the subject adulterate the true Protestant Religion with the superstitious mixture of Popery as it manifestly appeared by his admittance of a Jesuiticall crew into his own Court Cappuchins at Somerset-house with large maintenance even in the face of the Court and eye of the Kingdom with a generall connivence amounting to a tacite toleration to all Papists together with idolatrous Masses both in his own house permitted andused throughout the Kingdom in most Papists houses without controule in imitation of Solomon after that by his Wives he was turn'd Idolater to set up the abomination of Ashteroth even in the face of Jerusalem And as to his invading of the Libertyes of the people with his many other oppressions and irregularities we all know and have good cause to remember them The Breviary of his Life and unfortunate Reigne manifestly declares as to his intent of suppressing of Parliaments and future oppression of the people the observations I intend to send you with his own Letters sufficiently demonstrates by whose motion and Counsels those exorbitances were first by his own Fathers Instructions pursued found in his Cabinet at Theobalds immediately after his departure and whereof one was to quit himself by degrees of all Parliaments as too bold Co-partners in the Government with their Kings to run the future course of his government answerable to that of France and to verifie this I shall point you to King James his own Speech in open Parliament 1609. March 21. Where you may see what preparations he had provided for his Successor to rule by parallelling himself with God who he saith Hath power to create or destroy make or un make at his pleasure to give life or send death to judge all and to be judged or to be accomptable to none to raise low things and to make high things low at pleasure and to God are both Soul and Body due the like power saith this King have Kings they make and unmake their Subjects they have power of raising and casting down of life and death Iudges over all their Subjects and in all causes and yet accomptable to none but God alone they have power to exalt low things and abase high things and to make of their Subjects like men at Chess a pawn to take a Bishop or a Knight and to cry up and down their Subjects as they doe their money Whence you may observe this Kings Principles which in the Speech it selfe every where extant you may find that even this King whom the world stiled the Platonicall King and was reputed a pious Prince took the hint of his tyrannicall principles from a Bishop who in the very face and audience of a Court of Parliament preacht all these fine arbitrary doctrines and yet in the Speech it self fol. quarto you shall find the King defends him Hence you way perceive by whose counsells the late King steered all the course of his government after his accession to the Crown with the reason of his seldome calling of Parliaments and his often dissolving of such as he did call without their due effects I shall now faithfully relate the whole progresse of the War and by what female advice he was directed to the reducing of all the three Kingdomes under his absolute power and for your better satisfaction shall by the way present you with the orignall cause of his hatred against this Parl. and by what strange means it was summoned and at a time when all wise men had given all Parliaments for lost which although long since and by many more able pens than mine have been sufficiently manifested to the world yet for your sake I shall adventure to present them a new as having little more in addition to the elabourate pains of others than in some particulars which I find not as yet produced to the light of the world Briefly then It is a knowne truth that the King in that his unnecessary raising of a warre against the SCOTS and through the prodigality of the Court especially the petulancy and lavishnesse of the Queens side had so exceedingly exhausted both his Exchequer and Credit and reduced himself to that extreme Indigence that he knew not whither to turn himself neither as in the Breviary of his Reigne is exactly laid down could that great head-piece the grand Master for carrying on of all his Arbitrary work shew him how to dis-intangle himselfe out of that harle wherein his owne wilfull Inclinations had incumbred him We all know that the King on the entrance of the Scots at Newborne in August 1640. took a posting journey Northward to his Army Strafford being Commissioned Generall in the room of the Earl of Northumberland whither they were no sooner arrived but they found the Souldiery in little better than mutiny for want of their pay the whole army then lying on Free-quarter on the County of York and the King without so much money as would pay halfe a Regiment the Scots possest of the Town of Newcastle the Nobility having been exhausted in their attendance the Summer before yet to shew their loyalty they again repair to York amongst the rest the Earls of Hartford and Essex in their journey take an occasion by the way to addresse themselves to the Queen to whom they declare the sad condition wherein both the King and Kingdome were then reduced and that they saw no possible means other then a Parliament whereby to repair the State relieve the King and peece up the rents and breaches between both Nations on this expostulation they prevailed with the Queen to write her Letters to his Majesty to move him to condescend to the summons of this Parliament the mention whereof they very well knew without such a mediatrix would be very displeasing unto him these Lords being thus provided with her Majesties Letters repair to Yorke and presented them to the King and upon consultation with the rest of the Lords then attending his Majesty five and twenty of them joyn in a Petition to that purpose The Scots likewise and 200 Gentlemen of the County of York concurring in the same sute for a present summons of a Parliament Thus was his Majesty as I may say beleaguered on all hands not anyone but Strafford dissenting in the end what between the Kings urgent necessities and a concurrency of Petitions together with the Queens Letters which weigh'd most with the King was this Parliament contrary to the expectation of all men produced to the admiration of the Kingdom though against the Kings expresse vow taken at the putting off his robes as before is mentioned when he dissolved his second Parliament and in a contemptuous deportment threw them from him protesting that it should be the last time of their putting off or on Hence we may discern through what difficulties and streights this Parliament took it's beginning we may well say by Gods speciall providence and by hers principally as the instrumentall cause thereof which
had with the apprehension of the Irish insurrection and that horrible slaughter there committed on the poor English Protestants and that they stood not a little in jelousie and affrighted at their assiduall intell igence received from beyond sea of the Kings preparations and that his heart was not right towards them but of this he had determined to put them soon out of doubt and the more to confuse them conceiving that the Citizens would on all occasions be wholly for him having in his approach to the City in his returne from Scotland and his entry into the Suburbs and throughout all the City courteously saluted the people by the often puting off his Hat as before is intimated a favour which till then neither himselfe or his Father before him had never bestowed upon the vulgar when as it after appeared his designe was to make use of them having in readinesse and shortly after fild whitehall with the forlorn Officers of his Casheered Army he takes an occasion under pretence of suspicion of Treason to send for Sir Arthur Hasterigge Mr ' Hollis Mr. Pym Mr. Stroude and Mr. Hamden of the Commons House and my Lord Kimboulion of the Lords House by one of his Serjeants at Arms which being denyed him by the House as a plain breach of their privileges The very next day being the fourth of January he comes attended with his guards and those armed Cavaleers and entred into the House of Commons sits downe in the Speakers Chaire and demands the foresaid six Members which upon private intelligence given them of the Kings intent had absented themselves the King missing his prey grew exceedingly into choller and vow'd that he would have them wheresoever they were his own comportment and the demeanour of the Cavallers both in desperate words and big looks was so terrible to the Parliament that they forsook the House and sate in the City sending out a Declaration of the high breach of their Privileges together with a Petition to his Majesty that he would be pleased to grant them a guard for the security of their persons and sitting which true it is it was granted them but with such a person for the command as that they durst not accept of him but were compelled to remaine for their safety a longer space in the City untill the Lord Major and the Citizens readily assisted them and for their better security brought them in Coaches strongly guarded to Westminster whither also resorted a considerable party dayly passing along by Whitehall Gates to their rescue in case the Cavaleers should have againe disturbed their consultations on this party the Cavaleers falls a beating them whereof some they kill'd even at the Court gate untill a greater number came to their assistance The King finding himself then deceived in his expectation and that the people were generally devoted to the Parliament he makes severall visits into