of the most essentiall part thereof which by far more obligeth the Kings of England to observe than the preamble to that Oath penn'd of old by the Prelats Church-men for their own onely ends and interests a very inconsiderable party in respect of the quality of the Nobility and Gentry and that vast number of the Laity of which it seems the King reckoned of after the Popes computation to be extra Caulam either out of the Church or at best but the fag end thereof and accompts little better of them than as so many cyphers or his slaves at will at pleasure cleane forgetting or slighting the grand more essentiall part of his Coronation Oath which is confidently averr'd the late Arch Prelate purposely emasculated and never gave it him at his Coronation but left him at liberty which all men knows is that which obligeth the King to rule not onely by the Lawes in being but per istas bonas leges quas vulgas eligerit to govern by such good Laws as the Parliament shall chuse and the reason of this is most most perspicuous for the Lawes of England are not of that stamp as those of the Medes and Persians unalterable but changeable according to the vicissitudes of times and change of mens manners and at the Election of the people in their Representative the Kings assent being formall and onely a necessary appendant and by the intent of the Law his principall power consists in the executive part the Parliaments in the elective for it is without all question that never any of our Kings either abrogated or made any Law obligatory to the people by his onely lawfull power but by the Parliaments consent and election the nature of the Kings Office being more cumulative then privative to give rather than to take any thing from their subjects but here you may see what a latitude of power the King assumes to himself where he promiseth to the Queen to take away all the penal laws against Papists as soon as he shall be enabled to doe it without a word of by your leave Parliament so that you may manifestly see what he intended and that no other sence than his owne is here pind upon him you may further observe out of this Letter his windings doublings and fouldings and how dexterously cunning he was growne at playing fast and loose with RELIGION or with any thing else that might promote his mischievous designs leaving no way unattempted though to prophaning of Religion that he conceived might conduce to the visible good of his affairs as that was his usuall expression and what was that visible good think you other than to overpower the Parliament and then to rule as he listed But to shew unto you what a gamester he was at Hocus-pocus I pray look upon the Postcript of his Letter to the Marquesse of Ormond February 16. 1648. from Oxford viz. In case upon particular mens fancies the Irish peace should not be procured upon powers I have already given you I have thought good to give you farther order which I hope will prove needlesse to seek to renue the treaty for a peace for a yeare for which you shall prowise the Irish if you can have it no better cheap to joyn with them against the Scots and Inchiquine but I hope by that time my condition may be such as the Irish may be glad to accept les or I be able to grant more Observation Hence you may make your owne judgement what a Proteus the King was grown you may take this also into your observation as suitable to the rest that in all his Declarations Letters and Messages to the Parliament and after he had lost all and could stand up no longer and was a prisoner they were then directed to his two Houses at Westminster but during his power and so long as he had any hopes left him to conquer them he misses not throughout all his expresses to call them Rebels and in that capacity tacitely treats with them at Vxbridge which the Scots at Rippon utterly refused to treat with him unlesse he would withdraw and disown his proclamations in stiling them Traytors and although he calls them a Parliament yet was it with a mental reservation not so to acknowledge them as you may see in his 17 letter to the Queen where it seems she had schoold him to the purpose for acknowledging them to be a Parliament for which he makes a very humble and ample apology and sayes If there had been but two besides my self of my opinion I had not done it and the argument that prevailed with me was that the calling did no wayes acknowledge them to be a Parliament upon which condition and construction I did it and no otherwise and accordingly it is registred in the Councel books and with the Councells unanimous approbation but thou wilt find that it was my misfortune not my neglect that thou hast been no sooner advertised of it Observation I need not comment on these fine pieces of the Kings your own judgment may informe you what a quaint Iesuiticall jugler he was grown by the conversation he had with the Mother and the Daughter both of them being excellent proficients in the doctrins of Matchivill and surely under the Rose be it spoken himself no very bad Scholler in that kind of learning yet here you may see what pains he was put unto how to make a handsome excuse to save himself from a chiding but I forbeare to make further mention of his perfidious courses more than to put you in minde that so long as his vain imaginations prompted to over-power the Parliament and to reduce all to his own absolute pleasure it s most certain that he refused ali overtures for agreement with the Parliament other than such as before I have intimated he verily believed to make advantage of and this appears in his 9th Letter to the Queen March thirteenth from Oxford viz. Dear Heart What I told thee the last week concerning a good parting with our Lords and Commons here was on Monday last handsomly performed and if I now do any thing unhandsome or disadvantagious to my self or Friends in order to a Treaty it will be merely my owne fault for I confesse when I wrote last I was in feare to have been prest to make some mean overtures to renew the Treaty knowing that there were great labourings to that purpose but I now promise thee if it be renewed which I believe wil not without some eminent good successe on my side it shall be to my honour and advantage I being now as well freed from the place of base and mutinous motions that is to say of our mungrel Parliament here as of the chief causers for whom I may justly expect to be chidden by thee for having suffered thee to be vexed by them Observations We have here a plain proof of the former assertion that during the Kings power he would entertain no Treaties but
