Subjects and his Liege-men And thereby was Constituted Imperium legitimum a just and Rightfull Soveraignty the Kings remaining with Supreme Power and the People with Common Right whereby they were freed from the Servitude of Conquest and remained under a free Subjection whereunto they had by their Consent submitted themselves The Kings likewise did recede from Absolute and Arbitrary Power and remained with Supreme but not with Absolute Empire By free Subjection I understand when a People live under Laws to which they have given a free Consent and not under the meer Will of the Prince And that they retain such a Propriety in that which is their own that without their Assent or legal forfeiture it cannot be taken from them And this is a true difference betwixt a Free Subject and a Slave or Servant Quicquid acquirit servus acquiritur Domino Liber quod acquirit acquirit sibi Whatsoever a servant getteth he getteth for his Lord Whatsoever a Freeman getteth he getteth for himself And so although that Dominion of all belongeth to the Prince Propriety belongs to every man Dominium totius apud Caesarem Proprietas apud singulos The Difference that I understand betwixt a Supreme and Absolute Empire is That in Absolute Empire the Rule of the Peoples Obedience is only the Soveraigns Will So it is in Turky Muscovia and all such Princes as retain entire the Right of Conquest and was in some sort under the Roman Emperor after the Lex Regia was established by the Peoples Consent whereby they transferred their entire Right unto the Emperor Supreme Empire I understand to be when a King hath a Supremacy and Soveraingnity over all but his Absolute Power is limited and restrained by reciprocal Pacts Laws and Stipulations betwixt Prince and People which is the Case of the Crown of England And to these Pacts the King and People are equally bound before God and Man And the King is as much bound to Iustice and to the protection of his Subjects and to the observance of the Laws not only out of Religion but out of Moral Honesty as the Subject is to Obedience And he is not only accomptable to God but his People have just and legal waies to seek Redress wherein he shall do Wrong notwithstanding that Axiome of our Common Law * That the King can do no Wrong which is very false in many senses and may be very well called fictio Iuris a kind of Metaphysical Fiction For Kings may do Wrong and be as wicked as other men and may commit Murther and lye with other mens Wives and wrongfully take take other mens Estates which no Fiction of the Law can make not to be Wrong although his Person be exempt from punishment And that abstract Consideration of the King for his just Power and Office as it hath been often ill used heretofore in way of Assentation So there hath been as ill use made of it in these troubles when the taking of arms and the fighting against him was pretended not to be against the King but against CHARLES STEWART But to speak in Terms intelligible a King both may do Wrong and the People may seek their redress in such sort as the Law of the Land alloweth And the difference betwixt King and Peoples failing in their reciprocal Duties is not but that they do Wrong alike offend God alike and are both of them liable to be questioned according to the extent of the Law by both their Consents established The Subjects transgressing the Law shall be punished according to the quality and measure of their Delicts Felony by loss of their Goods and Chattels and by a milder Death Treason by a more severe Death and Confiscation both of Goods and Inheritance But hereof they must be convict per pares by People of their own Condition and adjudged by a Superiour Iurisdiction which can be derived only and singly from the King So that the King not having his Peer or any of his own Condition cannot have a legal Tryal And having no jurisdiction superior to himself cannot be adjudged or sentenced by any For neither the Extent of the Law nor any Condition of the Pacts or Stipulation do reach to the punishing of the Person of the King or the forfeiture of his Dominion over us It is true that in civill things Tryals may be and often are brought against the King And Kings do give way That the Iudges be sworn to do equal Iustice betwixt them and their Subjects And in point of Oppression and Wrong we may Remonstrate our Grievances and challenge Redress by our Petitions Which if they be not condescended unto we may insist upon them as our right and claim them as a due and not as of grace And although we do it by way of Petition that is but a dutifull form of Subjects bringing their Plea against the King For in other sort he ought not to be impleaded Besides these Petions of Right we may as it hath been formerly said remonstrate enter our Protestations and take all those Courses which the Laws allow Neither ought the King to take Offence at these legal Contestations with him because by his assent unto the Laws he hath assented unto them Nay he ought in them to do us Right being bound thereunto by the Law of God and by his Oath and by moral Honesty and Iustice But if he fail in all these Duties our Jurisdiction reacheth not to his personal Punishment therein he is sub nullo nisi sub Dâ—o and the Law stoppeth there
and telleth us satis sufficit ei ad poenam quòd Deum habet ultorem It will be a sufficient punishment to him that he hath God for an Avenger Yet are we not altogether left without remedy For Kings although they be Gods Vice-gerents yet they cannot work as God worketh saying Fiat and it was done Kings must work by mediate Instruments And if they Command illegal things the Executioners of them are responsable and must make satisfaction to the Parties injured And therefore the King ought not immediately to imprison nor in Person to execute any thing because that in Case of wrong-doing the Subject would be left without Remedy in regard the Kings Person is not to be impleaded by Law I know the usual Objections In Case Kings will do that which they ought not to do and will by their own immediate Warrants Commit and be the Personal Actors of the Injuries or not suffer the Executioners of their unlegal Commands to be legally proceeded against shall the Subject be left wholly without Remedy and the People be debarred of the benefit of that Right of Nature in-bred in all Creatures of self preservation Yes We must be contented with that Condition wherein God hath placed us and wherein by our own Consents and Stipulations of subjection we have placed our selves and may only right our selves by those means which by the laws whereunto we have given our assent are permitted unto us Neither is our native Liberty hereby ravisht from us but as we have parted with it by our own Consent and Agreement So we cannot resume it but by those waies which we have reserved in the Stipulations of our submission And besides that herein there is no Injury for that Volenti non fit Injuria It would be more hurtfull to mankind if it were otherwise For there is a necessity that in all sorts of Governments aswell as in Monarchy there should he an Impunity and Power somewhere of not being questioned else all would presently fall into Anarchy and Confusion Neither could there be a final ending of Controversies if there were not a Dernier Ressort and last Appeal wherein we are bound to acquiesce And this Power must be trusted in some hand and that must of necessity be where the Soveraign Power remaineth else there mstu be supposed a Superiour Power to that Soveraign Power and so in infinitum untill we come to some such Power that hath nothing above it and then that must be trusted and must be submitted unto without being accomptable to any but to God because on earth there can be to it no Superiour Iurisdiction And this Power is in the King of England in all things except such wherein he himself or his Ancestors have by Lawes and Stipulations limâ—ted their Absolute Power as hath been above set down As enacting or repealing Laws without his Parliament levying of Moneys and many other things wherein He and his Ancestors have restrained their Power And this we are by the Law of God and of the Land bound to obey and not to make any resistance but what the Law alloweth us We must in the rest have recourse unto God if our Princes be wicked Neither may we mutiny or repine at God when we have ill Kings more than when he sendeth Diseases Plagues Caterpillers Blightings or Blasts For wicked Kings are but Blastings of the People that God is pleased to punish Neither must we think our Condition worse than that of wicked Kings notwithstanding their temporall Impunity For certainly it is much better both in regard of Punishment in the World to come and commonly in this For the next World As their Sin is greater So it is declared that their Punishment shall be greater Heare o ye Kings and understand c. Because being Ministers of Gods Kingdom you have not judged aright nor kept the Law nor walked after the Counsel of God Horribly and speedily shall he come upon you for a sharp Iudgment shall be to them that are in high places For mercy will soon pardon the meanest but mighty men shallbe mightily tormented Wheras Subjects which suffer with patience because they are so commanded by God make him their Debtor by their sufferings and he alwaies payeth faithfully who saith that if we suffer with Christ we shall also reign with him And for this World Their Wickednesse and Oppression is ever accompanyed with those Fears Distractions and Horrours of Conscience which have ever been unseperable from Tyrannies by which their lives are rendred more uncomfortable than the unhappiest of their Subjects And for the most part their ends are as miserable as their lives For what they fear and by their Tyrannie seek to prevent doth commonly fall upon them Their People do Revolt and Rebel And although they be never so well Catechâ—zed in the points of Obedience yet their Natural Inclination to return to Liberty much more to cast off unjust Burthens and Oppressions is such that slight and weak Arguments will easily perswade them to that whereunto they are so strongly inclined and the least pretence of Religion or colour of Reason or