Cook in his Jurisdiction of Courts looks no higher than 28. of Edw. 3. This Lord Keeper cites a Precedent out of his own Search of Records of a Baron Fin'd and Imprison'd by it in the 16th of Edw. 2. as it is quoted Cabal P. 58. Of what standing it was before for the Evidence doth not run as if then it were newly born to me is uncertain For the Dignity that famous Judge I mentioned lifts up his Style that it is the most honourable Court our Parliament excepted that is in the Christian World Jurisdic P. 65. The Citations of it are to cause to appear Coram Rege Concilio for the King in Judgment of Law is always in the Court when it fits and King James did twice in Person give Sentence in it The Lords and others of the Privy Council with the two Chief Justices or two other Justices or Barons of the Exchequer in their Absence are standing Judges of that Court. For in Matters of Right and Law some of the Judges are always presum'd to be of the King's Counsel The other Lords of Parliament who are properly De magno Concilio Regis are only in Proximâ poteentiâ of this Council and are actually Assessors when they are specially called These Grandees of the Realm who cannot fit to hear a Cause under the Number of Eight at the least ennoble this Court with their Presence and Wisdom to the Admiration of Foreign Nations and to the great Satisfaction of our selves for none can think himself too great to be Try'd for his Misdemeanors before a Convention of such Illustrious Senators And as Livy says Nihil tam aequandae libertati prodest quà m potentissimum quemque posse causam dicere As touching the Benefit that the Star-Chamber did bring thus that Atlas of the Law the Lord Cook Et cujus pars magna fuit says in the same Place That the right Institution and ancient Orders thereof being observed it keepeth all England in Quiet Which he maintains by two Reasons First Seeing the Proceeding according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm cannot by one Rule of Law suffice to punish in every Case the Enormity of some great and horrible Crimes this Court dealeth with them to the end the Medicine may be according to the Disease and the Punishment according to the Offence Secondly To curb Oppression and Exorbitancies of great Men whom inferior Judges and Jurors though they should not would in respect of their Greatness be afraid to offend Indeed in every Society of Men there will be some Bashawes who presume that there are many Rules of Law from which they should be exempted Aristotle writes it as it were by Feeling not by Guess Polit. 4. c. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that were at the Top among the Greeks nor would be rul'd nor would be taught to be rul'd Therefore this Court profest the right Art of Justice to teach the Greatest as well as the Meanest the due Construction of Good Behaviour I may justly say that it was a Sea most proper for Whale-Fishing little Busses might cast out Nets for Smelts and Herring So says the great Lawyer Ordinary Offences which may sufficiently be punished by the Proceeding of the Common Laws this Court leaveth to the ordinary Courts of Justice Ne dignitas hujus Curiae vilesceret 96. Accordingly the Lord Keeper Williams having Ascended by his Office to be the first Star in the Constellation to illuminate that Court he was very Nice I might say prudent to measure the Size of Complaints that were preferred to it whether they were knots fit for such Axes A number of contentious Squabbles he made the Attorney's Pocket up again which might better be compounded at home by Country Justices It was not meet that the Flower of the Nobility should be call'd together to determine upon Trifles Such long Wing'd Hawks were not to be cast off to fly after Field-Fares The Causes which he designed to hear were Grave and Weighty wherein it concern'd some to be made Examples for Grievous Defamations Perjuries Riots Extortions and the like Upon which Occasions his Speeches were much heeded and taken by divers in Ciphers which are extent to this day in their Paper Cabinets To which I Appeal that they were neither long nor Virulent For though he had Scope on those Ocasions to give his Auditors more then a Tast of his Eloquence which was clear sententious fraught with Sacred and Moral Allusions yet he detested nothing more then to insult upon the Offendor with girds of Wit He foresaw that Insolencies and Oppressions are publick provocations to bury a Court in it's own Shame And what could exasperate more then when an unfortunate man hath run into a Fault to shew him no humane Respect Nay to make him pass through the two malignant Signs of the Zodiaque Sagitary and Scorpio That is to wound him first with Arrows of sharp-pointed Words and then to Sting him with a Scorpiack censure Indeed if there be an extreme in shewing too much mercy I cannot Absolve the Lord Keeper For many I confess censur'd him for want of deeper censures said he was a Friend to Publicans and Sinners to all delinquents and rather their Patron then their Judge 〈◊〉 was so oftentimes when he scented Malice in the Prosecution It was so sometimes when he laid his Finger upon the Pulse of humane Frailty Brethren if a Man be overtaken in a Fault we which are Spiritual Restore such a one in the Spirit of meekness considering thy self least thou also be Tempted Galat. 6.1 Pliny the younger had been faulted that he had excus'd some more then they deserv'd Whereupon he Writes to Septitius lib. 7. Ep. Quid mihi invident felicissimum Errorem Ut enim non sint tales quales à me praedicantur ego tamen Beatus quod mihi videntur Which is to this meaning Why do you grudg me this Error they are not so good as I accounted them but I am happy in my Candor that I account them better then they are But first he never condemn'd an Offender to be Branded to be Scourg'd to have his Ears cut Though that Court hath proceeded to such censure in time old enough to make Prescription yet my Lörd Cook adviseth it should be done sparingly upon this Reason Quod Arbitrio judicis relinquitur non facile trahit ad effusionem Sanguinis They that judge by the light of Arbitrary Wisdom should seldom give their sentence to spill Blood He would never do it and declin'd it with this plausible avoidance as the Arch-Bishop Whitgift and Bancroft and the Bishop of Winton the Learned Andrews had done before him that the Canons of Councils had forbidden Bishops to Act any thing to the drawing of blood in a judicial Form Once I call to mind he dispens'd with himself and the manner was pretty One Floud a Railing Libelling Varlet bred in the Seminaries beyond Seas had vented Contumelies bitterer then Gall against many
dissipatur Especially a contumely cleaves the faster when he that is clean from the Defamation in one Person hath deserv'd it in others for as Octa. Minutius says Oftentimes there is some likelihood in a Lye and not unseldom some unlikelihood in a Truth 143. Other Errors and many were charg'd upon the Duke and a broad back will not bear them all Yet casting not an Eye upon the Earl of Bristol's Papers which he produced in Parliament a Lap full of them and no less Their chief purpose was to cast an Odium upon him that he heightned the Spaniards at first to ask worse Conditions in Religion then were formerly Treated on These were Recriminations wherein no man no not the Wise Earl of Bristol is like to keep a Charitable Moderation Because his Miscarriages had been ript up by the Duke before what followed but that wawardness which St Austin confess'd to be sometime in himself Si deprehensus Arguerer saevire magis quà m caedere libebat Cofess lib. 1. c. ult But such as were no parties in Contestation with my Lord of Buckingham blame him that he was very rash in managing business turning about Councils in all haste upon the Wheel of Fancy but keeping no Motion of Order or Measure which none could endure worse then that Nation with whom he Treated who are the most Superstitious under Heaven to keep that Politick Rule Bona Consilia morâ valescere Tacit. Hist l. 4. They said also That he was Offensive to the Crown of Spain in taunting Comparisons and an open derider of their Magniloquent Phrases and Garb of stateliness which must be an intended provocation for he was as well studied in blandishments and the Art of Behaviour as any Courtier in Europe They repined that he thrust himself into such a Room at their Masks and Interludes as were proper to their King our Prince and the Train Royal and was not contented with that Honour which was given to the Major Domo or prime Subject of Spain as if he were not satisfied to be Received as a less Star but as a Parelius with his Highness And whatsoever the grudge was they vented it craftily in that Quarrel that he did many things against the Honour and Reverence due to the Prince as one hath pick'd up and offered it to King James Cab. p. 221. That he was over Familiar in Talk and in Terms with his Highness Yet David so near the Crown call'd himself a dead Dog or a Flea in respect of Saul Nor is it omitted that he was sometime cover'd when the Prince was bare sometime sitting when the Prince stood capering a lost in sudden Fits and Chirping the Ends of Sonnets which was not Unmannerliness he was better bred but inconsiderateness which will creep upon him who was too much dandled upon the Lap of Fortune Or as Budaeus better Expresseth it Sap. Pand. p. 331. Mirablandimenta genuit Aulici victus ratio quibus praestantissima virtus saepè consopita connivere visa est And truly his Breeding in Budaeus his own Country did him some prejudice in that kind For the French Mode is bold Light and Airy That which we call rudeness with them is freedom good Metal brave assurance And that which we and the Castilians call Gravity or Modesty with them is reputed Sneaking want of Spirit Sheepishness But between frets of Spight and Fits of Levity the Duke put the Treaty so far out of Tune that the Lovers were disappointed of their expected Epithalamium So that the Spaniards made it one of their Refranes or Proverbs If the Prince had come alone without the Duke he had never return'd alone without the brave Castilian Virgin they might say so freely for I heard himself say no less in the Banqueting House at a Conference with the Lords and Commons anno 1624. When he endear'd himself to the Hearers That the Stout and Resolute way wherein he went had overturn'd the Marriage and did Arrogate the Thanks of all things to himself that were acceptable and popular So be it yet that which Canoniz'd him with the people then was afterward made an Evidence against him Cab. p. 227. To lay a Dram of Excuse against a Pound of Error this is to be Alledged that Olivares and Count Montes-claros were ill Advis'd to spurn a young Lion as if he had been a Puppy-Whelp For as soon as they saw the Duke soare so high in his Opinions and when Bristol spake to mitigate him disaccount of him contemptibly as if he had nothing to do this Brace of Grandees call'd it in Question what Creature could have more Power in that Action then an Embassador that laid the first Stone of it that had ample Letters of Credence under the King's Broad-Seal with the Confirmation of the Privy-Council of England which was more then my Lord of Buckingham brought with him The Headship of the Treaty was in the Prince and they bended to it Extolling his Wisdom as Capitolinus doth Gordianus the Elder Moribus it a moderatus ut nihil possis dicere quod nimiè fecit The next place they deemed to the Earl of Bristol upon the Reason premised though he declin'd it And should Buckingham be degraded to be the third in Place who held the Highest Place in Honour and the Supremacy both in the King 's and the Princes Favour Ausonius in Paneg. ad Gratian. tells a Story That Alexander the Great Reading those Verses in Homer that Agamemnon was Nam'd by the Common Souldiers to Fight the Duel with Hector after Aiax and Diomedes clapt out an Oath saying Occiderem eum qui me tertium nominasset I would have cut his Throat that should have Named two before me Truly Buckingham had so much Bravery in him that he would take the third Place in as great Dudgeon as Alexander 144. The grave Earl of Bristol was passive in this Quarrel and sunk it in Silence with his best Dexterity So he did allay all other Heats which the Duke's Passion raised against him if his Letter to the Lord Keeper be of Canonical Faith Cab. P. 21. knowing how undecent and scandalous a thing it is for the Ministers of Princes to run different ways in a strange Court But the Envy of all Miscarriages was cast upon his Lordship by that mighty Adversary and by a greater than he That he was wholly Spaniolized which could not be unless he were a Pensioner to that State That he sided with Olivarez in all Consults That he professed a Neutrality and more in all Propositions for the Advancement of the Popish Religion That he never Pleaded for the Restitution of the Palatinate but only pitied it with the Spanish Shrug That he did not so timely unmask the Spanish Councils to the Kings Advantage as he might and ought to have done That he entangled the Prince in Delays to keep him from returning Home For these and other the like which will follow in the great Report made in the next Parliament a Noise was made
