before all which was abominable Trick to affright the King into those Nets and Toyls he had so craftily set for him till a fit opportunity of proceeding to his Murder And that all the Caresses wherewith most of the Army more especially those two Nonparells of Treachery the Father and Son in Law courted the King tended thereto is clear from every Circumstance of their Proceedings as likewise from that Assurance Ireton gave Ludlow at first who tells us he went down to Mayden-head their Head-Quarters where Ireton suspecting these Things their caressing his Majesty might occasion Jealousies in me and others of their Friends in Parliament desired me to be assured of their stedfast Adherence to the publick Interest and that they intended only to dispense with such Things as were not material till they could put themselves into a Condition of serving the People effectually pag. 194 And when the Army drew up that bloody Remonstrance November 48. in order to taking away the King's Life the same Ireton sent him Word that now he hop'd he should please him which he owns they did by the way they were taking c. pag. 266. Now had Ludlow been a Man of any Thought any Reflection upon himself he must needs have consider'd what a contemptible Fellow they took him to be as not vouchsafing to trust him in a Design his wicked Soul most earnestly desir'd to have Accomplished As for Cromwel's ambitious Enthusiastical Spirit that he had some thoughts by removal of the King to ascend the height he at last attain'd unto there are several inducements to perswade Ludlow tells us of many Passages and Actions which when the Riddle was unfolded discover'd what he aim'd at Particularly about this Time when the King was in the Isle of Wight there were frequent Consults and Conferences amongst them about reconciling Parties and fixing a Government wherein Cromwel kept himself in the Clouds and would declare neither for Monarchical Aristocratical nor Democratical maintaining that any of them might be good in themselves or for us according as Providence should direct pag. 238 And when Providence suffer'd this glaring Meteor with all it 's Evil Influences to rest so long upon our Horizon and his vain Mind affected to add the Regal Title to that Power he had so unjustly assum'd one main Inducement of his attempting it was thought to be a Dream he had of being King whilst a young Rake in Sidny College Cambridge for so he really was which he frequently declar'd to his Companions and was not a little proud of and that it made a deeper Impression upon his Mind than any Learning he got there give me leave to add this odd Passage when he was Protector I knew an Old Man who in his younger Days had been Serving-Man to his Uncle Sir Thomas Stewart was the Fac totum in the Family and had more especially charge of the Cellar where he told me Cromwel and he toss'd the Pot many a Time and when his natural Enthusiasm was assisted by a good Dose of strong Liquor would thus vent himself Well Iames notwithstanding my Uncle's and Aunt 's Unkindnesses I may yet be a great Man before I die I had a lucky Dream at the College and I have a young Daughter a shrewd Girl she is who will be often telling me Father you will be a Great Man Father I cannot sleep soundly a Nights for Dreaming of your being a Great Man indeed Father you will be as Great as the King and then he would go on I don't know Iames nor can I see any thing of likelyhood yet but God often times brings strange things about and if he should call me to any thing extraordinary sure I should understand to prosecute my own advantage This the Old Man told me he would be often repeating over his Cups several years before the Wars broke out which as he laugh'd at then so he had thought upon it a thousand times with astonishment since he came to be Protector I hope this Story will not be thought altogether impertinent upon this consideration that it shows how much his Mind was puff'd up with hopes even when there was no ground for them but when he saw all sorts of Mischiefs and Rebellions begin to work with such Hellish success and himself got into the Second Command of the whole Army under such a Cypher of a General as he manag'd him no less than he did the Inferiour Officers most of whom he engag'd to oppose all Superiors as well their Masters the Parliament as their Sovereign This doubtless made him dream of a Crown every Night and think a Year an Age till possest of the sole Power For having Modell'd the Parliament according to his Will made them as tractable as Setting-Dogs to whatsoever he and his Mirmidons thought fit to put them upon and wheadled the King into a Prison under a Property of his own for whatever Ludlow or Sir Iohn relates of Hammond's Surprise and Consternation at the News pag. 218. the History of Independency assures us he had been with Cromwel who sent him down fully Instructed as to his Deportment in that Critical Affair And from hence forward we hear no more of his Caresses and Protestations May the Lord deal with him according to the Sincerity of his Heart towards the King c. But a tendency on all hands to the Destruction both of his Person and Government CHAP. V. Of the King's Murder WE are now come to the last Act so full of Horror and Amasement as nothing but the doing it could make the Attempt credible and seems to transverse that Old Conceit of the Lycanthropi Wolves and