Lawfulness countenancing or tolerating the freeing themselves from Subjection in any Case will be more prevalent with them than the most positive Precept of Gods Word injoining Obedience And if in any Case taking of Arms be admitted Theirs shall ever be that case And if the wickedness of their Prince shall be allowed as a ground for Rebellion Their Prince shall ever be the most wicked And of this all Ages have produced many examples and especially these latertime through all the Estates of Christendom And although the Christian churches of all Professions as before is shew'd declare against the Doctrine of Resistance Two or Three hot-headed-men writing or preaching suitable to their Affection Desires will prevail against the Authority of all the Churches of Christendom And wicked Princes will find that Precepts in this Case will not serve the turn But it wil be in this point of Resistance as Tacitus saith of Divinations in Rome which was a wickedness that had been and ever would be forbidden yet ever would be reteined semper vetabitur semper retinebitur And so Princes that will highly oppress and make their Will and not the Laws the Rule of their government though to resist be a wickedness and that it is against the Law of God and Man to do it yet where the wrongs are great and a fair opportunity offered of prevailing It will be ever done For that amongst men there are a Thousand for One that prefer their own Interests or Inclination before Duty or Conscience And certainly a prudent and foreseeing Prince that will impartially examine things cannot but expect it should be so For why should he suppose that other men wil be more honest or more religious than himself And when he breaketh through all the Bonds and Tyes of Oaths of Divine Precepts and Moral Iustice only to stretch and extend
as well as Iustice And is so expresly declared and annexed unto the King by the Stat. of the 27 H. 8. c. 24. The Revenues of the Church have been annexed unto it for the better part of one thousand years 7. The taking away of the Lands of Bishops and Cathedral Churches confirmed by many Charters from all our Kings have Prescription of many hundreds of years and are firmly annexed to the Church as Law Charters or Prescription can settle them Now if these Revenues shall be taken away and disposed of without processe of Law without the Kings consent who is sworn to uphold them and is founder of them all without the consent or forfeiture of the Possessors What man can think he hath a better Title to any thing he holdeth or assure himself of any Land or other thing he possesseth for one day longer than Houses shall please Besides it is against Magna Charta the Law and the Kings Oath and the Usance of the Kingdom in all times 8. The Court of VVard For the King to have Wardships is an inheritance and Right of the Crown approved by the Common Law of Enland and acknowledged and submitted unto in all Ages And the Court of Wards is setled and established by Act of Parliament in the time of H. 8 And it was indeavoured to be compounded for at a valuable consideration in the time of King Iames and by him refused because it was so great a flower of his Crown as was not fit to be severed from it And now if the Houses should force a Bargain at their own pleasure and their own price it were contrary to all Law all Reason and Moral Iustice and to the disherison of the Crown The detaining of the Kings Children under their governance 9. Touching the Kings children The ordering of their Education and their future Mariage cannot belong unto the Houses but unto the King by all divine human Laws and by the Law of Nature Neither is the contrary anywhere practised but by the great Turke No new Oaths can be imposed upon the Subject but by the warrant of an Act of Parliament 10 Touching imposing of new Oaths as is declared by the Petition of Right and is so setled by the Act of 3. Car. and hath been so declared during this Parliament by the two Houses upon occasion of the new Canons as appears in the Collection of their own Orders pag. 159.160.908.910 And we find the two Oaths of supremacy and Alleageance the first in 1. Eliz. the second in 3 Iac. were both framed and injoined to be taken in and by several Acts of Parliament and yet now do the Houses presse Oaths upon their fellow Subjects utterly inconsistent with the other legal Oaths which they have formerly taken and for the refusal of their Oath of Covenant and of their Negative Oath in expresse tearms to abjure their Alleagiance to their Soveraign they condemn them of Malignancy a new word of Art not formerly known to the Laws of England 11. Concerning Treason It is defined by the Act of the 25. Ed. 3. cap. 2. and afterward 1 H. 4. 2 Ma. that Act was confirmed and enacted That nothing should be adjudged Treason but what is declared to be so by the Statute of the 25. Ed. 3. or should be afterwards declared to be Treason by Parliament which is understood to be by Act of Parliament which cannot be without the Kings Royal assent and therefore in the Reign of H. 8. we find several Treasons enacted to be so by Parliament which afterwards were all repealed by that of the 2 Mar. And again in the Reign of Queen Mary Queen Eliz. and King Iames new Treasons declared by new Acts of Parliament in their several times But now in this present Sessions the two Houses in many several Cases singly of themselves without the solemnity of an Act by an Ordinance only have ordered that men should die as Traitors and lose their whole Estates without pardon or mercy for such supposed crimes as formerly were so far from being Treason as that they are not legally crimes or misdemeanors as may be instanced in divers particulars out of their own Coll. of Orders The treating with forein Princes and States 12. The treating with forein Princes and Staâ—es the making of Peace and War and the sending of Ambassadors or Messengers to those purposes are Acts meerly regal and inherent in the Crown and never questioned till now By the Statute of 2. H. 5. cap. 6. The breaking of Truce and Safe-Conducts is enacted to be Treason so much it importeth the Honour of the Crown The King may out of doubt conclude Peace or proclaim War without his Houses of Parliament But to contribute to the maintenance of a forein War the Assent of the Houses is necessary it being in their free liberty to give or not to give Subsidies or other Aides to that purpose But for the making of Peace or War they have no Votes but it is in the sole power of the King Yet doubtlesse Kings do the more prudently when they take the advice and affections of their people along with them in those weighty affaires especially in making a War with a forein Prince or people otherwise they shall hardly have the Assistance of their purses 13. The nominating of Judges Sheriffs Justices c. without which the Kings of England can hardly make or maintein a War to their Advantage The nominating of Iudges Sheriffs Iustices of Peace c. was never pretended unto by the Parliament but in tumultuous and rebellious times and the Kings of England for some hundred of yeers last past have nominated and appointed them by their Writs or Commissions under their great Seal And by the Acts of 9. Ed. 2. the Statute of Lincoln and 12. R. 2. cap. 2. it is appointed how the choice of Sheriffs and other publique Ministers of Iustice shall be recommended to the King and that the King hath the sole appointing of them And it is so setled by Act of Parliament the 37. H. 8. That such nominations do and shall wholy belong unto the King and his Successors c. By these Animadversions it will clearly appear That the particulars which are mentioned in the 57 and 58 pages of this Discourse are meerly usurped and intruded upon by the Houses but de jure do solely and wholly belong unto the King or can have no life without him which was thought fit rather to be added by this Appendix than by inserting them in the Discourse it self for not interrupting the Series thereof FINIS See the Speeches made for AccoÌ„modation before the War was actually begun in Append pag. 1. 9. Proofs out of the old Testament * Deut. 24.16 Ezech. 18.20 2 Kings 14.6 * Psal. 82. v. 6. * Deut. 1.17 2 Chro. 19. v. 6. Proofs out of the New Testament * Rom. 13. v. 2. See the Propositions in Append pag. 13. Vide Stat. 1. Jacobi cap. 1. in App. pag. 18. wherin the Soveraignty of the King is fully set down Lib. 5. Orat. in Auretium Epist. ad Demetrianum Niceph lib. 7. cap. 6. Tertulliun in Apologetico * Mat. 26.53 54. * 2 Kings 6. v. 16 17 18. c. Act. 12. v. 11. Act. 27.24 Act. 16.26 36. The Protestant churches declare against Subjects taking Arms against their Princes Confessio Aâ—gust 〈…〉 6. Gallia Art 40. Helvet Art 26. Scot. Art 24. Anliae Art 27. Osor de Iur. Majest. fol. 140. Pierre 〈…〉 in his â—â—â—fence of 〈◊〉 Faith Pag. 3.4 Admitting all the Positions either by Protestants or Papists were true which allow Subjects to take Arms against their Princes yet they agree not with the present Case Shewing that the Tenents of Roman Catholiques are not applicable to the present Case Sheweth that the opinions of such Protestants as allow in some cases of subjects taking of arms against their Prince if they were true yet are not applicable to the present case * Exceptio firmat Regulam in non exceptis In Appendice page 17. In Appendice pag. 18. See the Stat. in Append. pag. 19. * â— Lod. Vives If all sin be the transgression of some Law I would be satisfied how men are become Delinquents that have transgressed against no law The most miserable condition of the Kings Loyal Servants by no prudence to be prevented nor they by any Innocency to be preserved * In what sort the Project of the Ship-mony was set on foot the fault wherof cannot with any Iustice be attributed to the King The fault of Monopolies not to be attributed to the King but to evil Ministers and Referrees A Princes Religion ought not to be a ground of Rebellion or disobedience 〈…〉 Hen. 3. King of Fr. by Iacque 〈◊〉 Hen. 4. King of by Fr. by 〈…〉 The Prince of 〈◊〉 by 〈…〉 The Non-conformists themâ—selves 〈◊〉 out 〈◊〉 Pâ—â—tell aâ—â— 3 â—â—c 1605. 〈…〉 clear to this point Vide Art 4 6 9. in Ap. pag. 19. The King caused Pr. Charles his Son and Heir to become a Suter unto the Houses for the saving the Earls life who came in person and propounded it as the first Request he had ever made unto them but could not obtain it In â—ppendice pag. 1. A. The Right of all thâ—se specified particulars from the lâ—tter A. to the Letter B. are fully shewn to belong unto the King and that the Houses can have no colour of pretence unto them In App. pag. 20. * Dic Lunâ—e 4 Maâ—i 1646. Oâ—dered that whosoever should â—aâ—â—our or conceal the King and not 〈◊〉 it c. should be proceeded 〈◊〉 as a Traitor and dâ— without mercy B. * Phil. 3. v. 6. * 1 Tim. 1 v. 13. John 16.2 Matth. 7.12 * Le Roy ne fait toâ—t is only to be understood in the ordinary course of justice which the King administring by his Ministers and not in Person it is they that are the wrong doers and not the King and the subjâ—ct against 〈…〉 his Remedy Wisd. 6. v. 1 2 3 4 5 6. Matt. 7.12