Choler in his Complexion Yet that it could not appear but that the Marriage on King Philip's part was very sincerely meant in all the Treaty most clearly when his Highness took his Farewell most openly since his Departure Wherein the Earl of Bristol had much wronged that great Monarch giving him a Bastle insupportable For when the Power of Revocation or rather Repression of the Proxy was peremptorily in his Lordship's hand he did not acquaint the King of Spain to stop him from erecting a Gallery turned by the Earl's Negligence into a Gullery in the open Streets covered with the richest Tapestry and set forth with all other Circumstances of Wealth and State to conduct the Infanta in open View and with most magnificent Solemnity to the Deposorios when by the Instruments and Commissions the Earl had lately received he knew these augustious Preparations would be ridiculously disappointed which was a Despight that a Gentleman not to say an Embassador should have prevented For the Disgrace was so far blown abroad with Derision that it was the News of Gazette's over all Europe The Intention of that Nation to give the Infanta in Marriage to the Prince being not controverted Yet his Highness protesting on his part that he was free unless the Palatinate were surrendred they were all satisfy'd with it his Word was Justice to them and that which was in his own Breast must alone direct him how to use his Freedom This Question dispatched was upon a blown Rose the next was upon a Bramble The Lord Duke was so zealous say it was for the Palsgrave's Sake that he voted the King of Spain to be desied with open War till amends were made to the illustrious Prince Elector for the Wrongs he sustained The Lords appointed for the Conference that apprehended it otherwise were the Keeper Treasurer Duke of Richmond Marquess Hamilton Earl of Arundâ—l Lord Carow Lord Belfast who could not say that the King of Spain had done the part of a Friend for the Recovery of the Palatinate as he had profess'd nor yet could they find that he had acted the Part of an Enemy declaredly as was objected Their Judgment was the Girts of Peace were slack but not broken This is couched in the Admonitions of an Ignote unto King James Cab. p. 278. The Conference or Treaty about the Palatinate was taken from the Council of State a Society of most prudent Men only for this Cause that almost every one of them had with one Consent approved the Propositions of the most Catholick King and did not find in it any Cause of dissolving the Treaty And a little beneath The Duke fled from the Council of State and disclaimed it for a Parliament by way of an Appeal Most true that scarce any in all the Consulto did vote to my Lord Duke's Satissaction which made him rise up and chase against them from Room to Room as a Hen that hath lost her Brood and clucks up and down when she hath none to follow her The next time he saw the Lord Belfast he asked him with Disdain Are you turned too and so flung from him Cab. p. 243. To which the Lord Belfast answered honestly in a short Letter That he would conform himself in all things to the Will and good Pleasure of the King his Master The greatest Grudge was against the Lord Keeper who seldom spake but all Opinions ran into his one as they did at this time and the Duke presumed that his Sentence should never vary from his own Mind An hard Injunction and all the Favour on Earth is too dear to be bought at such a Price But he declared that he saw no Expediency for War upon the Grounds communicated For upon whom should we fall says he either upon the Emperor or the King of Spain The Emperor had in a fort offered our King his Son-in-Law's Country again for a great Sum in Recompence of Disbursments but where was the Money to be had Yet it might be cheaper bought than conquered before a War were ended For the King of Spain he saw no Cause to assault him with Arms He had held us indeed in a long Treaty to our Loss but he held nothing from us and was more likely to continue the State of things in a possibility of Accommodation because he disliked the Duke of Bavaria's Ambition and had rather stop the Enlargement of his Territories The King was glad that some maintained his Judgment and would not consent wantonly to raise him from the Down Bed of his long admired Peace Neither did he refrain to speak very hardly of that Servant whom he loved best that agitated to compel him to draw the Sword one of the great Plagues of God His Censure upon him was bitter Cab. P. 92. but fit to be cast over-board in silence 176. A King of Peace is not only sittest to build Temples but is the Temple of God Such a one doth foresee how long how far how dangerously the Fire of War will burn before he put a Torch to kindle it And as every Bishop ought to have a care of the Universal Church so every King ought to have a care of all Humane Society It is not such a thing to raise War in these Days as it was in Abraham's Muster his Servants in one Day and rescue Lot from his Enemies the next Nor such as it was with the old Romans make a Summers Laâ—rt in Vit. before he laid down his Office The Charge in our Age which usually for many Years doth oppress the People will hardly countervail if GOD should send it the Gladness of a Victory Nor is all fear over when a War is ended But as Solon says Lacrt. in Vit. Great Commanders when they have done their Work abroad and are return'd with Honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more Mischief by their Factions to their Country than they did against their Enemies And whosever scape well the poor Church is like to suffer two ways First as Camden says Eliz. Ann. 1583. Schismatica pravitas semper bello ardente maxime luxuriat Schismatical Pravity will grow up under the Licentiousness of War Some profane Buff-Coats will Authorize such Incendiaries Secondly For some Hundreds of Years by-past in Christendom I cannot find but where Wars have been protracted the Churchman's Revenue hath been in danger to pay the Soldiers If this affect not those that will not think that there is such a Sin as Sacrilege yet all acknowledge that there is such a Virtue as Humane Compassion Then they that would awake drouzy Peace as they call it with the Noise of the Drum and the prancing of Horses in the Street let them before they design their War describe before their Consciences the heaps of slaughter'd Carkasses which will come after That the Land which is before tâ—en shaâ—I look like the Garden of the Lord and that which is behind them like Burning and Brimstone For all this will they tempt God and be the Foes of
that he might not faint The most that was disliked in the Letter was that it warn'd the Secretary that he was like to hear himself nam'd among the Grievances of the ensuing Parliament Wherein he did not fail It was no hard thing to Prognostick such a Tempest from the hollow murmuring of the Winds abroad There was not such a Watch-man about the Court as the Keeper was to espy Discontents in the dark nor any one that had so many Eyes abroad in every corner of the Realm What hurt was it Nay Why was it not call'd a Courtesie to awaken a Friend pursued by danger out of prudent Collections Says a wise Senator Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem Judex esse bonus non potest qui suspicione certâ non movetur He is no sound judge of Rumors that gleans not up a certain Conclusion out of strong Suspicions 6. To speak forward After the Queen had been receiv'd with much lustre of Pomp and Courtship which had been more if a very pestilentious Season in London and far and wide had not frown'd upon publick Resorts and full Solemnities a Parliament began Stay a while and hear that in a little which concerns much that followed This is the highest and supereminent Court of our Kings The University of the whole Realm where the Graduates of Honour the Learned in the Laws and the best Practicers of Knowledge and Experience in the Land do meet Horreum sapientiae or the full Chorus where the Minds of many are gather'd into one Wisdom And yet in five Parliaments which this King call'd there was distance and disorder in them all between him and his People Amabile est praeesse civibus sed placere difficile as Symmachus to his Lord Theodosius Our Sovereign had not the Art to please or rather his Subjects had not the Will to be pleased And we all see by the Event that God was displeas'd upon it If he had won them or they had won him neither had been losers Pliny's Fable or Story of the Two Goats Lib. 8. c. 50. Suits the Case The Two Goats met upona narrow Bridge the one laid down his Body for the other to go over him or both had been thrust into the River In the Application who had done best to have yielded is too mysterious to determine Both or either had done well But now we see and shall feel it I believe it is not Love nor Sweetness nor Sufferance that keeps a Nation within the straits of due Obedience it must be Power that needs not to entreat The Scepter can no more than propound the Sword will carry it This Truth was once little worn but now it is upon our backs and we are like to wear it so long till we are all Thread-bare Thucyd. lib. 2. says of Theseus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theseus govern'd Athens being as potent as wise His Wisdom taught the Athenians to keep a good pace but Awe and Potency did bridle and compel them to suffer their Rider or else they would have thrown him King Charles knew how to govern as well as Theseus But he was not so stout I am sure not so strong His Condition in the present stood thus When he was Prince he was the Messenger and the Mediator from the Parliament to extort a War against Spain from his Father Of which Design he was but the Lieutenant before is now become the Captain He sets the Action on foot and calls for Contribution to raise and pay an Army Instead of satisfaction in Subsidies two alone granted towards the charge of the great Funeral past and the Coronation to come they call for Reformation in Government One lifts up a Grievance and another a Grievance and still the Cry continues and multiplies As they spake with many Tongues so I would they could have taken up Serpents and felt no harm The plain Sense of it is those subtile Men of the lower House put the young King upon the push of Necessity and then took advantage of the Time and that Necessity They had cast his Affairs into want of Money and he must yield all that they demanded or else get no Money without which the War could not go on Here was the Foundation laid of all the Discontents that followed A capite primùm computrescit piscis says the Proverb If they had answer'd with that Confidence and Love as was invited from them England had not sat in sorrow as at this day And I will as soon die as retract these words that all Affairs might have been in a most flourishing Estate if the People in that or in any Parliament had been as good as the King Optimos gubernatores hand mediocriter etiam manus remigum juvat Symmach p. 128. The Pilot spends his breath in vain if the Oar-men will not strike a stroke A good Head can do nothing without their Hands If I should hold yet that this King was to be blam'd in nothing I should speak too highly of Humane Nature They that pass through much business cannot choose but incur Errors which will fall under Censure yet it were better under Pardon The most that aggrieved the Council of Parliament was that the King's Concessions for the good of the People came not off chearfully He wanted a way indeed to give a Gift and to make it thank-worthy in the manner of bestowing A small Exception when one grave Sentence from his Mouth did mean more reality than a great deal of Volubility with sweetness and smiling to which I confess they had been fortunately used But when all is done as the Poets say The Muses sing sweeter than the Syrens and a sullen something is better than a gracious nothing 7. And these are instead of Contents For the Chapter that is the business of the Capitol follows The Parliament began and the whole Assembly stood before the King So there was a day when the Sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord Job 1.6 but there was another thrust in among them What his Majesty spake than is printed more then once It was not much but enough it was not long but there wanted nothing Good Seed it was yet it came not up well although it was water'd with two showers of Eloquence by the Lord-Keeper the first directed to the Lords and Commons the other to Sir Thomas Crew the Speaker Which will tell the Reader more Truth than is yet come abroad whom I would have to remember Baronius's Caution in his Epistle to the first Tome of his Annals Nihil periculosius est in historiâ quà m cuivis scribeâ—â— in quâcunqae re fidem habere But hear what the King willed to be publish'd to his Parliament by the Mouth of his great Officer My Lords and Gentlemen all YOU have heard his Majesty's Speech though short yet Full and Princely and rightly Imperatorious as Tacitus said of Galbas Neither must we account that Speaker to be short Qui materiae immoratur that keeps himself