the City where in a publike audience be partly complains of the affronts done to him by the Parliament in their detaining the six Members and partly excusing his unadvisednesse in his entring the house in that manner as he did which is evident by his own Declaration but finding at last that his hopes failed him to have any assistance out of the City against the Parliament he stood some time in doubt what course to take but in the end resolves under the specious pretexts of his Insafety by reason of the Tumults as since himself stiles them not to stay at Whitehall any longer thereupon he departs from his own Court and the Parliament as more fully hereafter I shall take occasion to remember Hitherto I have presented you with nothing but that which is obvious and long since knowne to all the Kingdome having as briefly as I could deduced the story from the third of November 1640. which was the very day that the Parliament sate down to January 1641 neer about the latter end whereof the King removed from Whitehall to Hampton-Court Windsor and Theobalds accompanyed with his wonted guard of Ruffians the Parliament continuing still to petition him for his returne and concurrence with them but no perswasions or arguments would prevail but on he goes Northward and makes his residence at York whither he draws by degrees many of the Lords and Commons from the Parliament most of the Delinquent party resorting unto him together with my Lord Digby from beyond sea though with his own approbation long before proclaimed Traytor thither also notwithstanding the severall affronts done to the Parliaments Messages and Messengers they ceased not to importune his return but nothing could move him against his will and inclinations for now he had another game to play having hitherto failed in all his practises and as he conceived his designes then grown to maturity his next plot was to seize on the Town of Hull by the Earle of Newcastle where a very great Magazine of Arms and Ammunition had been deposited the Summer before which the King had also refused to return to the Tower and the Towne of Newcastle by Colonell Legge was likewise to be seized on both maritime towns and of great importance for the letting in of all strangers to his assistance whereof the Parliament having certain intelligence and by all the Kings former courses being more fully assured from abroad apprehending the dangerous consequence therof thought then it more than high time in what possibly they could for the safety of themselves and the Kingdom to prevent the mischiefs which they then evidently perceived threatned the universall Nation and thereupon they suddenly dispatched the two Hothams with Commission to pre-possesse the Town by the Trained Bands of those parts here you may see the first armes that ever the Parliament appeared in unlesse you shall urge the guards which the City sent them for securing their persons from the fury of the Cavaliers which admit it was onely defensive to preserve themselves and the Kingdome in what possibly they might and in prevention of future storms which they inevitably saw were sure to fall upon them from abroad and had they not gone farther in seizing on the Navy the Tower Forts Castles and Ammunition together with the Crown Revenues which are the Nerves and strengths of the Kingdome which had they neglected no man can make doubt but they would have been perverted from their proper use and turned against the Kingdom surely then when they perceived that nothing would worke upon the Kings obstinacy but that he was resolved to make Warre and to embroyle the whole Kingdom and let in strangers they would have been deemed unworthy of the places they held in the behalf of their Countreys had they not done as they did But as to the Kings part please you to look over all the progresse of his designes and take them once more into your second consideration and you cannot in any reason beleeve but that from the very first commitment of the Earl of Strafford to the lower whose escape
subtill and winding spirit proud as one raised out of the dust haughty and imperious in his place and as fit an instrument for the Kings turne as possibly he could chose out of the 26. Prelates There was also about this time as before is intimated taken into the Kings favour or rather brought in by the alurement of preferment Sir Thomas Wentworth whom the King immediately created a Baron and on the decease of Weston the Treasurer Earl of Strafford a Gentleman of great parts and patrimony a Common-wealths-man he had been and one that formerly in all Parliaments as much thwarted and withstood the arbitrary power of both Kings as any one whatsoever the King having won this Gentleman to be his owne bethought himselfe that these two with some others of the same stamp would be sufficient to whom to impart his grand designs the one for Church affairs the other for the State but both suitable to the ends he had in hand the last being of as high bould and haughty a spirit as he could possibly have pickt out of all the nobility Time will shew us and our own lamentable experience may better demonstrate how the one in Church affairs the other in civill administrations behaved themselves to the after prejudice and destruction of the three Kingdoms But as we have already said in the end to their own ruine and their Masters To leave this digression we have left the King and Queen at the Court let us returne where we left them in their different devotions the truth was how little care soever there was then taken either by the King or his time-serving Prelates of Gods service and true worship otherwise than in a formality or shew of Godlinesse either in the Court or throughout the Kingdom sure we are that the Queenes superstitious worship was specially provided for and a sort of Locusts there were in addition to her own Chaplins admitted the Kingdome styled by the name of Capuchins but cunning knaves and for these a new Chappell was erected with an habitation and large maintenance allowed them even in the face of the Court and eye of the Kingdom and to please the Queen Masses and Masse Priests were frequently permitted throughout the Land not only in a tacite connivence but in an open way of tolleration and in contempt of Gods true worship We may well admit that the wayes which the King then took could not be welpleasing to him which was never yet pleased with an Idolatrous mixt and halfe-fac'd worship or that the gayety and wantonnesse of a promiscuous Court could be maintained without an excessive charge neither that a perfidious shew and offer of a warre with France in the defence of the French Protestants would in the conclusion be well thought of either from abroad or at home when the King during the treaty of the marriage with the Queen on the earnest request of the princes of the Religion had engaged himself to protect them and to raise the siedge then before the Town of Râ—chell neither that feigned preparation which the King made by sea in their assistance will in time come to light when evident it was afterwards to all the World that in stead of defending them they were not onely slaughtered at Sea by the Kings shipping but by plain Treachery both their Cause undone and their forces defeated by Land a sinne which God in his justice could not passe over unpunished yet carryed on in such a mysticall way in that attempt on the Isle of Rea to the losse of honour and blood of some of the bravest men of the Nation insomuch that the World to this very day hath been held in suspence to what Religion the King himself stood most inclyned or whether the Father or the Son which with such ardency sought the Alliance of Spaine and France or else no where Families if not incestous yet of Idolatrous and Supersticious Religions which hath left the world in another amaze and in a puzzle to find out others inclination or whether to any Religion devoted if it be rightly considered as either Prince made and continued their secret addresses to the Apostolick see and that his Holinesse in both reigns had his Agents and Nuntioes here resident reciprocally and in interchange of the Kings Agents at Rome many clandestine conferences both with the King and Queene and the state of the Protestant Religion here howsoever openly profest by both Kings reduced to the next step of conformity with Rome when as that sordid and base complyance of the Bishops and Court-Clergy which if grace more than hopes of preferment had prevailed with them might have been a Remora or stay to either King and to have told them plainly how dangerous it was to their well-being if they attempted to make Religion the stalking-horse to their irregular designs and to bethink themselves that God was not to be deluded and how unsafe it would be for them Ludere cum sanctis But these were the men who even from the beginning of both reigns had only studied the inclinations of these Princes and rather took upon them to comply and incourage them than to have withstood either of them in the least of their many irregularities loosness in Religion such was the basenesse of these fawning Sycophants that the common theams of the Court Pulpits throughout both reigns were purposely pickt out where on to draw conclusions and doctrines of arbitrary power which was the usuall ladder most of them clim'd to preferment whence also we may observe Gods judgments both to have been shortly after powred out on the persons themselves and their functions in their extirpation and totall irradication of them without hopes of their restauration Hitherto we have deduced the History of this unfortunate Prince to the 3d. year of his Reign we shall now runne over the rest with as much brevity as the nature of the subject will permit The King at this time was in his wonted condition of want as his Father before him ever was so would he be in the same predicament Two millions of annuall Treasure or very neer could not serve their turns neither would it content them though in Scotl. 50000 l. per annum was more than ever King James could possibly raise without the assistance of the Estates assembled We may see the difference and what oprations change of Clymates can worke upon the nature of Princes comming out of poor Kingdomes into richer and with what Conscience they could dispence the care of their own souls to become as spunges to suck up the fruits of the poor passive people of England gained out of the labour of their hands and sweat of their browes when they had enough and more than ever any of the Kings of England did raise and in retribution of their love and loyalty towards them as by divers manifestations may be made appeare with how many slights and wyles with how much care trouble and vexation of spirit