man as instantly you may see fearfully protested at the receiving the Sacrament at Christ-Church in Oxford 1643. at the hands of the Bishop of Armagh where immediately before his communicating he beckoning to the Bishop for a short forbearance used these following expressions viz. My Lord I espie here many resolved Protestants who may declare to the world the resolution I do now make I have to the uttermost of my power prepared my Soule to become a worthy receiver and may I so receive comfort by the blessed Sacrament as I do intend the establishment of the true reformed Religion as it stood in its beauty in the happy dayes of Queen Elizabeth without any connivance at Popery I blesse God that in the midst of these publique distractions I have still liberty to communicate and may this Sacrament be my damnation if my heart joyne not with my lips in this Protestation Observation Having seriously considered this strange Protestation of the Kings on the taking of the Sacrament with the imprecation of his damnation if his heart joyned not with his lips as I compared it with his letter after to Ormond together with his many other Protestations I professe in the faith of a Christian I stood amazed what to think of him and his Religion considered againe as it was taken before a publick audience and yet the very next yeare after he makes no scruple or conscience to promise to Ormond the repeal of all laws against Irish Papists and likewise in his Letter to the Queen of the 9th of March 1645. he gives way to her to promise in his name the taking away of all penall Laws against the English Papists so that they shall inable him to doe it where it seemes he makes no manner of account of a Parliament without which as already is said never any King of England either made or repealed any one Law surely t is heer very plaine that he understood not the extent of his own power neither the nature of the English Soveraignty or that he was disposed not to know it but to rule without Parliaments provided that by the assistance of Papists he might be impowred to do it and then that his will should be a Law to the people just Tyrant like stat pro ratione voluntas but take the rest of his Letter to Ormond into your more mature consideration and then happily it will astonish you where he hastens him to clap up the Peace with the Rebels which so soon as it shall be accomplished he vowes haec verba in his Letter to him Number 23 January 7. 1644. All the earth shall not make me breake it but not doubting of a peace I must againe remember you to presse the Irish for their speedy assistance to me here and their friends in Scotland my intention being to draw from thence into Wales the peace once concluded as many as I can of my armed Protestant subjects and I desire the Irish would send as great a body as they can to land about CVMBERLAND Observation Here againe we have a sufficient proof of this most unfortunate Princes inflexibility his resolutions once fixt there were no hopes of their alteration they are his owne words all the earth shal not make me break it though such resolutions breake him in pieces and sure we are many thousands of his poor innocent Subjects through this only fault of his obstinacy T is an infallible truth that the wilfull man never wants woe but when one mans perverse will shall be the cause of the destruction of multitudes that 's a fearfull judgement and a remedilesse calamity We have allso in this Letter an evident testimony what an inveterat hatred he bare towards the English Nation and those Scots which took their parts which he hated beyond belief and all others which never so little fell a thwart his inclinations where I shall crave your favour to tell all of you that sided with him haply more for your own ends than out of conscience for it is most certaine that he made no other accompt of you but to satisfie his own lust in your destruction whatsoever he pretended and to prove this I will tell you a true story and it is this On the death of the late Earle of Northampton whose Commands in one of his Forrests he presently gave away of which Endimion Porter understanding prest him that the young Earle his sonne whose father was then newly slaine in his service was fit to have that conferred on him than on any other on which check of Porters he replyed and hath the Earle done more than became him to dye for his King This is no fable but a knowne truth whereby you may guesse how he esteemed of you all as if his Subjects were a sort of Sheep ordained to the slaughter for the obtaining of his lustful pleasure and not him as the Shephard ordained to preserve them as that flock committed to his care and charge from God himselfe you may instantly find this very story verified and set out unto the life in his former Letter in which with what earnestnesse he presses ORMOND to hasten over the Irish to his assistance yea to bring over as many of his armed Protestants to land in Wales as might inable him to over-power both nations to his absolute domination and revenge A most brutish resolution and of purpose to reset all his Kingdoms on a light fier in setting of Protestants against Protestants and Papists against both you may further observe how his displeasure grew to be so implacable against the Scots his native Subjects and to lay his designe to destroy them together with his English Subjects and the reason of this you may perfectly see in his Letter to Ormond Number 25. Feb. 25. 