for spiteful and seditious therefore not fit to continue but to be dissolv'd Which Resolution being brought to the Clerk of the Crown to dissolve them on the 12th of August the Keeper did never so bestir him since he was born as to turn the Tide with Reasons with Supplications with Tears imploring his Majesty to remember a time when in his hearing his blessed Father had charg'd him to call Parliaments often and continue them though their rashness sometimes did offend him that in his own Experience he never got good by falling out with them But chiefly Sir says he let it never be said that you have not kept good Correspondence with your first Parliament Do not disseminate so much unkindness through all the Counties and Boroughs of your Realm The Love of the People is the Palladium of your Crown Continue this Assembly to another Session and expect alteration for the better If you do not so the next swarm will come out of the same Hive To this the Lords of the Council did almost all concur but it wanted Buckingham's Suffrage who was secure that the King's Judgment would follow him against all the Table So this first Parliament was blasted Et radicis vitium in fructibus nascentibus ostenditur The Root fail'd and the Fruit was unsavory in all the Branches that grew up after it I would the Builders had laid a better corner Stone then the Lord had not smote the great House with Breaches and the little House with Clefts Amos 6.11 Yet I would the King's Aequanimity had suffered it to stand that Concord might have cemented the Hearts of all the Nation to his Government It is a Trivial but a dangerous Oversight Senec. lib 3. de prâ Initia morborum quis curat Providence is not sensible of a little harm when it begins and when the increase is felt the Evil is incurable 17. Now the time came that as the Parliament had chased the Duke so the Duke chased the Keeper Torva Leaena Lupum sequitur Lupus ipse Capellam Was it for Michaias's Crime he doth not prophesie good concerning me but evil 1 Kings 22.8 His Fidelity would not let him conceal it Or did his Grace doubt him for under-dealing He could never prove it And he that can leave to be a Friend for Suspicion is justly suspected that he was never a Friend What shall we say to such Men as would fall out and are angry when they cannot find a justifiable occasion This was the Misfortune like Caelius the Orator in Seneca Lib. 3. de irâ c. 8. meeting with one that observ'd him in all that he said and longing for a Quarrel says Caelius Dic aliquid contra me ut duo simus The Keeper could not be provok'd to give the Duke the least jostle All 's one when Power contests there 's no safety for Innocency great Men can maintain their Violence by some colour of Right So the Accusation broke out that this Man had fomented Suggestions against my Lord of Buckingham among the chief Tribunes of the Parliament Wherein the King was satisfied to the contrary while he staid at Woodstock by an Apology that follows drawn up hastily in an hour into short Heads Yet it stuck in the Credulity of those that were remote from the Scene and saw not the Part acted Therefore I believe that some intelligent Man might tell so much to the Observator p. 36. Yet he knows that for an intelligent Man to judge upon Report is worse than to take Judgment of a sick Man's Distemper only by his Water And as intelligent a Man as the Observator himself may have the Infirmity which Longinus imputes to Timaeus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 censorious of others partial to himself and insensible of his own Errors But let truth break forth by a Paper which the Lord-Keeper put into the King's Hand Aug. 14. which discloseth all Judex ipse sui totum se explorat ad unguem Ausonius REASONS to satisfie your most excellent Majesty concerning my Carriage all this last Parliament 18. First negatively That I did nothing disserviceably to your Majesty or the Duke For first I never spake at Oxford with any of the stirring Men as was untruly suggested to your Majesty excepting once with Philips with the Privity and for the Service of the Duke And with Wentworth at his first coming to Town and before his coming to the House Who promised and I do verily believe he perform'd it to carry himself advantageously to your Majesty's Service and not to joyn with any that should sly upon my Lord Duke The rest are all Strangers to me and I never spake with any one of them concerning any Parliamentary matters Secondly I did cross the popular way more than any of the Council which I durst not have done if I had intended to run along with them 1. In advising your Majesty knowing how you were engaged to the Queen to reserve to yourself the Execution of the Laws against Recusants at least-wise for a time as at Rycott 2. In maintaining this Advice afterward before the Council at Oxford 3. In lingring and staying the Bill against Recusants 4. In direct Opposition to the Lord Saye in staying the Bill of Tonnage and Poundage which was the Darling of the Active part in the House of Commons Had I intended to run any way with the People I had been a Mad-man to have appear'd in any of these Affirmatively I offer'd my poor Service to your Majesty for the executing of any Directions should be given me in private First I waited upon your Majesty three or four times before your Journey to Dover to know if you would give me any private Directions but received none 2. I waited upon your Majesty and the Duke three several times while the Parliament sat at Westminster and my Answer was still you had nothing to say to me 3. I waited to know if your Majesty had ought to command me privately at Windsor at Bissam at Ricott towards the Oxford Sitting and was ever answer'd as before 4. I did the like to my Lord-Duke at Oxford desiring his Lordship to send me his Commands by any trusty Servant and I would serve him to the utmost of my Power from time to time His Grace said he would send but never sent to me So that if I had any Power in either House I had much the less at this time by reason of the Paucity of the Lawyers who were in the Circuit what use could I make of it without Directions And to tell the plain truth I durst do nothing for fear of offending the Duke otherwise than by Direction Only 't is known that they that were for giving of Subsidies repaired to me as often as to any other Lord who can witness of my Care both in Matters of Subsidies and the Business of my Lord-Duke Rationally it was unsafe for me to stickle at this time without Countenance and
Commons which your Majesly was pleas'd most graciously to intimate unto me at Woodstock for which Goodness I am oblig'd to serve you faithfully and industriously as long as I live and am able and to pray for you when I can do no more as I remonstrated before so I vow again to Almighty God I never spake directly or indirectly to above three of them in my Life nor to any one of them that one time to Philips excepted with the Privity and as I hoped for the Service of my Lord-Duke during the Continuance of the Sitting at Oxford Were it otherwise it were impossible in a Family of Sixty Persons as mine was to have it conceal'd I add farther That if it can be proved that I let fall the least word to any Person of the one or other House opposite to any known or revealed end of your Majesties I am content to remain guilty of whatever the Malice or Suspicion of any Man shall suggest against me Secondly If I have offended your Majesty in that bumble Motion I made at Christ-Church that your Majesty would say in your Speech unto the Parliament that in your Actions of Importance and in the Dispositions of what Sums of Monies your People should bestow upon you you would take the Advice of a settled and a constant Council I do humbly submit my self to your Royal Judgment therein and do beg your gracious Pardon for any thing I said amiss in matter or manner But I take God in Heaven to witness I had no aim at all to draw your Majesty to asperse thereby either the times past for that was now past all Counsel or the time present for your Majesty is but entred into your Reign Or to admonish your Majesty for I take God to witness I held it no ways necessary but did and do believe it is your absolute Resolution to govern by Council And much less was it to make you go less in your Power For many Kings in Parliament have said as much Se actumoâ— majora negotia per assensum Magnatum de Conciliis who intended not to turn Dukes of Venice but as they proved indeed great and mighty Monarchs at home and abroad But my only aim was as I shall answer it at the last day to save my Lord of Buckingham from those Invectives in this kind which I saw falling upon hiâ—â— and to dispose the Commons by that Clause of your Majesty's Speech to a short and a giving Session If I had not been free herein from all Sinister ends I had never dealt so earnestly with my Lord-Duke the night before that he himself would be pleased to move it to your Majesty Lastly what Protestation I have made for your Majesty I do now before God and you make the like for my Lord-Duke's Service a Person so much and so deservedly favour'd by your Majesty that I have not run any way at all with any Person of the one or the other House for the stirring fometâ—ing or countenancing of any Accusation Aspersion or other disservice whatsoever against his Lordship either in the first or the second Access of this last sitting Nor have I ever wish'd his Grace any more hurt than to my own Soul from that very hour your Majesty's most blessed Father sent me unto his Grace at Royston to this very instant And this I avow to be true as I desire to find Favour from God and my King I write unto your Majesty under these Protestations to give your Majesty only not any Man else all fitting satisfaction to whose Goodness I confess my self unexpressibly bound Les me not I beseech your Majesty in point of Justice lose your Favour upon groundless Suspicious of other Mâ—n who may themselves hereafter be better informed But let me stand or fall upon year Majesty own Knowledge derived from the Information of indifferent and dis-interossed Persons upon which I will most willingly and thankfully repose my part in your Favour and mine own Happiness In Confidence whereof I cast my self at your Majesty's Feet c. 23. This came to Salisbury and was shewn to my Lord-Duke which put his Cabinet to meet together again And 't was a notable Shift which came into their Heads and wrought upon the King's Judgment as that which had likelihood of Reason Which was thus that as the Keeper had been complain'd of so he should be charg'd home with his own Words nay with his own Letters But none durst accuse him till he was out of his Greatness Upon the Expiration of that the Proofs should be brought in who coming about the first Week in October to Salisbury and hearing this told such as were desired to carry it to the King and the great Lord that he would not sly the Tilt nor start from any colour of Accusation That the World would see how preposterous it was first to punish and then to bring to Judgment Multis minatur qui uni facit injuriam The wrong that was done to one Man would affright all others with that Oppression What Lord or Gentleman in England that had Place and Means would think himself safe upon the Example of such Proceedings From the hour that the Keeper committed this Message to trusty Friends to deliver it the Gorgen's Head had a Veil drawn before it and it never confronted him either at the Council-Table or in any Court of Justice but was laid still for ever Yet was not a jot the better for it The Suspicion was smother'd and yet liv'd and wrought as much to his prejudice as if he had been tried before the Court of Areopagites and convicted by their Verdict Only this Happiness did live with him and doth survive him that such as have no Interest in it but the discovery of Truth do see it was Crimen sine accusatore Sententia sine Concilio damnatio sine defensione Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem He that was degraded without hearing Tryal Proof Witness Judges is overthrown by Calumny not by Accusation For Accusation admits a fair and a legal Process Calumny is believed without a Contestation After this it was not long before some quick Eye espied a way to execute the King's Resolution for divesting the Party of his honourable Place but with such Moderation as would load him with no impeachment of his Service but barely recalling the Great-Seal from his Custody because it was committed to him at first upon triennial Trust and no longer Which was no unwonted Revocation says the great and learned Luminary of Records Sir Henry Spelman in his Glossary upon the word Cancellarius Non perpetuus olim fuit honor sed triennalis vel quadriennalis This device struck the Tally for all Debts and Claims and left the loser a more light Heart though he parted with a heavy Purse For he took his farewel without the least Charge of Trespass or Miscarriage he was cast down but fell not in the Dirt. Sua vulnera ridet Germanam comitata fidem as Pruden