Tygers appearing not only in humane Shape but humane Societies for of some such Composition must those several Scenes of Regicides be which made up those Conferences our Author mentions p. 238. and forward in the first of which he tells us the Commonwealth's-men declared Monarchy was neither good in it's self nor for us That it was not desirable in it's self they urg'd from the 8 th Chapter of the first Book of Samuel the 8 th Verse where the rejecting of the Judges and the choice of a King was charg'd upon the Israelites by God himself as to rejecting him Scripture is so much out of these Peoples way as they never blunder more than when they think to support their Cause from thence as will appear from this short Account of the whole Story Where first it was not the Israelites rejecting the Iudges but the Theocracy which gave the Provocation for so Almighty God himself declares in the precedent Verse 7. upon Samuel's Complaint they have not rejected thee but me they have rejected that I should not reign over them Samuel was not only as a Viceroy to see those Laws observ'd which the Supreme Sovereign had already Enacted but as a Prophet and so the Mouth of God further to declare whatever Divine Will thought fit to Prescribe And if in the second Place if
Covetous he withdrew his Favour by degrees as any Wise Man would have done unwilling to expose himself for an ill-plac'd Affection But when the Business of Overbury was discovered he detested it with the utmost Indignation of a good Christian a just Prince and ordered a Prosecution according to the Baseness of the Fact though after several Partisans had suffered the importunity of Relations and Country-Men first got a Repreive and at length a Pardon for him and his Eve the Temptress though it was many Years before the last was obtained and not many Months before the King's Death which 't is pity he did at all considering the solemn Protestations he had made that all concern'd in that Matter should suffer but what will not Importunity do especially coming from his own Country-Men This Court-Meteor being thus sunk down and disappearing the English Nobility about the King began to reflect upon the ill Influences it had and what worse its longer aboad in that Horison might have produc'd Hereupon they thought it their concern to take more care for the future and not suffer a second Foreign Page of as little Wit Good Nature or Manners to be Topt upon or rather over them in order whereunto they resolv'd to manage Matters so as an English Man might be Topt upon the King about which they had several Consults and several young Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and other Places in their Eye but amongst all the rest George Villyers both for Person and Parts seem'd most promising him therefore having fix'd upon such Court intrigues were carry'd on as the King made choice of the Person they design'd And this is the true Origin of that great Man's Rise whatever impertinent Relations Roger Coke makes of his Mother decking him up and setting of him in the King's Eye when Ignoramus was Acted at Cambridge with many other as groundless and false Conjectures To be sure he no sooner appear'd upon the Publick Stage of Business and Address but the Expectation of all concern'd in his Advancement was not only answer'd but exceeded neither could they any where have made a better Choice among the Nobility there were scarce any to be found who would undertake such a Fatigue of Business or had Parts to go thorough with it and though there were some in a lower Sphere of more Reading and greater Experience yet few that equall'd him in Strength of Natural Parts dayly improv'd by consulting the most Knowing and Judicious in all the several Affairs which came before him whereby he brought things to a better Issue than could be expected from the most cry'd up Wisdom accompanied with a self-sufficient peremptoriness So that whatever Odiums he lay under as no Man ever lay under greater and indeed who could bear up against Common-Fame and a House of Commons yet more impartial Iudgments which consider'd things as they really were became surpris'd at so young a Man's falling to Business with so great Application his judicious Choice of fit Persons to every concern he engag'd them in and as Honourable Rewards upon their well Performance I have already mention'd his manage and improvement of the Navy as likewise how express his Replies were to their several Articles without any thing of a Rejoynder on the other side tho' he provok'd them thereto for 't is absolutely false that the King dissolv'd the Parliament on that Account as shall hereafter appear Neither was there more of Truth in that other Charge his inriching himself by the Crown which of all Imputations saith the Disparity was the most unskilful and worst laid some few of those Lands Engross'd by Somerset before were assign'd him by his first Master and that was all Yet Roger Coke opens most violently upon this Account and with an odd kind of Arithmetick will consider what he received by his many great Places without taking notice it was all Expended in the same Service To be sure one of our Historians saith he died 60000 l. in Debt and whoever Audited his Estate then considering he married an Heir General of the House of Rutland who was a very great Fortune will find that Sir Edward Coke and several of that Robe