1647. viz. I do therefore command you to conclude a Peace with the Irish whatsoever it cost so that my Protestant Subjects there may be secured and my regall Authority preserved but for all this you are to make the best bargaine you can and not discover your enlargement of power till you needs must and although I leave the Managing of this great and necessary work intirely to you yet I cannot but tell you that if the suspension of Poynings act for such bils as shal be agreed upon there and the present taking away of the penall Lawes against Papists by a Law will do it I shall not think it a hard bargaine so that freely and vigorously they ingage themselves in my assistance against my Rebells of England and Scotland for which no condition can be to hard not being against Conscience and Honour Observation You may first observe in this Letter the large extent of the Kings Conscience and Honour in the next place his seeming care for the preservation of his Protestant Subjects in Ireland with a purpose rather to make use of them against their Brethren of England than to leave them in Ireland for their own defence where their service was much
Kings raised more treasure by undue exactions and spilt more innocent blood than all of the Norman Kings before him If the premisses are evident truths as they cannot be denyed why then should they be concealed and wrapt up from the sight of the world being so pertinent to be left as Looking glasses for their Successours to behold the deformed faces of their Ancestors so fit to be made known to the deluded number of the people baffled and befool'd with flam's and Fig-leaves what injury then or injustice hath the Parliament done to the Nation in rescuing their Liberties out of the hand of a King which nothing would content but their Invassalage what have they done more in cutting off him with his Posterity to whom he had entayled his designes than necessity hath inforc'd them to do in preservation of the Nation from that inevitable inthralldome which eminently was like and would have befallen the universall people had they not taken away the Effects by the Cause and by that Law of Necessity to which all others are subservient And have they done more than the Romans of old have left in president in the case of Tarquinius and the expulsion of his Posterity for lesse Tyranny and to change the Kingly Government into a Republick when as this most willfull Prince stood so constantly fix'd to his depraved Principles that no perswasions of a Court of Parliament no reason but his will could prevaile or content him but to be the absolute Master of such an immensity of power as that at his own time and pleasure might enable him not only to destroy himself but to overpower the whole Kingdom which to his uttermost he endeavoured and to wade all over in blood to the accomplishment as 't is most manifest by all his actions and the sequell of his owne story And have not the SCOTS on the same Reasons of State in divers presidents acted the like on their Kings when they found them perverse and intractable to any reason as t is manifest in the fatall examples of Dardanus their 20. King from Fergus in Romacus their 36 King and on Alpinus their 68 King all three of them beheaded for their Cruelties and Tyrannies besides twenty more of their Kings either put to death or deposed for their exorbitant Governments and hath the Parliament in this necessitated change of the late Kingly domination into a Common-wealth done more than the Hollanders were compell'd to attempt and happily accomplisht in the very like case when as on their many though fruitlesse Petitions to Philip the second of the invading of their ancient Immunities and slaughtering of 100000 of the Natives by Don Alvares de Toledo and others of his Vice-Royes and themselves utterly deprived of all hopes of redresse of their grievances but only to make head against his Tyranny This question I take the liberty to move to the most rigid Royalist by what right equity or Law of God or man is any Nation in the World bound up to such a blind and unnaturall obedience as to be deprived of self-defence and to sit still without seeking their own preservations whilst an irregular King shall either cut their throats inslave or denude them of their Freedomes when as both Scripture and the Law of Nature and Nations allows it them and that Royalists themselves and the most learned Jurists maintain and concur in one joynt opinion that Subjects in such cases both by Gods Law and that of Nature may defend themselves contra immanem saevitiem against barbarous hostility as Barclay confesseth Hugo Grotius avoucheth it for Law si Rex hostili animo in totius populi exitium feratur amittit Regnum If a King in a hostile way shall attempt to destroy his people he loseth his Kingdome and this stands with infallible reason but leaving this Argument as that which already is in the way of decifion by the sword which when we have all said what can be alleged is the best title of all Kings and Common-wealths and the same on which all or most of the Kings in the world have founded their powers and Soveraignties What a strange passion then and madnesse possesses his surviving party which during the life time and height of their masters power could not with all their united forces their many plots and continued practices prevaile against the Parliament or enable him to attaine to any peece of his ends whose boundlesse ambition lead him as we may safely beleeve to fight as well against