Lord Protector and the rest of the Council which are printed in the Book of Martyrs In the Injunctions of King Edward in the Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth And especially in that Act of Parliament still in force which enables the King from time to time to add what Ceremonies and Decencies he shall hold sitting for the awful and reverend as well administring as receiving of this heavenly Sacrament And be not afraid to be accounted herein too too diligent and ceremonious For we know that in Mysteries of this high Nature Ceremonies wait close upon the Substances They may as well say and peradventure will ere long that an Action of this kind may be done without a Priest as without a troublesome solemn Ceremony Gerson in his Sermon de Coenâ Domini saith Spiritualia sine temporalibus diu esse non posse that things Spiritual would wax cold without things temporal was a Proverb cried up by the worst of the Prelates but I am sure that in these high Mysteries Spiritualia sine temporalibus esse non posse that the Spiritual Graces not essentially for want of any Vertue in them but accidentally by reason of such Weakness and Imperfection in us will fail of their Operations without temporal Ceremonies is the Doctrine not of the worst but of the best both of the Greek and Latin Fathers 57. Fourthly You that are the Seers of Israel must see into the Lives and Manners of your People Which is the sooner done if you look well to your own For it is most true on this case what Gerson saith Vox operum fortiùs sonat quà m vox verborum the sound of your Sermon strikes nothing so shrill in the Ears of your Parish as the sound of your Life and Conversation Take heed therefore you do not Linguâ struere manu destruere as St. Bern. speaks build with the Tongue and pull down with the Hand For the Woman's Frump which Gerson often cited writes of runs as well in English as in other Languages who being demanded Si sermo factus esset if the Sermon was done answered the Sermon was ended but it was not done Dictus quidem est sermo sed non factus It was said by rote but it was not done Dicunt emm hic sacerdotes non faciunt For the Priests with them us'd only to say but seldom to do or to perform their Sermons Fifthly If you be those Seers the Canons require you must see to your Peoples peace quietness and good agreeing That your Neighbours do not spend their Bodies their Minds their Estates and Childrens Bread in brabbles quarrelling and Law-suiting Truly I am afraid that Church-men in England have much to answer for the Calamities of the Laity in this kind Yet have you one by one by the Pole as it were in the Presence of God and your Mother the Church promised the Bishop better things at your Ordinations to wit that you would as much as lay in you maintain Peace and Quietness among all Christian People and especially among those that were committed to your Charge your Friends and Neighbours of the Parish And I shall not need to strain my Logick to let you see how properly and essentially this civil part of a Justice of Peace is woven into the Duty of every Pastour and Minister For without this Peace-making you may preach indeed but in effect to no Parish or Congregation Because Country-men distracted with Law-suits receive little good by you And being sometime in the midst of the Church are as though they were not there Let them say what they will it is too true that in saying the Lord's Prayer after you they pray for Forgiveness without forgiving and too often God knows hear your Sermons with little heed or listning For the poor Souls all that while the Hour-glass runs have Manum in Aetolis animum in Cleopidis as it is said of one in Plutarch they have their Eye it may be upon the Preacher but their Mind upon their Attorney Proctor or Sollicitor Yea but you are most of you learned Men and can undeceive your People from these Phantasies You can shew them out of School-men Quodlibets and Casuists that Men may go to Law and yet be in charity And I must be bold to tell you back again that People will be People for all your distinctions and unless you can perswade them to be in Charity without Law for all your School-men Quodlibets and Casuists the poor Swains will be as they were in Law without charity To conclude this Point where Brother goes to Law with Brother and Neighbour with Neighbour about Matters of small moment I dare not say as St. Paul doth that there is not a wise Man but I will be so bold as to suspect that in that unhappy Town there is scarce a wise and conscientious Minister Lastly If you be Seers of Christ's Flock do as Jacob did that thriving Shepherd look well to your Sheep when they are in conceiving What Colour and Tincture you give them in that hint you shall know them by it for many Years after Never look that that Man should profit at a Sermon whom you never season'd in his Principles of Christianity A Sermon saith St. Cyril is a good thing but not so condition'd as a Catechism Some Lessons forgotten in the one are but loose Stones in a Wall which may be fasten'd again upon a second opportunity but Ignorance in those Principles is a certain great Stone mis-lay'd in the Foundation which hazards the ruine of the whole Building And again says that Father the erecting of a Christian is like the planting of a Tree if you give it not Earth and rooting at the first you can never repair it with watering and pruning Catechism as St. Basil calls it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the preparing Colours wherein you must dip the People without the which for all your Sermons you shall never find them Purple in grain but pale and wan as long as they live as ill-grounded Colours use to do ever and anon staining fading and decaying I will conclude this Point with an Observation of that grave Divine Jo. Gerson in a Sermon of his which I find also in a little Book of Peter de Aliaco De reformatione ecclesiae Ecclesiae reformatio debet inchoari à parvulis If ever you will reform this Church of Men you must begin with that Church of Children And this is all that I shall say unto you in general my good Brethren of the Clergy 58. For you my honest Friends and Neighbours of the Laity I shall say nothing to you of any Particulars whereunto you are to answer by reason of your Offices but transfer you wholly in that respect to those Articles which you have already receiv'd But by way of general Exhortation I am by the ancient Forms of Visitations in this kind to recommend unto you for your Souls good two principal Instructions the one in point of Belief the
worse to answer for I will depart with this mournful matter adding only that the Duke being taken away our Bishop never desisted to do Observance and such Help as he could to his desolate Kindred and Family which the Countess of Denby his Sister would often confess to me and speak of it to his great honour At this time presently upon the dismal Tydings he dispatch'd a most melting Letter to the Countess his Grace's Mother whose Answer to his begins thus My Lord IT is true Nobleness that makes you remember so distressed a Creature as I am and to continue a true Friend in harder Fortunes You give me many Reasons of Comfort for which I kindly thank you for I have need of them all The rest is long and very choicely endited under her own Hand which I pass over more willingly because her Ladiships revolting to the Romish Religion was none of the least causes that brought her Unfortunate Son into the distaste of the People Pace tuâ fari haec liceat Rhamnusia Diva Catullus 81. The Duke being now at rest in his Grave it was conceived this Good at least would come of it that the next Session of Parliament would be very quiet which began on the 20th of January Yet they that thought the Ship was lightned of Jonas saw the Storm encreased Let them that will know the occasion of a wide Breach read it in the Histories and Life of King Charles especially in His Majesty's Declaration to all his loving Subjects printed 1628. wherein the intelligent shall find that the Commons were rather stubborn than stiff rather violent than eager against the King's Affairs and that the King was so provok'd with the heat of one morning that he would not allow a day nor an hour to let them cool again but dismist them with Menaces and thrust them away from him with such displeasure that in twelve years he sent out no Writs to call another Parliament It is too late to wish it had been better then it is not too late to give Warning that it may be better hereafter Who did best or worst many will take the liberty to determine as their addictions carry them to loyal Duty or popular Liberty I judge neither so high above me in their potential Orbs but relate what the Prudent did observe upon their Passages This was the Bishop of Lincoln's Opinion who wept the ruine of the State and was able to see through the present to the future that it was ill in the People to offend so good a King and unhappy for the King to close again no sooner with a bad People The open face of both these shall be seen The Commons were no sooner come together but like Ajax's Rhetorick in the Poet Proh Jupiter inquit they were as hot as an Oven in their exordium and spake loudly That the Petition of Right was not maintain'd because Tonnage and Poundage were taken and Merchants Goods distrein'd for non-payment a Revenue not due to the Crown till pass'd by Bill The King's Council shew'd Presidents that it had been taken in a provisional way before the Parliament had granted it but that His Majesty did desire to receive it by the Grant of his People and pray'd a Bill might confirm it to remove this Block out of the way in which all Controversies would be sopited Hereupon it was promis'd it should be considered and the framing of a Bill be referr'd to a Committee yet they drew back their Hand till they had gather'd a Particular of things distasted in the Ecclesiastical and Civil Government An Affectation which Appius Claudius discover'd in the Tribunes Liv. dec 1. lib. 5. Qui semper aegri aliquid in Rep. esse volunt ut sit ad cujus curationem à vobis adhibeantur Which the King hath put into English Declar. p. 25. Like Empericks that strive to make new Work and to have some Diseases on foot to keep themselves in request Their Inspections about Religion were not only troublesome to make the Bill stick in the Committee the only means to keep all quiet but so inauspicious that I fear God was not near Arminianism was complained of that it was openly maintain'd not suiting with the Articles of the Churches of England and Ireland A strange Spell which raised up the Spirit that it would conjure down As they that mark the encrease of Nile can tell at what day it will begin to overflow so they that watcht the encrease of Arminianism say considently that from this year the Tyde of it began to come in Then they complain'd that the Bishops of London and Winton prevail'd to advance those to great Preferments that spread those Errors while the orthodox part was deprest and under inglorious disdain Never was this verified by a clear and notorious distinction till this Challenge was made That all Preferments were cast on that side Then it began to be palpable that there was no other way to fly over other mens Heads in the Church but with those Wings And here the forlorn part might say to the Parliament as Balak said to Balaam What hast then done unto me I took thee to curse mine Enemies and behold thou hast blest them all together Numb 23.11 Thirdly They did regret at the obtruding of some Ceremonies which waxed in more request and authority upon that opposition as some Flowers open the more when the Wind blows strongest upon them I believe such Remorse as was in Joseph's Brethren would make some of them say We saw the arguish of the King when he besought us and would not hear therefore this Distress is come upon us that all our Counsels are improsperous The prosecution of Civil Grievances miscarried as much and as wise men guess'd because Sir John Ellict stood up to manage them Few lead on to remove the publick Evils of a State without some special feelings and ends of their own Nor was it any better now so far as an action may be known by vulgar passes and every bodies Discourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Menander High Probability is the second degree of Truth Sir J. Elliot of the West and Sir Tho. Wentworth of the North both in the prime of their Age and Wits both conspicuous for able Speakers clasht so often in the House and cudgel'd one another with such strong Contradictions that it grew from an Emulation between them to an Enmity The L. Treasurer Weston pick'd out the Northern Cock Sir Thomas to make him the King's Creature and set him upon the first step of his rising which was Wormwood in the taste of Elliot who revenged himself upon the King in the Bill of Tonnage and then fell upon the Treasurer and declaimed against him That he was the Author of all the Evils under which the Kingdom was opprest Some body must bear that Burden as the Duke had done yet this Lord was not like to be the man who had been in his great Place but about six months
