the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
Piety Sanctity and Constancy as he did and lest you should ascribe too much to that presence of mind which some common Malefactors have so great a measure of at their death many times despair and a hardned heart puts on as it were a Vizor of Courage and Stupidity of Quiet and Tranquility of mind Sometimes the worst of men desire to appear good undaunted innocent and now and then Religious not only in their life but at their death and in suffering death for their villanies use to act the last part of their hypocrisie and cheats with all the show imaginable and like bad Poets or Stage-players are very Ambitious of being clapp'd at the end of the Play Now you say you are come to enquire who they chiesly were that gave Sentence against the King Whereas it ought first to be enquired into how you a Foreigner and a French Vagabond came to have any thing to do to raise a question about our Affairs to which you are so much a stranger And what Reward induced you to it But we know enough of that and who satisfied your curiosity in these matters of ours even those Fugitives and Traytors to their Countrey that could easily hire such a vain Fellow as you to speak ill of us Then an account in writing of the state of our affairs was put into your hands by some hair-brain'd half-Protestant half-Papist Chaplain or other or by some sneaking Courtier and you were put to Translate it into Latin out of that you took these Narratives which if you please we 'll examine a little Not the hundred thousandth part of the people consented to this sentence of Condemnation What were the rest of the people then that suffered so great a thing to be transacted against their will Were they stocks and stones were they mere Trunks of men only or 〈◊〉 Images of Britans as Virgil describes to have been â—…ught in â—…ry Purpurea intexti tollunt aulea Britanni And Brittains interwove held up the Purple hangings For you describe no true Britains but Painted ones or rather Needle-wrought Men instead of them Since therefore it is a thing so incredible that a warlike Nation should be subdued by so few and those of the dregs of the People which is the first thing that occurs in your Narrative that appears in the very Nature of the thing it self to be most false The Bishops were turn'd out of the House of Lords by the Parliament it self The more deplorable is your Madness for are you not yet sensible that you Rave to complain of their being turn'd out of the Parliament whom you your self in a large Book endeavour to prove that they ought to be turn'd out of the Church One of the States of Parliament to wit the House of Lords consisting of Dukes Earls and Viscounts was removed And deservedly were they removed for they were not deputed to sit there by any Town or County but represented themselves only they had no Right over the People but as if they had been ordained for that very purpose used frequently to oppose their Rights and Liberties They were created by the King they were his Companions his Servants and as it were Shadows of him He being removed it was necessary they should be reduced to the same Level with the Body of the People from amongst whom they took their rise One part of the Parliament and that the worst of all ought not to have assum'd that Power of judging and condemning the King But I have told you already that the House of Commons was not only the chief part of our Parliament while we had Kings but was a perfect and entire Parliament of it self without the Temporal Lords much more without the Bishops But The whole House of Commons themselves were not admitted to have to do with the Tryal of the King To wit that part of them was not admitted that openly revolted to him in their Minds and Councels whom tho they stil'd him their King yet they had so often acted against as an Enemy The Parliament of England and the Deputies sent from the Parliament of Scotland on the 13th of January 1645. wrote to the King in Answer to a Letter of his by which he desired a deceitful Truce and that he might Treat with them at London that they could not admit him into that City till he had made Satisfaction to the State for the Civil War that he had raised in the three Kingdoms and for the Deaths of so many of his Subjects slain by his Order and till he had agreed to a true and firm Peace upon such Terms as the Parliaments of both Kingdoms had offered him so often already and should offer him again He on the other hand either refused to hear or by ambiguous Answers eluded their just and equal Proposals tho most humbly presented to him seven times over The Parliament at last after so many years patience lest the King should over-turn the State by his Wiles and Delays when in Prison which he could not subdue in the Field and lest the vanquish'd Enemy pleased with our Divisions should recover himself and triumph unexpectedly over his Conquerors vote that for the future they would have no regard to him that they would send him no more Proposals nor receive any from him After which vote there were found even some Members of Parliament who out of the hatred they bore that invincible Army whose Glory they envied and which they would have had disbanded and sent home with disgrace after they had deserved so well of their Nation and out of a servile Compliance with some Seditious Ministers finding their opportunity when many whom they knew to be otherwise minded than themselves having been sent by the House it self to suppress the Presbyterians who began already to be Turbulent were absent in the several Counties with a strange Levity not to say perfidiousness Vote that that inveterate Enemy of the State who had nothing of a King but the Name without giving any Satisfaction