Heaven as his own Subjects and saw it not or would not but pursued his designs so long as any power or hopes prompted him to beleeve that happily in the end he might be the Conquerour but but missing of all his aims and himself in another world that there should still remain so many of his defeated partizans which out of an old and inbred malice have found out a way as they vainly conceive how to be revenged on their Conquerors is the wonder of the times by presenting his Book with his picture praying in the Frontispiece purposely to catch and amuse the people magnifying all his misdeeds for pious actions canonizing him for a Saint and idolizing his memory for an innocent Martyr an imposture without other parallell than that of Mahomet considerations which for the generall satisfaction and for the better discovery of the truth of all affairs between the King and Parliament have principally induced me to take in brief the true dimensions of this Sainted King and innocent Martyr and to pull off that false vizzard wherewith his juggling partie hath deckt his Effigies and presented him to the publick view for the most pious Prince of this age that so the people may behold him in his native complexon true it is some other important reasons have moved me to undertake this task as having seen the many poor easie and beleeving people of this Nation too long mislead and cosened out of their understanding by his usuall protestations which God willing shall be made evidently cleer by the Kings own hand writing and by the self same artifices wherewith he had so often deluded and prevailed on the belief of too many of his own party pretending to knowledge above the ordinary rank of the vulgar other reasons have moved me hereunto as for satisfaction of some obstinate Royalists to whom I have wisht well and with whom I have had severall disputes on such particular subjects as may be seene in the subsequent reply ranckt betweene the breviary of the Kings reign and the observations on severall of his own Letters and Expresses and lastly to confute a new sprung up scandall most ungratefully and maliciously raised against the Parliament viz. That the present change of the Government both Civill and Ecclesiasticall the cutting off the King and his Posterity were Plots and Contrivances of a longer date and standing than this Parliament though pursued and accomplished by a party yet sitting at Westminster this
Pattents incircuited and extended to Salt Butter Sope Leather Wine Sugar Allum Sea-coale Malt Cards and Dice and what not In order to these that notable project of shipmoney a device of Finches invention and shaped for the nonce suitable to the Kings designs it extenden to such a latitude as that by this one illegall power he might rayse moneys in what proportion he would where and when he pleased without Parliaments and so was it stated by the terrour which that fluttering bird Finch imprest on the Iudges to declare it legall by their extrajudiciall sentences though for their honour be it spoken three of them as Crook Hutton and Denham withstood it as a most illegall and unheard-of taxation against and destructive to the fundamentall Lawes of the Land and Liberties of the People We shall now passe it over though it was an invention which of it selfe would require a story not unworthy to be left to posterity how ever as long as it was on foot the King made use of it to the purpose and in two if not three yeares whilest it was put in practice raised not so little at 1000000 of poundes It is without question that what by monopolies the inhancing of the Customes and Rate Books Knighthood money and projects of this nature as the Fines in the Star-Chamber High Commission and depopulations with the sale of the Crowne Lands besides Subsidies and the Royall standing Revenue with divers other incomes most oppressive to the people the King within the space of ten or twelve years raised more Treasure than any two of his Predecessors in fourty years and yet none of our Kings had lesse occasion and this King more wanting as having for twelve years together no warres considerable neither any in expectation more than such as wilfully and most unjustly he undertook about the 15th year of his reign against the Scots and that to no other end but to advance his grand designe of invassalating the 3. Kingdomes as hereafter more evidently may be made to appear The King having thus far waded into the depth of his arbitrary strains to the great regret of the people and having for ten or twelve years together laid aside all thoughts of making use of Parliament which might controule so many of his illegall and irregular exactions in farther advance of his grand designe both to rule and raise money at will and pleasure having by so long a tract of time taught the people to forget Parliaments or not to hope for them and as he conceived well to have forwarded his greater work by the experience he had made of the passivenesse both of his English and Irish Subjects by the activity of his chief Instruments Strafford Canterbury and Cottington which principally then carried on the design in either Kingdom both in the Church and State which by time and degrees had so amated the spirits of the people as they seemed patiently to bear though unwillingly and not without some publike murmuration what loads might in the future be laid upon them but evermore in the midst of their resentments to cast the odium of their oppressions rather on the Kings ministers than on himself with the retention of a reverent esteem towards him as the least author of their sufferings when as himself alone was principall which invited him with the more boldnesse and lesse fear to the perfecting and speedy accomplishment of his mayn designe We may in the way of our relation avouch it and that for truth that both the Father and the Sonne were the most carelesse Courtiers of their people of any of our Kings and as regardlesse of the love and reverent esteem the universall Nation carried towards them an inexcusable error and shewes out unto us what in probability were and would be the issues of their Ingratitude We all know that popularity in private persons and the applause of the people are the ingredients of suspition and an errour which al wise and cunning Statists shun and avoid as tending to obscure the worth and dignity of their Master but in Princes it is a Vertue that most of all other their deportments takes most and soonest in the peoples affections we may boldly say it that neither of these two Princes were ever guilty of that attractive Vertue onely it hath beene since observed that at his comming out of Scotl. 