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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	king_n	parliament_n	right_n	8,411	5	7.1011	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A58041	Mercurius Rusticus, or, The countries complaint of the barbarous outrages committed by the sectaries of this late flourishing kingdom together with a brief chronology of the battels, sieges, conflicts, and other most remarkable passages, from the beginning of this unnatural war, to the 25th of March, 1646.	Ryves, Bruno, 1596-1677.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664. Querela Cantabrigiensis.; Wharton, George, Sir, 1617-1681. Mercurius Belgicus.	1685 (1685)	Wing R2449; ESTC R35156	215,463	414

willing to be too long is my self I was born and baptized in the bosom of the Church of England established by Law in that profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to dye This is no time to dissemble with God least of all in matter of Religion and therefore I desire it may be remembred I have always lived in the Protestant Religion established in England and in that I now come to dye What clamours and slanders I have endured for labouring to keep an Uniformity in the external service of God according to the Doctrin and Discipline of this Church all men know and I have abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High Treason in Parliament a crime which my Soul ever abhorred this Treason was charged to consist of these two parts An endeavour to subvert the Laws of the Land and a like Endeavour to overthrow the true Protestant Religion estab●●shed by Law Besides my Answers to the several Charges I protested my innocency in both Houses It was said Prisoners protestations at the Bar must not be taken I can bring no witness of my heart and the intentions thereof therefore I must come to my Protestation not at the Bar but my Protestation at this hour and instant of my death in which I hope all men will be such charitable Christians as not to think I would dye and dissemble being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it I do therefore here in the presence of God and his holy Angels take it upon my death That I never endeavoured the subversion either of Law or Religion and I desire you all to remember this Protest of mine concerning mine innocency in these and from all Treasons whatsoever I have been accused likewise as an Enemy to Parliaments No I understand them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I did mislike the misgovernments of some Parliaments many ways and I had good reason for it for Corruptio optimi est pessima there is no corruption in the World so bad as that which is of the best thing in it self for the better the thing is in nature the worse it is corupted And that being the highest Court over which no other hath jurisdiction when t is mis-informed or misgoverned the Subject is left without all remedy But I have done I forgive all the World all and every of those bitter Enemies which have persecuted me and humbly desire to be forgiven of God first and then of every man whether I have offended him or not if he do but conceive that I have Lord do thou forgive me and I beg forgiveness of him And so I heartily desire you to joyn in Prayer with me O Eternal God and merciful Father look down upon me in mercy in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies look upon me but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the Cross of Christ not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ not till I have hid my self in the wounds of Christ that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me And since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost I humbly beseech thee give me now in this great instant full patience proportionable comfort and a heart ready to dye for thy honour the Kings happiness and this Churches preservation And my zeal to these far from Arrogancy be it spoken is all the sin human frailties excepted and all incidents thereto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this particular of Treason but otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially what ever they are which have drawn down this present judgment upon me and when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own eyes and carry me through death that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me Amen And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood in this more than miserable Kingdom I shall desire that I may pray for the People too as well as for my self O Lord I beseech thee give grace of repentance to all Blood-thirsty People but if they will not repent O Lord confound all their devices defeat and frustrate all their designs and endeavours upon them which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy great Name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and his posterity after him in their just rights and Priviledges the honour and conservation of Parliaments in their just power the preservation of this poor Church in her truth peace and patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed People under their ancient Laws and in their native Liberties And when thou hast done-all this in meer mercy for them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulness and with Religious dutiful obedience to thee and thy Commandments all their days So Amen Lord Jesus Amen and receive my Soul into thy Bosom Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. January the 11 th Sir Henry Gage Governour of Oxford marched thence with a party of horse and foot towards Abingdon with intention to raise a Fort at Cullom bridg but Brown having treacherous notice of the design was prepared accordingly which begat a hot skirmish wherein the Rebels lost Major Bradbury and at least 30 others slain and on His Majesties part not above 7 common Soldiers but by great misfortune Sir Henry Gage himself marching in the front of his men did here receive a fatalshot whereof within few hours after he dyed His Body was afterwards interred at Oxford with funebrious exequies and solemnities answerable to his merits who having done His Majesty special service was whilst living generally beloved and dead is still universally lamented His daily refreshed memory makes me trespass on the Readers patience with this ELEGY Upon the never-enough lamented Death of Sir HENRY GAGE the most desired Governour of OXFORD SO Titus called was The Worlds delight And straight-way dy'd The envious Sisters spight Still the great favourite The darling head Unto the Fates is always forfeited Our Life 's a Chase where tho the whole Herd fly The goodlyest Deer is singled out to dye And as in Beasts the fattest ever bleeds So amongst men he that doth bravest deeds He might have liv'd had but a Coward fear Kept him securely sculking in the rear Or like some sucking Colonel whose edg Durst not advance a foot from a thick hedg Or like the wary Skippon had so sure A suit of Arms he might besieg'd endure Or like the politick Lords of different skill Who thought a Saw-pit safer or a Hill Whose valour in two Organs too did lye Distinct the ones in 's ear th' others in his eye Puppets of War Thy name shall be divine And happily augment the number Nine But that the Heroes

That she would rather be killed within doors than perish without but withal earnestly intreated that she might enjoy so much of her Husbands right as his house to shelter her and her Children who poor Souls stood about their Mother crying and in their natural oratory craving compassion towards their Mother whom at every word the Rebels threaten to Pistol but neither the earnest intreaty of the Mother nor the pitiful out-cries of the Children could prevail with them they remain as deaf men void of all pitty or bowels of Compassion nay they violently seize on her drag her down the stairs and out of the house into the yard the poor Children being almost distracted and at their wits end for fear what would become of their Mother being thus violently drawn out of the house into the yard there she found Meriton Simpson and Cooke the Sequestrators with other attending there to see this joyful spectacle a poor oppressed Gentlewoman and her small Children cruelly cast out of their own habitation by Rebels and Traitors As soon as Mrs. Wiborow saw them she presented them with the Kings Proclamation against the Oppression of the Clergy by the intrusion of factious and schismatical persons into the Cures and Revenues of Learned Orthodox Divines by Order of one or both pretended Houses of Parliament contrary to all Law and Justice which she hoped would have found so much obedience and respect as to restore her to her house This was so far from mollifying these Rebels and Schismatiques that it provoked them to great insolencies at last when Mrs. Wiborow perceived that all her intreaties and her Childrens tears prevailed nothing to restore her to her house she intreated the Sequestrators that in case she could not be permitted to dwell in her own house that yet she might have some other place of accommodation provided to receive her and her Children Meriton insolently replied That he would provide his Tumbril that is his Dung-Cart to carry her and her Children from Constable to Constable till she came to her Husband after many bitter scoffs and scorns in this her affliction she desired that if she might not obtain so much favour to dwell in her house yet they would not deny her access to her house but that she might go in to fetch out provision for her Childrens supper that night But these Monsters of men would not give her leave and to compleat this unheard-of Tyranny and Oppression the Authorized Thieves I mean the Commissioners appointed by the pretended House of Parliament to seize upon the Estates of all Delinquents and to point out who shall be plundered next Order that whatsoever Mr. Wiborow had left should be seized on for the use of that Thing which they call a Parliament thereby to support Rebellion with Robbery and Theft Instantly they seize on his Corn and those few Cattle the remainder of former Plunderings though they knew it was the life of the Mother and her Children and that in taking away these they deprived them of all means of