another Sentiment of Wrongs then common People Yet one Rulo is as good for them as for their Vassals to let Counsels mellow and to grow unto a taste by leisure waiting for time and opportunity are such advantages as tire out the spirits of others till we have melted their metal As every sweet thing mixt with Oil will keep its odour the longer so Deliberations the longer they are compounded with Patience in the end they will be the sweeter The King says for himself Declar. p. 40. He would have expected longer if there had been any hope in them to return to their duty It is as the Spanish Proverb says A crooked Cucumber will never grow straight But are all crooked What was in his heroick Mind to think that no Parliament would be right for ever after which appeared because he summoned none in twelve years nor then but when extremity forc't him When did he expect a better Generation that despaired of all for so many years This was to fall out with a whole Nation But says Cyrus to Cyaxares in the Cipher of an absolute King Lib. 5. Cyr. P. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is a great fault in a Ruler to be at odds with all his Subjects He may have his will by taking all Empire into his own hands but with no good will of others The last Tarquin rob'd the Senate of their power omnia in domo regiâ privatim tractabantur Mach. Resp lib. 3. cap. 5. for which Brutus and his party take up Arms till they prosper'd in their sin In more recent memory H. Grotius writes Hist Belg. lib. 1. p. 7. That the disusing of the Assemblies of the States by Philip the Second was the beginning of the Revolt of the Netherlands Discontents that fell in should not abolish Courts fundamental for the Maintainance of Justice We have had most corrupt general Councils for some Ages in the Church therefore shall we never hope to obtain a good one Well did Warsovius speak in his Oration to Stephen King of Polonia Millies licet homo defraudetur ab homine utique hominem cum homine vivere debere Though we have been cheated over and over we must trade again with men It is to be prais'd and admir'd that while Parliaments were laid asleep so long we could not say that we wanted Justice Peace and Plenty much less the true worship of God But for want of that politick Court the People thought they were under a new shaped Monarchy like to an Arbitrary Government which lost the King their Affections more then he could lose them by a seditious Parliament For better to endure frowardness then hatred As Suetotonius says of Caesar De ampliando imperio plura majora indies cogitabat so great Ones both Male and Female carried such Tales out of the Bed-chamber that a more absolute Empire was intended then England had known since the Norman Line All that the King 's incomparable Vertues could plead for him would not satisfie for that Suspicion Men love themselves and like a good Governour better then a Godly Our Bolton writes That not a year of Nero ' s Reign but was stained with some foul fact of manners but the Senators finding content in his Government he was redeem'd into their sufferance and the tolerable Opinion of the People Faults of an impious Life oppress not the Subjects but oblique ways of Government gall them Holy King Charles was full of constant and great Vertues all of them Pearls of a clear water but he did not study to oblige the Generality to gratifie to insinuate nay to go down so low as to slatter them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Eth. lib. 5. cap. 3. That is some are of rare worth take them single and alone that fall short of that persection in those things which they do that relate to others Our King would not buy Applause so cheap as with Blandishments and Courtesie He would not dissemble with the Nobles that had offended him and win them in with Art to recover them He would not purchase the People with fineness of words but purpos'd a more real satisfaction Yea a few drops of water infused into Wine makes it not cease to be Wine nor do a few drops of Cunning â—â—er the Essence of Honesty A King of a most nice Conscience shall still â—â—â—â—in the Servant of God and yet by the verdict of wise men he should be the Servant of the People The Duke of Millain the King of Naples about our Grandfathers days lost their Principalities for not woing their Citizens and espousing their hearts strongly to them The Scepter of the old Latin Princes was a Lituus an Ensign of Majesty crooked at the stronger end because a little bending Policy is necessary in a Magistrate Which Xenophon makes to be the Opinion of his exact Cyrus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lib. 8. That sometime he must couzin the Multitude into good frame and quiet obedience So might our Josiah have done with good success and sincerity of heart preserv'd Such as saw to what he was inclin'd made him abhorrent the more from Parliaments by remembring them with all disadvantage of flirts and contumelies And what did they in it but piss into the common Well from whence all the Neighbourhood drew water John Major pleading for the Authority of a General Council breaks off and says he knew that many more would plead very stiffly for the Pope Quia Concilium rarò congregatur nec dat dignitates Ecclesiasticas Councils met seldom and gave no Preferments as the Pope did So Flatterers and Ambitious Persons stuck to the surer side and desired the King would forget Parliaments and act all himself for the King could promote them so could not a Parliament But in fine to say a very little upon the whole case as St. Austin is quoted by Gratian for this Sentence That it is too great an attempt for Church Discipline to excommunicate a Nation of People so it was no fit Punishment to exterminate or lay aside the Parliaments of a Nation No Parliament for twelve years and too much Parliament for twelve years put all out of order 84. Which Court formidable to Opposers being like a Bow so long unbent some eminent ones that abused the greatness of their power and some ignoble ones that lived upon the impurity of secure Times seared not the Arrows of its Jurisdiction nor to come under account for their Actions at that Tribunal Says Quintilian lib 12. Quaedam animalia in angustiis mobilia in campo deprehenduntur Some Creatures can shift in their own holes but are snapt up easily in the open Fields So such as could do mischief in their Court had no hope to escape in so publick Examination The Bishop of Lincoln felt it who fell into troubles not for want of Innocence but for want of a Parliament to keep him from Malef icence The cause of his uncessant Molestations for twelve years would
to be re-examin'd after Issue joyn'd in case they recover'd A particular Charge being laid before you when the House of Commons is a Party and the Charge of so high a nature as Treason I shall not advise this Honourable House to use any Chiquancery or Pettisoggery with this great Representation of the Kingdom but admit them forthwith to examine their own Members yet with this Caution To hew the Names two days before they be produced to the Sollicitor of the Defendant that he may have notice of the persons But the House press for Secrecy in the Examination Well they are safe enough while they are in the Lord's hands who have Urim and Thummim perfect Knowledge and perfect Integrity and therefore nothing can be suspected Are not they surer than other Officers In ordinary Commissions out of Star-Chamber my Lord Ellsmore would not allow that any Clerks should be used to prevent Futility and Evaporation saying That the best Commissioner in England was not too good to be the King's Clerk Secondly I am as'kt about the Examination of the Peers and the Assistants of this House upon Oath There is no question to be made about the Assistants they are no Peers of this Kingdom but whether Peers may be produced as Witnesses and testifie upon Oath A question not sit to be now handled and impossible to be resolved out of the Rolls of the Parliament because the Peers give their Testimony both in this Court and others either way And I am confident a Peers Averment against his Fellow Peer cannot be refused either way especially in case of Treason For a Peer judgeth his Peer worthy of Death upon his Honour and therefore may witness against him upon his Honour In this Court and almost in this Case in Alze Pierce her Case 1 Rich. 2. Num. 21. Lord Roger Beauchamp swears upon the Holy Evangelists The Lord of Lancaster King of Castile and Leon is examin'd but not sworn Nay both ways have been declar'd in this House to be all one Your Lordships declaring that you did not bound limit or terminate your Assertion with your Honour but mount it and relate it up unto God that gave you your Honour and yielded your selves perjur'd if you falsisied in swearing upon Honour which is just the very same as if you sware upon the Holy Evangelists To swear upon Honour and rest there were Idolatry But to swear upon Honour with a Report and Relation to God who bestowed it upon your Lordships as a special Favour and Grace is as Christian an Oath as any in the World For new Scruples in the manner as to touch the Book to look on the Book to hold up a Finger or Hand to Heaven are Ceremonies which the House of Commons little regards but leaves them to us And the Lord of Strafford is so wise that he will never question the Honour of his Peers And why should we trouble our selves about the circumstance but leave each Lord called to testisie to call God as a Witness to his Assertion in which of these two manners it shall please his Lordship Not the Book not the Honour but the Invocation of God to bear witness to the Assertion makes the Oath 144. I am put to it by your Lordships to speak in the third place about the examination of Privy Councillors Here needs no distinction between Peers and Assistants This is part of a Privy Councillor's Oath That he shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed to him or that shall be treated of in Council 2. If any Treaty touch his fellow-Councillor he shall not reveal it unto him till the King or Council shall require it I collect now that matters of Fact he may reveal without violation of his Oath and that he may be examin'd of matters revealed unto him that were treated of in Council if they were not treated of in Council when he was present That a Privy-Councillor for all his Oath may be examin'd concerning Words Advices or Opinions of another Privy-Councillor otherwise given than in Council That Bed-chamber and Gallery Discourse is nothing to the Council-Table Private Entertainers of the King when the Counsellors attend at the Door are not to pass for Counsellors Ear-wiggs and Whisperers are no Counsellors but detracters from Counsellors If they advise the Destruction of the King the State or the Laws of the Realm there is nothing in the Oath to protect such an Ear-worm but he may be appeached For matters which touch another fellow-Councillor or matters committed otherwise to him or which shall be treated of in Council these are not to be concealed from all forts of men but from private men only not from the King not from the Council both those are in the Oath nor from the Parliament That Privy-Councillots may be examin'd by Command of the Parliament for things treated in Council 2. for things revealed unto them secretly from the King in his Bed-chamber 3. and especially for ear-wigging and treating with the King in private after things already settled in Council The Case of Alze Pierce 1 Rich. II. num 41. clears all these Doubts And it is the Case also of a Deputy of Ireland William of Windsor Lord-Deputy misbehaved himself in Ireland the Council directs Sir Nicholas Dagworth to go thither and to enquire into his Actions Windsor makes means to Alze Pierce to keep off this man under pretence of Enmity betwixt them This Shunamite that lay in David's Bosom prevails with the King to stay Sir N. Dagworth the Council-Order notwithstanding The Lords in Parliament question her for this act as having drawn with it the Ruin of the State in Ireland She pleads not guilty Issue is joyned The Lords produce inter alios John Duke of Lancaster upon his Honor and Roger Beauchamp Lord Chamberlain upon the Evangelists Alze produceth of her part the Steward and Comptroller of the Houshold All these four were Privy-Counsellors they depose all of them nothing else but matters treated of in Council and opposed by Alze Pierce treating with the King out of Council So that if this Record be true this Case is cleared Privy-Councillors may not be forced by ordinary Courts of Justice to reveal things treated of in Council but may be produced upon Oath and Honour to reveal such Secrets by the King the Council or the Parliament especially in detestation of Statewhisperers and Ear-wiggs yea though they had taken no Oath at all Yet God forbid a Privy-Counsellor should witness against his Fellow for publickly venting the freedom of his Judgment at the Board who is bound to advise faithfully not wisely as I do here this day Should any man be accused for an Error of Judgment O God defend peradventure my Error hath set all the rest of the Council straight Errores antiquorum venerari oportet si illi non errassent minùs ipse providissem otherwise you would take away all Freedom of Debates nay almost of very Thoughts If I knew any man