since have left greater Revenues than this Duke did of his own Acquiring The foremention'd Roger Coke tells another idle Story which I shall mention here tho it reflects chiefly upon the Good King which was that Spiteful Fellow 's greatest Satisfaction viz. How he design'd first a Sumptuous Funeral for this Duke his Favourite from which the Lord Treasurer Weston put him off by saying a Monument would be more lasting and less cost And when the King afterwards press'd for the Monument the Wary Treasurer diverted him from that by representing how ill it would hear in the World should the Duke's be Erected before there was one for his Father This Faithful Roger relates as a great Secret which he had from a Learned Gentleman well acquainted with the Transactions of those Times whereas it was a Common-fame Story every where whispered by the Faction and so secret that Mr. Hamond Le Strange was impos'd upon to put it into his History and is reply'd to be Sir William Saunderson for that mistake who must know better being all that time the Duke's Domestick and assures us he was Sumptuously intomb'd at Westminster which his Executors paid for and it cost not the King a Penny nor the stately Monument Erected over his Grave This Passage tho somewhat out of Course I could not but here insert as an exact Specimen of Fanatick Sincerity what Secrets they Detect and Truths relate Well now we have done with Favorites for Buckingham being fatally cut off the King made no one Person his Confident but equally consulted the Ablest and best Principled Men he could find thoroughout the Kingdom who were equally Maligned and Persecuted to Death by a Virulent Party because they studied the peace and welfare of the Nation were for every thing to run in its proper Channel the Laws duly Administred to the People and the King's Occasions Honourably supply'd without Suggesting Fears and Hunting after Grievances the Mormo's of disaffected and designing Spirits For sometime in King Iame's Reign there was a cursed Distinction started of a Court and Country Party which kept the House divided most implacably in that and this following Reign of Charles the I. for I shall descend no further and several honest well-meaning Gentlemen like so many Barnabas's were led away by the Dissimulation of such as promoted it whereas in all well-settled Times the King was look'd upon as the Common Father of the Country and had constantly a select Number of Understanding Men knowing the World and well practis'd in Business to sit in Council and assist him in keeping things Right or bringing them so when wrong But then Enacting of Laws Raising of Mony and several other Ardua Regni are to be consulted of and consented to in Parliament where the foremention'd Privy
Council were generally Members in one House or other and as well able to acquaint them with the true State and Interest of the whole Nation as any particular Member of that private Burrough he Represented and were credited accordingly which produc'd an exact Concord and Harmony between every Part of the Constitution On the contrary when the Members divide and jar one with another when all the King advise with must be suspected for Enemies to the Publick tho no such thing can be prov'd and he upbraided for consulting or imploying them and that by such as affect their Places or design to abridge his just Power what an Ocean of Mischiefs must this toss us in What but a Shipwrack can be expected at last As indeed it happen'd 'T is a pretty Remark and Simile of Sir W. T. who tells us he had observ'd All set Quarrels with the Age and pretences to Reform it by their own Models to end commonly like the pains of a Man in a little Boat who tuggs at a Rope that is fast to a Ship it looks as if he resolv'd to draw the Ship to him but the Truth and his meaning is to draw himself to the Ship where he gets in when he can and does like the rest of the Crew when he is there But this would not do in King Charle's Time there was not Room enough to hold all that pull'd to come in at leastwise Provision to support them when there For however Ludlow upbraids the poor King with the Profuseness of his Court the standing Revenue of the Crown was about 400000 l. per Annum too little by far to supply his great and urgent Occasions Would they have given him Mony plentifully some new Places might have been made or other Ways and Means found to gratify their Kindness but as they knew the King's Honor and Integrity would not Stoop to such indirect Courses so 't is probable 't was considered on the other side this would put them upon a worse extream instead of giving nothing they must give more than all Nevertheless some were taken in Sir Thomas Wentworth Mr. Noy and a while after Sir Dudly Diggs who had their several Posts assign'd them and behav'd themselves with great Honor and Resolution there which so incenc'd the rest as they became more implacable than ever plotted all Ways imaginable to seize upon the Vessel which at length having obtain'd they first threw the King and his whole Crew overboard and then sunk it All which the Good Man was advis'd of long before for in the heat of their Prosecution against the Duke there was a Letter put into his Hands ab Ignoto whereof Mr. Rushworth gives only a sneaking Abridgment like a partial Somewhat as he is for the whole deserv'd to have been Transmitted as well as any one thing