subsistence and exposed them to extream want having reduced them to this miserable condition to beg or starve Now for the comfortless trouble sake of the needy and because of the deep sighing of the poor I will up saith the Lord and will help every one from him that swelleth against him and will set him at rest The good God perform his promise Let God arise and let these Enemies of God and Man be scattered Mr. Thomas Dalton Bachelour of Divinity and Parson of Dalham in the County of Suffolke being plundered of his Horse by Colonel Russels Troop Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Cambridge on more than probable grounds fearing that they would seize upon his Person and commit him to Prison was compelled to leave his family and retire privately to some friends where he continued some months In the interim one Barnard a poor Smith and one that formerly had lived on the Parish Alms informed the Committee at Cambridge of Mr. Daltons absence and making it his Crime Petitioned for a Sequestration of his living intending to make a gain of it himself for whereas the living is worth 140 l. per annum and had been so let for many years before Vulcan I mean Barnard the Smith having got a Chaplain of his own one Randall by name intends with him to serve the Cure for 50 or 60 Pounds a year intending to put up the Overplus into his own Purse nor did he fail of his pious project so apparently tending to the publick good and reformation of the Church For on the Smiths bare instance though earnestly opposed by the Lord of the Town and about forty of the chiefest of the Parish who all laboured earnestly to withstand it the committee for the advancement of the Reformation hearken to Barnard and substitute Randall Vulcan Priest in Mr. Daltons place and revenue This grant of the Committee was ratified by the Committee at Westminster for 't is not impossible but Barnard might have sharers with him in both Committees For the Tyth of the Tyth was enough for an Alms-man nay this Committee did not only ratifie the Order of the other Committee but added to the injustice by ordering Mrs. Dalton instantly to resign possession of the Parsonage house to Randall of which Ordinance when the Patron of the living had intelligence he instantly posted to London and knowing how unjust and trivial the accusation against Mr. Dalton were absence being his main Crime being put to this hard Option either to stay and be committed Prisoner or to fly and be robb'd of the profits of his Living for this is the Dilemma to which all Orthodox Conformable Ministers are now put resolved to intercede for him hoping either quite to take him off or at least to procure a mitigation of the Order but contrary to his expectation he found the Smith Courted applauded and to enjoy freedom of access to the Committee and himself a Gentleman of very good rank and esteem in his Country to be slighted neglected and made dance attendance and after long waiting not regarded what he spake for his Minister At last this good Gentleman having by experience observed that the practices of the Faction in Parliament did engage them to slight and suppress the Gentry and all that made Honour or Conscience the rule of their Actions and to court and observe the dregs and scum of the People as the fittest instruments for their designs returned home and sending for Mrs. Dalton entreats her to make use of his house as her own until God should enable the King to restore her and all his loyal Subjects to their own Mrs. Dalton accepts of his courteous offer but leaves her man to keep possession of the Parsonage house She had not stayed long here before her Hoast is threatned to be plundered for his hospitality Barnard the Smith as bad as Alexander the Copper-smith being now so rich as to be able to travel to

chosen by the Congregation for their Pastor And that Imposition of Hands by the Bishop and Presbytery are meer Popish Innovations What more additions to these monstrous Opinions the wildness of such mens Brains assisted by the cunning of the Devil and incouraged by the usurped power of these Times may produce we must leave to the discovery of Time In the interim good Reader stand amazed and wonder at this excellent pattern of the intended blessed Reformation Had not God to prepare us for destruction deprived us of Knowledg had he not closed our Eyes that we should not see and hardned our Hearts that we should not understand were we not a people as the Prophet speaks forsaken and meted out for destruction it could not be but that Mankind would rise up against this Generation of Vipers and their Protectors and sweep them away to use the Metaphor of the Holy Ghost with the beesom of destruction who if a while connived at will prove Moths fretting to the destruction both of Church and State For in this Model you may see the Babel which is now in building and the budding forth of those Brambles out of which if not timely quenched will come forth a Fire as it is in Jothams Parable which will devour the Cedars of Lebanon The same godly Reformers which plundred Master Laud before mentioned came afterwards to Master Cornelius