1641. he was very prodigall in putting off his hat as he past the streets But omitting Paraphrases we have but even now said it that as to the Queens side in Court it was excessively profuse the Kings more moderate yet not so frugall but that there were a sort about his person to whom he participated his secrets and committed the managery of his arbitrary worke which did sufficiently lick their fingers We shall omit the Duke for he died within two years of the Kings accesse Digby and Cottington which in the former reign had laid the foundations of their after greatnesse but they which in this reign and in the midst of the Kings necessities spent lavishly lived at high rates and amassed most were VVeston the Treasurer Manchester Strafford Goring and the Gentlemen of the Bed-chamber neither did the farmers of the Customs go away empty handed yet we may see that as all or most of these had a time of getting and filching from the Crown so likewise did their Master in the end administer a sad occasion to rid most of them of their ill-gotten gains Having thus brought the King to the 15th year of his most unhappy reign and shewed out by what means wayes and instruments he raised monyes to supply his necessities and prodigallities of the Court what hitherto he acted was in calme and peaceable times though not without murmuration We shall anoncome to the hostile that fatall and sanguinary part of his unfortunate reigne He had hitherto led on his designe in a fore-game yet still in his wonted way of want the Queen-mother arriving holp on his expences Strafford the Archbishop and Cotington as the Kings prime agents had fitted all necessaries in a readinesse both the English and Irish patient in what formerly they had suffered and ready to be ridden and spur'd to the quick the mode of the French Goverment being stil in the eye of the Kings design as left unto him by his Fathers legacy and now again revived and quickned by the Queen Mothers instigation a Lady fatall to all places wheresoever she resided Strafford having raised in Ireland an Army of Papists to helpe on and at a deah lift and about this time there were divers Commissions issued out to certain Lords and Gentlemen with power to impose new and unheard of Imposts on all the commodities of the Land and in addition to these Commissions were granted to the Earl of Arundell to take the military charge of the Northern parts into his hands another to the Earle of Worcester to raise an army of Papists in Wales as it is well known to master
entrance of his reigne answerable to his Fathers instructions began his arbitrary worke and in pursuance thereof had laid sundry destructive and darke plots how to invassalate the three Nations and by degrees to reduce them all under one Intire arbitrary and absolute soveraignty and when they took not the effect he desired being discovered and opposed by this Parliament then to set up his Standard and array the poore people against themselves which never any King of England durst attempt otherwise than by publick consent and against a forraigne enemy and at last to wage open Narre against his owne subjects and the representative of the Nation Plundering Fyring and desolating the Kingdom to the utmost of his power had you avouched thus much you had hit on the right and shewed your selfe both a friend to truth and your Country but it seems you still stand close to your old destructive principles as at first you sided with the King living so dead you persist to make good his cause whether right or wrong it mattered not much with most of your party the truth is how good or bad soever his cause was it was the bare name of a King and hopes of preferment which drew your Iron into the field and t is the very same at present which invites all of you to flatter and sooth up your selves with the empty name of Loyalty to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score without looking to the preservation of the Liberty of your Country and proprieties of your own posterity and the sad consequence thereof as if the publick interest ought to be given up for the fulfilling of your desires and of one mans wilfull pleasure a strange dotage that hath possest you and more strange it is that you should now fall a fresh on a subject that loathes any man of ingenuity to think on it much more to treat on a theam so stale were it but in reference to the memory of him who is at rest But since I find that a kind of confidence possesses your intellectuals that all your allegations are unanswerable and that your provocations amounts to a challenge the fault must be yours not mine If in vindication of truth I lay open the grossnesse of all your errors in the manifestation of his which with such eagernesse and confidence you think your self able to defend being forced through your importunity and the nature of the taske you put upon me to run over the whole progres and managery of all the late Kings designs visible and long since very well knowne to all men of common understanding though I confesse I do