soon after was it's greatest Enemy and not by the Kings choise and inclination as it is shamefully averr'd in his Pourtraicture whereas the bare name and mention of a Parliament was well known to be odious unto him and the very motion of calling any more prohibited by his own expresse charge to all of his Councell of State as that which he foresaw would be the onely impediment to the accomplishment of all his arbitrary designes so meerly brought to their ends but the summer before he waged the first warre against his native subjects the Scots an enterprise which the World knowes was the only Remora that checkt and choaked all his projections in the maturity of their birth which to recover on sight and his sense of the Parliaments proceedings he soon found he had no other way left him but by open War and force to suppresse them the mannagery whereof I shall now briefly present unto you The Parliament had its Summons from Yorke as all the Kingdom knows and the third of November 1640. sate downe at Westminster where according to the usuall Ceremonies the King in his own person in a set speech made a very gracious protestation viz. That he was fully resolved to put himself wholy on the love of his People and Parliament which if it proved not prosperous and a happy Parliament the fault should be none of his and that he was fully determined to commit the reformation of all things amisse to their regulation A profession which both took much with the House and all the Kingdom which had he been pleased to have performed and to have made good his word in not protecting the many delinquents questioned within a few moneths after the Parliaments first sitting downe as with justice honour and his Coronation oath he was obliged and in reference to his owne profit he might very well have forborne such tragicall issues could never have befallen himself and the 3. Kingdoms but having then entertained other designs and perceiving the Parliament to fly high and at his chief Ministers and woork-masters of his former arbitrary projects and on those which had fomented that unnecessary Warre against the Scots as the Earl of Straf ford and the Arch-bishop principally the Prelates and dissolute Clergy most of the Iudges and the Farmers of the Customes not for common faults but very high misdemeanours the King to crosse them most ignobly and against the justice of the Kingdome not only provoked but openly shewed himselfe both a defendor and protector of their Delinquencies and upon the distast he took on the commitment of Strafford was instantly known to have laid sundry plots and practises how he might dissolve the Parliament or utterly to destroy it which the Parliament perceiving and that the Queen under colour of accompanying the Princesse Mary into Holland was sent thither with the Crowne Jewels to buy Arms and procure forces to be sent him and Digby employed to the same purpose whereupon in prevention of the storme which they evidently then saw was like to fall on themselves and the Kingdom from beyond sea they moved his Majesty that the Kingdom might be put into a posture of defence and the militia deposited in such hands as they might confide in which he utterly refused to grant them as inseparables to the Crowne as he alleaged he was resolved to keep solely in his own power The Parliament in answer to this insist That the Kings power therein by the Law of the Land was only fiduciary allwayes in reference to trust the publik good safety of the Kingdō hence the contest by degrees grew to a separation and in furtherance of the dispute he also denyed the house to disband the Irish Army raised long before by Strafford and compos'd of Papists a storm which could not otherwise be expected but would if not timely prevented fall on them from Ireland whereof the Juncto at their very first sitting down had sufficiently informed them out of Straffords own mouth for what use and end that Army was raised viz. where he tels the King you have an Army in IRELAND to reduce this Kingdome when it was manifestly known to the world that it never was in a greater calm of peace and quietnes and the universall people in a more absolute obedience and as ready to be ridden as any slaves under the Grand Signior During this conflict the King would needs take a journey into Scotland notwithstanding the House by sundry petitions had earnestly moved him either to lay it aside or at least for some time to retard it but howsoever the King carried on his plots intentions in the dark with as much cunning as possibly could be devised yet they had then good reason to suspect that his journey Northward was to some other end than in leaving them to visit his Scotch Parliament as it after proved but on he would for Scotland and before he took his journey in a seeming providence to disburthen the Kingdome of the charge of the Scotch Army he first prest the house to disband with all their expedition that Army and to pay pay that of his own raising in the North but not a word of disbanding it upon this motion the House took it into their serious consideration apprehending it for a provident carefull and timely motion of the Kings and thereupon bethought themselves how first to disband and quit the Kingdome of the Scots untill Mr. Stroude standing up told the Speaker That they ought not in such haste to depart with the Scotch Army lest the sonnes of Zerviah in their absence would be too hard for them this speech the house soon apprehended and instantly resolved not to disband the one without the other army which the King perceiving being daily prest with Petitions of the Officers of his own Army fot their pay and himselfe not possibly able to content them as also that 25000 l. per mensem allowed to the Scots Army with 300000 l. by way of brotherly love given them by the Parliament in compensation of their losses through the Kings needlesse and unnecessary molesting them during the two Summers before amounted in the totall to so vast a sum as that neither himself was able to contribute a groat or the Parliament otherwise to discharge but by borrowing it on the Publique Faith It would amaze those which are happily ignorant of the managery of this work if I should tell them in what extremity of want the King was then reduced and how he durst adventure to struggle and after to trip up the heels of a Court of Parliament which without the least upraiding him with his profusions and irregular Regality were not only willing and ready to pay all those vast scores of debts contracted through his own wilful misgovernment but then had it in agitation how to improve his Revenues and to inable him to live of himself without squeezing his Subjects in honour splendour and plenty beyond any
he had privatly plotted and to send him into Ireland as in part is before noted but that he intended to force the Parliament to his will or utterly to annihillate it especially when he found that the Earl was condemned and his execution prest as a publick example to dye after which its most certain he meditated nothing more than war and to be revenged on the Parliament as it evidently appears by his sending over the Queen into Holland to buy arms Cockram into Denmarke and Digby in the same errand as also by his practising of the Army in the North to fall upon the Parliament together with the flight of Percy Jermin and Suckling as the onely persons first engaged in that Plot which durst not stand to the Test and in order to these his peremptory denyall to disband the Irish Army and his private addresses to other forreign Princes and States to supply him with men money and arms all which his practises were visibly known to the Kingdom to have been in agitation some of them before the Earle of Straffords execution other shortly thereupon which evidently shews that he was resolved at any rate and by force of arms to suppresse the Parliament In the universal disturbance of the whole Kingdome you may further observe how in pursuance of his mischievous designes notwithstanding the dislike the Parliament had of his determination to goe into Scotland and their humble motions to him to lay that journey aside or at least for some time to retard it as before is laid down yet would he needs goe and the reasons thereof are perspicuous considered as he made choise of his time to overtake the Scotch Army before they came to the borders and to attempt to corrupt the Commanders to turn