Parson of Peldon in the same County of Essex whom they rob of all his goods within doors and without They spared not his Library nor his Wives Child-bed Linnen though she was great with Child and in danger by the fright she took at their coming to have occasion to make use of them before her due time they plunder him to the value of Four hundred pounds a very great sum in a poor Clergy-mans purse especially as these Times go For relief of his Loss he sends his Servant to the Mayor of Colchester a famous Justiciary as you may remember the last Week in the relation of Mr. Laud and Mr. Honifields Cases having made his Complaint and accused the plunderers by name the Mayor knew that some body deserved Commitment but had the ill luck to be mistaken in the person and therefore instead of the plunderers he Commits Master Cornelius his man to the Gaol where he is lodged for a Malignant until his Master plundred of his Man too came and put in Bail that his Servant should be forth-coming to answer to all Objections the next Sessions Master Cornelius knowing that he should in vain expect Justice where he found Oppression from the Mayor goes to Mr. Gardner a Justice of Peace not far off who grants his Warrant for apprehension of the parties Who being apprehended though for Felony put in Bail to answer the next Sessions When the time came Mr. Cornelius indicts these plunderers the Bill was found by the Grand-Jury upon the evidence of three or four Witnesses who were Spectators and saw them carry away the Goods Nay the prisoners at the Bar not only confessed the Fact in their Examination before the Justice when they were first apprehended but in the face of the Court and presence of the Jurors Yet the Petty-Jury contrary to Reason and their own Consciences found the Indictment against the King The Court wondring at so wilful blindness cause the Statute to be read lay open the Evidence and remand them back not doubting but comparing the Fact with the Law the Result would be a Verdict for the King They persist in their Obstinacy and return Ignoramus Being asked by the Bench how they could go against so clear Evidence They answered in general Because they did not think PLUNDERING a new name for an old Theft to be Felony by the Law But being beaten out of this starting hole though ten are Convicted yet two stand out and give this reason that they were a Malignants Goods and the Parliament had given power to plunder such But when it was replied That no such Order was produced nor was it pleaded by the Prisoners at the Bar they then professed openly that these men arraigned at the Bar were honest men that they had an Intent to do them favour and they would do it Hereupon the Bench justly incensed against so wilful perjury binds over the Jurors to answer it the next Assizes And withal order Mr. Cornelius to Indict these plunderers again upon another Felony he obeys their command and the Grand-Jury find it to be Billa vera But when the Under-Sheriff went out to Impanel a Jury to try the prisoners he could find none but Separatists who attended there that day purposely to be of the Jury and professed openly that they staied there to save the prisoners Happy men these that may commit Murthers Robberies and Thefts and yet fear no Condemnation neither at the Tribunal of God or Man It is an usual doctrine of this Sect That God sees no sin in his Children for that name they will ingross to themselves though no men less deserve it and it seems they are resolved to see no sin one in another It was a wild saying of a great Patriarch of theirs That the Children of God were Heteroclites because God did often save them even contrary to his own Rules I know not how true they will find this assertion at the Great Day when Murther shall be Murther and Theft Theft and God that Righteous Judg who without respect of persons shall render to every man according to his deeds yet here on Earth if these men may judg one another they may commit what wickedness they list and let the Rains loose to all kinds of Villany and yet be saved contrary to all the Rules of Law and Justice Mr. Archer Lecturer at the same place in his Sermon encouraged the people to take up Arms against the King but it may be objected says he that the Gentry gainsay this Doctrine and the Learned utterly disclaim it as Erroneous and Damnable but what though the Gentry and Learned as you call them dissent yet let it not Stagger your belief of this undoubted Truth For I tell you that in my Conscience you may do it and in doing it you are so far from sinning that you will do that which is acceptable to God Be liberal therefore in contributing to this holy War and sending forth men to fight this Battel of the Lord. This man in his Prayers and Sermons constantly calls the Parliament The Lords Anointed but with what Oyl it is not yet determinated I am sure by experience we find that it is not Oyl of Gladness Mercurius Rusticus c. IV. Sir Rich. Minshul 's House in Buckinghamshire plundered by the Lord Brooks command The Kings Picture abused A House burnt near Hounslow by the Lord Wharton 's Souldiers Mr. Wiborow and Mr. Thorn the one a Minister in Essex the other in Bedfordshire the first ill-intreated on the Lords Day by the Lord S. John 's Troopers the other unjustly committed to