Proceeding therein could be but by joint concurrence of both Houses I judged this the most proper Expedient of making my addresses unto them both I accompanied this my Petition with a letter of much Respect unto the Speaker of the House of Peers with many Motives to induce them to condescend to my Petition I received Answer by letter bearing date the 10. day of Iune 1646. from the Earl of Manchester Speaker pro tempore in the name of the House as followeth My Lord The House of Peers have received your Letter and have commanded me to return your Lordship this Answer That they leave your Lordship to take the benefit of the Articles of Excester which they will carefully observe c. Hereupon having the Articles of Excester confirmed I came up in person unto London and exhibited my second Petition to the House of Peers with the same Request I had formerly made That it might be communicated with the House of Commons And by a letter signified unto the Speaker of the House of Commons my being come to London upon the publique faith of the Treatie of Excester The particular safe-Conduct of their General under his Hand and Seal and his letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons and the assurance of the House of Peers That the said Articles should be carefully observed by them My second Petition was That I might without offence sollicit my Cause and use my indeavours to give satisfaction to the Houses I received Answer by the Earl of Manchester That the Lords thought it reasonable that I might take the full benefit of the Articles and use my best indeavours in solliciting my Cause in Person to my best advantage But the next day after I had received this permission from the Lords to follow my Cause I was notified and served with an Order by the Serjeant at Armes of the House of Commons That notwithstanding it was agreed by the Articles for Rendring up of Excester Oxford c. That the Excepted Persons might come to London to endeavour to make their Peace and Composition with the Parliament the House of Commons was resolved to admit them to no Composition notwithstanding the said Articles And therefore it being to no purpose for them to use any further indeavours in that kind the Serjeant at Arms of that House was from time to time to give notice unto all such Excepted Persons That they should immediately depart without the Line of Communication and Parts adjacent and not to return c. I conceived this very derogatorie to the House of Peers that I should be ordered by the House of Commons without the Concurrence of the Lords especially in a matter wherein the Lords had declared themselves before Herein I thought it fit to have recourse unto the Lords and sent the Copie of the said Order unto divers of them who seemed to find it very strange and wished it might be offered unto the House the next morning which was accordingly done But having been read after some time of a general silence another business was set on foot and this laid by so that I found little relief was to be had where I might so justly have expected it But in regard the Serjeant at Arms had told me He could return no Answer to the House of Commons but his dutie was only to notifie the Order and to give an accompt if obedience were not given to it I wrote a letter unto the Speaker conteining some few modest and necessary requests But nothing would be heard concerning me but that I was to depart the Kingdom within the limited time by the Articles of Excester which being within very few daies to be elapsed I was constrained to make all the haste I could to the sea side and there to imbarque my Self and Companie and horses in a small boat with three Mariners only and one Boy having used all possible means to have my time enlarged only for some few daies for the providing of fitting Transportation but could not obtain it so that two daies before the expiration of the time limited by the Articles of Excester I imbarqued at Weymouth and passed into France The Reason of my leaving the Kingdom of England was First for that I was assured that the time of the Treatie being expired I should be seized as a Prisoner of War and so I might have been proceeded against by Marshal law or an Arbitrarie Power instead of a legal Tryal according to the law which neither then I did nor will at any time decline The second was That notwitstanding by the 21. Article for the surrendring of Excester it was agreed That no Oath Covenant Protestation or Subscription should be imposed upon any Person whatsoever comprised in the said Articles Yet the House of Commons ordered 2 of June 1646. That no Person should come to reside in the Parliament Quarters which was then all England but he should take the National League and Covenant and the Negative Oath notwithstanding any Articles that had been or should be made by the Army neither of which I thought could stand with my Loyaltie or the Oaths or Protestation which I had formerly taken Besides I did conceive that no Person could live with comfort or safetie under such a Power that so avowedlie broke the Publique Faith of their own Armie and General whom though I found very desirous to have his Capitulations punctually performed yet were they in all things broken by the Houses or their Committees whensoever it was for their benefit For the General having given me his Letters and Protection under his hand and seal for the injoying and disposing of my goods for the space of four months according to the Articles yet the Committees of Dorset-shire slighted the said Articles and Generals latters being both shewed unto them and sold the said goodâ— for a third parr of their value for their own or friends advantage By this manner of proceeding I having fallen from all hope or possibilitie of clearing my self by being brought to a legal Trial or publick Hearing And being loath to go to my grave from whence I cannot be far branded with that black Mark of not being capable of Pardon or Mercie neither for Life nor Fortunes which must insinuate me to the world to be some horrid pernicious and wicked Malefactor find my self obliged in that I owe to my self in Vindication of mine Honor and Innocencie as likewise to my Familie and Posteritie who will find themselves left to want and misery to let them see that it hath been an inevitable necessity and adhering to my Loyalty and Conscience that hath involved me in that general Calamitie that hath be fallen the Kings overborn Partie and the particular indignation of others and no particular wickedness or demerit of mine that hath assigned and severed me to that severe and merciless Sentence of Unpardonable Destruction If I could have had any hope of being admitted to a publique or Legal Proceeding I should
never have betaken me to any other way of clearing my self although I am not ignorant upon how great disadvantage and hazard any man is brought to a Tryal upon the Impeachment and pursuit of the Houses Neither had I any reason to slatter my self with any indulgency towards we Yet withall I had and have so great confidence of my own clear Innocency in point of not meriting to be excepted from the same course of proceeding afforded others That I was never more desirous to attain any thing than I was and am to be admitted to an equal and fair Hearing and Legal Tryal As for the point of having served and adhered to the King I shall neither deny or evade it but my Case is in that the same with many Thousands and I should be too indulgent to my self not to expect the same misfortunes and suffering with others But now almost despairing of ever to be so happy as to see mine own Country again in regard of my Age and Infirmities and in less hopes of ever being admitted to a fair Hearing since the very ways of Addresses or Petitions unto them are debarred me and the using of any further indeavour to satisfie them is voted down And since their Sentence is already before either Examination Tryal or Conviction put in execution in as much as concerneth Fortunes or Estates by their actual possessing and disposing of them So that having nothing left unto me but an exiled Life present wants and an expectation of greater poverty I shall indeavour to bear those heavy visitations which God hath been pleased to send upon me and my Family with that Constancy of mind and pious submission to Gods holy will as befitteth a good Christian and leave unto my Family and Posterity the subsequent Discourse where in the first place I shall set down those Reasons that induced me to adhere unto the King being as I conceive thereunto bound in Honour and Conscience by the Law of God and of the Land by many solemn Oaths by natural Allegiance as a Subject and by Honesty and Gratitude as a sworn Servant both to his Father and to himself Of which several Obligations I shall speak in the first part of this Discourse And in the second part I shall make so true and faithfull a Narration of my Proceedings as I doubt not But to appear to have been a Faithfull Loyal and Affectionate Servant to the King my Soveraign and Master But to have had no hand in any of those Exorbitancies which caused those misunderstandings betwixt the King and his People To have been no Incendiary betwixt the King and the Houses But on the contrary