Bishops Dispensations only but Mandates also And those Bishops have been fined at the Kings Bench and elsewhere that absented themselves from Councils in Parliament without the King 's special leave and licence first obtained Thirdly When they are forbidden interesse to be present the meaning is not in the very Canons themselves that they should go out of the room but only that they should not be present to add Authority Help and Advice to any Sentence pronounced against a particular or individual Person in cause of Blood or mutilation If he be present auctorizando consilium opem vel operam dando then he contracts an irregularity and no otherwise saith our Linwood out of Innocentius And the Canon reacheth no further than to him that shall pronounce Sentence of Death or Mutilation upon a particular Person For Prelates that are of Counsel with the King in Parliament or otherwise being demanded the Law in such and such a Case without naming any individuum may answer generaliter loquendo That Treason is to be punisht with Death and a Counterseiter of the King's Coin Hostien lib. 2. eap de fals monet allowed by John Montague de Collatione Parliamentorum In Tracta Doctor Vol. 10. p. 121. Fourthly These Canons are not in force in England to bind the King's Subjects for several Reasons First Because they are against his Majesty's Prerogative as you may see it clearly in the Articles of Clarendon and the Writ of Summons and therefore abolished 25 H. 8. c. 8. It is his Majesty's Prerogative declar'd at Clarendon that all such Ecclesiastical Peers as hold of him by Barony should assist in the King's Judicatures until the very actual pronouncing of a Sentence of Blood And this holds from Henry the First down to the latter end of Queen Elizabeth who imployed Archbishop Whitgist as a Commissioner upon the Life of the Earl of Essex to keep him in Custody and to examine him after that Commotion in London And to say that this Canon is confirm'd by Common Law is a merry Tale there being nothing in the Common Law that tends that way Secondly It hath been voted in the House of Commons in this very Session of Parliament That no Canons since the Conquest either introduced from Rome by Legatine Power or made in our Synods had in any Age nor yet have at this present any power to bind the Subjects of this Realm unless they be confirmed by Act of Parliament Now these Canons which inhibit the Presence of Church-men in Cause that concerns Life and Member were never confirm'd by any but seem to be impeach't by divers and sundry Acts of Parliament Thirdly The whole House of Peers have this very Session despised and set aside this Canon Law which some of the young Lords cry up again in the same Session and in the very same Cause to take away the Votes of the Bishops in the Case of the Earl of Strafford For by the same Canon Law that forbids Clergy-men to Sentence they of that Coat are more strictly inhibited to give no Testimony in Causes of Blood Nee ettam potest esse test is vel tabellio in causâ Sanguinis Linw. part 2. sol 146. For no Man co-operates more in a Sentence of Death than the Witnesses upon whose Attestation the Sentence is chiefly past Lopez pract crim c. 98. distl 21. and yet have the Lords admitted as Witnesses produced by the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford the Archbishops of Canterbury and Armagh with the Bishop of London which Lords command now all Bishops to withdraw in the agitation of the self same Case Bishops it seems may be Witnesses to kill ont-right but may not sit in the Discussion of the Cause to help in case of Innocency a distressed Nobleman Whereas the very Gothish Bishops who first invented this Exclusion of Prelates from such Judicatures allow them to Vote as long as there is any hope left of clearing the Party or gaining of Pardon 4. Conc. Tol. Can. 31. And by the beginning of that Canon observe the use in Spain in that Age Anno 633. as touching this Doctrine Saepe principes contra quoslibet majestatis obnoxios Sacerdotibus negotia sua committunt Binnius 4. Tom. Can. Edit ult p. 592. Lastly In the Case of Archbishop Abbot all the great Civilians and Judges of the Land as Dr. Steward Sir H. Martin the Lord Chief Justice Hobart and Judge Doderidge which two last were very well versed in the Canon Law delivered positively when my self at first opposed them That all Irregularities introduced by Canons upon Ecclesiastical Persons concerning matters of Blood were taken away by the Reformation of the Church of England and were repugnant to the Statute 25 II. 8. as restraining the King 's most just Prerogative to imploy his own Subjects in such Functions and Offices as his Predecessors had done and to allow them those Priviledges and Recreations as by the Laws and Customs of this Realm they had formerly enjoy'd notwithstanding the Decree de Clerico venatore or the Constitution nae Clerici Saeculare c. or any other in that kind 150. The only Objection which appears upon any Learning or Record against the Clergies Voting in this Kingdom in Causes of Blood are two or three Protestations entred by the Bishops among the Records of the upper House of Parliament and some few Passages in the Law-Books relating thereunto The Protestation the Lords now principally stand upon is that of William Courtney Archbishop of Canterbury 11 Rich. 2. inserted in the Book of Priviledges which Mr. Selden collected for the Lords of the upper House In the Margin whereof that passage out of R. Hovenden about which we spake before about Clergy-mens agitation of Judgments of Blood is unluckily inserted and for want of due consideration and some suspicion of partial carriage in the Bishops in the case of the Earl of Strafford hath been eagerly pressed upon the Bishops by some of the Lords in such an unusual and unaccustomed manner that if I my self offering to speak to this Objection had not voluntarily withdrawn the rest of the Bishops and I had been without hearing voted out of the House in the agitation of a Splinter of that Cause of the Earl of Strafford's which came not near any matter of Blood An act never done before in that honourable House and ready to be executed suddenly without the least consideration of the merit of the Cause The only words insisted upon in the Protestation of Courtney's are these Because in this present Parliament certain matters are agitated whereat it is not lawsul for us according to the Prescript of holy Canons to be present And by and by after they say These matters are such in the which Nec possumus nec debemus interesse This is the Protestation most stood upon That of Archbishop Arundel 21 Rich. 2. is not so full and ample as this of Courtney's For the Bishops going forth left their Proxies with the
it was happy for him when five years after Lime-Hounds were laid close to his foot-steps to hunt him and every corner searched to find a little of that Dust behind his door Eut it proved a dry scent to the Inquisitors for to his Glory and the Shame of his Enemies it could never appear that the least Bird-lime of Corruption did stick to his Fingers And now I have shewn what was the rich Portion which he brought when he was wedded to the Office of the Great-Seal these are convictive and day-light Evidences To one or two Writers of late that have gone another way I have nothing to answer because in those things wherein they calumniate they address not themselves to prove any thing Enough to give them up to the censure of that Infamy which they merit Qui notitiam viri non ex bonis gestis dictisque sed ex minus probabilibus fieri volunt quo quid nequius says the Author called Zeno of Verona When such candid Authors as Sir T. Moore Sir J. Hayward S. Daniel and Renowned Camden wrote the Lives of Princes they drew the Characters of Men by their Actions and Speeches not out of Obloquies and Suspicions the Brats of rotten Fame that have no Father But in Sick or rather Pestilentious Times when no Wares are set forth so much as Untruths and Malice too many are not more bold to Lie then confident to be Believed Never with no People under the Sun did Veracity suffer so much as by the Pen of Sir A. Wel. whose Pamphlet is Perpetuus Rhotacismus one snarling Dogs-Letter all over which I condemn therefore as Philoxenus the Poet censured Dionysius the Syracusan's Tragedy A fronte ad calcem unâ liturâ circumduxit Correct it with one Scratch or Score from the beginning to the end 66. Such as he are not in my way why then should I loiter one Line to jostle them out Yet since discreet Persons and they that extol'd the Dean and confess'd that his Soul carried a great freight of Worth did think their Exceptions weighty against his undergoing that great Office I will not dissemble as if I were a Stranger to them The Words of the Wise are as Nails fastned by the Masters of Assemblies Eccles 12.11 Yet some Nails are not so fast in but they may be wrench'd out Many alledged that he had Dedicated himself to the Church in an holy Calling Why should he take his hand from his own Plow to preside in Secular Affairs Indeed when the Harvest was great and the Labourers few it was the Summum bonum of a Labourer to ply that Harvest for nothing could be better then to Plant the Gospel among those that had not believed But where an whole Nation is gained so far as to believe in Christ and the Message of Salvation known to all that Church is preserved unto Christ by other means beside Preaching They that attend their Charge in Prayer Exhortation and dispensing the Sacraments in all Quarters of the Land had need to have some of their own Coat in Places of Power and Dignity to preserve their Maintenance from Sacrilege and their Persons from being trodden down with dirty Feet Such as God hath bless'd to go in Rank with the Chiefest to help their Brethren whether in public Office or in Attendance on their Sovereign in his Chappel Closet Eleemosynary Trust or the like they are as much in the Harvest as they that labour in the Pulpit St. Ambrose in his sundry Embassages for his Lord the Emperor the Father of Gr. Nazianzen a Bishop of whom his Son says in his Epitaph that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 employed in Pre-eminency and Honour and Government Euseb de vit Constanti l. 4. c. 27. Sozom. l. 1. c. 9. mention the Rescript of Constantine to Ablavius the Praetorian Praefect Ut pro Sanctis semper venerabilibus habeatur quicquid Episcoporum fuerit sententiâ terminatum idque in cansis omnibus quae vel Praetorio vel civili jure tractantur Which large Concession of Constanstine was restrained indeed by Gratian and Valentiman an 376 Ad causas quae ad Religionis observantiam pertinebant All the Prelates to whom the Emp. Constantine the Great referred the Hearing of Causes by Appeals which they discharged to the gaining of great Love and Praise these were not out of their Sphere but served the Church when they did that which ingratiated the Church and made the Christian Name to be venerable Some never speak of Secular Policy but as of a Prophane thing whereas a worthy Man may manage a Civil Tribunal with that maintenance of Virtue with that galling of Vice and evil Manners so as many good Pulpit-Orators put together might give God thanks if their Success were equal Councils it is true may be produced as to be brief the Quin-Sext in Trullo can 11 which forbids Priests and Deacons it names not Bishops 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to handle worldly Principalities I am struck with Reverence to the Council but not Convicted by its Reason which is fetch'd out of one Scripture that no Man can serve two Masters Tell this to the Ecclesiastics of Rome who are wholly buried in Things not only different but contrary to the Ministry Instituted by Christ Opposite Masters cannot be served by one faithful Servant subordinate may for we may love both and hate neither The King's Service in a Righteous way is not opposite to Christ's Evangelical Administrations but co-incident And a Supreme Governor doth not lose his Right in a Subject that is made a Priest or Bishop but may employ him under him as he pleaseth since the compacture of the whole Commonwealth together is but one Christian Oeconomy ABP Spotswood p. 299. In the Articles proponed to the Parliament at Sterling by Mr. Andrew Melvin an 1578. this is the 17th of the 11th Cap. We deny not that Ministers may and should assist their Princes when they are required in all things agreeable to the Word of God whether it be in Council or Parliament or out of Council providing always that they neither neglect their own Charges nor through flattery of Princes hurt the public State of the Church A Caution that their own Charges be not neglected is most Pious otherwise the Indulgence is very indefinite Many Zealots are as kind to themselves in England to serve their own turn I never saw any of our Ministry more abstracted from their Studies continually progging at the Parliament-Door and in Westminster-Hall for many years together having no Calling but that of an Evil Spirit to raise Sedition then those that were most offended at a Bishop for bestowing some part of his Time in a Secular Place And yet a considerate Judge will not say that the Lord-Keepership is an Employment merely Secular To mitigate the strict Cases of the Law with the Conscience of the King in whose Place he sits is it not as fully Ecclesiastical as a Consistory of teaching and ruling Elders