in these Sufferings which did aggravate them beyond all example of Barbarity which this unnatural War now did produce and that was Rachels Tears Lamentation and Weeping and great Mourning a Mother weeping for her Children and would not be comforted because they were taken from her for the Rebels as you hear having carried the two Ladies Prisoners to Shaftsbury thinking them not safe enough there intend to remove them to Bath a place then much infected both with the Plague and the Small Pox The old Lady was sick under a double confinement that of the Rebels and her own Indisposition all were unwilling to be exposed to the danger of the Infection especially the young Lady having three Children with her they were too dear too rich a treasure to be snatched away to such probable loss without reluctancy Therefore they resolve not to yield themselves Prisoners for that place unless they will take the old Lady out of her Bed and the rest by violence and so carry them away But the Rebels fearing lest so great Inhumanity might incense the People against them and render them odious to the Country decline this and since they dare not carry all to Bath they resolve to carry some to Dorchester a place no less dangerous for the Infection of Schism and Rebellion than Bath for the Plague and the Pox. To this purpose they take the young Ladies two Sons the eldest but nine the younger but seven years of age and carry them Captives to Dorchester In vain doth the Mother with tears intreat that these pretty pledges of her Lords affections may not be snatched from her In vain do the Children imbrace and hang about the Neck of their Mother and implore help from her that neither knows how to keep them nor yet how to part with them but the Rebels having lost all bowels of Compassion remain inexorable The complaints of the Mother pitiful cry of the Children prevail not with them like ravenous Wolves they seise on the Prey And though they do not crop yet they transplant those Olive Branches that stood about their Parent 's Table A barbarous fact and such as must look out of Christendom for a precedent and hardly find it though among the Heathen except among the unwashed Turks who take Christian Children from their Mothers Breasts either to make a Seminary for their Guards of Janizaries or by desolation to make them Eunuchs unsuspected Guardians of their Concubines or if in Christendom amongst none but the Jesuits their Brethren a Generation whom they would be thought most to hate yet are known most to imitate Exod. 21. To steal a Man was death by the Law of Moses nay the Romans that saw by no other Light but that dim Spark of Nature discerned the equity of this Law as is apparent in their Lex Fabia de Flagiariis And though these men blanch the Inhumanity pretending that they rob the Mother to inrich the Church to bring them up in the true Religion it were worth the while to ask if they would vouchsafe an answer what they mean by the true Religion if they mean the Protestant or to speak more properly the Religion of the Church of England it is apparent they persecute that but suppose which we do not grant that they did bereave Parents of their Children to that purpose to bring them up in the true Religion yet cannot a good Intention warrant an unlawful Act nor ought they to do evil that good may come of it Nor do we find ether that the Church was ever pleased with such Accessions or that God did give a blessing to such unwarrantable Zeal When Sesibutus King of Aragon in the Year 600. prevailed against the Saracens and in a better Zeal than this but not according to knowledg compelled his Captives to be Baptized he quickly found his error by the want of Gods blessing upon his endeavours nay Gods dislike was so visible in the success that the Church of God observing it determined That the Children of Infidels not having the use and exercise of right Reason should not be Baptized Invitis Parentibus contrary to the consent of the Parents And the fourth Council of Toledo Cap. 56. disallowing the inconsiderate zeal of Sesibutus forbad to compel any man to the Faith under the censure of Anathema and determined withal that to baptize Children without the consent of the Parents is all one as to compel men of full age to be Baptized The same determination is cited and approved by the Canonist Dist. 45. Cap. De Judaeis and were it but consistent with the nature of this work it were easie to decry this Jesuitical Turkish practice by most impregnable Arguments both in the Schoolmen and Casuists But I must leave this to Men of the sacred Function and only beg leave to infer that if it be no●●●●ful to baptize the Children of Jews Infidels or Hereticks without consent of their Parents Though without Baptism when it may be had there is no entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven certainly it must be far more unlawful being baptized to take them from their Parents to season their tender years with dangerous principles