to have used all possible indeavours as far as in me was to have put those unhappy breaches and differences into a way of Accommodation whereby a Civil War might have been prevented and since the War there never was any Overture or hope of Peace to which I did not contribute both my prayers and all the furtherance that was in my power And so not to have deserved that merciless Sentence of Unpardonable Destruction CHAP. II. The particular Reasons of adhering unto the King in this Cause and the method observed in this Discourse MY intention is not in this Discourse wherein the Vindication of mine own Honour and Innocency and the setting down of those Reasons which deterred my Conscience from taking Armes against my King is the main scope to write a defence of the Cause in general or to dispute the Question of Subjects taking Armes against their Soveraign It will require a large and elaborate Tract aparr which may not be interrupted by any thing of the proceedings of a particular man Neither will I censure or judge other men nor fix upon others though of a contrary way any thing that may seem opprobrious notwithstanding the Stile of Traitor and notorious Traitor hath often been my Title in Print although that detestable name in this Case doth not make me blush I know mens Consciences may by different Principles be carried different waies Neither will I censure so many men of all Qualities and Conditions and religious Professions of so much Impietie as to have broken through all Tyes of Allegiance and Loyaltie and so many Oaths their Consciences unconsulted and without conceiving they had found something to ballance their Judgements against so many precise and clear Duties I shall only set down the motives and inducements of mine own Conscience which ought to be to each Christian his Guide against which as he can do nothing well so even good Actions become evil if they be done with an unsatisfied or dubious conscience The Rules of Scripture being That we be fully perswaded in our minds Rom. 14.5 That he is happy that condemneth not himself in the thing he alloweth vers. 22. That he that doubteth is damned And that all things that are not of faith are Sin ver. 23. So that as it will be easily agreed That to all Christian men Conscience ought to be the strongest and most unresistable guide and of so great and binding authoritie with us That it should over-rule all considerations of Safetie Profit Ambition Revenge or other Interest whatsoever So it behooveth each Christian man to seek out the best and most unfallible marks and directions for the guiding of his Conscience in the right way And this I may with truth declare and take God to my witness in it That when I did see that no Industry wherein I omitted nothing that was in my power for the stopping allaying or reconciling of those differences and violences which breaking in like a floud prevailed over mine and all other peaceable minded mens indeavours could produce any good effect And that there was now nothing left to any man but in an unevitable War to make choice of the juster side as his Conscience towards God in the first place and his other civil duties and obligations should dictate unto him I did after many Conferences with learned men of the other way much studie and reading of all that I could find to have written in favour or excuse of Subjects taking Arms against their King resolve contrary to all worldy or prudential Interests of my own to adhere to the King according as my Conscience was satisfied I was bound to do By the law of God By the doctrine and practice of all Christian Churches and in all times By many Oathes By the laws of the Kingdom By my natural Allegiance as a Subject And by Gratitude and Fidelity as a sworn Servant both to his Father and Himself Of each which several Obligations I shall speak in the subsequent Discourse in the order that is here set down CHAP. III. Reasons deduced from Scripture AS it will be easily assented unto that Conscience ought to be the guide of our Actions so the most infallible Rule whereby to guide Conscience to a Christian ought to be the Principles of Religion and those Principles are above all other
binding and obliging which are deduced from the word of God I shall therefore first begin with those religious and pious Motives which have in Conscience restrained me from taking Arms against the King or making to him any hostile Resistance For I desire it to be understood that when I speak of Resistance I alwaies understand Actual and Hostile Resistance For I well know that in things in themselves sinfull mala in se I ought rather to obey God than Men And in such Cases suffering is a full performance of our Duty of Obedience Nay in Cases only illegal non illicita but illegalia against publique or private Right as if a Prince shall infringe the known undoubted Prilileges of the Kingdom or of Parliament or command that which is destructive unto them The Weapons of our Resistance ought to be Replyes Petitions Remonstrances Nay we may withold our free-will-Offerings though not our Tributes of Dutie we may stop our voluntarie supplies of giving Subsidies we may make a stand in the transactions of affairs untill the King condescendeth to do us Right as hath been often practised As it was in the Case of the Earl of Arundel who being restrained and kept from sitting in Parliament in the year 1626. by the King without cause shewn The House of Peers sate many daies silent without debating or transacting any Business untill he should be restored to his libertie and place in Parliament or cause shewed for his detention But to take Arms or to use Acts of force this is the Resistance which ought not to be used and is neither justifiable by the Laws of God nor of the Kingdom And this Resistance I am far from being satisfied in my Conscience may be used by any subjects against their lawfull and undoubted Soveraign The places in Scripture both in the old and new Testament commanding by positive precept our obedience and forbidding Resistance to the Powers ordeined over us by God are many But the Arguments of necessary deduction are infinite whereas Resistance is no where commanded or allowed And the Arguments by way of Deduction which are made use of to tollerate the Subjects taking of Arms against their Soveraign are by putting some places of Scripture upon wrack and torture to make them speak their sense whereas it is an undeniable Rule in Schools That Inferences and deductions cannot justifie the breach of plain duties injoyned by any one positive precept of Scripture In the old Testament it was death to disobey much more hostilely to resist the supream Authority by positive precept Deut. 17.10 Joshua 1.18 So it was to resist Parents And certainly in States and Common-wealths tam Pater Nemohe is Pater patriae and all the civill power that was of old in Paternall Iurisdiction is now by the Consent and Common Agreement of the People placed in the supream power of a State and the same obedience is due to it and resistance to it as unjustifiable And such as will indulge to the People a freedome to resume their first Original Power grounded upon that Maxime Omnis homo nascitur liber every man is born free seduce them by so false a Principle that the contrary of it is the truth Nullus homo nascitur liber no man is born free Neither was there ever yet in this world anyone man born free It is true there was one man created free our first father Adam But all his Children and all his Descent after him were born under Paternall Iurisdiction Nay our blessed Saviour speaking of him as a Man and Son to the blessed Virgin was born under this Paternal Jurisdiction and filial Obedience whereunto he submitted himself as is plainly set down Scripture Luke the 2.51 where it is said He went with Joseph and his Mother and was subject unto them Now this Paternal Jurisdiction which was at first the sole Soveraignty which governed the world By reason of Partiality in Parents Oppression by such as were the strongest and a multitude of inconveniences and confusions when the World was become numerous and full of People and every family become a Realm As it was too narrow so it grew to be so hurtful unto Mankind That men were forced for their own preservation Common Justice and comfort of life to transfer this paternal Jurisdiction all but filial and personal Duty of honoring and obeying Parents into Magistracy and willingly divested themselves for their own good of that Native Libertie which they had before And as the right power of Government is the same which it was in paternall Iurisdiction only by the Consent of the People changed into another hand So the Obedience unto it ought to be the same And the fifth Commandement of obeying Parents is by all understood to extend unto the Magistrate to whom the people having by consent tranferred the power of paternal Jurisction are likewise by Divine Precept bound to obedience and the People cannot still retein unto themselves that which by common consent they have divested themselves of and transferred to others So was it in the Common-Wealth of Rome when by lex Regia the people had transferred all their power to the Emperour they were not to resist And it was to those Emperours to whom our Saviour and his Apostles injoined Obedience not only for Wrath but for Conscience sake and not unto the good only but unto the froward David was pursued by Saul unjustly his life sought by him yet his Conscience check'd him when he had only cut off the lap of Sauls garment 1 Sam. 24.5 6. But when the attempting upon his person was mentioned he then cryed out Who can stretch forth his hand against the Lords Anointed and be guiltlesse 1 Sam. 26.9 Nay when he might have slain Saul and he was desired by Abishai that he might strike him to the ground he did not only forbid him but called unto Abner telling him he deserved to die that he had not more carefully kept and guarded his Master vers. 15 16. which sheweth that not only not to hurt but to preserve is our Duty And truly if I should have lift up my hand or drawn my Sword against the King I fear I should not have been so happy as divers have been that have gone the other way in finding out such satisfactory Arguments or distinctions as would have rid or cured me of that horrour of Conscience which would have made me most miserable in the height of all prosperitie and successe All the whole context of the old Testament incite to the obedience to the honouring fearing and reverencing of the King And all the Attempts that have been made upon the persons of Kings or their Government are either condemned as wicked or else were by the extraordinary and especial Commandement of God making use of wicked men to be the Executioners of his just Judgments Besides the Government of the Jewish Commonwealth was a Theocratia an immediate Government of God himself and by the Consent of all Divines