in all his Volumes however 't is at large in the Cabala giving him an Account of their several Parties and dangerous Designs that King Iames had given too much way to their popular Speeches and Parliamentary Harangues which since the time of Henry the VI. were never suffer'd as being the certain Symptoms of subsequent Rebellions Civil Wars and Dethroning of our Kings Amongst others he tells him the Lawyers in general fomented these Heats for that as Sir Edward Coke could not but often express our Kings have upholden the Power of their Prerogatives and the Rights of the Clergy whereby their comings in have been abated And therefore the Lawyers are fit ever in Parliaments to second any Complaints against both Church and King and all his Servants with their Cases Antiquities Records Statutes Presidents and Stories But they cannot or will not call to Mind that never any Noble Man in Favour with his Sovereign was question'd in Parliament except by the King's leave in Case of Treason or unless it were in the Nonage and Tumultuous Times of Richard II. Henry VI. or Edward the VI. which happen'd both to the Destruction of King and Kingdom And that not to exceed our own and Fathers memories in King Henry VIII's Time Wolsie's exorbitant Power and Pride and Cromwell's Contempt of the Nobility and Laws were not yet permitted to be discus'd in Parliament though they were most odious and grievous to all the Kingdom And that Leicester's undeserved Favour and Faults Hatton's Insufficiency and Rawleigh's Insolence far exceeded what yet hath been tho most falsly objected against the Duke Yet no Lawyer durst abet nor any else begin any Invectives against them in Parliament This is clear Matter of Fact an impartial Account both of the Distemper and its true Original Cause I wish he could as easily have prescribed the Cure but it was now too late to remove what was so deeply rooted and become habitual King Iames might easily have prevented its rising to so high a Crisis had he observ'd that one Maxim of the Precedent Reign kept up his Prerogative and those other Arcana Imperij which were his Peculiar with as much Majesty and Resolution as Queen Elizabeth did who found this Pragmatical Spirit at work in her Time But so observ'd and kept it down as had the same Course been continued no Danger could have accrew'd thereby To ascribe any thing of Divinity to Princes above other Mortals will I am sure at this time of Day be censured for a gross piece of Pedantry yet really there are several Inducements would go a great way to perswade that this happy Queen was so far inspir'd as to see further into the Thoughts and Designs of Men than any or all about her especially that these busy Reformers affected a Parity in the State as well as Church design'd not only the Mytre but the Crown to be under their Check and Control which made her on all Occasions exert so briskly in defence of her Prerogative and other just Rights Insomuch as Roger Coke owns there were three things she was impatient of having debated in Parliament The Succession of the Crown after her Death Her Marriage and attempting any Alterations in the Church from its Establishment in the first Year of her Reign For the last of these I have had occasion already to mention how Morris burnt his Fingers by meddling therewith and the Iournal gives the like Account about the former how one Wentworth and some others were sent to the Tower for concerning themselves with the Succession but whereas Roger Coke saith they were soon discharg'd is one of his own Maggots and a shameful perhaps willful Blunder since the Iournal would have inform'd him that the House becoming humble Sutors to her Majesty for the release of such Members as were under restraint It was answered by the Privy-Counsellors then Members of the House That her Majesty had committed them for Causes best known to her self and that to press her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose Good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an Account for what she did of her
Earl of Lindsey never attempted to break their Diques open the Passage and put in Relief All which this vile Wretch affirms in one Breath tho' every Historian even to their Authentick Rushworth positively affirm it The continued course of impudent Untruths wherewith these Weeders nay Forgers of History have so long wearied my Patience makes me at last resolve upon this I hope innocent Revenge whenever for the time to come I meet any Person relating a most improbable Malicious Falshood from me he shall not have that common Opprobrium of a Lyer but of a Fanatick Common-wealth Historian CHAP. IX Of the Palatinate Bohemia and that Queen AND here before I leave the Defence by which term I all along mean that Libel which Undertakes to Justify the Parliament of Forty and all their Adherents there is one Stretch must be taken Notice of which as Physicians term it is a Nostrum of his Own never urg'd by any of his Brother Libellers viz. That the Eight Ships for so he will have it tho' really but Seven lent the French were Equipp'd with the Subsidies given for the Relief of his distressed Protestant Sister the Electress Palatine and the poor oppressed Protestants in the Palatinate Pag. 3. 