to him and if that failed yet to give his Scotch Parliament all the content they would desire take the design farther What worke was made there concerning the Irish Rebellion what after his return home he made here in his assaulting the House in a warlike posture and his accusing the six Members as the most noted Common-wealths-men in terrour to the rest upon no other ground but on a vaine surmise of his own making of suspition of Treason where the proof is so plain by the first shedding of bloud at his own dores and the hostile manner of his entring the House attended with 300 armed men and most of them of desperate and forlorn Fortunes that the very bare deniall that the King made not the first Ware doth surpasse even impudence it self I am not ignorant that the Kings many protestations and not a few of them fortified with imprecations hath taken a firme footing in the belief of many half-witted men that his Cause was much better than it was but the wiser sort make their judgements of men by their actions not by their professions and they believe by the testimony of their sences what they see and feele they are bound to believe especially when a King in his private inditements which are the dictates of the Soule those addrest to a person which had gained an absolute power over the faculties of his reason and understanding such unbeleevers are not fit for humane society But omitting repetitions and further Comments wee have left the King at Yorke where for your better satisfaction it is fit that I put you in remembrance how there hee pursued the War in raising the people and inviting the Counties both farre and near to rise and side with him against the Parliament which in the Observations I shall send you will be made more manifest But that it may more fully appear upon what further grounds the King forsooke his owne house and the Parliament besides the pretended fear of Tumults of his own causing it was suggested unto him and he was made to believe That without his presence and concurrence with the Parliament they could not neither durst they vote or act any thing though never so relative to the safety of themselves and the Kingdome so that its apparent that either by fraud or force he was resolved to put an end to this Parliament and for farther proof of this I refer you to the Observations Now as to the main of your accusations the taking away of the Kings life and dis-inheriting of his Posterity I crave leave to defer this point to the last and to the conclusion of my animadversions where hapyily you will find the true reasons thereof and shall now proceed to the Change of the Government which you charge on the Parliament to be so long since plotted and as a power usurped and exercised by them in a dispotical way way of Tyranny in raising of money imposing of taxes and intollerable contributions on the whole Nation to take them apart I shall begin with the change of the Government as it is now established in the nature of a Republick which you know to be gotten by the Sword and likely so it is to hold by the same weapon as the Romans Saxons Danes and Normans got their Dominions here by Conquest and as the late King on that mere foundation intended to make his power absolute and A la Francoys in the needlesse endeavour wherof and to be more than stood with the constitution of the English Soveraignty you know how he lost all together with his life if your conscience cannot brook the present government as now it is established I see no other remedy left you but to quit the place you now live in and quietly if you would it suffiseth my Conscience that I live under it in the enjoyment of somewhat wherewith to subsist which I am sure was more than my self and many thousands more could do when and weresoever the late Kings armies were prevalent as to the Taxes and Contributions whereat you so much repine as insufferable and most illegally imposed on the people all that I shall say to it is that we which suffer them may all of us thank your party for it as inforced on the States by your only means for the defence of the common freedome of the Nation which as in the beginning of the late Warres your party under the royall Commissions invaded so you continually indeavour to subvert them by all the secret plots and practices you possibly can invent whereas could that malicious tumor of yours and that unquietnesse of your spirits by allayed and your selves perswaded by reason before it invades you the taxes you may be sure on 't would soon be abated why then can you not rest content with that change and government which were you not hood-winkt you might manifestly see Gods high and over-ruling providence to have carried on the worke both in a series of the many and miraculous victories of the Parliaments as also in disappointing all the late Kings designs and in discovering all your plots and practises even from the very beginning of the warre to the present which although they weigh not with you as
Iames the fifth had the fortune to dye of a naturall death but as to his onely Daughter Queen Mary and mother 〈◊〉 King Iames the sixt it is manifestly knowne that she caused Henry Lord Darnley her second Husband to be cruelly murthered and only to make way to her third Marriage with Earl Bothwell her Paramour whom the States banished and shortly after call'd her to accompt for her Husbands murther and for that fact and other conspiracies against the State by the Votes of the major part of the Peeres and Commons in Parliament she was adjudged to die whereupon she fled into England where contriving sundry plots with the Papists and the Duke of Norfolke against Queen Elizabeth and restlesse in her ambitious contrivements to dispossesse the Queen Regnant of the Crowne you know to what end she came at Fodringay where we may safely believe that Gods just judgments overtook her when she little dream't to have dyed at the block what since became of her only Sonne King Iames and his two sonnes Prince Henry and our last King Charls though the manner of the two first deathes are still held in dispute yet we all know to what a fatall end the last came even at his own Gates and in the same place where the first blood was spilt by his own servants the Cavaleers pardon me then If I present you with an opinion of my own which I am confident is an infallible verity that allmighty God in his justice suffers not any man to come to a prodigious end but for such sinnes by him committed as are equivalent to that sin for which he suffered it is Gods own Oracle an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and he that kils by the Sword by the same weapon or the like he shal surely dye for a conclusion take this as a knowne truth to all the Nation that both the late Kings as they were naturall Scots very rarely loved an English man sure we are not the Nation in generall and that very seldome either of them admitted any of the English into their Bed-chambers for generally they were all Scots neither took they any of the English Buckingham excepted into their secrets and as their privadoes untill Strafford was taken into our last Kings favour but no otherwise than as a meer States-man and a bold instrument to act any thing conducible his Masters designs and such projects which were suitable to his endeavours and inclinations otherwise I never knew any that were fit servants for him and it is most certaine that both the Father and the Sonne laid more subtill and cunning snares to insnare the English Nation than all of the Norman race before them the Father to have laid the foundation and the Sonne to build up the whole fabrick of absolute Soveraignty as insensibly at first and from the beginning of their reigns as possibly their designs could permit but King Charls towards his last and long before the Warres began openly and shortly thereupon in hostility and with morter tempered with more English blood than ever hath been so wilfully and profusely spilt by any one Tyrant in the World and for what cause and on what grounds I beseech you tell me more than for the Nug◠and idle fictions of a divine prerogative and to rule alone without other Law than his owne Will and without accompt to any but to God alone they are both the Fathers and the Sonnes owne Maxims just Tyrant-like quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem and yet which is the mystery and the wonder of the times is this wilfull King cryed up by his many partizans for the onely paragon of Princes and that which is of more admiration his Protestations in the common belief preferred and credited before his visible actions and Cabinet Letters which if men were not besotted I am sure best of all other evidences layes open the most hidden secrets of the heart But it is most certaine that before and a long space after the battle at Edgehill he refused all overtures of Peace though t is confest he made many motions for Peace to the Parliament but ever no other than on such disadvantagious terms as were utterly unfit for the Parliaments embrasure and the Kingdomrs security for we find them evermore accompanied with such restrictions reservations and ambignous conditions howsoever gilded over with plausible pretences that the Parliament at length durst not either trust him or any of his specious Declarations as in the observations on the Reliquiae Carolinae are manifested for it is most true that as soon as he had attracted a very considerable Army to his assistance by his artifices and the severall visits and the orations he made to the respective Sheriffes and Gentry before and after