not to follow him in his Wars against his Enemies or his Rebels which the Subject de bene esse is to understand to be such as the King proclaimeth to be Traitors Not that a Proclamation maketh them so but the Subject is so to esteem them until they be brought to a legal Tryal So that there never was a harder Condition nor more unavoydable than this of the Kings present Loyal Subjects who should have been Traitors by the Law if they should have taken Armes against the King and should likewise lose ther Lands Honours Castles c. if they did not fight for him And yet contrary to the Law Providing that no man should forfeit Life or Estate for serving of the King He shall by an Arbitrary Power of his fellow Subjects be condemned to lose both without Pardon or Mercy for doing that for which he must have lost legally both Life and Estate and his Soul to boot if he had not done it CHAP. VII The Motives deduced from Honour Honesty and Gratitude of not forsaking the King in his troubles BEsides the Obligation formerly set down deduced from the Law of God and the positive Law of the Kingdom there is a third Law which hath a great Authority in the hearts of all generous and noble-minded Men which is the Law of Honour and Gratitude which Law I conceive to be a Branch of the Original and first Law The Law of Nature For it hath had and still holdeth a Value and Reverence through all Religions as it hath done through all times I must confess this Law hath been and is in some kinds too high lifted up and is become the Idol of many mens fancies who pay unto it a more exact Obedience and are more carefull not to transgress against it than they are not to offend God or the Laws they live under whereof we have daily too many Presidents when men rather than to be failing in point of Honour will upon frivolous provocations decline all duties to God and Man and sacrifice to this Idol oftentimes the hazard of their Lives and Fortunes together with their Souls But this is an Excess and Excrescency of Honour and Courage in the justification whereof I know nothing that can be said In the excuse of it it is to be hoped that in so generally-received an Error whereby men become Infamous and scarce fit for honest company that comply not therein Custom and Universallity may allay and mitigate the Offence But that Honour which I speak of is better exprest by plain moral Honesty and Gratitude when neither Fear nor Disadvantage shall drive us or withold us from just Duties nor the Misfortunes or Distresses of those to whom we have had former obligations make us leave and forsake to be assistant and serviceable unto them in all just and lawfull things although it be to our own Hinderance or that we can expect no further good or advantage by them And herein my Case is different from the common Cases of Subjects being more particularly bound unto Gratitude by many Benefits and unto Honesty Affection and Fidelity by my Service in places of greatest Trust about the King both for nearness to his Person as a Gentleman of his Bed-chamber and as a Servant confided in as a privy Counsellour As for Ingratitude it hath been at all times so detestable That to the Reproach of being ingratefull nothing can be added And the betraying or forsaking of a mans Master in his Distress hath so great a Rellish of the Judas that no noble and generous Heart would for any earthly Respect do any thing that might seem to be like it or be in hazard of being mistaken for it For mine own part I do ingenuously confess that had I no Precepts of the Law of God no Tyes by the Law of the Kingdom nor Horrour of Conscience for breaking those sacred Obligations into which I was entred by taking so many solemn Oaths Yet Gratitude and Honour singly should have been unto me of so high Recommendation That no Respect of my Life Fortunes or Posterity should have made me lift up my Hand against my King or to have forsaken my Master in his Miseries and Distress I have had the Honour to have served this King and his Father by the space of more than forty years and was by his Father from a younger Brother of a Gentlemans Family raised by his Goodness above my Merit to the Dignity of an Earl and a Conveniency of Subsistance in that Quality I was trusted by him in seven Ambassages and called to his privie Counsel recommended unto the Prince his Son as a Gentleman of his Bed-chamber and which was above all these Obligations I was admitted to more than an ordinary measure of his Trust and Confidence And certainly these great Obligations from the Father could not but imprint Gratitude in my Heart towards the Son especially He being now become my King and Master And so by all the Oaths that I had taken to the Father I was likewise by him obliged to them as his Successor But besides these Tyes of Gratitude I must Protest that weighing and considering impartially the Kings Actions either as they relate to his Government as a King or his personal Deportments as a Man setting Conscience aside and that I had not been thereby restrained I could never find any thing that could satisfie my judgement in point of Moral Justice or right Reason for the taking Arms against him I must and do confess that some things and too many wâ—â—â— ill done by the Kings Ministers and the Subjects Propriety and Liberty might have run great hazard under an ill Prince by those waies that were then set on foot For to speak freely my sense by the Principles then received all was put into the Kings hands for Necessity was made Master of all and of that Necessity the King was made the sole Judge and Princes may easily mistake their own private Wants for publique Necessity But from this Excess little of the fault can with Reason be charged upon the King and less ground for the taking of Arms For it is well known the King having been unseasonably imbarqued in War both with France and Spain his Treasure was wholly exhaust and he was reduced to great streights The King called divers Parliaments but they proved so unhappy that two or three of them were dissolved in great disorder and the Kings Wants were not relieved but the King and his People parted with little satisfaction on either side The King then being enforced to use all indeavours for his Relief in these his great VVants consulted with the Officers of his Revenew and his learned Councel what course was to be taken for his Supply without calling a Parliament For it had been voted at the Councel-Table That the Calling of a Parliament was not then fit or seasonable And at the breaking off of the last Parliament before this An. 1640. It had been declared
by some of the Kings Ministers in the House of Commons That if the King were not supplyed by Parliament he must and would betake himself to new Counsells The plain English whereof was understood to be That the King would find out some other Course for his supplies without making use of his People in Parliament And this Opinion that Parliaments would for some time be laid aside gave Boldness and Incouragements to all Promoters and Projectors to set on foot many Monopolies and Projects which were still countenanced by the colour and pretence of Law And amongst the rest and indeed striking at the Root of the Subjects Propriety was that of the Ship-mony brought forth * And the Attorney Noy hath the name to have been the Father of it He was in his time held to have been a great Oracle of the Law and had been in former Parliaments a great Patriot and Propugner of the Subjects Liberty and his Opinion was of high Authority in point of Law with the King and with all Men He assured the King that there might be means found out of the Kings own especially in times of Necessity for him to supply himself justly and according to the Law And so propoundeth this Project of the Ship-mony The King relyed not upon the single Opinion of his Attorny But as a good Prince ought to do He took the further Advice of the Judges who are his proper Counsel in matters of the Law and with whom he ought to Consult And they are sworn to Counsell him faithfully The Major part of them which involveth the rest approved this Project as legal But the King would not content himself with their Verbal Advice But required the then Lord Chief Justice and the Judges to set down the Case and their Opinions of it under their hands which they did accordingly So that it being to be presupposed that the King mote than in the points of administring Justice cannot have a distinct knowledge either of the Extent of his own Prerogative or the abstruse Cases of the Law In a point so much concerning him as the relieving of him in his great wants by ways avowed to him to be just and legal what more upright or prudent Course could a Prince take than to be advised not by young Men or Favorites at Court but by his learned Counsell and his grave Judges sworn to advise him faithfully according to their best skill who if they have behaved themselves wickedly or corruptly upon their heads let Judgement light But let the King and his Throne be free But many Men conceiving and not without Reason That this private and extra judicial Opinion of the Judges was not to be a binding Rule did not acquiesce therin but did refuse the Payment of the Ship-mony and did indeavour to defend this their refusal by a due and legal way of Process and particularly Mr. John Hamden And the Business was brought to an Issue and to a publique Tryal in the Exchequer-Chamber which is the highest and