or Security should be brought back to London and restored to his Dignity and Government as if he had deserved well of the Nation by what he had done So that they preferr'd the King before their Religion their Liberty and that very celebrated Covenant of theirs What did they do in the mean time who were sound themselves and saw such pernicious Councils on foot Ought they therefore to have been wanting to the Nation and not provide for its safety because the Infection had spread it self even in their own House But who secluded those ill affected Members The English Army you say so that it was not an Army of Foreigners but of most Valiant and Faithful Honest Natives whose Officers for the most part were Members of Parliament and whom those good secluded Members would have secluded their Country and banished into Ireland while in the mean time the Scots whose Alliance begin to be doubtful had very considerable Forces in four of
scorn to have Charles compared with so cruel a Tyrant as Nero he resembled him extremely much For Nero likewise often threatned to take away the Senate Besides he bore extreme hard upon the Consciences of good men and compelled them to the use of Ceremonies and Superstitious Worship borrowed from Popery and by him re-introduced into the Church They that would not conform were imprisoned or Banisht He made War upon the Scots twice for no other cause than that By all these actions he has surely deserved the name of a Tyrant once over at least Now I 'le tell you why the word Traytor was put into his Indictment When he assured his Parliament by Promises by Proclamations by Imprecations that he had no design against the State at that very time did he List Papists in Ireland he sent a private Embassie to the King of Denmark to beg assistance from him of Arms Horses and Men expresly against the Parliament and was endeavouring to raise an Army first in England and then in Scotland To the English he promised the Plunder of the City of London to the Scots that the four Northern Counties should be added to Scotland if they would but help him to get rid of the Parliament by what means soever These Projects not succeeding he sent over one Dillon a Traytor into Ireland with private Instructions to the Natives to fall suddenly upon all the English that inhabited there These are the most remarkable instances of his Treasons not taken up upon hear-say and idle reports but discovered by Letters under his own Hand and Seal And finally I suppose no man will deny that he was a Murderer by whose order the Irish took Arms and put to death with most exquisite Torments above a hundred thousand English who lived peaceably by them and without any apprehension of danger and who raised so great a Civil War in the other two Kingdoms Add to all this that at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight the King openly took upon himself the guilt of the War and clear'd the Parliament in the Confession he made there which is publickly known Thus you have in short why King Charles was adjudged a Tyrant a Traytor and a Murderer But say you why was he not declared so before neither in that Solemn League and Covenant nor afterwards when he was delivered to them either by the Presbyterians or the Independents but on the other hand was receiv'd as a King ought to be with all reverence This very thing is sufficient to persuade any rational man that the Parliament entred not into any Councils of quite deposing the King but as their last refuge after they had suffered and undergone all that possibly they could and had attempted all other ways and means You alone endeavour maliciously to lay that to their charge which to all good men cannot but evidence their great Patience Moderation and perhaps a too long forbearing with the King's Pride and Arrogance But in the month of August before the King suffered the House of Commons which then bore the only sway and was governed by the Independants wrote Letters to the Scots in which they acquainted them that they never intended to alter the form of Government that had obtain'd so long in England under King Lords and Commons You may see from henâ—e how little reason there is to ascribe the deposing of the King to the principles of the Independents They that never used to dissemble and conceal their Tenents even then when they had the sole management of affairs profess That they never intended to alter the Government But if afterwards a thing came into their minds which at first they intended not why might they not take such a course tho before not intended as appear'd most advisable and most for the Nation 's Interest Especially when they found that the King could not possibly be intreated or induced to assent to those just demands that they had made from time to time and which were always the same from first to last He persisted in those perverse sentiments with respect to Religion and his own Right which he had all along espoused and which were so destructive to us not in the least altered from the man that he was when in Peace and War he did us all so much mischief If he assented to any thing he gave no obscure hints that he did it against his will and that whenever he should come into power again he would look upon such his Assent as null and void The same thing his Son declared by writing under his hand when in those days he ran away with part of the Fleet and so did the King himself by Letters to some of his own Party in London In the mean time against the avowed sense of the Parliament he struck up a private Peace with the Irish the most barbarous Enemies imaginable to England upon base dishonourable terms but whenever he invited the English to Treaties of Peace at those very times with all the power he had and interest he could make he was preparing for War In this case what should they do who were intrusted with the care of the Government Ought they to have betrayed the safety of us all to our most bitter Adversary Or would you have had them leâ—â— us to undergo the Calamities of another Seven years War not to say worse God put a better mind into them of preferring pursuant to that very solemn League and Covenant their Religion and Liberties before those thoughts they once had of not rejecting the King for they had not gone so far as to vote it all which they saw at last tho indeed later than they might have done could not possibly subsist as long as the King continued King The Parliament ought and must of necessity be entirely free and at liberty to provide for the good of the Nation as occasion requires nor ought they so to be wedded to their first Sentiments as to scruple the altering their minds for their own or the Nation 's good if God put an opportunity into their hands of procuring it But the Scots were of 〈…〉 opinion for they in a Letter to Charles the King's Son call his Father a most Sacred Prince and the putting him to death a most execrable Villany Do not you talk of the Scots whom you know not we know them well enough and know the time when they called that same King a most â—…rable person a Murtherer and Traytor and the putting a Tyrant to Death a most sacred action Then you pick holes in the King's Charge as not being properly penn'd and you ask why we needed to call him a Traytor and a Murtherer after we had stiled him a Tyrant since the word Tyrant includes all the Crimes that may be And then you explain to us grammatically and critically what a Tyrant is Away with those Trisles you Pedagogue which that one definition of Aristotle's that has lately beeen cited will utterly confound
even against Kings themselves if they act contrary to Law Aristotle likewise in the third Book of his Politicks Of all Kingdoms says he that are govern'd by Laws that of the Lacedemonians seems to be most truly and properly so And he says all forms of Kingly Governments are according to setled and establisht Laws but one which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Absolute Monarchy which he does not mention ever to have obtain'd in any Nation So that Aristotle thought such a Kingdom as that of the Lacedemonians was to be and deserve the name of a Kingdom more properly than any other and consequently that a King tho subordinate to his own people was nevertheless actually a King properly so called Now since so many and so great Authors assert that a Kingly Government both in name and thing may very well subsist even where the people tho they do not ordinarily exercise the Suâ—… Power yet have it actually residing in them and exercise it upon occasion Be not you of so mean a soul as to fear the down-fall of Grammer and the 〈◊〉 of the signification of words to that deâ—… as to betray the Liberty of Mankind and the State rather than your Glossary should not hold water And know for the future that words must be conformable to things not things to words By this means you 'l have more wit and not run on in infinitum which now you 're afraid of It was to no purpose then for Seneca you say to describe those three forms of Government as he has done Let Seneca do a thing to no purpose so we enjoy our Liberty And if I mistake us not we are other sort of men than to be enslav'd by Seneca's flowers And yet Seneca though he says that the Soveraign Power in a Kingly Government resides in a single person says withal that the power is the people's and by them committed to the King for the welfare of the whole not for their ruin and destruction and that the people has not given him a propriety in it but the use of it Kings at this rate you say do not reign by God but by the people As if God did not so over-rule the people that they set up such Kings as it pleases God Since Justinian himself openly acknowledgeth that the Roman Emperours derived their Authority from that Royal Law whereby the people granted to them and vested in them all their own power and authority But how oft shall we repeat these things over and over again Then you take upon you to intermeddle with the Constitution of our Government in which you are no ways concerned who are both a stranger and a foreigner but it shows your sawciness and want of good manners Come then let us hear your Soloecisms like a busie Coxcomb as you are You tell us but 't is in false Latin that what those Desperadoes say is only to deceive the people You Rascal was it for this that you a Renegado Grammarian were so forward to intermeddle with the affairs of our Government that you might introduce your Soloecisms and Barbarisms amongst us But say how have we deceiv'd the people The form of Government which they have set up is not Popular but Military This is what that herd of Fugitives and Vagabonds hired you to write So that I shall not trouble my self to answer you who bleat what you know nothing of but I 'le answer them that hired you Who excluded the Lords from Parliament was it the people Yea it was the people and in so doing they threw an intollerable yoke of Slavery from off their necks Those very Soldiers who you say did it were not foreigners but our own Country-men and a great part of the people and they did it with the consent and at the desire of almost all the rest of the people and not without the authority of the Parliament neither Was it the people that cut off part of the House of Commons forcing some away c. Yes I say it was the people For whatever the better and sounder part of the Senate did in which the true power of the people resided why may not the people be said to have done it What if the greater part of the Senate should chuse to be slaves or to expose the Government to sale ought not the lesser number to interpose and endeavour to retain their Liberty if it be in their power But the Officers of the Army and their Soldiers did it And we are beholden to those Officers for not being wanting to the State but repelling the Tumultary violence of the Citizens and Mechanicks of London who like that Rabble that appear'd for Clodius had but a little before beset the very Parliament House Do you therefore call the right of the Parliament to whom it properly and originally belongs to take care of the Liberty of the people both in Peace and War a Military power But 't is no wonder that those Traytors that have dictated these passages to you should talk at that rate so that profligate faction of Anthony and his adherents used to call the Senate of Rome when they armed themselves against the enemies of their Country The Camp of Pompey And now I 'm glad to understand that they of your party envy Cromwell that most valiant General of our Army his undertaking that Expedition in Ireland so acceptable to Almighty God surrounded with a joyful crowd of his Friends and prosecuted with the well-wishes of the people and the prayers of all good men For I question not but at the news of his many Victories there they are by this time bursten with spleen I pass by many of your impertinencies concerning the Roman Soldiers What follows is most notoriously false The power of the people say you ceases where there is a King By what Law or Right is that Since it is known that almost all Kings of what Nations soever received their Authority from the people upon certain conditions which if the King do not perform I wish you would inform us why that Power which was but a Trust should not return to the people as well from a King as from a Consul or any other Magistrate For when you tell us that 't is necessary for the Publick Safety you do but trifle with us for the safety of the Publick is equally concerned whether it be from a King or from a Senate or from a Triumvirate that the power wherewith they were entrusted revert to the people upon their abuse of it and yet you your self grant that it may so revert from all sorts of Magistrates a King only excepted Certainly if no people in their right wits ever committed the Government either to a King or other Magistrates for any other purpose than for the common good of them all there can be no reason why to prevent the utter ruin of them all they may not as well take it back again from a King as from other Governors nay
out of The King you say is supposed not capable of committing any crime because no punishment is consequential upon any crime of his Whoever therefore is not punisht offends not it is not the theft but the punishment that makes the thief Salmasius the Grammarian commits no Soloecisms now because he is from under the Ferular when you have overthrown the Pope let these for God's sake be the Canons of your Pontificate or at least your Indulgences whether you shall chuse to be called the High Priest St. â—yranny or of St. Slavery I pass by the Reproachful language which towards the latter end of the Chapter you give the State of the Commonwealth and the Church of England 't is common to such as you are you contemptible Varlet to rail at those things most that are most praise-worthy But that I may not seem to have asserted any thing rashly concerning the Right of the Kings of England or rather concerning the Peoples Right with respect to their Princes I will now alledg out of our ancient Histories a few things indeed of many but such as will make it evident that the English lately tried their King according to the setled Laws of the Realm and the Customs of their Ancestors After the Romans quitted this Island the Britains for about forty years were sui Juris and without any Kings at all Of whom those they first set up some they put to death And for that Gildas reprehends them not as you do for killing their Kings but for killing them uncondemned and to use his own words Non pro veri examinatione without inquiring into the matter of fact Vortigerne was for his Incestuous Marriage with his own Daughter condemn'd as Nennius informs us the most ancient of all our Historians next to Gildas by St. German and a General Council of the Britains and his Son Vortimer set up in his stead This came to pass not long after St. Augustine's death which is enough to discover how â—utilous you are to say as you have done that it was a Pope and Zachary by name who first held the lawfulness of judging Kings About the year of our Lord 600 Morcantius who then Reign'd in Wales was by Oudeceus Bishop of Landaff condemn'd to Exile for the Murther of his Uncle though he got the Sentence off by bestowing some Lands upon the Church Come we now to the Saxons whose Laws we have and therefore I shall quote none of their Presidents Remember that the Saxons were of a German Extract who neither invested their Kings with any absolute unlimited power and consulted in a Body of the more weighty affairs of Government whence we may perceive that in the time of our Saxon Ancestors Parliaments the name it self only excepted had the Supreme Authority The name they gave them was Councils of Wise-men and this in the Reign of Ethelbert of whom Bede says That he made Laws in imitation of the Roman Laws cum concilio sapientum by the advice or in a Council of his Wise-men So Edwyn King of Northumberland and Ina King of the VVest-Saxons having consulted with their VVise-men and the Elders of the people made new Laws Other Laws K. Alfred made by the advice in like manner of his Wise-men and he says himself That it was by the consent of them all that they were commanded to be observed From these and many other like places it is as clear as the Sun that chosen Men even from amongst the Common People were Members of the Supreme Councils unless we must believe that no Men are wise but the Nobility We have likewise a very Ancient Book called the Mirror of Justices in which we are told That the Saxons when they first subdued the Brittains and chose themselves Kings required an Oath of them to submit to the Judgment of the Law as much as any of their Subjects Cap. 1. Sect. 2. In the same place 't is said that it is but just that the King have his Peers in Parliament to take Cognizance of wrongs done by the King or the Queen and that there was a Law made in King Alored's time that Parliaments should be holden twice a year at London or oftner if need were Which Law when through neglect it grew into disuse was revived by two Statutes in King Edward the Third's time And in another ancient Manuscript called Modus tenendi Parliamenta we read thus If the King dissolve the Parliament before they have dispatcht the business for which the Council was summon'd he is guilty of Perjury and shall be reputed to have broken his Coronation Oath For how can he be said to grant those good Laws which the people chuse as he is sworn to do if he hinders the People from chusing them either by summoning Parliaments seldomer or by dissolving them sooner than the Publick Affairs require or admit And that Oath which the Kings of England take at their Coronation has always been looked upon by our Lawyers as a most sacred Law And what remedy can be found to obviate the great Dangers of the whole State which is the very end of summoning Parliaments if that Great and August Assembly may be dissolved at the pleasure many times of a silly head-strong King To absent himself from them is certainly less than to dissolve them and yet by our Laws as that Modus lays them down the King neither can nor ought to absent himself from his Parliament unless he be really indisposed in Health nor then neither till twelve of the Peers have been with him to inspect his Body and give the Parliament an account of his Indisposition Is this like the Carriage of Servants to a Master On the other hand the House of Commons without whom there can be no Parliament held tho summoned by the King may withdraw and having made a Secession expostulate with the King concerning Male-administration as the same Book has it But which is the greatest thing of all amongst the Laws of King Edward commonly called the Confessor there is one very excellent relating to the Kingly Office which Office if the King do not discharge as he ought Then says the Law He shall not retain so much as the Name of a King And lest these words should not be sufficiently understood the Example of Chilperic King of France is subjoyn'd whom the People for that Cause deposed And that by this Law a wicked King is liable to Punishment that Sword of King Edward called Curtana denotes to us which the Earl of Chester used to carry in the Solemn Procession at a Coronation A token says Mathew Paris that he has Authority by Law to punish the King if he will not do his Duty and the Sword is hardly ever made use of but in Capital Punishments This same Law together with other Laws of that good King Edward did William the Conqueror ratifie in the Fourth Year of his Reign and in a very full Council held at Verulam confirm'd it with a
Dâ—…s Commanders of Armies that were to command the Forces of the several Counties not for the Honour of the Crown only but for the good of the Realm And they were chosen `by the General Council and in the several Counties at publick Assemblies of the Inhabitants as Sheriffs ought to be chosen Whence it is evident That the Foâ—… of the Kingdom and the Commanders of those Forces were anciently and ought to be still not at the King's Command but at the people's and that this most reasonable and just Law obtained in this Kingdom of ours no less than heretofore it did in the Commonwealth of the Romans Concerning which it will not be amiss to hear what Cicera says Philip. 〈◊〉 All the â—egions all the Forces of the Commonwealth wheresoever they are are the people of Rome's nor are those â—egions that deserted the Consul Antonins said to have been Antonin's but the Commonwealths â—egions This very Law of St. Edward together with the rest did William the Conqueror at the desire and instance of the people confirm by Oath and added over and above cap. 56. That all Cities Boroughs Castles should be so watched every night as the Sheriffs the Aldermen and other Magistrates should think meet for the safety of the Kingdom And in the 6th Law Castles Boroughs and Cities were first built for the Defence of the people and therefore ought to be maintained free and entire by all ways and means What then Shall Towns and Places of Strength in times of Peace be guarded against Thieves and Robbers by common Councils of the several Places and shall they not be defended in dangerous times of War against both Domestick and Foreign Hostility by the common Council of the whole Nation If this be not granted there can be no Freedom no Integrity no Reason in the guarding of them nor shall we obtain any of those ends for which the Law it self tells us that Towns and Fortresses were at first founded Indeed our Ancestors were willing to put any thing into the King's power rather than their Arms and the Garisons of their Towns conceiving that to be neither better nor worse than betraying their Liberty to the Fury and Exorbitancy of their Princes Of which there are so very many instances in our Histories and those so generally known that it would be superfluous to mention any of them here But the King owes protection to his Subjects and how can be protect them unless he have Men and Arms at Command But say I he had all this for the good of the Kingdom as has been said not for the destruction of his people and the ruin of the Kingdom Which in King Henry the 3d's time one Leonard a Learned man in those days in an Assembly of Bishops told Rustandus the Pope's Nuncio and the King's Procurator in these words All Churches are the Pope's as all Temporal things are said to be the King 's for Defence and Protection not his in Propriety and Ownership as we say they are his to Deâ—end not to Destroy The aforementioned Law of St. Edward is to the same purpose and what does this import more than a Trust Does this look like Absolute Power Such a kind of Power a Commander of an Army always has that is a Delegated Power and yet both at home and abroad he is never the less able to defend the people that chuse him Our Parliaments would anciently have contended with our Kings about their Liberty and the Laws of St. Edward to very little purpose and ' â—would have been an unequal match betwixt the Kings and them if they had been of opinion that that the Power of the Sword belonged to him alone for how unjust Laws soever their Kings would have imposed upon them their Charter tho never so great would have been a weak Defence against Force But say you What would the Parliament be the better for the Militia since without the King's Assent they cannot raise the least Earthing from the people towards the maintaining it Take you no thought for that For in the first place you go upon a false supposition That Parliaments cannot impose Taxes without the King's Assent upon the people that send them and whose concerns they undertake In the next place you that are so officious an enquirer into other mens matters cannot but have heard That the people of their own accord by bringing in their Plate to be melted down raised a great Sum of Money towards the carrying on of this War against the King Then you mention the largeness of our King's Revenue You mention over and over again Five Hundred and Forty Thousands That these of our Kings that have been eminent for their Bounty and Liberality have used to give Large Boons out of their own Partimony This you were glad to hear 't was by this Charm that those Traytors to their Countrey allured you as Bâ—… the Prophet was enticed of old to curse the people of God and exclaim against the Judicial Dispensations of his Providence You Fool what was that unjust and violent King the better for such abundance of Wealth What are you the better for it Who have been no partaker of any part of it that I can hear of how great hopes soever you may have conceiv'd of being vastly enriched by it but only of a Hundred pieces of Gold in a Purse wrought with beads Take that reward of thine Iniquity Balaam which thou hast loved and enjoy it You go on to play the Fool The setting up of a Standard is a Prerogative that belongs to the King only How so Why because Virgil tells us in his Aeneis That Turnus set up a Standard on the top of the Tower at Laurentum for an Ensign of War And do not you know Grammarian that every General of an Army does the same thing But says Aristotle The King must always be provided of a Military Power that he may be able to defend the Laws and therefore the King must be stronger than the whole body of the people This man makes Consequences just as Oâ—nus does Ropes in Hell which are of no use but to be eaten by Asses For a number of Soldiers given to the King by the people is one thing and the sole power of the Militia is quite another thing the latter Aristotle does not allow that Kings ought to be masters of and that in this very place which you have quoted He ought says he to have so many armed men about him as to make him stronger than any one man than many men got together but he must not be stronger than all the people Polit. lib. 3. cap. 4. Else instead of protecting them it would be in his power to subject both People and Laws to himself For this is the difference betwixt a King and a Tyrant A King by consent of the Senate and People has about him so many Armed men as to enable him to resist Enemies and suppress Seditions A Tyrant against the
Will both of Senate and People gets as great a number as he can either of Enemies or profligate Subjects to side with him against the Senate and the People The Parliament therefore allowed the King as they did whatever he had besides the setting up of a Standard not to wage War against his own people but to defend them against such as the Parliament should declare Enemies to the State If he acted otherwise himself was to be accounted an Enemy since according to the very Law of St. Edward or according to a more sacred Law than that the Law of Nature it self he lost the name of a King and was no longer such Whence Cicero in his Philip. He forfeits his Command in the Army and Interest in the Government that employs them against the State Neither could the King compel those that held of him by Knight-Service to serve him in any other War than such as was made by consent of Parliament which is evident by many Statutes So for Customs and other Subsidies for the maintenance of the Navy the King could not exact them without an Act of Parliament as was resolved about twelve years ago by the ablest of our Lawyers when the King's Authority was at the height And long before them Fortescue an Eminent Lawyer and Chancellor to King Henry the 6th The King of England says he can neither alter the Laws nor exact Subsidies without the people's consent nor can any Testimonies be brought from Antiquity to prove the Kingdom of England to have been merely Regal The King says Bracton has a Jurisdiction over all his Subjects that is in his Courts of Justice where Justice is administred in the King's name indeed but according to our own Laws All are subject to the King that is every particular man is and so Bracton explains himself in the places that I have cited What follows is but turning the same stone over and over again at which sport I believe you are able to tire Sisiphus himself and is sufficiently answered by what has been said already For the rest if our Parliaments have sometimes complimented good Kings with submissive expressions tho neither favouring of Flattery nor Slavery those are not to be accounted due to Tyrants nor ought to prejudice the peoples Right good manners and civility do not infringe Liberty Whereas you cite out of Sir Edw. Coke and others That the Kingdom of England is an Absolute Kingdom that is said with respect to any Foreign Prince or the Emperor because as Cambden says It is not under the Patronage of the Emperor but both of them affirm that the Government of England resides not in the King alone but in a Body Politick Whence Fortescue in his Book de laud. leg Angl. cap. 9. The King of England says he governs his people not by a merely Regal but a Political power for the English are govern'd by Laws of their own making Foreign Authors were not ignorant of this Hence Philip de Comines a Grave Author in the Fifth Book of his Commentaries Of all the Kingdoms of the earth says he that I have any knowledge of there is none in my opinion where the Government is more moderate where the King has less power of hurting his people than in England Finally 'T is ridiculous say you for them to affirm that Kingdoms were ancienter than Kings which is as much as if they should say that there was Light before the Sun was created But with your good leave Sir we do not say that Kingdoms but that the people were before Kings In the mean time who can be more ridiculous than you who deny there was Light before the Sun had a being You pretend to a curiosity in other mens matters and have forgot the very first things that were taught you You wonder how they that have seen the King upon his Throne at a Session of Parliament sub aureo serico Coelo under a golden and silken Heaven under a Canopy of State should so much as make a question whether the Majesty resided in him or in the Parliament They are certainly hard of belief whom so lucid an Argument coming down from Heaven cannot convince Which Golden Heaven you like a Stoick have so devoutly and seriously gaz'd upon that you seem to have forgot what kind of Heaven Moses and Aristotle describe to us for you deny that there was any Light in Moses his Heaven before the Sun and in Aristotle's you make three temperate Zones How many Zones you observed in that Golden and Silken Heaven of the King 's I know not but I know you got one Zone a Purse well tempered with a Hundred Golden Stars by your Astronomy CHAP. X. SInce this whole Controversie whether concerning the Right of Kings in general or that of the King of England in particular is rendred difficult and intricate rather by the obstinacy of parties than by the nature of the thing it self I hope they that prefer Truth before the Interest of a Faction will be satisfied with what I have alledged out of the Law of God the Law of Nations and the Municipal Laws of my own Countrey That a King of England may be brought to Tryal and put to Death As for those whose minds are either blinded with Superstition or so dazeled with the Splendor and Grandure of a Court that Magnanimity and true Liberty do not appear so glorious to them as they are in themselves it will be in vain to contend with them either by Reason and Arguments or Examples But you Salmasius seem very absurd as in every other part of your Book so particularly in this who tho you â—ail perpetually at the Independents and revile them with all the terms of Reproach imaginable yet assert to the highest degree that can be the Independâ—ncy of the King whom you defend and will not allow him to owe his Soveraignty to the people but to his Descent And whereas in the beginning of your Book you complain'd that he was put to plead for his Life here yâ—u complain That he perish'd without being heard to spâ—… for himself But if you have a mind to look into the History of his Trial which is very faithfully publish'd in French it may be you 'l be of another opinion Whereas he had liberty given him for some day together to say what he could for himself he made use of it not to clear himself of the Crimes 〈◊〉 to his Charge but to disprove the Authority oâ— his Judges and the Judicature that he was called before And whenever a Criminal is either mute or says nothing to the purpose there is no Injustice in condemning him without hearing him if his Crimes are notorious and publickly known If you say that Charles dyed as he lived I agree with you If you say that he died piously holily and at ease you may remember that his Grandmother Mary Queen of Scots and infamous Woman dyed on a Scaffold with as much outward appearance of
our Northern Counties and kept Garisons in the best Towns of those Parts and had the King himself in Custody whilest they likewise encouraged the tumultuating of those of their own Faction who did more than threaten the Parliament both in City and Country and through whose means not only a Civil but a War with Scotland too shortly after brake out If it has been always accounted praise-worthy in private Men to assist the State and promote the publick Good whether by Advice or Action our Army sure was in no fault who being ordered by the Parliament to come to Town obey'd and came and when they were come quell'd with ease the Faction and Uproar of the King's Party who sometimes threatned the House it self For things were brought to that pass that of necessity either we must be run down by them or they by us They had on their side most of the Shopkeepers and Handicrafts-men of London and generally those of the Ministers that were most factious On our side was the Army whose Fidelity Moderation and Courage were sufficiently known It being in our Power by their means to retain our Liberty our State our Common-safty do you think we had not been fools to have lost all by our negligence and folly They who had had places of Command in the Kings Army after their Party were subdued had laid down their Arms indeed against their Wills but continued Enemies to us in their hearts and they flock'd to Town and were here watching all opportunities of renewing the War With these Men tho they were the greatest Enemies they had in the World and thirsted after their Blood did the Presbyterians because they were not permitted to exercise a Civil as well as an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over all others hold secret Correspondence and took measures very unworthy of what they had formerly both said and done and they came to that Spleen at last that they would rather enthral themselves to the King again than admit their own Brethren to share in their Liberty which they likewise had purchased at the price of their own Blood they chose rather to be Lorded over once more by a Tyrant polluted with the Blood of so many of his own Subjects and who was enraged and breath'd out nothing but revenge against those of them that were left than endure their Brethren and Friends to be upon the square with them The Independents as they are called were the only men that from first to last kept to their point and knew what use to make of their Victory They refus'd and wisely in my opinion to make him King again being then an Enemy who when he was their King had made himself their Enemy Nor were they ever the less averse to a Peace but they very prudently dreaded a new War or a perpetual slavery under the name of a Peace To 〈◊〉 our Army with the more reproaches you begin a silly confused Narrative of our Affairs in which tho I find many things false many things frivolous many things laid to our charge for which we rather merit yet I think it will be to no purpose for me to write a true relation in answer to your false one For you and I are arguing not writing Histories and both sides will believe our reasons but not our narrative and indeed the nature of the things themselves is such that they cannot be related as they ought to be but in a set History so that I think it better as Salust said of Carthage Rather to say nothing at all than to say but a little of things of this weight and importance Nay and I scorn so much as to mention the praises of great men and of Almighty God himself who in so wonderful a course of Affairs ought to be frequently acknowledged amongst your Slanders and Reproaches I 'le therefore only pick out such things as seem to have any colour of argument You say the English and Scotch promised by a Solemn Covenant to preserve the Majesty of the King But you omit upon what terms they promised it to wit if it might consist with the safety of their Religion and their Liberty To both which Religion and Liberty that King was so averse to his last breath and watcht all opportunities of gaining advantages upon them that it was evident that his life was dangerous to their Religion and the certain ruin of their Liberty But then you fall upon the King's Judges again If we consider the thing aright the conclusion of this abominable action must be imputed to the Independents yet so as the Presbyterians may justly challenge the glory of its beginning and progress Hark ye Presbyterians what good has it done you how is your Innocence and Loyalty the more cleared by your seeming so much to abhor the putting the King to death You your selves in the opinion of this everlasting talkative Advocate of the King your accuser went more than half-way towards it you were seen acting the fourth Act and more in this Tragedy you may justly be charged with the King's death since you ban'd the way to it 't was you and only you that laid his head upon the Block Wo be to you in the first place if ever Charles his Posterity recover the Crown of England assure your selves you are like to be put in the Black List But pay your Vows to God and love your Brethren who have delivered you who have prevented that calamity from falling upon you who have saved you from inevitable ruin tho against your own wills You are accused likewise for that some years ago you endeavoured by sundry Petitions to lessen the Kings authority that you publisht some scandalous expressions of the King himself in the Papers you presented him with in the name of the Parliament to wit in that Declaration of the Lords and Commons of the 26th of May 1642 you declar'd openly in some mad Positions that breath'd nothing but Rebellion what your thoughts were of the King's authority Hotham by order of Parliament shut the Gates of Hull against the King you had a mind to make a trial by this first act of Rebellion how much the King would bear What could this man say more if it were his design to reconcile the minds of all English men to one another and alienate them wholly from the King for he gives them here to understand that if ever the King be brought back they must not only expect to be punisht for his Father's death but for the Petitions they made long ago and some acts that past in full Parliament concerning the putting down the Common-Prayer and Bishops and that of the Triennial Parliament and several other things that were Enacted with the greatest consent and applause of all the people that could be all which will be look'd upon as the Seditions and mad Positions of the Presbyterians But this vain fellow changes his mind all of a sudden and what but of late when he considered it aright