the setting up of his Standerd of the Counties of Yorke Lincolne Nottingham Leicester Chester Stafford Denby Flint Salop Oxford and Berks wherein he neither spared any pains or travel or lost a minute of time both to deceive and win the people to his cause and 't is evident that he had not onely written his particular Letters to most of the prime Gentlemen of the Kingdome to side with him but had sent his peremptory commands to most of the Colonells of the Parliaments Army sent into Ireland for the assistance of the distressed Protestants to repair to his ayde against the Parliament a treachery and a testimony beyond all others of the falsenesse of his heart considered as hereafter it shall be made more apparent unto you with the seeming zeal and care he pretended to bear to those poor Irish Protestants It is worth your further observation that this most unfortunate Prince having so often accustomed himselfe to fraud and dissimulation that it came at last to this sad issue that all his after Messages and Overtures made to the Parliament in the declination of his power and after he was a Prisoner though happily more really intended than formerly and atested with exceeding specious plausible Protestations some of them confirmed with his wonted Imprecations were not beleeved but suspected for fallacious so long had this most unhappy King like the Flie that playes with the flame which comes in the end to burn himself out of his own fury such power had his will and naturall inclinations over his reason where you may take an instance or two in the way for a proofe thereof When he first raised his Army at York for which he endeavours to flam off the Parliament that those forces were onely raised as a guard for the security of his Person and to confirme this he caused divers of the Fugitive Lords then attending him shamefully to attest that he had no intent thereby to levy War against the Parliament when immediately thereupon he began to march and to run from place to place as before is noted to raise more force and that which is most perfidious after he had erected his Standard at Nottingham he continued
the same straine utterly denying and protesting that he had not then any manner of intent thereby to wage war with his Parliament as hereafter you shall more plainly see a strange delusion to flatter himself in dancing unseen in a net and that that he should not onely be able to deceive the People by his Protestations but to delude and cosen a Court of Parliament out of their understanding as you may see this verified in his owne Expresses sent to the Parliament from Nottingham and what a strange trick would he have put on the Parliament when from Yorke he sent them a Message that he had taken a resolution to go in person into Ireland to chastise those Rebels and to that purpose had determined to raise 2000 Foot and 200 Horse in and about the County of Chester for a guard to his person and to flatter himself with such a senseless device to delude the Parliament as if they understood him no better than to beleeve his designe to be reall when they perceived his drift was First to raise here a considerable force then to joyn with the Irish Army there and in the end to turn all his power on the Parliament It would be too wearisome to me to recount all the perfidious practices of this most unhappy Prince and too tedious to your selfe to read them I shall therefore for the present conclude and referre you to the animadversions and observations on the contrarity between his publick protestations and private Letters which you shall God willing receive very shortly and wherein I doubt not but that you will find so much fraud deceit and dissimulation of this King as will amaze you and turn the strong tyde of your belief hitherto poysoned with flams and such subterfuges as may shame any rationall man to be so long cosened and deluded by them No more Sir at present but that I desire and wish you to beleeve no otherwise of that which I have sent you than in your judgement you shall find suitable to truth and that as you shall see just cause to esteeme me as I am your well wishing friend Animadversions or Observations on the strange contrariety between the late Kings Declarations Missives Protestations Imprecations sent at severall times to the Parliament and his Pourtraicture compared with his own Letters taken at Naseby and some other of his Expresses not yet taken into publike Observation SIR I Have now sent you by your servant those observations which I promised you supposing that they will come to your hands so seasonably as to help to convince you that neither the Parliament began the late wars or that there could be any designe or plot laid of I know not how many years standing either of a factious party amongst them to disturbe the peace of the Kingdom take away the Kings life and his posterity or to alter the Government but that whatsoever hath fallen out since the sitting down of this Parliament hath been enforced by the King himself and by a concurrency of sundry causes arising from his own willfull inclinations the sins of the Nation and Gods speciall hand therein as a fearfull punishment upon us all If you think otherwise and that you shall persist in your errours I doubt not but these Observations will more clearly manifest unto you that the King was in all this tragicall contest both his own enemy and no such innocent Martyr as your party conceives him to have been and of this let his own actions and his private Letters speak and I shall be silent whose principall endeavour hath been no other than to give you satisfaction on your own provocation and that truth may appear to all those whom it concerns besides your self and first to the Observations on the Treaties for Peace after the War began The first overture for peace after the War began was without all question of the Parliaments at Colebrook which how it was accepted of by the King and on the nick thereof pursued by the drawing up of his Army in a mist the slaughter at Brayuford best shews out what was the Kings meaning which how he labours to defend it in some of his Expresses yet without doubt if it were not perfidious yet very suspicious of no fair meaning sure it was very retrograde to the procuring of a peace otherwise than as himself meant to have it by force The next overture for an accomodation was likewise of the Parliaments first motion and agreed upon to be at Oxford a place as inauspicious for treaties as Parliaments for it came to no other issue than to signifie nothing a game wherein the King was wel vers'd a proof whereof amongst many you may find in his eighth Letter to the Queen Jan. 3. 1644. from Oxford viz. The Portugall Agent hath made me two Propositions First concerning the reliase of his Masters brother for which I shall haeve 50000 l. if I can procure his Liberty from the King of Spain the other is for a marriage betwixt my Son Charles and his Masters eldest Daughter for the first I have freely undertaken to doe what I can and for the other I will give such an Answer as shall signifie nothing Observation Here you may first evidently see what a fine juggler the King was grown and into what a streight hee had driven himself to become a broker for money and instead of Friendship to a King to whose Agent in others of his Letters to the Queen he acknowledgeth himself to be more beholding for the transport of his Letters than to the French Embassadour and then as to the motion of marriage to juggle him out with an answer which should signifie nothing judge you whether it would not have been more Kingly to have dealt more plainly with the Agent and to have told him that he liked not the motion on reasons best known to himselfe than to have flam'd him off with a significavit rather of an affront than friendship The third motion for peace was also of the Parliaments first overture and tendred to the King at Oxford and agreed upon to be at Vxbridge where how that likewise was aforehand ordered and his Commissioners tyed up to his will and to the wrack of his own Instructions from which they were not on any conditions to recede is made very clear in the Postscript of his Letter to the Queen number 5th January 19. 1644. from Oxford viz. And be confident that I will not quit Episcopacy nor that Sword which God hath given into my hands Observation If the Quaere here should be made whether God had so absolutely given the power of the Sword into his hands as at his own will and pleasure to unsheath it against his own subjects and the Representative of the Kingdome whom by his Coronation Oath he was obliged to defend and protect doubtlesse no man is so madd to believe that the Kings resolutions in using it as he did to their destruction were so religiously