supremest Judicature under the Parliament which the Kingdom of England knoweth in point of Law for it is a Court composed of all the Judges of the several Tribunals for the ending of such difficult and dubious Cases as have not been formerly over-ruled or wherein there is found a difference in Opinion amongst the Iudges themselves And herein the Counsell on both sides whether the Case be betwixt Party and Party or the King and Subject do not only plead but argue the Case in Law and the Iudges do commonly before they give Sentence argue themselves the Case in point of the learning of the Law All which solemnities passed in this Case without any interruption by the King And after divers daies hearing and arguing Iudgment passed for the King by Plurality of Votes for the fewer Votes are involved in the Iudgment of the Major part as there is a Necessity they should be in all Counsells and Iudicatures otherwise Controversies could not be ended unless there were an unanimous Agreement in all that had Votes which seldom happeneth But in this Case three parts of fower Agreed in the Iudgment for the King So that if the Iudges have erred now in Iudicature being sworn to do equal Justice betwixt the King and the Subject as they did before in their Advice unto the King being sworn to Counsell him faithfully the greater is their fault and Offence But I must confess I am not able to set out the Kings Transgression This Case yet passed further For it being brought into the Parliament by way of Grievance the Iudgement was not only reversed all Records burnt and all Courses given way unto by the King which the Houses themselves could think on That no such Excesse might be attempted again in future times But the Lord Keeper and the Iudges were without any Interposition of the King left unto the Justice of the Parliament And the Lord Keeper and divers of them were by the House of Commons impeached of high Treason So the King having no hand in the setting it on foot nor in the erroneous Iudgement nor having protected the Parties culpable from Punishment But the Grievance being redressed and sufficient Caution and Provision assented unto by the King for the preventing of the like for the future I could not deduce from hence any Argument of the Kings intention to subvert the Law or of any justifiable ground of taking arms against him And what is said in this Case of the Ship-mony doth likewise hold in the Cases of Monopolies which are alwaies suggested to be for the good of the Subject as well as legal and beneficial to the King who never granteth any of them without Reference In point of Conveniency or Disâ—dvantage to the Subject they are usually referred to some of his privy-Counsell In point of Law to some of his learned Counsell In point of his Benefit to some Officers of his Revenew Who if they have erred or were corrupted and the King by their ill Advice drawn to pass any unfit or illegal thing I have known the Parliament for the space of these forty years address themselves by Petition unto the King for Redress but unto the Referrees for the Fault and the Causers of the Grievances And if they could get the said Grievances redressed and the Referrees brought to punishment they alwaies esteemed it so gracious a Proceeding from the King towards them that usually it was acknowledged with the return of some Gift or Supply But that any Argument should be deduced from thence of any Intention in the King to subvert the Laws I never knew it Neither have I known that the King hath ever proceeded in matters of this kind but in the manner here set down And in this Parliament all Projects and Monopolies were put down and all men that either had a Hand or Interest in them unless it were such as the House of Commons thought fit for Causes known unto themselves to
And that he had thought fit to withdraw himself from London for his safety and the avoiding of Affronts which he had cause to fear for that the five Members were the next day by the armed Train'd-bands of the City in martial manner to be brought to Westminster and to pass by the Kings Palace Yet so desirous was the King to sweeten things again that upon great instance he passed the Bill for debarring the Bishops their Seats and Votes in Parliament upon hopes that were given with no small Assurance that upon gratifying the Houses therein all things would speedily be put into a way of Accomodation I had often heard the King say That besides the wrong done unto the Bishops who had as good Right to their Votes in Parliament as any other Peers from the first Original of Parliaments he conceived he could not do any Act of greater Prejudice to himself and his Successors than the passing of that Bill Yet the desire he had of a reconciliation with his Parliament overweighed all other Considerations and Interests whatsoever And he gave his Royal assent unto the Bill But instead of that effect which the King expected thereby it produced the 19 Propositions of Grocers Hall before mentioned Whereupon although the King gave no negative Answer yet he put on a Resolution to make no further Answer to any new Propositions But his Request to the Houses was That they would set down together all such means as would give them satisfaction wherunto they should receive a gracious and satisfsctory Answer to all they could iustly or reasonably demand But this was declared to be a breach of privileges to restrain the Proposals of the Houses either in matter or form The King on the other side thought that whatsoever he had formerly done had served only to strip himself of his known Rights but had no way advanced a general accommodation And so for the future betook himself to Declarations and Protestations instead of Answers wherein he proffer'd to concurre in all things they should desire for the settling of all Liberties and Immunities of the Subject either for the Propriety of their Goods or Liberty of their Persons which they either had received from his Ancestors or which by himself had been granted unto them And if there did yet remain any thing of Grace for the good and comfort of the Subject he would willingly heaken unto all their reasonable Propositions And for the setling of the true Protestant Religion he most earnestly recommended the Care thereof unto them wherein they should have his Concurrence and assictance The Rule of his Government he protested should be the setled Laws of the Kingdom And for the Indempnity and Comfort of the Subject he offered a more ample and General Pardon than had been granted by any of his Predecessors and for the performance of all he had promised besides solemn Oaths and Execrations whereby he bound himself he desired God only so to bless and prosper him and his Posterity as he should faithfully perform the same And further for the greater securing of what should be agreed and setled he gave such voluntary security as I conceive was never before demanded nor by any King offered to his Subjects That in the Case he failed in performance or should do contrary to that which he had promised or agreed He acquitted and freed his Subjects of their Obedience And this great desire of the Kings to have purchased Reconciliation with the Houses will appear to have been known to me and to have been so beleeved by me by what I spake in the House of Peers the 20 of May 1642. and was published in print most of this being but a repetition of what I then said as will appear by the said Speech hereunto annexed Besides the above specified Reasons of the Kings desiring Peace It could not be supposed that in humane prudence the King could desire a War being altogether unfurnished of men mony and ammunition and the contrary party provided of all by the being seized of his Forts his Magazins his Navy his Rents the Revenew of his Crown and of the powerfull and rich City of London and of the perverted Affections of his People He was fain at his return from Dover whither he had accompanyed the Queen when she passed into Holland to go from place to place as to Theobalds and to Newmarket lingring up and down in hope still of some Overture of Accommodation and many Motions tending thereunto were made by my self and other the Kings Servants that stayed behind him with the Parliament But they were not then thought seasonable and wrought little effect and the King having lost all hopes in that kind held it fit to retire himself further from danger as he conceived and so went unto York with a very mean Equipage and a slender Attendance of not above 30 or 40 Persons It is true that many of the Nobility and Gentry repaired thither unto him shewing great Affection and Resolution to follow him in all Fortune and Indeavours were used that the King might be put into the best posture of Defence that was possible but ever with a desire that those small Forces might rather countenance some Treaty or Overture for Accommodation than that there was any belief that those Forces were fit to carry through a War And to that purpose the Earls of Southampton and Dorset were sent unto the Parliament with new Overtures from Nottingham But nothing would be heard untill the King had first taken down his Standard and laid down Arms which the King understood to be a total submission and yielding of himself up seeing my Lord of Essex came forth and within few daies march of him with a great and powerfull Army He himself having by Sr. Iacob Ashleys Certificate not above 700 foot whereof there were not above 400 armed and 900 foot of Colonell Bellasis at Newark most of them without Arms An Equipage certainly not to have incouraged the King unto a War if it could have been avoided But such was Gods will for the punishment of the Nation But the Kings Forces indeed unexpectedly increased by which the War hath been continued to the Destruction of the Kingdom and more particularly of the Kings Party but later by much than could have been expected by any foreseeing man and neither the King nor any rational man with him but would have accepted and sought an Accommodation though with great loss and prejudice So that to make the King the first Agressor and beginner of an Offensive War and the Houses to have taken only defensive Arms I could never understand it nor know what it was they could pretend to defend Since there was no wrong left unredressed nor any thing that they could have pretence or colour to demand that was not offered Many things undeniably the Kings were witheld from him and more daily seized But I conceive no one thing can be instanced wherein the King hath deteined from
untill these late unhappy interruptions We cannot but judge this Nation equally capable with any other of Honor Happiness and Plenty Now if instead of this happy condition in which we have been and might be upon a sober and impartial inquiry we shall find our selves to have been for some few years last past involved in so many troubles and distractions and at the present to be reduced to the very brink of miseries and calamities It is high time for us to consider by what means we have been brought into them and by what means it is most probable we may be brought out of them This Kingdom never enjoyed so universal a peace neither hath it any visible enemy in the whole World either Infidel or Christian Our Enemies are only of our own house such as our own dissentions jealousies and distractions have raised up and certainly where they are found especially betwixt a King and his People no other cause of the unhappiness and misery of a State need to be sought after For civill discord is a plentifull Sourse from whence all miseries and mischiefs flow into a Kingdom The Scripture telleth us of the strength of a little City united and of the instability of a Kingdom divided within it self So that upon a prudent inquiry we may assign our own jealousies and discords for the chief cause of our past and present troubles and of our future fears It must be confessed that by the counsel and conduct of evill Ministers the Subject had cause to think their just liberties invaded And from thence have our former distempers grown For it is in the body politick of a Monarchy as in another Natural body the health whereof is defined to be Partium corporis aequa temperies an equal temper of the parts So likewise a State is well in health and well disposed when Soveraign Power and common right are equally ballanced and kept in an even temper by just and equitable rules And truely My LORDS by the goodness of His Majesty and by the prudent endeavour of the Parliament this State is almost reduced to that equal and even temper and our sickness is rather continued out of fancy and conceipt I mean fears and jealousies than out of any real distemper or defect I well remember that before the beginning of this Parliament some Noble Lords presented a Petition unto the King and in that Pettion did set down all or most of the Grievances and distempers of the Kingdom which then occurred to them To these as I conceive the Parliament have procured from his Majesty such redresses as are to their good satisfaction Many other things for the ease security and comfort of the subject have been by their great industry found and propounded and by his Majesties goodness condescended unto And now we are come so near the happiness of being the most free and most setled Nation in the Christian world Our dangers and miseries will grow greater and neerer unto us every day than other if they be not prevented The king on his part offereth to concurre with us in the setling of all the liberties and immunities either of the propriety of our Goods or liberty of our persons which we have received from our Ancestors or which himself hath granted unto us and what shall yet remain for the good and comfort of his Subjects He is willing to hearken to all our just and reasonable propositions and for the establishing of the true Protestant Religion he wooes us to it And the wisdome and industry of the Parliament hath now put it in a hopefull way The rule of his government he professeth shall be the Laws of the Kingdom And for the comforting and securing of us he offereth a more large and more general Pardon than hath been granted by any of his Predecessors And truly My LORDS This is all that ever was or can be pretended unto by us We on the other side make Profession That we intend to make his Majesty a glorious King to endeavour to support his Dignity and to pay unto him that Duty and Obedience which by our Allegiance several Oaths and late Protestations we owe unto him and to maintain all his just Regalities and Prerogatives which I conceive to be as much as his Majesty will expect from us So that My Lords we being both thus reciprocally agreed of that which in the general would make both the King and People happy shall be most unfortunate if we shall not bring both Inclinations and Indeavours so to propound and settle particulars as both King and People may know what will give them mutual Satisfaction which certainly must be the first Step to the setling a right understanding betwixt them And in this I should not conceave any great difficulty if it were once put into a way of preparation But the greatest difficulty may seem to be how that which may be settled and agreed upon may be secured This is commonly the last point in Treaties betwixt Princes of the greatest nicenesse But much more betwixt a King and his Subjects where that Confidence Belief which should be betwixt them is once lost And to speak clearly I fear that this may be our Case and herein may consist the chiefest difficulty of Accomodation For it is much easier to compose differences arising from Reason yea even from Wrongs than it is to satisfy Jealousies which arising out of Diffidence Distrust grow and are varyed upon every Occasion But My Lords if there be no endeavours to allay and remove them they will every day increase and gather strength Nay they are already grown to that height and the mutual replyes to those direct tearms of Opposition that if we make not a present stop it is to be feared it will speedily passe further than verbal Contestations I observe in some of his Majesties Answers a Civil War spoken of I confesse it is a word of Horrour to me who have been an eyewitness of those unexpressible Calamities that in a short time the most plentiful and flourishing Countries of Europe have been brought unto by an intestine War I furrher observe that his Majesty protesteth against the miseries that may ensue by a war and that he is clear of them It is true That a Protestation of that kind is no actual denouncing of War but it is the very next degree to it Vltima admonitio as the Civilians term it The last admonition So that we are upon the very brink of our miseries It is better keeping our of them than getting out of them And in a State the Wisdome of Prevention is infinitely beyond the Wisdome of Remedies If for the sins of this Nation these misunderstandings should produce the least Act of Hostility It is not almost to be believed how impossible it were to put any stay to our miseries For a Civil War admits of none of those Conditions or Quarter by which Cruelty and Blood are amongst other Enemies kept from Extremities Nay
break in amongst us we shall remain the Scorn or the Pitty of them I am far from thinking that any of your Lordships are less inclined to an Accommodation than my self but some body must be the mover And those miserable spectacles which mine eyes have of late years beheld in the Palatinate and in Germany make me zealous and importunate that they be prevented here if such be Gods holy will if not yet I shall have this particular Comfort what fortune soever shall befall me That as I am assured that I have had no hand in any those things which have caused the unhappy differences betwixt the King and his People so I shall appeal unto your Lordships if I have not been subservient unto your Lordships in all things that might have removed these misunderstandings and to have imployed my Indeavours and solicitation even unto Importunity for the setting on foot some way of Accomdation wherby only our unspeakable Calamities and very near at hand can be diverted from us Nineteen Propositions sent unto his Majesty the 2 of Iune 1642. 1. THat the Lords and others of your Majesties privy Counsell and such great Officers and Ministers of State either at home or beyond the Seas may be put from your Privy Counsel and from those Offices and Imployments excepting such as shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that the Persons put into the Places and Imployment of those that are removed may be approved of by both Houses of Parliament And that Privy Counsellours shall take an Oath for the due execution of their Places in such form as shall be agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament 2. That the great Affairs of the Kingdom may not be concluded or transacted by the Advice of Private Men or by any unknown or unsworn Counsellors but that such matters as concern the Publique and are proper for the high Court of Parliament which is your Majesties great and supreme Counsel may be debated resolved and transacted only in Parliament and not elsewhere And such as shall presume to do any thing to the contrary shall be reserved to the Censure and judgment of Parliament And such other matters of State as are proper for your Majesties privy Counsel shal be debated and concluded by such of the Nobility and others as shall from time to time be chosen for that Place by Approbation of both Houses of Parliament And that no publick Act concerning the Affairs of the Kingdom which are proper for your Privy Counsell may be esteemed of any Validity as proceeding from the Royal Authority unlâ—ss it be doâ—e by the advice and consent of the Major part of your Counsell attested under their hands And that your Counsell may be limitted to a certain Number not exceeding twenty five nor under fifteen And if any Counsellors place happen to be void in the Interval of Parliament It shall not be supplyed without the Assent of the Major part of the Counsell which choice shall be confirmed at the next sitting of Parliament or else to be void 3. That the Lord High Steward of England Lo. High Constable Lo. Chancellor or Lo. Keeper of the Great Seal Lo. privy Seal Earl Marshal Lo. Admiral Warden of the Cinque Ports chief Governor of Ireland