up the greatest part of the Time in speaking to the Redress of petty Grievances like Spaniels that rett after Larks and Sparrows in the Field and pass over the best Game Therefore his Majesty to loose no time drew up a Proclamation with his own Pen Feb. 20 to this end that certain of the Lords of the Privy Council should have Power and special Commission to receive the Complaints of all the good People of this Land which should be brought before them concerning any Exorbitances Vexations Oppressions and Illegalities and either by their own Authority if it would reach to it to see them corrected or to give Orders to cut them off by the keenest Edge of the Laws That Complainants should be encouraged to present their Grievances as well by the Invitement of the Proclamation as by the Signification of the Judges to the Country and Grand Juries in their respective Circuits The Draught of this the Features of his Majesty's own Brain came by Post to pass the Great Seal Yet for all that Hast the Lord Keeper took time to scan it and sent it back with Advice that the Project would be sweeter if it were double refined presuming therefore that his Majesty would not be unwilling to stop a little at the Bar of good Counsel he wrote this ensuing Letter to the Court Feb. 22. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty 120. I Do humbly crave Your Majesties Pardon that I forbear for two or three days to seal Your Proclamation for Grievances until I have presented to Your Majesty this little Remonstrance which would come too late after the Sealing and Divulging the Proclamation First As it is now coming forth it is generally misconstrued and a little sadly look'd upon by all men as somewhat restreining rather than enlarging Your Majesties former Care and Providence over Your Subjects For whereas before they had a standing Committee of all the Council-Table to repair unto they are now streitned to four or five only Most of which number are not likely to have any leisure to attend the Service Secondly I did conceive Your Majesty upon Your first Royal Expression of Your Grace in this kind in a Resolution to have mingled with some few Lords of Your privy-Privy-Council some other Barons of Your Kingdom Homines as Pliny said of Virginius Rufus innoxiè Populares Whose Ears had been so opened to the like Grievances in the time of Parliament as their Tongues notwithstanding kept themselves within the compass of Duty and due Respect to Your Majesty as the Earls of Dorset and Warwick the Lord Houghton Dr. Morton the Lord Dennie the Lord Russel the Lord North. And among the Lords Spiritual the Bishops of Lichfield Rochester and Ely and especially unless Tour Majesty in Your deep Wisdom have some Reasons of the Omission Dr. Buckeridge the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This mixture would produce the these Effects ensuing First An Intimation of Your Majesties Sincerity and Reality in this Proclamation Dr. Felton Secondly A more free and general Intimation to Parties Aggrieved who will repair soonear to these private Peers then to the great Lords of Your Majesties Council Thirdly The making of these Lords and the like Witnesses of Your Majesties Justice and good Government against the next ensuing Parliament and the stopping of their Ears against such supposed Grievances at that time as shall never be heard of in their Sitting upon this Commission Fourthly and Lastly The gaining of these Temporal Lords to side with the State being formerly much wrought upon by the Factious and Discontented If Your Majesty shall approve of these Reasons it is but to Command Your Secretary to interline these or some of these Names in the Commission which in all other respects is already wisely and exceeding well penn'd with two short Clauses only First That these Lords shall attend very carefully and constantly in Term-time when they are occasion'd to be at London Secondly That they be instructed to receive all Complaints with much Civility and Encouragement giving them full Content and Redress according to the merit of their Grievances For nothing will sooner break the Heart of a People or make them lose their Patience than when hopes of Justice are frustrated after the Royal Word is engaged But if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom will overpass these Particulars which I have dutifully presented upon the return of the Proclamation as it is it shall be sealed and divulged with all expedition But these Reasons were not overpass'd Both the Proclamation and private Orders to the Lords Commissioners were reformed by the Contents of that weighty Letter His Majesty greatly inclining to the Lord-Keeper's Readiness and espying Judgment in all Consultations For as Laertius in Zeno's Life said of a famous Musician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Ismenias could play well upon all Instruments So this was another Ismenias who had the Felicity to make all Deliberations pleasing and tuneable especially he had that way above all that I knew to make sweet Descant upon any plain Song that was prick'd before him It will be to the Profit of the Reader if I rub his memory with one Passage of the Letter for it is but one though it come in twice which presseth the King to Sincerity and Reality to fix his Word like the Center of Justice that cannot be moved Righteous Lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16.23 And a King of Righteous Lips is most delightful Since the coercitive part of the Law doth not reach him upon what Nail shall those Millions that stand before his Throne hang their Hopes if his Word do not bind him A People that cannot give Faith to their Sovereign will never pay him Love It seems that the ancient Latin Kings did profess to use Crookedness and Windings of Dissimulation in their Polity therefore their Scepter was called Lituus because it bent in toward the upper end But the Scepter of thy Kingdom says David of GOD is a right Scepter A right one indeed For Contracts and Promises bind God to Man much more must they oblige the King to his People An Author of our own Dr. Duck in his very Learned Treatise De usu Juris Civilis p. 44. hath well delivered this Morality Princeps ad contractum tenetur uti privatus nec potest contractum suum rescindere ex plenitudine potestatis cum maximè in eo requiratur bena sides Falshood is Shop-keepers Language or worse but 't is beneath Majesty 121. A Parliament being not far of either in the King's Purpose or in Prospect of Likelihood Serj Crooke Cvew Finch Damport Bramston Bridgman Crawly Headly Thin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authurst Blng. Dâ—y the Lord Keeper was provident that the Worthies of the Law should be well entreated Their Learning being most comprehensive of Civil Causes and Affairs they had ever a great Stroke in that Honorable Council Therefore he wrought with his Majesty to sign a Writ for the Advancement of some
strong and violent Machination in hand which had turn'd the Prince a most Obedient Son before to a quite contrary Course to his Majesties Intentions Thirdly That the Counsel began last Summer at Madrid but was lately ripen'd and resolv'd in England to restrain his Majesty from the Exercise of the Government of his three Kingdoms and that the Prince and the Duke had design'd such Commissioners under themselves as should intend great Affairs and the Publick Good Fourthly That this should be effected by beginning of a War and keeping some Troops and Companies on Foot in this Land whereby to constrein His Majesty to yield to any thing chiefly being brought into Streits for want of Monies to pay Souldiers Fifthly That the Prince and Duke inclosing his Majesty from the said Embassador and other of his own Loyal People that they might not come near him in private did Argue in them a fear and distrust of a good Conscience Sixthly That the Emissaries of the Duke had brought his Majesty into Contempt with the Potent Men of the Realm traducing him for slothful and unactive for addiction to an inglorious Peace while the inheritance of his Daughter and her Children are in the Hands of his Foes and that this appear'd by a Letter which the Duke had writ into Holland and they had intercepted Seventhly That his Majesties Honour Nay his Crown and Safety did depend upon a sudden Dissolution of the Parliament Eighthly They Loaded the Duke with sundry misdemeanors in Spain and his violent Opposition of the Match Ninthly That the Duke had divulged the King's Secrets and the close Designs between his Majesty and their Master K. Philip about the States of Holland and their Provinces and labour'd to put his Majesty out of the good Opinion of the Hollanders Tenthly That the Duke was guilty of most corrupt dealing with the Embassadors of divers Princes Eleventhly That all things were carried on in the Parliament with a headlong Violence and that the Duke was the Cause of it who courted them only that were of troubled Humours Twelfthly That such Bitterness and Ignominies were vented against the King of Spain in Parliament as was utterly against all good Manners and the Honour of the English Nation Thirteenthly Is a flat Contradiction to the Precedents wherein they made the Prince privy to dangerous things yet in this they say That the Puritans of whom the Duke was Head did wish they could bring it about that the Succession of the Kingdom might come to the Prince Palatine and his Children in Right of the Lady Elizabeth Thus lay the Notes of the Lord Keeper This is the Dirt which the Swallows or rather unclean Birds pickt up and made their Nest of it And this is not all But that which remains shall be burnt in the Fire Latere semper patere quod latuit diu Saepè eruentis veritas patuit malo Senec. in Aedipo In a Postscript the Paper prayed the King That Don Francisco Carondelet Secretary to Marquess Inoiosa might be brought to the King when the Prince and Duke were sitting in the Upper House to satisfie such doubts as the King might Raise which was perform'd by the Earl of Kelly who watch'd a fit Season for Francisco at one time and for Padre Maestro the Jesuit at another time who told their Errand so spitefully that the King was much troubled at their Relations 202. He that says U. Sanderson P. 562. that not a day past but that he was present and acquainted with all the Transaction of these pernicious Delators to the end should have said he knew it at the end when the Monster was brought to light then his History indeed will justifie it self that it did not startle the King But his Majesty's Sorrow increased while it was smothered and Fear set in apace till a wise Remonstrance resisted it And it was no Wonder that he was abused a while and dim sighted with a Character of Jealousie For the Parliament was about to land him in a new World to begin and maintain a War who thought that scarce any Mischief was so great as was worth a War to mend it Wherein the Prince did deviate from him as likewise in Affection to the Spanish Alliance but otherwise promised nothing but Sweetness and Obedience He stuck at the Duke most of all whom he defended in part to one of the Spanish Ministers yet at the same time complained that he had noted a turbulent Spirit in him of late and knew not how to mitigate it Thus casting up the Sum he doubted it might come to his own Turn to pay the Reckoning The Setters on expected that their Pill could not choose but have a most violent Operation And it wrought so far that his Majesty's Countenance fell suddenly that he mused much in Silence that he entertained the Prince and Duke with mystical and broken Speeches From whence they gathered all was not right and questing for Intelligence they both heard that the Spanish Secretary and the Jesuit Maestro had been with him and understood that some in the Ambassador's House had vaunted that they had netled the Duke and that a Train would take Fire shortly to blow up the Parliament While his Majesty was gnawn with this Perplexity he prepared for Windsor to shift Ground for some better Ease in this Unrest and took Coach at St. James's-House-Gate in the end of April being Saterday Afternoon He received his Son into the Coach and sound a slight Errand to leave Buckingham behind as he was putting his Foot in the Boot which brought Tears from him and an humble Prayer that his Majesty would let him know what could be laid to his Charge to offend so gracious a Master and vowed it by the Name of his Saviour to purge it or confess it The King did not satisfie him in it it seems the time of Detection in his deep Judgment was not come and he had charged all that were privy to the Occasion to be very secret Cab. P. 77. But he breathed out this Disgust That he was the Unhappiest alive to be forsaken of them that were dearest to him which was uttered and received with Tears from his own Eyes as well as the Prince's and Duke's whom he left behind and made hast with his Son for Windsor The Lord Keeper spared not for Cost to purchase the most certain Intelligence of those that were his feed Pensioners of every hours Occurrencies at Court and was wont to say That no man could be a Statesman without a great deal of Money Of this which had hapned his Scout related presently what he could see for he heard little Which News were no sooner brought but he sought out the Duke at Wallingford-House and had much ado to be admitted to him in his sad Retirement Whom he found laid upon a Couch in that immoveable Posture that he would neither rise up nor speak though he was invited to it twice or thrice by courteous Questions The Lord Keeper