'T is in a Parenthesis and so might have been left out as likewise for another Reason because not true which nevertheless must not pass here lest it should set aside the whole Pamphlet But I would gladly know what Subsidies he relates to those granted King Iames were more than expended upon raising the 10000 Men for Count Mansfield and those of Charles's first Parliament were only Voted not Rais'd when the Ships Lent which to clear the Matter the French Equipp'd at their own Expence and paid moreover for the use of Hull and Rigging 'T is Odd in the mean while to observe what a Compass these Fellows will fetch to gain one Point of Calumny which too after all they fail to Make. But because Roger Coke likewise Throws a great deal of Dirt upon the Memory of these two Kings Iames and Charles the First in Reference to that Unhappy Enterprize and thereby that Unhappy Family I shall here take care to wipe it off in making it appear they both did what possibly could be done to Retrieve so desperate an Affair Mr. Coke very desirous to make the Prince Elector a good Title to the Kingdom of Bohemia rambles into Hungary Poland and whither not And runs into more Mistakes than he pretends to Correct and quarrels at his Friend Rushworth whom he never fails to follow but when in the Right To be sure he stumbles at the very Threshold in saying before Ferdinand Brother to Charles the Fifth That Kingdom was Elective whereas Uratislaus their first King was made so from Duke by the Emperour Henry the Fourth who always after had a right of Nomination but his Power in those troublesome Times throughout Germany being very Precarious and his Avocations elsewhere not Suffering him to attend the Transactions of so many several Districts the People or States oftentimes assum'd that Power to themselves where notwithstanding they generally had regard to the Royal Family though not immediate Successor some other more prevalent with the Mob and their Leaders carried his own Business by promising to carry theirs better Nay to shew further that the greatest Sticklers for the People's Right had regard to the Royal Line when they chose this Unfortunate Frederick Elector Palatine a Descent was fram'd for him from Sophia Sister to Ladislaus the Second 'T is likewise a gross Mistake that the German Emperours were not Chosen till the Turks became great in Europe Charles the Fourth was chosen 1346. at which time the Turks had not set one foot there and so in the same manner his Three immediate Successors Wencislaus Sigismund and Albert when he was not come nigh nor any ways fear'd by the Western Empire though very formidable to the Eastern yet these Four are produc'd as Instances thereof At which rate he runs on without any regard to Truth or History and let them that will follow him I shall not but only observe at this very time when the Elector was made the Peoples Property there had been four Kings successively of the House of Austria Ferdinand Maximilian Rodolphus and Matthias Ferdinand the Second Adopted Son of Matthias doubting the Mob's Majority got himself Nominated without them according to the Original Institution and having both Prescription and Possession two strong Titles when those others put in their Claim it was Baffled at the Swords Point and the Kingdom hath been the quieter ever since But not to think with our Enthusiasts that Success is always an Argument of Right I shall refer it to what King Iames told Archbishop Abbot 'T was a Faction in Religion set up his Son there and God would never Prosper them And so likewise the Duke of Saxony sent Frederick word That he had often represented what Ruin was like to attend him by taking another Crown and for his own part he was bound to chastize the Rebels so that it seems he look'd upon them as such and 't is probable refus'd the Crown upon that Account for it was profer'd both him and the Duke of Lorrain which tend little to the Reputation of a Calvinist Prince that he should accept what a Lutheran and Papist whether out of Conscience Policy or both thought not fit to venture upon If this new King took that Crown in hopes of Assistance from his Father in Law here he was much mistaken for whatever Mr. Coke thinks he thought better and had asserted the Right of Crown'd Heads so far as he could upon no account give way to have them transferred upon every Mob Caprice Nay supposing a just Title I cannot imagine what Supply could been have given him Mony must have come from the Parliament who had been very backward upon other Occasions and would have been soon weary here and for Men there was no way of conveying them unless some Dutch Conjurer would have undertaken it in a Cloud through the Air no Neighbour Princes care to have such Cattle march through their Country and half a Score at least must have been treated with in Order to this Expedition most if not all of which might have served us as the French and Dutch did the Ten Thousand sent under Count Mansfield give fair Words but permit them not to come on Shore till more than half were perished on Ship-board So that to spend no more Words nor time upon Suppositions as matters really stood without Good Cause Good Courage or Good Conduct what could King Iames do more than he did treat with the House of Austria for an Accomodation of the most Rash Indiscreet ay and Unjustifyable enterprise ever any Prince engag'd in whatever the Zealous party did then or hath ever since said to defend it amongst which is Arch-Bishop Abbot's Letter so carefully recorded by Mr. Rushworth which after