not much marvell that your selfe amongst the rest of the facill beliefe have been deceived by the Kings woonted and plausible protestations especially as he handled the matter in the cunning and umbragious carrying on of all his close and hidden designs for I very well know many knowing Gentlemen which have had a long conflict with themselves what judgment to make on the first difference arising between the King and Parliament his Majesty so often protesting how much he intended the welfare of all his subjects how unwilling to embrew the Kingdom with blood how willing to embrace and conserve the peace of the Land how resolved to maintaine the true Protestant Religion how carefull and studious to uphold the Lawes and Liberties of the People how ready to preserve inviolable the privileges of Parliaments and how forward to supply his distressed Protestant Subjects in Ireland all which as a Copy of his counterfeit Countenance he so often protested and confirmed with Imprecations that truely the spirits of many wise men were amazed and a long time stood staggering what to be lieve in the case and doubtfull whether the Kings cause or the Parliaments was most just which party gave the first offence which began the Warre and of this number I confesse my self to be one which stood sometimes diffident in a controversy so variously attested but having made a diligent search into all the passages and transactions between both parties both from before the Sword was drawn and after to the year 1645 when the Kings Cabinet Letters were taken at Naseby and other manifests elsewhere I then began to bethink my self that which before I only admitted in a kind of Ambitious beliefe that the Parliament had then to deal with a King howsoever heretofore valued as a Prince of no deep reach who was not to seek without the help and influence of a malicious Councell to play his owne part I shall not say better but more dextrous and cunningly for his owne ends and to the reducing of the Kingdomes under his absolute power than any of those could direct him whom he most trusted with the mannagery of his designs and secrets truely Sir on that discovery on the publishing of his Letters let me tell you there were many thousands which fell off and from the opinion they held of his integrity and the Iustice of his Cause it being in the next degree to a miracle that after so full a disclosure of the Kings juglings and dissemblings there should any remaine to take his part and the wonder is the more remarkeable that since his death any man should believe him to be a Martyr but whom God hardens they shall be hardened let the Charmer Charme never so wisely some will be deafe and diffident of visible truthes never so clearly manifested of which number that you should perceveere to make one as by your sundry invectives it appears surely it hath not a little troubled me to see the excrescencies of your inveterate malignancy to break out even to obstinacy and so long to have blinded your judgment from discerning of truth from falshood and to have bard you from the right use of distinguishing between reason well weighed and fraud umbrated and attested with the usuall artifices of the royall protestations a faculty by your favour too too common with the King and those quaint pen-men which attended him with plausible Declarations frequently sent abroad ad faciendum populum to catch fools and as the Kings usuall phrase was to undeceive the people prepossest with the reality of the Parliaments Remonstrances when in truth the Kings ends were no other than to decoy the poor credulous Annimalls into an opinion of his good meaning towards them when he intended them most harme as we find it evident in the silly devises and quaint impresses of his money coyned at Oxford pretending that he took up arms in defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the People and the Priviledges of Parliament when the direct contrary appeared by all his Actions and when as it was manifest that before he began to quarrell with the Scots he tacitely intended and even then designed to suppress Parliaments or so to qualify them that they should be onely usefull to his own ends not to the people and likewise to invade the Liberties of
which God had set over them and in his providence and love towards them knew to be fittest for them they obstinately rejected the gentle government of Samuel and weary of their own happinesse surfeiting as they did in the Wildernesse on that delicious food of Quails and Manna and wishing for the flesh-pots of Egypt in imitation of the Heathen they thirsted after a King and not unlike to Esops Frogs they prest Samuel to change their quiet and peaceable Block into a furious and devouring Stork their freedom into slavery as first with these Arguments That thy sonnes walke not in thy wayes but have turn'd aside after lucre took bribes and perverted judgement foul faults indeed and happily too true for wheresoever power without grace is invested faults there will be and many times foul ones too But this was not all that they resented it was their ambition and desire of novelty in a vain-glorious affectation that swayed with them to be like their Neighbour Nations and to have an illustrious and pompous domination over them but how this pleased God that Chapter with others shews us in a very sad dialect for God in his wrath gave them a King according to their desires yet he commands Samuel to shew them what would be the manner of a King and what Tyrannies he would exercise over them howsoever their hearts being set on a Kingly Goverment a glorious thing indeed in the outward shew and splendor thereof have a King they would without more dispute alleging other Arguments to Samuel viz. That he may judge over us go out before us and fight our battels But how most of their Kings executed judgement and what needlesse battles they fought for them and how much bloud of theirs was in many of their Kings reignes willfully and profusely spilt by most of the Kings of Judah and Israel as also what taxes and tributes were unnecessarily imposed on them their own Chronicles will best inform you and all this Kingly work what doth it amount unto more than to fullfill the will and pleasure and to maintain the pompe and splendor of one man and his whole family in the open and privileged oppression of a whole Nation Now if the History of the Kings of Iudah and Israel be not sufficient to inform your judgement of the oppressions and Tyrannies exercised by most of their Kings as a just judgement of God on the whole Nation for I may of truth aver that they were a stubborn generation and God answerable to their own hearts desires gave them their belly full of Kings when it was too late for their repentance then you may pick and chuse amongst all the Kings of the World and you shall find the best of them little better than Tyrants yea David himself a a man of blood and most perfideous in the case of honest Vriah and as the greater Fish in the Sea which eats up the lesser so Kings on the Land are commonly no more than Canniballs man-eaters and as a good Author describes them to be ex genere bestiarum rapacium a sort of ravenous beasts an undenyable truth especially where absolute Soveraignty is usurped by any one man and that derived in a succession which is the evill of all evils and the very same which your malignant party so vehemently drives at to introduce on the English Nation and to inslave a free borne people when your self being a rationall man very well knows that no man ab origine was born a slave but either by his own consent or by the ambition and pleasure of Tyrants was made so for who koows not that all men are of the self-same mold as Kings neither were Kings ever ordaind of God to govern their people otherwise than for their good never to be opprest and trampled on at theit own wills and lustfull pleasures But happily you may here charge me to intrench and presse with the most on the Honour and Power of Kings I answer I honour them as Gods own Ordinance amongst other Powers and am commanded by the Apostle to make prayers and supplications for them all especially for Kings and great reason we all have so to do lest they devoure us alive but if they presume to break over those limits and boundaries which Almighty God hath set unto them as of those and what they are you may best instruct your felfe out of Deutronomy and Ezekiel where you shall finde the King to be tyed up to strict rules as to read the law and to observe it all the dayes of his life that his heart be not lifted up above his brethren and as the Prophet tels them take away your exactions from my people remove violence and spoyl and execute judgement and justice c. Vpon these considerations I hope you will not blame me though I have not made one amongst so many which have sided with our late King in raising of war against his people and their Representative neither in plundring and desolating the Kingdom which howsoever those exorbitances amongst other of his faults have been palliated with as much finenesse of wit as the art of man could possibly devise yet I beseech you let truth appear which with a little of your patience you may more fully understand and then happily you will adjudge him guilty of much more than hath beene yet vulgarly charged on his accompt in the mean time remember our blessed Saviours oracle That it is fit offences should be but woe to those which occasion them Excuse me then though I tell you that I know none more guilty of the occasion of all our barbarous and brutish wars bloodshed rapine and of the imminent danger and utter desolation which at present threatens and hangs over three late flourishing Kingdoms than he who ended his vexatious dayes at his own gates and she which had the Honour of his bed together with her which was the mother and of all the mischiefs which befell all the places wheresoever she made her abode But happily you may again reply that I speak as a loser and true and so may you and one hundred thousand more of poore innocent sufferers speake in the same sad dialect as having felt the fearfull effects of the perversity of one mans will who in the power of a moderate SOVERAIGNTY and the love of his people by whom and by this very Parliament so hatefull unto him never any King of England was more honoured beloved obeyed and more courted and when time was might have been what a just Prince would have desited and should I aske you what might he not have been had he either at first and long after this Parliament late downe yea and long after the Warre began complyed with them as great reason there was he should have done and not to have protected Delinquents neither to have sided with such as most treacherously deserted their trust but to have relyed as at first he promised on his faithfull Councell
use of any such forces as the Parliament should send over against them and consequently to dis-enable them the more in levyes here for their own defence against him and his preparations as it evidently appeared within 3. moneths after by the said seizure of the Horses cloaths and provisions sent by Chester as also by his remanding over the Regiments sent before into Ireland to make use of them as it is visibly known he did against the Parliament But I pray extend your patience and look farther into this darke worke of the Kings take a short viewe of his next Message from Nottingham where he erected his Standard it bears date the 25. of August 1642. Next to this his Message of the 5th of Sept. 1642. with another of the 11th of September following in pursuance of the former peruse them all and you shal evidently see such notable juglings and Matchivilian dissemblings as would amaze any Christian eye to behold them compared with his actions his Pourtraicture and his own letters taken at Naseby I shall present them all in their order verbatim and first that of the 25 of August 1642. viz. We have with unspeakable griefe ef heart long beheld the distraction of this our Kingdome our very soul is full of anguish untill we may finde some remedy to prevent the miseries which are ready to overwhelm this Nation by a Civil War and although all our indeavours tending to the composing of those unhappy differences betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament though pursued by us with all zeale and sincerity have been hitherto without the successe we hoped for yet such is our constant earnest care to preserve the publicke peace that we shall not be discouraged to use any expedient which by the blessing of the God of Mercy may lay a happy foundation of peace and happinesse to all our good subjects To this end observing that many mistakes have arisen by the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament which happily may be prevented by some other way of treaty wherein the matter in difference may be more clearly understood more freely transacted we have thought fit to propound to you that some fit persons may be by you enabled to treat with the like number to be authorized by us in such a manner and freedom of debate as may best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desire the peace of the Kingdom wherein as we promise in the word of a King all safety and incouragement to such as shall be sent unto us if you shall chuse the place where we are for the Treaty which we wholly leave to you presuming on the like care of the safety of those we shall imploy if you shall name another place So we assure you and all our good Subjects that to the best of our understanding nothing shall therein be wanting on our part which may advance the true Protestant Religion opPose Popery and Superstition secure the Law of the Land upon which is built as well our just Prerogative as the propriety and liberty of the Subject confirme all just power and Privileges of Parliament and render us and our people truly happy by a good understanding betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament Bring with you as firm resolutions to doe your duty and let our People joyn with us in our prayers to Almighty God for his blessing upon this worke If this Proposition shall be rejected by you we have done our duty so amply that God will absolve us from the guilt of that blood which must be spilt and whatsoever opinion other men may have of our power we assure you nothing but our Christian and pious care to prevent the effusion of blood hath begotten this motion our provision of men money and armes being such as may secure us from further violence til it please GOD to open the eyes of our People Not to trouble you with further search I shall present you that Message of the 5th of September 1642. in pursuance of the former together with that of the 11th of the same Moneth tending all to the same purpose though the Observations on them you shall finde handled separatim and left to your more mature consideration We will not repeat what meanes we have used to prevent the dangerous and distracted estate of the Kingdome nor how these means have been interpreted because being desirous to avoid effusion of Blood we aere willing to decline all memory if former bitternesse that might make our offer of a Treaty readly accepted We did never declare nor ever intended to declare both our Houses of Parliament Traytors or set up our Standard against them and much lesse to put them and this Kingdome out of our protection wee utterly professe against it before God and the World and farther to remove all possible scruples which may hinder the Treaty so much desired of us we hereby promise so that a day be appointed by you for the unvoting of your Declarations against all persons as Traytors or otherwayes for assisting of us we shall with all chearfulnesse upon the same day recall our Proclamations and Declarations and take down our Standard in which Treaty we shall be ready to grant any thing that shall be really for the good of our Subjects conjuring you to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the dangerous condition of England in as high a degree as by these our offers we have declared our self to do and assuring you that our chief desire in this world is to beget a good understanding and mutuall confidence betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament Sebtemb 5. 1642. Who have taken most ways used most endeavours and made most reall expressions to prevent the present distractions and dangers let all the world judge as well by former passages as our two last Messages which have been so fruitlesse that though wee have descended to desire and presse it not so much as a Treaty can be obtained unles we would denude our self of all force to defend us from a visible strength marching against us and admit those persons accompted Traytors to us who according to their duty their Oathes of Allegeance and the Law have appeared in defence of us their King and liege Lord whom we are bound in Conscience and Honour to preserve though we disclaimed all our Proclamations and Declarations and erecting of our Standard as against our Parliament all we have left in our power is to expresse the deep sense we have of the publick misery of this Kingdom in which is involved that of our distressed Protestants of Ireland and to apply our self to our necessary defence wherein we wholly rely on the providence of God the Justice of our cause and the Affection of our good people so far we are from putting them out of our protection when you shal desire a Treaty of us wee shall piously remember whose blood is to be spilt