Chancellor of the Exchequer Master of the Wards Secretaries of State two chief Iustices and chief Barons may alwaies be chosen with the Approbation of both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliaments by Assent of the major part of the Câ—unsel in such manner as is before exprest in the choise of Counsellors 4. That he or they unto whom the Government and Education of the Kings Children shall be committed shall be approved of by both Houses of Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament by the Assent of the Major part of the Counsell in such manner as is before exprest in the choise of Counsellors And that all such servants as are now about them against whom both Houses shall have any just exceptions shall be removed 5. That no Mariage shall be concluded or treated for any of the Kings Children with any forein Prince or other Person whatsoever abroad or at home without the Consent of Parliament under the penalty of a praemunire unto such as shall conclude or treat any Mariage as aforesaid and that the said penalty shall not be pardoned or dispensed with but by the Consent of both Houses of Parliament 6. That the Laws in force against Iesuits Priests and Popish Recusants be strictly put in Ececution without any toleration or dispensation to the contrary And that some more effectual Course may be enacted by authority of Parliament to disable them from making any Disturbance in the State or eluding the Law by Trusts or otherwise 7. That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Peers may be taken away so long as they continue Papists And that your Majesty will consent to such a Bill as shall be drawn for the Education of the Children of Papists by Protestants in Protestant Religiâ—n 8. That your Majesty will be pleased to consent that such a Reformation be made of the Church Government and Liturgy as both Houses of Parliament shall advise wherein they intend to have consultation with Divines as is expressed in their Declaration to that purpose And that your Majesty will contribute your best assistance to them for the raising of a sufficient maintenance for preaching Ministers thorought the Kingdome and that your Majesty will be pleased or give your Consent to Laws for the taking away of Innovations and Superstition and of Pluralities and against scandalous Ministers 9. That your Majesty will be pleased to rest satisfied with that Course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for ordering of the Militia untill the same shall be further setled by a Bill And that your Majesty will recall your Declarations and Proclamations against the Ordinance made by the Lords and Commons concerning it 10. That such Members of either House of Parliament as have during this present Parliament been put out of any Place and Office or otherwise have satisfaction for the same upon the Petition of that House whereof he or they are Members 11. That all privy Counsellors and Iudges may take an Oath the form whereof to be agreed on and setled by act of Parliament for the maintaining of the Petition of Right of certain Statutes made by this Parliament which shall be mentioned by both Houses of Parliament and that an Inquiry of all the breaches and violations of those Laws may be given in charge by the Iustices of the Kings Bench every Term and by Iudges of Assise in their Circuits and Justices of the Peace at the Sessions to be presented and punished according to Law 12. That all the Iudges and all the Officers Places by Approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their Places Quamdiu bené se gesserint 13. That the Iustice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents
whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it And that all Persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the Censure of Parliament 14. That the general Pardon offered by your Majesty may be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament 15. That the Forts and Castles of this Kingdom may be put under the Command and Custody of such Persons as your Majesty shall appoint with the Approbation of your Parliament and in the Intervals of Parliament with the Approbation of the Major part of the Counsel in such manner as before is expressed in the Choise of Counsellors 16. That the extraordinary Guards and Military Forces now attending your Majesty may be removed and discharged and that for the future you will raise no such Guards or extraordinary Forces but according to the Law in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion 17. That your Majesty will be pleased to enter into a more strict allyance with the States of the United Provinces and other Neighbour Princes and States of the Protestant Religion for the defence and maintenance thereof against all designs and attempts of the Pope and his Adherents to subvert and suppress it whereby your Majesty will obtain a great access of Strength and Reputation and the Subjects be much incouraged and enabled in a Parliamentary way for your aid and assistance in restoring your Royal Sister and her Princely Issue to those Dignities and Dominions which belong unto them and relieving the other distressed Protestant Princes who have suffered in the same Cause 18. That your Majesty would be pleased by Act of Parlia to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the five Members of the House of Commons in such manner that future Parliaments may be secured from the Consequent of that evill President 19. That your Majesty will be pleased to pass a Bill for restraining Peers made hereafter from sitting or voting in Parliament unless they be admitted thereunto with the Cansent of both Houses of Parliament H. ELSYNG CLER. PARL. D. COM. The Oath of Supremacy Cited page 31. I A. B. do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience that the Kings Highness is the only Supreme Governor of this Realm and of all other his Highness Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal c. I do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegeance to the Kings Highness his Heirs and lawfull Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Iurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book The Oath fa Privy-Counsellor Cited page 32. You shall swear to the uttermost part of your cunning wit skill and power you shall he true and faithfull to the Kings Majesty our most dread and Soveraign Lord and to his Highnesse Heirs and Successors Kings and Queens of England according to the Statute for the establishment of the Succession of the Crown Imperial of this Realm You shall not know nor hear any thing that may in any wise be prejudicial to his Majesty or to his Heirs and Successors in form aforesaid or to the Common Wealth Peace and Quiet of this his Majesties Realm but you will with all diligence reveal and disclose the same to his Majesty or to such Person or Persons of his Highness Privy-Counsel as you shall think may and will honestly convey and bring it to his Majesties knowledge You shall serve his Majesty truly and faithfully in the room and place of his Highness Privy-Counsel You shall keep close and secret all such matters as shall be treated disputed debated and resolved of in Counsell without disclosing the same or any part thereof to any but only to such as be of the Privy-Counsell And yet if any matter so propounded treated dispated and debated in any such Counsell shall touch any particular person sworn of the same upon any such matter as shall in any wise concern his fidelity and truth to the Kings Majesty you shall in no wise open the same to him but keep it secret as you would do from another person till the Kings pleasure be known in that behalf You shall in all things to be moved treated disputed and debated in any such Counsel faithfully and truly declare your mind and opinion according to your heart and conscience in no wise forbearing so to do for any matter of respect or favour love meed dread displeasure or corruption Finally you shall be vigilant diligent and circumspect in all your doings and proceedings touching the Kings Majesty and his Affairs All which points before expressed you shall faithfully observe fulfill and keep to the utmost of your power wit and cunning So God you help and by the holy Contents of this Book The Negative Oath Cited page 32. I A. B. do swear from my heart that I will not directly nor indirectly adhere unto or willingly assist the King in this War or in this Cause against the Parliament nor any forces raised without the Consent of the two Houses of Perliament in this Cause or War And I do likewise swear that my coming and submitting my self under the power and protection of the Parliament is without any manner of design whatsoever to the Prejudice of the proceedings of the two Houses of this Present Parliament and without the privity or advice of the King or any of his Counsel or Officers other than what I have now made known So help me God c. An Act of Parliament 1 Iac. cap. 1. acknowledging the Right of the Crown to him and his successors by inherent birth-right c. Cited page 19. We do upon the knees of our hearts agnize constant Faith Loyalty and Obedience to the King his Royal Progeny in this high Court of Parliament where all the body of the Realm is either in person or by representation We do acknowledge that the true and sincere Religion of the Church is continued and established by the King And do recognize as we are bound by the Law of God and man the Realm of England and the Imperial Crown thereof doth belong to him by inherent Birth-right and lawful and undoubted succession and submit our selves and our posterities until the last drop of our blood be spent to his Rule And beseech the King to accept the same as the first fruits of our Loyalty and Faith to his Majesty and his posterity for ever And for that this Act is not compleat nor perfect without his Majesties Consent the same is humbly desired A Declaration which Offences shall be adjudged Treason Anno 25 Edvv. 3. cap. 2. Cited pa. 35. Whereas divers Opinions have been before this time in what Case Treason shall be said and in what not The King at the request of the Lords and of the Commons hath