leading to Prophaneness Brownism Anabaptism and Rebellion A just indignation against so barbarous practice hath transported me in this argument farther than I intended though not so far as the heinousness of the fact deserves therefore if any man desires to be more fully satisfied of the power and interest which Parents have over and in their Children being an Inheritance given them of the Lord as the Prophet David and the possession of their Parents as Aristotle in his Politicks and the great violation of Justice in relation of the Laws of God Nature and Men in despoiling their Parents of them let him have recourse to that Learned and Elegant discourse of Petrus Aerodius Chief Justice or President of Aniou in his Book de Patria Potestate who being robbed of his Son stoln from him by the Jesuits to plant him as a hopeful Imp in their Society and not able to rescue him out of their power though he implored and had the King of Spain's assistance for thither he was carried pursues his Son with Arguments and Labours to recal him to his Obedience by laying before him his duty artificially Collected and strongly applied from the Laws Divine Natural and Moral and therefore to him I remit him and turn my discourse into its proper channel On Friday the 12 of May 1643. Mr. John Bykar Son to the Vicar of Dunchurch was with his Father in Law one of the High-Constables of Warwickshire at the Market at Coventry Being in a House in the City he received some rude affronts from a Soldier of that Garison He being a very civil man of good Moderation and it seems well instructed not to answer a Fool in his Folly or being reviled to answer again withdrew himself from the place to decline the insolent madness of the Soldiers and free himself

Gospel by the same creature as those offered to a Prophet under the Law Or lastly why may not the blood of him that owned this Beast be required by this Beast of him that had his hand in shedding it This was not the first time that God gave commission to the Brute to execute his vengeance But I forget my self my business is to relate things done not to encounter Objections against their probability of doing To go on therefore Having brought Mr. Jones to Northampton his entertainment there was as bad as his usage in the way thither though it were in the depth of Winter when old age needed good fortifications of Lodging and Diet against the incursions of cold and wet yet they afforded him nothing but a hard mat with a little straw under him and to cover him and to keep him warm nothing but one blanket and his own wearing cloaths As for his food they give him the Bread of Affliction denying his own friends leave to supply him with competent diet to sustein nature and his growing infirmities yet to shew that Man lives not by bread only but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God it pleased his good providence to preserve him like the young Children in Daniel fed only with Pulse so that he was in good plight and semed to want nothing though he continued in this distressed condition from Christmas to almost Easter about which time not remorse of conscience for so much cruelty practised on a decrepid old man but an Orthodox Reverend Divine but importunity of friends prevailed with the Rebels to release him of his imprisonment in Northampton and to remit him to a neighbour Minister of his one Mr. Walters Bachelor in Divinity Vicar of Doddington near Wellingborow a very learned and industrious Preacher and permitted him to Officiate in his own Cure at Easter there being but one Parish Church in the Town but no less than two thousand Communicants Having licence to visit his Charge not awed by that tyrannous usage which he had undergone Conscience of his duty doth press him to a punctual observance of the Orders and Canons of the Church he celebrates Divine Service according to the Book of Common Prayer preacheth Obedience as boldly as if there had been no Rebels in Northamptonshire administreth the Sacraments with the same Reverence Decency and Devotion as if there had been no Puritans in Wellingborow Nor doth the undaunted old man remit any thing enjoyned by Canon or Rubrick This constancy of his so incensed the Schismatical Puritanical Party of the Town that complaint is made at Northampton that Mr. Jones is the same man he was as much a true Son and Minister of the Church of England as ever Upon this information he is apprehended in Easter week and carried Prisoner to Northampton a second time where they use him with more inhumanity if it be possible than before they will not permit his Wife to visit him and kept him so short in his diet not suffering his Wife or friends to relieve him that most barbarously they starved him to death for about Whitsontide his spirits exhausted and his body pined by famine the good old Martyr resigned his Soul to God There is in Northampton one John Gifford for his extraction the Hog-herds Son of Little-Hougton for his education a Knitter afterwards a Hose-buyer now Mayor of Northampton and Colonel of the Town Regiment This man to his power Civil and Martial assumes an Ecclesiastical Superintendency too and orders what forms shall be used in Baptism the Lords Supper Burial of the Dead and the like When therefore they came to interr the skin and bones of this starved Martyr for flesh he had none the form enjoyned by this Gifford was the same which one Brooks a London Lecturer used at the burial of John Gough of S. James Dukes Place within Aldgate in London viz. Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust Here 's the Pit and in thou must The World may in this see what devout Liturgies we are like to have when a Mayor of a Town shall suppress the Ancient pious forms and introduce rime Doggerels fitter for a painted Cloth in an Alehouse than the Church of Christ. Before I leave this particular Relation I must not forget to tell you one act of these Religious Reformers being at Willingborow at the Sign of the Swan two maid Servants making a bed some of these Rebels did sollicite them to incontinency but the Maids refusing to hearken to their beastly sollicitations they began to offer violence and to enforce what they could not perswade they still making resistance they shot one of them dead in the place and shot the other through the wrist such Monuments of Religion and Purity do these blessed Reformers leave at all places where they come Mr. Frederick Gibb Parson of Hartist in Suffolke in Morning Prayer before his Sermon desired his Parishoners to give attention to one of His Majesties Declarations newly set forth with an express Command to have it published in all Parish Churches thereby to rectifie the People and to wipe off those false Impressions which the Incendiaries of the Kingdom had made in them concerning the Kings Actions and Intentions whereupon one Mr. Coleman a Parishioner being present impudently replied unto him openly in the Church that he might be ashamed to abuse the People by Reading his Majesties Declarations unto them and therefore he would fetch him some Parliament Declarations which were a great deal better to be published unto them while this railing Rabshekeh reviled his Sovereign Mr. Gibb as if he had received the Command in that case given answer him not made no reply at all but as not heeding this snarler calls on the Congregation a second time to give attention Coleman interrupts him again and in a scoffing manner saies Well then Sir you mean to be an obedient Servant to his Majesty Mr. Gibb then thinking it not only seasonable but necessary to profess his Loyalty replied Yes Sir I am and hope to continue a faithful Servant unto Him as long as I live and so proceeds to read the Declaration the People notwithstanding all this Incouragement from Coleman to contradict with them standing very attentive to hear it The main drift of the Kings Declaration was to assure all His loving Subjects That as He expected that they should make the Laws the rule of their obedience so He would make the Laws the guide of His Government Mr. Gibb having published the Declaration Coleman stands up and most Traitorously replied to his Parson Well Sir the King neither is nor shall be Judge of the Law whatever such prating fellows as you would have him after this being inraged as the rest of that Faction are that the Peoples eyes should be opened or that they should being truly informed conceive of the King as he is a most just and pious Prince but still to look on him and all his actions through those

under deck without liberty to come to breath in the common Air or to ease Nature except at the courtesie of the rude Sailors which oftentimes was denyed them In which condition they were more like Gally-slaves than free-born Subjects and men of such quality and condition and had been so indeed might some have had their wills who were bargaining with the Merchants to sell them to Argiers or as bad a place as hath been since notoriously known upon no false or fraudulent information And now that we are mentioning our Reverend and worthy Heads of Houses we may not omit what our long exile from the said University will not suffer us otherwise than by certain Report to be apprehensive of Namely that a very great number of them are since in the same condition with us that is deprived of all and banished Particularly the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of Exeter against whom their malice could invent no more than that he was a Bishop nor pretend any thing but that being Vice-chancellour he did according to his Office Preach a learned and pious Sermon in S. Maries Mar. 27. 1645. being the day of His Majesties most happy inauguration To whom we may add that most Reverend and learned man Doctor Collins His Majesties Professor of Divinity whose extraordinary worth and pains had continued him in that place almost thirty years and made his name famous and his person desirable in every Protestant University in Christendom and yet his Loyalty and conscience caused our new pretended Reformers to think him unworthy so much as of a Country Cure for they sequestred likewise both his Livings though since as we hear they have restored him to his Professors place which none of them are able to discharge and he living in their Quarters durst not deny Thus likewise have Doctor Comber D. Pask D. Cosins and D. Lany been deprived of their several Masterships and Livings and some of them also Plundered of their goods though all of them be very eminent for their Learning Prudence Judgment and Piety among all that knew them and have no prejudice of them And for conclusion as the Epitome of all we add D. Holdsworth whose universal approbation put him upon the troublesom office of Vice-chancellorship for three years together in the beginning of these troubles yet before his Triennial Office was expired his person was seized upon and imprisoned first in Ely-house then because they thought that was not expensive enough though they had Plundered him of all they thrust him into the Tower only for his Loyalty in seeing His Majesties Commands executed for the Printing of such Declarations at Cambridge as were formerly Printed at York which though the Committees before which he appeared have always objected against him as Licensing the Kings Books yet hath he ever denied it for the manner though not for the matter professing himself before them not to be so saucy as to offer to License any thing which His Majesty Commanded to be Printed but yet still enjoyning the Printer as he would answer the contrary at his peril that the thing might be performed according to His Majesties Command And that the whole Body of the University might fare no better than the Heads not long after the carrying up of the first three they gave us an Argument of a sad presage What was like to become of that Ancient and famous Seminary of Learning and Religion when those Root-and-Branch-men chose that place for the prime Garison and Rendezvouz of their Association whereby the subtile Enginiers of the great pretended work of Reformation hoped not so much to gain security to their disloyal actions by any fortifications of that Town which it never was capable of as now plainly appears as some countenance and authority rather which they had more want of from the sacred name of an University to be listed Theirs By this means instead of carrying us all to London Goals thanks be to our multitude not their mercy they found a device to convey a Prison to us and under colour of Fortification confin'd us only in a larger inclosure not suffering any Scholars to pass out of the Town unless some Towns-men of their Tribe promise for him that he was a Confider as they call it And after this intrenchment for almost two years together we are forced with unspeakable grief of mind to think what prophanations violences outrages and wrongs our Chappels Colleges and Persons have suffered by the uncontrolled fury of rude Soldiers notwithstanding two several Protections to the contrary one from the House of Peers the other from the Generalissimo the Earl of Essex It is grievous to our memories to recount how our Vice-chancellour and Heads of Colledges solemnly assembled in Consistory being many of them threescore years old in an exceeding cold night till midnight without any accommodations for food firing or lodging and for no other reason but only because they could not in conscience comply or contribute any thing to this detestable War against His Majesty Yet they notwithstanding all terrours and ill usage the day following this their imprisonment did constantly unanimously avouch and declare before the then General of the Association That it was against true Religion and good Conscience for any to contribute to the Parliament in this War Whereupon our Learned and Reverend Professors two of Divinity and one of the Law the very Junior whereof as well as the other two had faithfully discharged his place almost so long as that by the Imperial Laws his own profession ever since Valens the Emperour he might have challenged to have been Comes Imperii yet all the encouragement any of them could get from these was perpetually to be harrowed by Plundering and tedious imprisonment to betray their Loyalty Learning and Consciences to the advancement of this present Rebellion till at last that Reverend man whom Posterity will honour henceforth as much for his Loyalty as his Learning Doctor Samuel Ward a man of known integrity and universal approbation even amongst those who were his adversaries in this Cause took the wings of a Dove to flie away and be at rest whose dying words as if the cause of his Martyrdom had been written in golden Letters upon his heart where breathed up to Heaven with his parting Soul GOD BLESS THE KING And though the grave resolution of all the Reverend Professors of Divinity and Law in so famous an university ought to be more sacred and powerful with them than the noise of their new Teachers and obstreperous American Lay-lecturers yet they are not ashamed after all these upon mature deliberation and consultation with the rest of the Learned men of that famous University have publickly and unanimously declared their proceedings to be flatly contrary to Christian Religion and Loyalty and have stood therein even to imprisonment and death to perswade the silly abused multitude that all is for the Defence of His Majesty and the