made Levies either against him or the Law more than his own lawlesse Will and that the Parliament made no sooner Levies than it became them to oppose his Levies raised against them and the known Laws of the Land and that notwithstanding all those specious and umbragious Messages sent to the Parliament for Peace and Accommodation tending to no other end than to rocke the Parliament asleep and by his then frequent placentias to lull them into a slack and negligent remissnes in raising defensive arms against his Forces whilst himself by protracting of time might attract such an Army as would inable him to overpower both the Parliament and whatsoever Forces were as he sayes then in their march against him which he had no sooner drawn together but out of his confidence to have beaten the Parliaments Army to peeces not eight dayes before Edgehill fight he not onely utterly refused their Petion which would have been presented to him by the mediation of the Earl of Dorset for he had a good space before refused all accommodation but sent Rupert to the Commissary Generall who was to deliver it to tell the Earl of Essex then at Worcester that he would not receive any more Petitions from him or any of the Parliament Rebels of them all A known truth to many yet living and some of them sitting at present in Parliament whereby it manifestly appears that all his former and many Missives under the umbrage of Peace were mere dalliances both to mock the Parliament and to cosen the people into a belief of his reality and good meaning when he meant nothing more than to bob the Parliament by cunning and secret fraud untill he might ruine them by plaine and open force and then to pursue those naturalized appetites and arbitrary designes of his which so long before he had cherished in his heart which neither his Honour Reason and his Conscience whereof so often he talks could prevail with him to disgorge untill their over-growth inforced him to an untimely vomit 'T is most true that they which look on the first face of things and heed only the outside of objects without an intentive eye on their in-sides are easily deceived but such as will narrowly looke into all his Expresses compared with his deeds shall doutlesse soon finde that this unhappy King was one of the deepest and boldest dissemblers of any one Prince which the last Century hath produced and I am prone to beleeve that he took too much of the patterne of Lews th' eleventh of France who was wont to say that he desired to leave his Sonne no other Learning than Qui nescit dissimulare nescit regnare he that knows not to dissemble knowes not how to play the King and it hath been feared and by those which wisht him well that he was too much verst in the principles of Machiavill having in his life time practised and since his death left behind him so many eevidences thereof that many of the best heads have been induced to beleve that he came not behind any of the ITALIAN Polititians of this age But to take all these his three Messages together considered by any discreet man as their purport tends to one and the selfesame end and the time when they were sent to the parliament all of them whilst he was most busie and sedulously studious how and where to raise Forces both at home and abroad and it evidently shews that his intent in all his specious overtures of peace were to no other end than to befool the People and Parliament which he then began to know would not be cosened as having had sufficient experience of him practise indeed he might as he failed not to continue to delude the vulgar beleef and to keep in with the people but he then found there was no good to be done on a Court of Parliament for he perceived they meant not further to trust him than they saw him and to have yeelded to a treaty circumscribed with such large conditions and so unequally ballanced as so admit of such as he should send to treat with them out of Parliament which not unlikely would have been of those that had both deserted the Parliament and falsified their faith which to have indempnified and all other Delinquents as had repaired unto his assistance otherwise no peace with him what effects could a Treaty produce so much upbraided by his party on the Parliament for refusing it other than mockery when himself knew as well as themselves that they would not yeeld unto such a motion neither himself goe lesse than to take off all the Delinquents with impunity against all reason law and the antient president of all former Parliaments that alone being the greatest breach of privilege that ever was offered to a Court of Parliament and such a destructive project to the essence and being of Parliaments as in the future took away all power and privilege from them and necessarily conferr'd it on his own usurped Prerogative his negative claim being no more and scarce so much to enable him to doe in the future as he listed when as every vulgar spirit knowes it for Law that the King cannot neither ever durst any of our Kings rescue one Prisoner at the Bar out of the hands of Justice in any of the inferiour Courts of the Kingdome 'T is true that Henry of Monmouth being a rude Prince though after a tollerable King came openly and with violence to the Kings Bench in Westminster Hall and rescued Poynes his Servant arraigned for robbing and taking away the Kings Treasure at the Bar but the story tells us that the Judges laid the Prince by the heels for his pains and his Father the King thankt them for it much lesse then that this King should presume to rescue so many viperous Delinquents out of the justice of the great Judicature of the Nation which all of common reading know have acted sundry times in such a power as to depose severall of his Ancestors for their Tyrannies and hanged many of their chiefe Instruments Presidents which with good reason he might have more timely remembred and not have stood with his Sword in his hand to inforce so unjust senslesse and unreasonable a Proposition for a Treaty Observations on the Kings Pourtracture THe Kings Book which hath flown abroad and throughout the Kingdom as it were between the wings of Mercury and hath so much taken in the opinion of the vulgar beliefe and esteemed to be such an impregnable rampier incirculating his innocency that it hath been thought not assaultable I confesse at the first sight thereof it took for a while as his protestations formerly had done in many apprehensions but on a second consideration of the title The Kings Image with the dresse that is bestowed upon his Effigies in a posture of devotion in imitation of David in his ejaculations to Heaven surely I could not beleeve that such a peece of vanity was of the Kings designment
our blessed Saviours own oracle Mat. 12. 2. For there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed neither hid which shall not be knowne God knowes and so may you on your better consideration that I have made use of nothing but authentick authority or took up any passage on bare trust neither with the least intention to injure the memory of him who is at rest but only in vindication and manifestation of truth and to make that more visibly knowne to you which long since hath not been unknowne to many which happily if they would might speak more and that as this most unfortunate Prince was of all others most his owne enemy so had providence decreed it that he should be most injurious to his friends a most implacable enemy to Parliaments and utterly averse to all partnership in government other than Hers which was the principall instrument of his ruine the undoing of his posterity and the lamentable destruction of three flourishing Kingdoms As to the present Government and change of the Royalty or any other of your impetuous exclamations with the exceptions you take to the present Form different from the forms of ancient Parliament and as it was so lately altered without King Lords and the major part of the excluded Commons and that those which now sit at Westminster are no other than usurped powers acting in Tyranny as all of your party spares not to belch out both in private and publick I shall instantly give you both a short and satisfactory answer to every of them and first to the Government which you know to be gotten by Conquest and as heretofore I have told you by the same weapon wherewith the King intended to make it absolutely Monarchicall and A la Francoys As to the difference between the old and this new Form of Parliament I answer that the King himself was the first projector both in lessening altering and laming of the Parliament witnesse his taking into his Councell of State the Earles of Hartford Essex Bath the Lords Say St. Maur Falkland and Culpepper all of them known to be the most noted Common-wealths men of both Houses within two moneths of the Parliaments sitting down and within one year after to corrupt neer the moity of the Members of both Houses to make up his Mungrel Parliament at Oxford of set purpose to confuse and ruine all Parliaments by themselves As to the late purging of the Houses it is acknowledged that in the midst of such a confusion as was both raised cherished and fomented by the King himself and the Malignant party it was done by the power of the Army and as I take it on this ground that the major part of both Houses voted for the readmittance of the King on such condition which himself refused which the lesser and more foreseeing part well understood would in the end come to no other issue than the setting him up into his old power so to enable him a new to embroyle the Kingdomes having so long before engaged the Prince in his Quarrell and disciplin'd him in his designes in so much as no other hopes were then left the Parliament but either a perpetuating of the War and more bloodshed or the invassalage of the Nation which necessarily would be the consequence on the admittance either of the Father or the Sonne upon these grounds 't is confest that the Soldiery ended the controversie in assisting the weaker party in Parliament though doubtlesse the more able in judgement and foresight of the future evills and calamities which in all probability might and would befall the Nation which to prevent on the evidence of the Kings obstinacy it was resolved to remove the Effects by taking away the Cause in calling the principall Author of all the former bloodshed to his publick tryall to stop which issue it was farther resolved to cut him off together with his whole posterity and to cast that pilot overboard that not more out of ignorance than wilfulnesse would obstinately have sunke the Ship of the Publick in the vast Ocean of his Prerogative had it not been timely rescued and warp't into the safe Harbour of a Republick and in change the Regall Government into a Commonwealth as you now see it established by power and by the same power probable it is they will uphold it which as it is commonly conceived was the true state and managery of that businesse Where you may observe it as a very remarkeable event that even the major part of of both Houses which had stood so constant to the trust of their Countries to the very Vote of No more Addresses and were inclined to readmit the King as we may beleeve by Gods just judgement were taken away by force as the King himselfe by fraud had long before drawne away so many of the Members purposly to lame and weaken all Parliaments in the future Sir These are passages of a very transcendant nature and too high for our understanding and we know Gods ways and works are unsearchable yet as the Wise man tells us There is nothing new under the Sun and is there any thing whereof it may be said see this is new it hath been already fold time and was before us howsoever when you have spoken the worst you can of those which now sit in Parliament you cannot deny but the most of them are of the old legall Electron and the relicts of the old Form they which have been the cause of the maiming or lessening the number and quality of the old Form you may thanke them for it and not blame those that remaine faithfull to their trust for some kinde of Government the people must have and you evidently see that God hath given them both Courage to stand fast to the last and power to enable them to act as they do which as heretofore I have told you wil either bend you to obedience or breake you in your resistance As to the Injustice wherewith you charge them and the Tyranny you so much exclaim against I take not upon me to be so much their Champion as to defend every of their actions or any Injustice of which not unlikely some of them may be guilty for where power is invested faults there may be and foule ones too yet this much may be said in their defence that those of known integrity fail not to look into the demeanour of the faul ty and by severe punishment to make them examples of Justice I shall say no more but that should they faile in doing righteousnesse Judgement stands at their owne doores and the same God which gave them the power they now have will as soon devest them of it as he bequeathed it unto them and Samuel will tell them If you doe wickedly you shall be consumed both you and your King Now Sir for a close I shall onely tell you that it sufficeth me and all sober spirits that having thus long lived free from bloodshed and plunder under this Government which so lately under the Kingly power the whole Nation felt to their great grief and sorrow it behoves us then that we all rest content with Gods good will and pleasure and leave this great change to him as a worke of his own which I may say with Gamaliel If it be not of God it will surely fall but if from him he will establish it in spite of all those which shall withstand it t is most true that the Contributions and Taxes which you urge to be Tyrannically imposed on the whole Nation are very heavy to which I have already given you an answer viz. that we may all thanke your party for it that they are not onely continued but increast through your partyes onely means which cease not by their assiduall plots to disturbe the present peace and Government to their owne losse and grief of such as would willingly bear the burthen so they might enjoy their peace and quietnesse as having learned the sweetnesse of that old Addage defend me and spend mâ— In a word more I shall advise you in particular to rest content with that Government which Providence hath allotted us under which you may as yet live both secure and plentifull if you please dispose your self therefore to yeeld that Obedience which becomes all those that love the publick and their own domestick peace If not I feare me you will kicke against the pricks hurt if not utterly ruine your self and Family as many thousands of perverse Fools have done and fail not to remember that there is a Court of Iustice that spares none which shall disturbe the publick peace and that Government which we may safely beleeve God hath and will establish This is the Counsell of him who really hath a care of your preservation and so rests Your well-wishing Friend if you so please to esteem him Loe this is the man that made not God his strength but trusted in the abundance of his riches and strengthned himselfe in his wickednesse P. 52. 7. The words of his mouth were smoother than Butter but War was in his heart his words were softer than oyle yet were they drawn Swords Psalm 55. 21. But thou O Lord shalt bring them downe into the pit of destruction bloody and deceitfull men shall not live out halfe their dayes verse 23. FINIS * Balzack Sir Walter Raleigh * Barclay adver Monarch lib. 3. cap. 8. * Grotius de jure belli pacis lib. 1. cap. 4. * The Earl of STRAFFORD * â—1 Kings 11. 4 5 6 7. * Mountague * Vide the Juncto * Sir John Broke Sir Ralph Hopton Mr. Partridge and Mr. Green were of that Committee * Rom. â—â— * 1 Sam. 8. 3 4 5. * Rom. 13 4. * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Deut. 17 19. Ezek. 45. 9 46. 18. â— * Vide the Juncto quinto Maij 1649 * The first copy was supprest expunged by the Bishops and the old Knight committed by K. JAMES to the Tower by the instigation of the Prelates * The Militia * Sir Rob. Cotton in the life of H. 3. * Psal. 28 Proverbs 28. 13. * The Earl of Strafford * Eccl. â— 9. 10. * 1 Sam. 1â— 15.
in this Quarrel and cheerfully embrace it and as no other reasons induced us to leave our City of London but that with honour and safety we could not stay there nor to raise any force but for the necessary defence of our Person and the Law against Levies in opposition to both so we shall suddenly return to the one and disband the other as soon as those causes shall be removed the God of Heaven direct you and in mercy divert those judgements which hang over the Nation and deale so with us and our posterity as we desire the preservation and advancement of the true Pretestant Religion the Law and the Liberty of the Subject the just rights of Parliament and the peace of the Kingdom Sept. 11. 1642. Observations on the former three Messages of the Kings In these three Messages we have as specious and pious expressions in shew as possibly can be expected from a King that meant really as he writ and said as he thought But on a due consideration of all passages and the subject matter in them contained and as the case then stood betwixt him and the Parliament with as much subtilty craft and cunning as can well be devised by the subtilest Disciple of Machavill I shall take the liberty to comment and prove the assertion out of the first of these Messages of the 25 of August 1642. and so in order to the rest as they visibly shew out unto any rationall man their purport without drawing other Conclusions than necessarily arise out of the expressions themselves compared with the Kings other Declarations his actions and his own private Letters First he tels the Parliament With what unspeakeable griefe of heart he beheld the distractions of the Kingdom untill he could find out a remedy to prevent the miseries which were ready to hang over the whole Nation by a civill Warre Where I pray tell me who first gave the occasion who raised those distractions or made the first preparations to a civill warre other than himselfe Next he speaks of differences betwixt him and the Parliament which he confesseth to have arisen through mistakes of the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt him and his two Houses of Parliament which he would have prevented by a Treaty wherein the matters in difference might be more clearly understood and more freely transacted And could there have been a more fitter place to debate them with honour and freedome than in the Parliament whither with welcome he might have come without the least danger to his person and whither he was so often and humbly invited to come on no other conditions but to make him great and glorious and leaving Delinquents which he protected against Law and Reason to the discretion of the great Judicature of the Nation which would have been both a safe a profitable and a short course for him to have yeelded unto and saved him the labour of a dishonourable descending out of his dyning room to dispute those differences with the States of the Kingdome in the Kitchin and without so many impertinencies ambages and subterfuges wherewith he solaces himself seemingly moving for authorizing of fit persons on both sides to debate the matter with freedome a very fine way indeed and about the wood when he might have sate still in peace and quietnesse and left the obliquities of the Church and State to those to whom they properly belong'd to be disputed regulated and set straight whilst himself without such an unnecessary and un-Kingly engagement might have taken his pleasure in hunting the Buck rather than to have needlesly all that Summer traversed his ground through so many Counties in hunting after men to kill the best and most faithfull of his Subjects could he have had the grace to have seen it of his whole Kingdome But then he comes to an other overture that if on securing of such Treators as himselfe should chuse and the like safety by him given to such as the Parliament shall design for a Treaty then there shall be nothing wanting on his part to the advance of the true Protestant Religion the Lawes the Liberty of the Subject and just Priviges of Parliament as to Religion can any man beleeve that knew how hee was principled that he would have yeelded to other than that formall and prelaticall Protestantisme which he had vowed to uphold As to the Laws should they have beene other than should still have lain under his negative power As to the Libertyes of the Subject what should they have been more than the Militia his Sword then drawn against them would permit as he pleased to like or dislike As to the Privileges of Parliaments which he takes care to confine with his Epithite Just in the promse he makes what should they have been but as they might suite to the best advantage of the Crown and his unlimitable Prerogative then he concludes that if that Proposition be rejected he appeals to God and the World that he had don his duty which would absolve him from the guilt of that blood which he sayes must be spilt and I beleeve him for it seems he meant then to spill blood as he did afterwards more than befitted a Christian King rather than to have mist of the accomplishment of any of his resolutions having ingraved on his Sword aut Caesar aut nullus Caesar or no body to one of which he attain'd his close seems to me both monitory and minitory for he gives the Parliament to understand how he was provided and what they were to trust to in telling them aforehand That whatsover opinion other men have of our power our provision of men money and arm are such as may secure us from further violence till it shall please God to open the eyes of our people a very brave invitation to peace with the Sword in his hand to inforce it as he pleased to have it and with an Army of 6000 Horse and 11000 Foot as elsewhere he sayes he had ready to chastise the Rebels But look over to his Chapter upon seizing of the Forts Castles Navy and the Militia there he disclaimes to have had any other arms than those of the Primitive Christians prayers and tears against their Persecutors where he is pleased in a strange contradiction to make that an Argument of his not raising the first War against the Parliament though as it is well known at Edgehill he came with 20000 well armed men into the field with a full resolution to beat the Parliament to fitters how you will peece these contradictions together I leave as a task to you it being beyond my power to reconcile such distant Asseverations Now to his Message of the 5th of Sept. in pursuance of the former he sayes That he never did or ever intended to declare both our Houses of Parliament Traytors or to set up our Standard against them and yet at that instant had proclaimed my Lord of Essex the Earl of Stamford and all their Adherents
Traytors which necessarily must be intended the Parliament for they Commissioned Essex and raised their defensive Army which he fought with at Edgehill and all along the competition stiles them Rebels such wide and bold contradictions that no man knows where to him which puts me in mind what some of his own domestick servants have often averr'd that they could not depend on any of his promises or beleeve what he said and sure I am and enough there are of no mean ranke and quality of his servants yet living and in beggery can witnesse and have sad cause to remember that his Letters Patents full dearly paid for and under his Broad seal could not protect any of them from resuming into his own hands that he had a mind to either to make use of them to his own advantage or to confer them on others as he was pleased without other satisfaction but with fruitlesse promises that they should be considered Next he goes on and sayes that on the Parliaments revocation of their Declarations as Traytors or otherwayes for assisting of us we will with cheerfullnesse upon the same day recall our Proclamations and take downe our Standart but note then it necessarily followes that it could not be erected but onely against the Parliament unlesse his meaning was to erect it against the Man in the Moon but here you have the kernell of that nut which stuck so fast in the Kings stomack and was it not a very fine and equall proposition to put the innocent and the nocent into the ballance the just with the unjust and either to make War or free so many and hainous Delinquents that resorted unto him together with those false and fugitive Lords and Commons trusted by their Countreys which by the laws of the Land ought not to have departed without leave of the Speaker and that on urgent occasion Bethink your self whether this Proposition suited either with Reason Honour Conscience and the ancient usage and Presidents of Parliaments or with the Kings Justice to become the skreen to Delinquents of so high a strain but to the close of this Message where he conjures the Parliament againe to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the dangerous condition of England when as none but himself was guilty of that Phlebotomy and he alone that first set them and kept them a bleeding so long as that to stanch the veyne the State could not devise a better cure than to let out his blood which had let out so much throughout the three Kingdomes as would have dyed the vast Ocean into crimson But briefly to his next Message of the 11th of Sept. 1642. where all the world may see where the Remora lay that staid him from comming to the Parliament untill he had provided for the indempnity of all those persons c. which he sayes were accounted Traytors to us who according to their duty their Oaths of Allegiance and the Law have appeared in defence of us their King and Liege Lord whom we are bound in Conscience and Honor to preserve So that it here appeares plainly that no other obstacles then stood in the way of his returne to the Parliament but the absolute Indempnity of all that had appeared in his defence according to their duty oaths Law as he would have it beleeved his pretended fear of Tumults are not here in question neither any other material exception but the indempnity of his Partizans a goodly Honour and Conscience could he have brought so great a party with Indempnity into London and to the Parliament it seems then he doubted not but to make his party good with or without fighting and what betweene their owne power and his fraud its plain that he thought in time he should be enabled to over-power the Parliament and to carry all other things answerable to his will and hearts desire but by what law could those fugitive Members depart the House and flye to him and by what Law could hee protect them which had falsified their Trust was it their duty to run to him at a call who before against his duty and his Oath ran from the Parliament under subterfuges and pretence of Tumults and upon no other ground but by his absence and non-currence as he was made to beleeve to make the Parliament no more than a cypher and that then they neither could or durst act in a doyt without him but having by this time seen his own errour and that the Parliament would and did transact without him and that in want of his concurrence the people concurr'd with them in the defence of the publick liberty he then insists on no other scruple than Indempnity for all his party and here we come to a pure peece of Non-sense where he sayes No other reason induced us to leave our City of London but that with Honour and Safety wee could not stay there nor to raise any force but for the necessary defence of our-person and the Law against levies in opposition to both As to his leaving of the City and the Parliament that pretence is clearly evinc't by his own former overture of comming to them on condition of the Parliaments withdrawing their Proclamations against the Delinquents and fugitive Members but as to his raising of force for the necessary defence of his person and the Law both the reason if there be any and coherence are at so wide and wild a distance as that I beleeve the quaintest of his Secretaryes or him that writ it on a review of the Incongruity would be ashamed to own his own work and observe it for a knowne truth to all the Kingdome did not he first raise a party of Cavaliers to assault the House to beat and kill the poor petitioning people before ever the Parliament had so much as a thought of raising one man when himself was provided with 300 desperat Ruffians fit and ready to attempt any bold Assassination and what one man before himself began had offended him that he of necessity must raise a force to defend his person and the Law was it Law when as at London he found himselfe deceived to raise a strength sufficient to quash the Parliament and against the Legislative power it self but he must run into the North and round about half of his Kingdom to do it and missing his ayms to come at last and so often with flam's and overtures for a Treaty which he never really meant or intended otherwise than in subtilty his wonted fetches to decoy the Parliament and people into a belief of his deepe sense of the bleeding condition of the Kingdoms of which no Prince Christian could be more carelesse as it evidently appears by all his actions examined in the right sense of his own meaning as anon shall be manifestly demonstrated out of his own refusall of the Parliaments petitions As to the Levyes made by the Parliament in opposition to him and the Lawes he might have remembred that none