North gave our Bishop a breathing time from his Troubles And when the Articles of Pacification made at Berwick were burnt in London true or uncorrupted I dispute not I that report this was the first that carried the Tidings to the Tower and I call God to witness the Bishop presently broke out into these words I am right sorry for the King who is like to be forsaken by his Subjects at home but far more by all Kings and Princes abroad who do not love him But for the Archbishop says he he had best not meddle with me for all the Friends he can make will be too few to save himself A fatal fore-sight of all impending and ensuing Mischiefs But do you not hope Sir said I that such Concussions as you fear to come to pass will give you your Peace and Liberty Possibly they will says he But no honest man shall be the better for a Scotch Reformation wherein the Hare-brains among us are engaged with them Which is like that of Rutilius deported in Banishment to Mytelene one comforted him with hope of Civil Wars and then all that were banish'd should return to Rome says Rutilius Quid tibi mali feci ut mibi pejorem reditum quà m exitum sperares That which did precipitate the common Fortune and made all things worse and worse was the King's very sudden dissolving the Parliament met in Apr. 1640. His Majesty had been forewarned by a worthy Counsellor and a dying man against that Error in the Christmas before Cujus mortem dolor omnium celebrem fecit Sym. Ep. p. 11. It was L. Keeper Coventry who made but one Request with his last Breath to the King and sent it by Mr. James Maxwel of the Bed-Chamber That His Majesty would take all Distasts from the Parliament summoned against April with patience and suffer it to sit without an unkind dissolution But the Barking of the living Dogs was sooner heard than the Groaning of a dying Lyon for that Parliament ended in a few days in its Infancy and in its Innocency but the Grief for it will never end The next came on Novemb. 3. with all Animosities that could be infused out of Scotch and English Distempers The Bishop of Lincoln Petitions the King by the Queens Mediation that he might be set at liberty and have his Writ as a Peer to sit in Parliament which was opposed by the L. Finch then Custos sigilli magni and Archbishop Laud as appears by a Letter written to Sir Richard Winn Octob. 3. in these words 130. Good Cousin WITH my hearty Thanks remembred for all your great however unfortunate care of me and my Affairs Though you would not let me know any thing that might be any Grief or Discomfort to me yet I hear it of other Hands That I am eternally bound to the Queens Majesty and bound to remain her Vassal as long as I live And that I owe much to some other great Lords of His Majâ—â—ty's Council And that his Grace by my Lord Keeper's bold and much-mistaken Information to His Majesty that the Parliament cannot examine Errors and Oppressions in such an arbitrary Court as the Star-chamber is doth keep off His Majesty from using his Clemency towards me or permitting me to employ my best Endeavours to serve him My Lords Grace and Secretary Windebank have good reason to wish me out of the Parliament and out of the World too if they conceive I have no other business there than to complain against them And so hath the Lord Keeper and Sir J. Lamb. If her gracious Majesty whom than willingly offend I will rather dye will be pleased to set aside the Relations those two Personages have towards Her Majesty and set her poor Servant at liberty to take his course for Redress for those intolerable Concussions they have used against him And that I do not speak herein beside my Books I pray you and your Friends to peruse the bundle of Papers I send you which I desire you to return to me c. Through the Perswasion of those about the King whom the Letter discovers Lincoln was like to lye by it and to be shut out of Mercy by an irreversible Decree But the Lords of the Upper House after they had look'd about them a while on Nov. 16. sent to the Lieutenant of the Tower to deliver him to then Officer of the Black Rod who conducted him to the Parliament and their Lordships gave him his Place among his Brethren in the Bishops-Bench The King did soon hear of his Carriage that he neither complain'd nor so much as glanced at his Persecutors As a true Lover of his Country said Cic. Ep. Fam. lib. 10. Non me impedient privatae offensiones quò minùs pro Reip salute etiam cura inimicis consentiam His Majesty heard more That he was his faithful Minister and Stable to stand for him in all motions and did not refrain to fall sharply upon those Lords to whom he owed his Releasement for not speaking dutifully of His Majesty and of his Actions with Reverence Upon it the King sent for him and had conference with him alone till after midnight and made him some amends for the Evils past by commanding all Orders filed and kept in any Court or Registry upon the former Hearings and Dependencies against him to be slighted cancell'd crazed that no Monument or Memorial of them might remain So Aâ—m Probus tells us what Reparation was made to Alcibiades after he was brought home to Athens from his Exile Pilae in quibus devotio scripta fuit contra Alcibiadem in mare praecipitatae post quà m à Spartá revocatus est To quote a nearer Example When Constantine let Athanasius return again to his See at Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. ad Solit. Vit. p. 823. All that was engross'd against Athanasius he commanded the Memory of it to be rid out of the way and all of it to be blotted out Look for such another Instance in Symmachus Ep. p. 127. of him that was thrice honour'd in being reinvested in those Honours from which he was degraded Majus quiddam est honorem restituere quam dedisse c. For Fortune may confer but only Judgment restores to Honour I am come to the end of those Suits with which our Bishop was overwhelmed and still made Defendant against the King Let Posterity observe how he was censur'd and grievously but for two things tampering with Witnesses never known before to be a fault in the Realm of England and for being suspected to have received two Letters in Cyphers of a mystical sence and as slight regard Being accused for divulging the King's Counsels and for Subornation of Witnesses he broke the neck of those Bills Being questioned for his Book in the High-Commission Court he wound himself out of the Labyrinth of all their Articles From an Hodg-potch of new Informations in Star-chamber he deliver'd himself by adventuring to appeal from that Court to the
for that which outgoes my Knowledge shall never undergo my Censure As our English People say Much Cry and little Wool these two Houses produced small things in the close Nothing more uncertain than what a Parliament will bring forth in the end At the Colloquy at Ratisbon Tanner granted that the Pope might err in a Council unless he used all due and ordinary means But the Jesuit in effect granted nothing For says he without all doubt and question he doth ever use those means But if a Parliament were all Popes and made out their Consults with the Line and Plumbet of the best Diligence Obliquity would fall out because all human Light burns dim in the Lanthorn of thick misty Passions It is observ'd that His Majesty removed one Parliament to Oxon in the first of his Reign this other in the nineteenth both rose up abruptly and gave him small content How is it that publick Councils were improsperous in those delicate Seats of Arts and Sciences The Genius of the place is not pleased with those Areopagites for they are not proper Visitors of its learned Foundations Themistius hath these words in an Oration upon the Muses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all agree very well together but the Muses like no other company 200. Oxford wanted not Bishops at this time many lodg'd in it but they were excluded to sit and vote as Peers in Parliament yet their presence serv'd for very good use His Majesty had preferred Dr. Frewin the President of Magdalen-College to the Bishoprick of Lichfield and Coventry whom none of his Predecessors did exceed in Prudence Bounty and Advancement of learned Scholars who was consecrated by the Archbishop of York in the Chappel of his own College and feasted the Nobles and Clergy in a fair Room built at his own Cost It is not to be pass'd over that he left the Presidentship of that College a place of Security and Plenty to take a Bishoprick when those Dignities were voted out of the Church by the Disciplinarians and their Revenues offer'd to sale to pay the Charges of their Army Which was an act of as much Hope and Courage as that Roman's in Livy That when Rome was besieged by Hannibal bargain'd for and bought that piece of Land upon which the Carthaginians had pitch'd their Camp To return from this little Diversion into the great Road When the Parliament had made a recess His Majesty call'd a few able Statesmen to him in private among whom our Archbishop was one and being the first in precedency was called upon to begin and to say freely what might best be done to bring His Majesty and his faithful part out of those Troubles which the Lords and Gentlemen that lately undertook it had left no better than they found them The Archbishop was very backward and made many Excuses desiring to hear others that had been more assiduous in those great Affairs which being not granted he was honester than the Oracle of Apollo as Eusebius objects it to the Pagans lib. 6. Praep. Evan. c. 1. That the Oracle much importuned in a certain case and loth to give an Answer burst out into this passion Retine vim istam falsa enim dicam si coges An Evasion sit for the Couesels of the Devil But the Archbishop took his mark from St. Ambrose Ep. 29. to Theodosius Neque est imperiale libertatem dicendi negare neque Sacerdotale quod sentias non dicere So he broke into the matter Sir says he to the King my Opinion will be strange and I fear unwelcome If it please not yet do not impute it to Falshood or Fear but to Error and Mistaking Your Militia is couragious but small not like to encrease and then not to hold out Your Enemies multiply and by this time your Army hath taught them to fight They are in Treaty with the Scots to make a Recruit and the Princes and States beyond Seas to their shame give them countenance Their Treasurers at Westminster boast that it costs them large Moneys every month to keep Correspondence with their Intelligencers and Spies about you Your Souldiers in their March and Quarters are very unruly and lose the Peoples Affections every where by the Oppressions they sustain Out of these Premises I inferr and I engage my Life to your Majesties Justice and my Soul to God's Tribunal that I know no better course than to struggle no further since so it is the Will of God and to refer all to the pleasure and discretion of that unkind and insolent Parliament at Westminster but with the preservation of your Majesties Crown and Person to which they have all taken an Oath to offer no Hurt or Violence and have renewed it in many Protestations As likewise with the Indemnity of your Adherents for we save a Ship with the loss of the Goods not of the Passengers If any thing will soften them it will be this most pacifick and gracious Condescention The Heathens speak rudely that Constancy in Suffering will tire out the Cruelty of the Gods but certainly such a Sufferance and Self-denial as resigns up your Majesties Cause and Trust quite unto them will make the worst of them asham'd of their pertinacy and melâ—â—â— the best into a shower of Repentance But if your Majesty disdains to go so low and will not put the good of the Church and Kingdom upon their Faith to which Misery I fear our Sins have brought us I am ready to run on in the common Hazard with your Majesty and to live and dye in your Service There was danger in so much Plain-lealing for Xenophon lib. 2. Hist relates that in a Case to this as near as can be Archestratus was cast in Prison for advising the Athenians to take such Conditions of Peace as the Lacedemonians would give them after their great Overthrow at Aegos-potamos Yet some noble persons at the prosecution of this Consultation struck in with the Archbishop's Judgment the most dissented the King was not pleased in it and the Burden lay upon the Fore-man that began it Says the Son of Syrach c. 7 5. Boast not of thy Wisdom before the King The Note of Grotius is extant upon it Qui excellunt sapientiâ suspecti fermè regibus But the Gallantry of the Array were quite out of patience to hear of it their Heaven upon Earth was to see the day that they might subdue and be revenged of the Roundheads The common Souldier that subsisted upon Pay and Plunder had as lieve dye as lose his Trade Tanta dulcedo est ex alienis fortunis praedandi Liv. lib. 6. Now because this was called the Archbishop's Judgment though others consented and suffer'd hard words it will be to some purpose to unfold it a little and to defend the Innocent For he that lives may out-wear a Disgrace not he that is dead Therefore Arist maintains it in his ninth Problem that it is more just to do right to the Dead than to the Living
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents