gleaning out of Books writt'n purposely to help Devotion And if in likelyhood he have borrowd much more out of Prayer-books then out of Pastorals then are these painted Feathers that set him off so gay among the people to be thought few or none of them his own But if from his Divines he have borrow'd nothing nothing out of all the Magazin and the rheume of thir Mellifluous prayers and meditations let them who now mourn for him as for Tamuz them who howle in thir Pulpits and by thir howling declare themselvs right Wolves remember and consider in the midst of thir hideous faces when they doe onely not cutt thir flesh for him like those ruefull Preists whom Eliah mock'd that he who was once thir Ahab now thir Josiah though faining outwardly to reverence Churchmen yet heer hath so extremely set at nought both them and thir praying faculty that being at a loss himself what to pray in Captivity he consulted neither with the Liturgie nor with the Directory but neglecting the huge fardell of all thir honycomb devotions went directly where he doubted not to find better praying to his mind with Pammela in the Countesses Arcadia What greater argument of disgrace ignominy could have bin thrown with cunning upon the whole Clergy then that the King among all his Preistery and all those numberles volumes of thir theological distillations not meeting with one man or book of that coate that could befreind him with a prayer in Captivity was forc'd to robb Sr. Philip and his Captive Shepherdess of thir Heathen orisons to supply in any fashion his miserable indigence not of bread but of a single prayer to God I say therfore not of bread for that want may befall a good man and yet not make him totally miserable but he who wants a prayer to beseech God in his necessity t is unexpressible how poor he is farr poorer within himself then all his enemies can make him And the unfitness the undecency of that pittifull supply which he sought expresses yet furder the deepness of his poverty Thus much be said in generall to his prayers and in special to that Arcadian prayer us'd in his Captivity anough to undeceave us what esteeme wee are to set upon the rest For he certainly whose mind could serve him to seek a Christian prayer out of a Pagan Legend and assume it for his own might gather up the rest God knows from whence one perhaps out of the French Astraea another out of the Spanish Diana Amadis and Palmerin could hardly scape him Such a person we may be sure had it not in him to make a prayer of his own or at least would excuse himself the paines and cost of his invention so long as such sweet rapsodies of Heathenism and Knighterrantry could yeild him prayers How dishonourable then and how unworthy of a Christian King were these ignoble shifts to seem holy and to get a Saintship among the ignorant and wretched people to draw them by this deception worse then all his former injuries to go a whooring after him And how unhappy how forsook of grace and unbelovd of God that people who resolv to know no more of piety or of goodnes then to account him thir cheif Saint and Martyr whose bankrupt devotion came not honestly by his very prayers but having sharkd them from the mouth of a Heathen worshipper detestable to teach him prayers sould them to those that stood and honourd him next to the Messiah as his own heav'nly compositions in adversity for hopes no less vain and presumptuous and death at that time so imminent upon him then by these goodly reliques to be held a Saint and Martyr in opinion with the People And thus farr in the whole Chapter we have seen and consider'd and it cannot but be cleer to all men how and for what ends what concernments and necessities the late King was no way induc'd but every way constrain'd to call this last Parlament yet heer in his first prayer he trembles not to avouch as in the eares of God That he did it with an upright intention to his glory and his peoples good Of which dreadfull attestation how sincerely meant God to whom it was avow'd can onely judge and he hath judg'd already and hath writt'n his impartial Sentence in Characters legible to all Christ'ndom and besides hath taught us that there be som whom he hath giv'n over to delusion whose very mind and conscience is defil'd of whom Saint Paul to Titus makes mention II. Upon the Earle of Straffords Death THis next Chapter is a penitent confession of the King and the strangest if it be well weigh'd that ever was Auricular For hee repents heer of giving his consent though most unwillingly to the most seasonable and solemn peece of Justice that had bin don of many yeares in the Land But his sole conscience thought the contrary And thus was the welfare the safety and within a little the unanimous demand of three populous Nations to have attended stil on the singularity of one mans opi nionated conscience if men had bin always so tame and spiritless and had not unexpectedly found the grace to understand that if his conscience were so narrow and peculiar to it selfe it was not fitt his Authority should be so ample and Universall over others For certainly a privat conscience sorts not with a public Calling but declares that Person rather meant by nature for a private fortune And this also we may take for truth that hee whose conscience thinks it sin to put to death a capital Offendor will as oft think it meritorious to kill a righteous Person But let us heare what the sin was that lay so sore upon him and as one of his Prayers giv'n to Dr. Juxton testifies to the very day of his death it was his signing the Bill of Straffords execution a man whom all men look'd upon as one of the boldest and most impetuous instruments that the King had to advance any violent or illegal designe He had rul'd Ireland and som parts of England in an Arbitrary manner had indeavour'd to subvert Fnndamental Lawes to subvert Parlaments and to incense the King against them he had also endeavor'd to make Hostility between England and Scotland He had counceld the King to call over that Irish Army of Papists which he had cunningly rais'd to reduce England as appear'd by good Testimony then present at the Consultation For which and many other crimes alledg'd and prov'd against him in 28 Articles he was condemnd of high Treason by the Parlament The Commons by farr the greater number cast him the Lords after they had bin satisfi'd in a full discours by the Kings Sollicitor and the opinions of many Judges deliver'd in thir House agreed likewise to the Sentence of Treason The People universally cri'd out for Justice None were his Friends but Coutiers and Clergimen the worst at that time and most corrupted sort of men and Court Ladies not
this King and most his Favorites were Courtiers and Prelates men whose chief study was to finde out which way the King inclin'd and to imitate him exactly How these men stood affected to Parlaments cannot be forgott'n No man but may remember it was thir continuall exercise to dispute and preach against them and in thir common discours nothing was more frequent then that they hoped the King should now have no need of Parlaments any more And this was but the copy which his Parasites had industriously tak'n from his own words and actions who never call'd a Parlament but to supply his necessities and having supply'd those as suddenly and ignominiously dissolv'd it without redressing any one greevance of the people Somtimes choosing rather to miss of his Subsidies or to raise them by illegal courses then that the people should not still miss of thir hopes to be releiv'd by Parlaments The first he broke off at his comming to the Crown for no other cause then to protect the Duke of Buckingham against them who had accus'd him besides other hainous crimes of no less then poysoning the deceased King his Father concerning which matter the Declaration of No more addresses hath sufficiently inform'd us And still the latter breaking was with more affront and indignity put upon the House and her worthiest Members then the former Insomuch that in the fifth year of his Raign in a Proclamation he seems offended at the very rumor of a Parlament divulg'd among the people as if he had tak'n it for a kind of slander that men should think him that way exorable much less inclin'd and forbidds it as a presumption to prescribe him any time for Parlaments that is to say either by perswasion or Petition or so much as the reporting of such a rumor for other manner of prescribing was at that time not suspected By which feirce Edict the people forbidd'n to complain as well as forc'd to suffer began from thenceforth to despaire of Parlaments Whereupon such illegal actions and especially to get vast summs of Money were put in practise by the King and his new Officers as Monopolies compulsive Knight-hoods Cote Conduct and Ship money the seizing not of one Naboths Vineyard but of whole Inheritances under the pretence of Forrest or Crown Lands corruption and Bribery compounded for with impunities granted for the future as gave evident proof that the King never meant nor could it stand with the reason of his affaires ever to recall Parlaments having brought by these irregular courses the peoples interest and his own to so direct an opposition that he might foresee plainly if nothing but a Parlament could save the people it must necessarily be his undoing Till eight or nine years after proceeding with a high hand in these enormities and having the second time levied an injurious Warr against his native Countrie Scotland and finding all those other shifts of raising Money which bore out his first expedition now to faile him not of his own chois and inclination as any Child may see but urg'd by strong necessities and the very pangs of State which his own violent proceedings had brought him to hee calls a Parlament first in Ireland which onely was to give him four Subsidies and so to expire then in England where his first demand was but twelve Subsidies to maintain a Scotch Warr condemn'd and abominated by the whole Kingdom promising thir greevances should be consider'd afterward Which when the Parlament who judg'd that Warr it self one of thir main greevances made no hast to grant not enduring the delay of his impatient will or els fearing the conditions of thir grant he breaks off the whole Session and dismisses them and thir greevances with scorn and frustration Much less therfore did hee call this last Parlament by his own chois and inclination but having first try'd in vaine all undue ways to procure Mony his Army of thir own accord being beat'n in the North the Lords Petitioning and the general voice of the people almost hissing him and his ill acted regality off the Stage compell'd at length both by his wants and by his feares upon meer extremity he summon'd this last Parlament And how is it possible that hee should willingly incline to Parlaments who never was perceiv'd to call them but for the greedy hope of a whole National Bribe his Subsidies and never lov'd never fulfill'd never promoted the true end of Parlaments the redress of greevances but still put them off and prolong'd them whether gratify'd ot not gratify'd and was indeed the Author of all those greevances To say therfore that hee call'd this Parlament of his own chois and inclination argues how little truth wee can expect from the sequel of this Book which ventures in the very first period to affront more then one Nation with an untruth so remarkable and presumes a more implicit Faith in the people of England then the Pope ever commanded from the Romish Laitie or els a natural sottishness fitt to be abus'd and ridd'n While in the judgement of wise Men by laying the foundation of his defence on the avouchment of that which is so manifestly untrue he hath giv'n a worse foile to his own cause then when his whole Forces were at any time overthrown They therfore who think such great Service don to the Kings affairs in publishing this Book will find themselves in the end mistak'n if sense and right mind or but any mediocrity of knowledge and remembrance hath not quite forsak'n men But to prove his inclination to Parlaments he affirms heer To have always thought the right way of them most safe for his Crown and best pleasing to his People What hee thought we know not but that hee ever took the contrary way wee saw and from his own actions we felt long agoe what he thought of Parlaments or of pleasing his People a surer evidence then what we hear now too late in words He alleges that the cause of forbearing to convene Parlaments was the sparkes which some mens distempers there studied to kindle They were indeed not temper'd to his temper for it neither was the Law nor the rule by which all other tempers were to bee try'd but they were esteem'd and chos'n for the fittest men in thir several Counties to allay and quench those distempers which his own inordinate doings had inflam'd And if that were his refusing to convene till those men had been qualify'd to his temper that is to say his will we may easily conjecture what hope ther was of Parlaments had not fear and his insatiat poverty in the midst of his excessive wealth constrain'd him Hee hoped by his freedom and their moderation to prevent misunderstandings And wherfore not by their freedom and his moderation But freedom he thought too high a word for them and moderation too mean a word for himself this was not the way to prevent misunderstandings He still fear'd passion and prejudice in other men not
upon his Subjects though no way by them provok'd he sends an Agent with Letters to the King of Denmark requiring aid against the parlament and that aid was comming when Divine providence to divert them sent a sudden torrent of Swedes into the bowels of Denmark He then endeavours to bring up both Armies first the English with whom 8000 Irish Papists rais'd by Strafford and a French Army were to joyne then the Scots at Newcastle whom he thought to have encourag'd by telling them what Mony and Horse he was to have from Denmark I mention not the Irish conspiracie till due place These and many other were his Counsels toward a civil Warr. His preparations after those two Armies were dismiss'd could not suddenly be too op'n Nevertheless there were 8000 Irish Papists which he refus'd to disband though intreated by both Houses first for reasons best known to himself next under pretence of lending them to the Spaniard and so kept them undisbanded till very neere the Mounth wherin that Rebellion broke forth He was also raising Forces in London pretendedly to serve the Portugall but with intent to seise the Tower Into which divers Canoneers were by him sent with many fire works and Granado's and many great battering peeces were mounted against the City The Court was fortifi'd with Ammunition and Souldiers-new listed who follow'd the King from London and appear'd at Kingston som hunderds of Horse in a warlike manner with Waggons of Ammunition after them the Queen in Holland was buying more of which the Parlament had certain knowledge and had not yet so much as once demanded the Militia to be settl'd till they knew both of her going over sea and to what intent For she had pack'd up the Crown Jewels to have bin going long before had not the Parlament suspecting by the discoveries at Burrow Bridge what was intended with the Jewells us'd meanes to stay her journey till the winter Hull and the Magazin there had bin secretly attempted under the Kings hand from whom though in his declarations renouncing all thought of Warr notes were sent over sea for supply of Armes which were no sooner come but the inhabitants of Yorkshire and other Counties were call'd to Arms and actual forces rais'd while the Parlament were yet Petitioning in peace and had not one man listed As to the Act of Hostilitie though not much material in whom first it began or by whose Commissions dated first after such Counsels and preparations discover'd and so farr advanc'd by the King yet in that act also he will be found to have had precedency if not at London by the assault of his armed Court upon the naked People and his attempt upon the House of Commons yet certainly at Hull first by his close practices on that Town next by his seige Thus whether Counsels preparations or Acts of hostilitie be considerd it appeares with evidence anough though much more might be said that the King is truly charg'd to bee the first beginner of these civil Warrs To which may be added as a close that in the I le of Wight he charg'd it upon himself at the public Treaty and acquitted the Parlament But as for the securing of Hull and the public stores therin and in other places it was no Surprisall of his strength the custody wherof by Autority of Parlament was committed into hands most fitt and most responsible for such a trust It were a folly beyond ridiculous to count our selves a free Nation if the King not in Parlament but in his own Person and against them might appropriate to himself the strength of a whole Nation as his proper goods What the Lawes of the Land are a Parlament should know best having both the life and death of Lawes in thir Lawgiving power And the Law of England is at best but the reason of Parlament The Parlament therfore taking into thir hands that wherof most properly they ought to have the keeping committed no surprisal If they prevented him that argu'd not at all either his innocency or unpreparedness but their timely foresight to use prevention But what needed that They knew his chiefest Armes left him were those onely which the ancient Christians were wont to use against thir Persecuters Prayers and Teares O sacred Reverence of God Respect and Shame of Men whither were yee fled when these hypocrisies were utterd Was the Kingdom then at all that cost of blood to remove from him none but Praiers and Teares What were those thousands of blaspheming Cavaliers about him whose mouthes let fly Oaths and Curses by the voley were those the Praiers and those Carouses drunk to the confusion of all things good or holy did those minister the Teares Were they Praiers and Teares that were listed at York muster'd on Heworth Moore and laid Seige to Hull for the guard of his Person Were Praiers and Teares at so high a rate in Holland that nothing could purchase them but the Crown Jewels Yet they in Holland such word was sent us sold them for Gunns Carabins Morters-peeces Canons and other deadly Instruments of Warr which when they came to York were all no doubt but by the merit of some great Saint suddenly transform'd into Praiers and Teares and being divided into Regiments and Brigads were the onely Armes that mischiev'd us in all those Battels and Incounters These were his chief Armes whatever we must call them and yet such Armes as they who fought for the Common-wealth have by the help of better Praiers vanquish'd and brought to nothing He bewailes his want of the Militia Not so much in reference to his own protection as the Peoples whose many and sore oppressions greeve him Never considering how ill for seventeen yeares together hee had protected them and that these miseries of the people are still his own handy work having smitt'n them like a forked Arrow so sore into the Kingdoms sides as not to be drawn out and cur'd without the incision of more flesh He tells us that what he wants in the hand of power he has in the wings of Faith and Prayer But they who made no reckning of those Wings while they had that power in thir hands may easily mistake the Wings of Faith for the Wings of presumption and so fall headlong We meet next with a comparison how apt let them judge who have travell'd to Mecca That the Parlament have hung the majestie of Kingship in any airy imagination of regality between the Privileges of both Houses like the Tombe of Mahomet Hee knew not that he was prophecying the death and burial of a Turkish Tyranny that spurn'd down those Laws which gave it life and being so long as it endur'd to be a regulated Monarchy He counts it an injury Not to have the sole power in himself to help or hurt any and that the Militia which he holds to be his undoubted Right should be dispos'd as the Parlament thinks fitt And yet confesses that if he had it in his actual
doe such a business then they themselves who complain most But he must chew such Morsels as Propositions ere he let them down So let him but if the Kingdom shall tast nothing but after his chewing what does he make of the Kingdom but a great baby The streitness of his conscience will not give him leave to swallow down such Camels of sacrilege and injustice as others doe This is the Pharisee up and down I am not as other men are But what Camels of Injustice he could devoure all his three Realms were wittness which was the cause that they almost perish'd for want of Parlaments And he that will be unjust to man will be sacrilegious to God and to bereave a Christian conscience of libertie for no other reason then the narrowness of his own conscience is the most unjust measure to man and the worst sacrilege to God That other which he calls sacrilege of taking from the Clergy that superfluous wealth which antiquitie as old as Constantine from the credit of a Divine vision counted poyson in the Church hath bin ever most oppos'd by men whose righteousness in other matters hath bin least observ'd He concludes as his manner is with high commendation of his own unbiass'd rectitude and beleives nothing to be in them that dissent from him but faction innovation and particular designes Of these repetitions I find no end no not in his prayer which being founded upon deceitfull principl's and a fond hope that God will bless him in those his errors which he calls honest finds a fitt answer of S. James Yee ask and receave not because yee aske amiss As for the truth and sinceritie which he praies may be alwaies found in those his Declarations to the people the contrariety of his own actions will bear eternal witness how little carefull or sollicitous he was what he promis'd or what he utterd there XII Vpon the Rebellion in Ireland THe Rebellion and horrid massacher of English Protestants in Ireland to the number of 1 54000. in the Province of Ulster onely by thir own computation which added to the other three makes up the total summ of that slaughter in all likelyhood fowr times as great although so sudden and so violent as at first to amaze all men that were not accessory yet from whom and from what counsels it first sprung neither was nor could be possibly so secret as the contrivers therof blinded with vaine hope or the despaire that other plots would succeed suppos'd For it cannot be imaginable that the Irish guided by so many suttle and Italian heads of the Romish party should so farr have lost the use of reason and indeed of common Sense as not supported with other strength then thir own to begin a Warr so desperate and irreconcileable against both England and Scotland at once All other Nations from whom they could expect aid were busied to the utmost in thir own most necessary concernments It remaines then that either some autoritie or som great assistance promis'd them from England was that wheron they cheifly trusted And as it is not difficult to discern from what inducing cause this insurrection first arose so neither was it hard at first to have apply'd some effectual remedy though not prevention And yet prevention was not hopeles when Strafford either beleivd not or did not care to beleive the several warnings and discoveries therof which more then once by Papists and by Friers themselves were brought him besides what was brought by depositition divers months before that Rebellion to the Arch bishop of Canterbury and others of the Kings Counsel as the Declaration of no addresses declares But the assurance which they had in privat that no remedy should be apply'd was it seemes one of the chief reasons that drew on thir undertaking And long it was ere that assurance faild them untill the Bishops and Popish Lords who while they sate and Voted still oppos'd the sending aid to Ireland were expelld the House Seeing then the maine incitement and Autority for this Rebellion must be needs deriv'd from England it will be next inquir'd who was the prime Author The King heer denounces a malediction temporal and eternal not simply to the Author but to the malitious Author of this blood-shedd and by that limitation may exempt not himself onely but perhaps the Irish Rebels themselves who never will confess to God or Man that any blood was shed by them malitiously but either in the Catholic cause or common Liberty or some other specious Plea which the conscience from grounds both good and evil usually suggests to it self thereby thinking to elude the direct force of that imputation which lies upon them Yet he acknowledges It fell out as a most unhappy advantage of some mens malice against him but indeed of most mens just suspicion by finding in it no such wide departure or disagreement from the scope of his former Counsels and proceedings And that he himself was the Author of that Rebelion he denies both heer and elswhere with many imprecations but no solid evidence What on the other side against his denyal hath bin affirm'd in three Kingdoms being heer briefly set in view the Reader may so judge as he findes cause This is most certain that the King was ever friendly to the Irish Papists and in his third yeare against the plain advice of Parlament like a kind of Pope sold them many indulgences for Mony and upon all occasions advancing the Popish party and negotiating under hand by Priests who were made his Agents ingag'd the Irish Papists in a Warr against the Scotch Protestants To that end he furnish'd them and had them train'd in Arms and kept them up either op'nly or under hand the onely army in his three Kingdoms till the very burst of that Rebellion The Summer before that dismal October a Committy of most active Papists all since in the head of that Rebellion were in great favour at White-Hall and admitted to many privat consultations with the King and Queen And to make it evident that no mean matters were the subject of those Conferences at their request he gave away his peculiar right to more then five Irish Counties for the payment of an inconsiderable Rent They departed not home till within two Mounths before the Rebellion and were either from the first breaking out or soon after found to be the cheif Rebels themselves But what should move the King besides his own inclination to Popery and the prevalence of his Queen over him to hold such frequent and close meetings with a Committy of Irish Papists in his own House while the Parlament of England sate unadvis'd with is declar'd by a Scotch Author and of it self is cleare anough The Parlament at the beginning of that Summer having put Strafford to death imprison'd others his chief Favorites and driv'n the rest to fly the K. who had in vain tempted both the Scotch and the English Army to come up against
the Parlament and Citty finding no compliance answerable to his hope from the Protestant Armies betakes himself last to the Irish who had in readiness an Army of eight thousand Papists which he had refus'd so oft'n to disband and a Committy heer of the same Religion With them who thought the time now come which to bring about they had bin many yeares before not wishing only but with much industrie complotting to do som eminent service for the Church of Rome thir own perfidious natures against a Puritan Parlmt the hated English thir Masters he agrees concludes that so soon as both Armies in England were disbanded the Irish should appeare in Arms maister all the Protestants and help the King against his Parlament And we need not doubt that those five Counties were giv'n to the Irish for other reason then the four Northern Counties had bin a little before offerd to the Scots The King in August takes a journey into Scotland and overtaking the Scotch Army then on thir way home attempts the second time to pervert them but without success No sooner comm into Scotland but he laies a plot so saith the Scotch Author to remove out of the way such of the Nobility there as were most likely to withstand or not to furder his designes This being discover'd he sends from his side one Dillon a Papist Lord soon after a cheif Rebell with Letters into Ireland and dispatches a Commission under the great Seale of Scotland at that time in his own custody commanding that they should forthwith as had bin formerly agreed cause all the Irish to rise in Armes Who no sooner had receiv'd such command but obey'd and began in Massacher for they knew no other way to make sure the Protestants which was commanded them expressly and the way it seems left to thir discretion He who hath a mind to read the Commission it self and sound reason added why it was not likely to be forg'd besides the attestation of so many Irish themselves may have recourse to a Book intitl'd The Mysterie of Iniquity Besides what the Parlament it self in the Declaration of no more addresses hath affirm'd that they have one copy of that Commission in thir own hands attested by the Oathes of some that were ey-witnesses and had seen it under the Seale Others of the principal Rebels have confess'd that this Commission was the summer before promis'd at London to the Irish Commissioners to whom the King then discoverd in plain words his great desire to be reveng'd on the Parlament of England After the Rebellion brok'n out which in words onely he detested but under hand favour'd and promoted by all the offices of freindship correspondence and what possible aide he could afford them the particulars wherof are too many to be inserted heer I suppose no understanding Man could longer doubt who was Author or Instigator of that Rebellion If there be who yet doubt I referr them especially to that Declaration of July 1643. with that of no addresses 1647. and another full volum of examinations to be sett out speedily concerning this matter Against all which testimonies likelyhoods evidences and apparent actions of his own being so abundant his bare deniall though with imprecation can no way countervaile and least of all in his own cause As for the Commission granted them he thinkes to evade that by retorting that some in England fight against him and yet pretend his authority But though a Parlament by the known Laws may affirme justly to have the Kings authority inseparable from that Court though divided from his Person it is not credible that the Irish Rebels who so much tenderd his Person above his Autoritie and were by him so well receavd at Oxford would be so farr from all humanitie as to slander him with a particular Commission sign'd and sent them by his own hand And of his good affection to the Rebels this Chapter it self is not without witness He holds them less in fault then the Scots as from whom they might allege to have fetch'd thir imitation making no difference between men that rose necessarily to defend themselves which no Protestant Doctrin ever disallow'd against them who threatn'd Warr and those who began a voluntary and causeless Rebellion with the Massacher of so many thousands who never meant them harme He falls next to flashes and a multitude of words in all which is contain'd no more then what might be the Plea of any guiltiest Offender He was not the Author because he hath the greatest share of loss and dishonour by what is committed Who is there that offends God or his Neighbour on whom the greatest share of loss and dishonour lights not in the end But in the act of doing evil men use not to consider the event of thir evil doing or if they doe have then no power to curb the sway of thir own wickedness So that the greatest share of loss and dishonour to happ'n upon themselves is no argument that they were not guilty This other is as weake that a Kings interest above that of any other man lies chiefly in the common welfare of his Subjects therfore no King will do aught against the Common welfare For by this evasion any tyrant might as well purge himself from the guilt of raising troubles or commotions among the people because undoubtedly his chief Interest lies in thir sitting still I said but now that eev'n this Chapter if nothing els might suffice to discover his good affection to the Rebels which in this that follows too notoriously appeares imputing this insurrection to the preposterous rigor and unreasonable severitie the covetous zeale and uncharitable fury of some men these some men by his continual paraphrase are meant the Parlament and lastly to the feare of utter extirpation If the whole Irishry of Rebells had fee'd som advocate to speak partially and sophistically in thir defence he could have hardly dazl'd better Yet never the less would have prov'd himself no other then a plausible deceiver And perhaps nay more then perhaps for it is affirm'd extant under good evidence that those fained terrors and jealousies were either by the King himself or the Popish Preists w ch were sent by him put into the head of that inquisitive people on set purpose to engage them For who had power to oppress them or to releive them being opprest but the King or his immediat Deputy This rather should have made them rise against the King then against the Parlament Who threat'nd or ever thought of thir extirpation till they themselves had begun it to the English As for preposterous riger covetous zeale and uncharitable fury they had more reason to suspect those evils first from his own commands whom they saw using daily no greater argument to prove the truth of his Religion then by enduring no other but his owne Prelatical and to force it upon others made Episcopal Ceremonial and common-Prayer-Book Warrs But the Papists
understood him better then by the outside and knew that those Warrs were their Warrs Although if the Common-wealth should be afraid to suppress op'n Idolatry lest the Papists thereupon should grow desperat this were to let them grow and become our persecuters while we neglected what we might have don Evangelically to be their Reformers Or to doe as his Father James did who in stead of taking heart and putting confidence in God by such a deliverance as from the Powder Plot though it went not off yet with the meer conceit of it as some observe was hitt into such a Hectic shivering between Protestant and Papist all his life after that he never durst from that time doe otherwise then equivocat or collogue with the Pope and his adherents He would be thought to commiserat the sad effects of that Rebellion and to lament that the teares and blood spilt there did not quench the sparks of our civil discord heer But who began these dissentions and what can be more op'nly known then those retardings and delaies which by himself were continually devis'd to hinder and put back the releif of those distressed Protestants which undoubtedly had it not bin then put back might have sav'd many streames of those teares and that blood wherof he seems heer so sadly to bewaile the spilling His manifold excuses diversions and delaies are too well known to be recited heer in particular and too many But he offer'd to goe himself in person upon that expedition and reck'ns up many surmises why he thinks they would not suffer him But mentions not that by his underdealing to debaush Armies heer at home and by his secret intercours with the cheif Rebels long ere that time every where known he had brought the Parlament into so just a diffidence of him as that they durst not leave the Public Armes to his disposal much less an Army to his conduct He concludes That next the sin of those who began that Rebellion theirs must needs be who hinder'd the suppressing or diverted the aides But judgement rashly giv'n oft-times involves the Judge himself He findes fault with those who threatn'd all extremity to the Rebels and pleads much that mercy should be shown them It seems he found himself not so much concern'd as those who had lost Fathers Brothers Wives and Children by thir crueltie whom in justice to retaliat is not as he supposes unevangelical so long as Magistracy and Warr is not laid down under the Gospel If this his Sermon of affected mercy were not too Pharisaical how could he permit himself to cause the slaughter of so many thousands heer in England for meer Prerogatives the Toys and Gewgaws of his Crown for Copes and Surplices the Trinkets of his Priests and not perceave his zeale while he taxes others to be most preposterous and unevangelical Neither is there the same cause to destroy a whole City for the ravishing of a Sister not don out of Villany and recompence offer'd by Mariage nor the same case for those Disciples to summon sire from Heav'n upon the whole City where they were deny'd lodging and for a Nation by just Warr and execution to slay whole Families of them who so barbarously had slaine whole Families before Did not all Israel doe as much against the Benjamits for one Rape committed by a few and defended by the whole Tribe and did they not the same to Jabesh Gilead for not assisting them in that revenge I speak not this that such measure should be meted rigorously to all the Irish or as remembring that the Parlament ever so Decreed but to shew that this his Homily hath more of craft and affectation in it then of sound Doctrin But it was happy that his going into Ireland was not consented to For either he had certainly turn'd his rais'd Forces against the Parlament it self or not gon at all or had he gon what work he would have made there his own following words declare He would have punisht some no question for some perhaps who were of least use must of necessity have bin sacrific'd to his reputation and the conveniencie of his affaires Others he would have disarm'd that is to say in his own time but all of them he would have protected from the fury of those that would have drown'd them if they had refus'd to swim down the popular stream These expressions are too oft'n mett and too well understood for any man to doubt his meaning By the fury of those he meanes no other then the Justice of Parlament to whom yet he had committed the whole business Those who would have refus'd to swim down the popular streame our constant key tells us to be Papists Prelats and thir Faction these by his own confession heer he would have protected against his Puritan Parlament And by this who sees not that he and the Irish Rebels had but one aime one and the same drift and would have forthwith joyn'd in one body against us He goes on still in his tenderness of the Irish Rebels fearing least our zeale should be more greedy to kill the Beare for his skin then for any harme he hath don This either justifies the Rebels to have don no harme at all or inferrs his opinion that the Parlament is more bloody and rapacious in the prosecution of thir Justice then those Rebels were in the execution of thir barbarons crueltie Let men doubt now and dispute to whom the King was a Freind most to his English Parlament or to his Irish Rebels With whom that we may yet see furder how much he was thir Freind after that the Parlament had brought them every where either to Famin or a low condition he to give them all the respit and advantages they could desire without advice of Parlament to whom he himself had committed the mannaging of that Warr makes a Cessation in pretence to releive the Protestants overborne there with numbers but as the event prov'd to support the Papists by diverting and drawing over the English Army there to his own service heer against the Parlament For that the Protestants were then on the winning hand it must needs be plaine who notwithstanding the miss of those Forces which at thir landing heer maister'd without difficulty great part of Wales and Cheshire yet made a shift to keep thir own in Ireland But the plot of this Irish Truce is in good part discoverd in that Declaration of September 30 th 1643. And if the Protestants were but handfuls there as he calls them why did he stop and way-lay both by Land and Sea to his utmost power those Provisions and Supplies which were sent by the Parlament How were so many handfuls call'd over as for a while stood him in no small stead and against our main Forces heer in England Since therfore all the reasons that can be giv'n of this Cessation appeare so fals and frivolous it may be justly fear'd that the designe it self was most wicked and pernicious
the best of Women who when they grow to that insolence as to appeare active in State affaires are the certain sign of a dissolute degenerat and pusillanimous Common-wealth Last of all the King or rather first for these were but his Apes was not satisfi'd in conscience to condemn him of High Treason and declar'd to both Houses That no fears or respects whatsoever should make him alter that resolution founded upon his conscience Either then his resolution was indeed not founded upon his conscience or his conscience receav'd better imformation or else both his conscience and this his strong resolution strook saile notwithstanding these glorious words to his stronger fear For within a few dayes after when the Judges at a privie Counsel and four of his elected Bishops had pick'd the thorn out of his conscience he was at length perswaded to signe the Bill for Straffords Execution And yet perhaps that it wrung his conscience to condemn the Earle of high Treason is not unlikely not because he thought him guiltless of highest Treason had half those crimes bin committed against his own privat Interest or Person as appear'd plainly by his charge against the six Members but because he knew himself a Principal in what the Earl was but his accessory and thought nothing Treason against the Common-wealth but against himself only Had he really scrupl'd to sentence that for Treason which he thought not Treasonable why did he seeme resolv'd by the Judges and the Bishops And ifby them resolv'd how comes the scruple heer again It was not then as he now pretends The importunities of some and the feare of many which made him signe but the satisfaction giv'n him by those Judges Ghostly Fathers of his own choosing Which of him shall we believe For hee seemes not one but double either heer we must not beleeve him professing that his satisfaction was but seemingly receav'd out of feare or els wee may as well beleeve that the scruple was no real scruple as we can beleeve him heer against himself before that the satisfaction then receiv'd was no real satisfaction of such a variable and fleeting conscience what hold can be tak'n But that indeed it was a facil conscience and could dissemble satisfaction when it pleas'd his own ensuing actions declar'd being soon after found to have the chief hand in a most detested conspiracy against the Parlament and Kingdom as by Letters and examinations of Percy Goring and other Conspirators came to light that his intention was to rescue the Earle of Strafford by seizing on the Towre of London to bring up the English Army out of the North joyn'd with eight thousand Irish Papists rais'd by Strafford and a French Army to be landed at Portsmouth against the Parlament and thir Friends For which purpose the King though requested by both Houses to disband those Irish Papists refus'd to do it and kept them still in Armes to his own purposes No marvel then if being as deeply criminous as the Earle himself it stung his conscience to adjudge to death those misdeeds whereof himself had bin the chiefe Author no marvel though in stead of blaming and detesting his ambition his evil Counsel his violence and oppression of the people he fall to praise his great Abilities and with Scolastic flourishes beneath the decencie of a King compares him to the Sun which in all figurative use and significance beares allusion to a King not to a Subject No marvel though he knit contradictions as close as words can lye together not approving in his judgement and yet approving in his subsequent reason all that Strafford did as driv'n by the necessity of times and the temper of that people for this excuses all his misdemeanors Lastly no marvel that he goes on building many faire and pious conclusions upon false and wicked premises which deceive the common Reader notwell discerning the antipathy of such connexions but this is themarvel may be the astonishment of all that have a conscience how he durst in the sight of God and with the same words of contrition wherwith David repents the murdering of Uriah repent his lawfull compliance to that just act of not saving him whom he ought to have deliver'd up to speedy punishment though himself the guiltier of the two If the deed were so sinfull to have put to death so great a malefactor it would have tak'n much doubtless from the heaviness of his sin to have told God in his confession how he labour'd what dark plots he had contriv'd into what a league enterd and with what Conspirators against his Parlament and Kingdoms to have rescu'd from the claime of Justice so notable and so deare an Instrument of Tyranny Which would have bin a story no doubt as pleasing in the eares of Heav'n as all these equivocal repentances For it was feare and nothing els which made him faine before both the scruple and the satisfaction of hisconscience that is to say of his mind his first feare pretended conscience that he might be born with to refuse signing his latter feare being more urgent made him finde a conscience both to signe and to be satisfy'd As for repentance it came not on him till a long time after when he saw he could have sufferd nothing more though he had deny'd that Bill For how could he understandingly repent of letting that be Treason which the Parlament and whole Nation so judg'd This was that which repented him to have giv'n up to just punishment so stout a Champion of his designes who might have bin so usefull to him in his following civil Broiles It was a worldy repentance not a conscientious or els it was a strange Tyranny which his conscience had got over him to vex him like an evil spirit for doing one act of Justice and by that means to fortifie his resolution from ever doing so any more That mind must needs be irrecoverably deprav'd which either by chance or importunity tasting but once of one just deed spatters at it and abhorrs the relish ever after To the Scribes and Pharises woe was denounc'd by our Saviour for straining at a Gnatt and swallowing a Camel though a Gnatt were to be straind at But to a conscience with whom one good deed is so hard to pass down as to endanger almost a choaking and bad deeds without number though as bigg and bulkie as the ruin of three Kingdoms goe down currently without straining certainly a farr greater woe appertaines If his conscience were come to that unnatural dyscra sie as to digest poyson and to keck at wholsom food it was not for the Parlament or any of his Kingdoms to feed with him any longer Which to concele he would perswade us that the Parlament also in their conscience escap'd not some touches of remorse for putting Strafford to death in forbidding it by an after act to be a precedent for the future But in a fairer construction that act imply'd rather a desire in
in any Kings heart And thus his pregnant motives are at last prov'd nothing but a Tympany or a Queen Maries Cushion For in any Kings heart as Kings goe now what shadowie conceit or groundless toy will not create a jealousie That he had design'd to assault the House of Commons taking God to witness he utterly denies yet in his Answer to the City maintaines that any course of violence had bin very justifiable And we may then guess how farr it was from his designe However it discover'd in him an excessive eagerness to be aveng'd on them that cross'd him and that to have his will he stood not to doe things never so much below him What a becomming sight it was to see the King of England one while in the House of Commons by and by in the Guild-Hall among the Liveries and Manufactures prosecuting so greedily the track of five or six fled Subjects himself not the Sollicitor onely but the Pursivant and the Apparitor of his own partial cause And although in his Answers to the Parlament hee hath confess'd first that his manner of prosecution was illegal next that as hee once conceiv'd hec had ground anough to accuse them so at length that hee found as good cause to desert any prosecution of them yet heer he seems to reverse all and against promise takes up his old deserted accusation that he might have something to excuse himself instead of giving due reparation which he always refus'd to give them whom he had so dishonor'd That I went saith he of his going to the House of Commons attended with some Gentlemen Gentlemen indeed the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels the spawn and shiprack of Taverns and Dicing Houses and then he pleads it was no unwonted thing for the Majesty and safety of a King to be so attended especially in discontented times An illustrious Majestie no doubt so attended a becomming safety for the King of England plac'd in the fidelity of such Guards and Champions Happy times when Braves and Hacksters the onely contented Members of his Goverment were thought the fittest and the faithfullest to defend his Person against the discontents of a Parlament and all good Men. Were those the chos'n ones to preserve reverence to him while he enterd unassur'd and full of suspicions into his great and faithfull Councel Let God then and the World judge whether the cause were not in his own guilty and unwarrantable doings The House of Commons upon several examinations of this business declar'd it sufficiently prov'd that the comming of those soldiers Papists and others with the King was to take away some of thir Members and in case of opposition or denyal to have fal'n upon the House in a hostile manner This the King heer denies adding a fearful imprecation against his own life If he purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent then saith he let the Enemie persecute my soule and tred my life to the ground and lay my honor in the dust What need then more disputing He appeal'd to Gods Tribunal and behold God hath judg'd and don to him in the sight of all men according to the verdict of his own mouth To be a warning to all Kings hereafter how they use presumptuously the words and protestations of David without the spirit and conscience of David And the Kings admirers may heer see thir madness to mistake this Book for a monument of his worth and wisdom when as indeed it is his Doomsday Booke not like that of William the Norman his Predecessor but the record and memorial of his condemnation and discovers whatever hath befal'n him to have bin hast'nd on from Divine Justice by the rash and inconsiderat appeal of his own lipps But what evasions what pretences though never so unjust and emptie will he refuse in matters more unknown and more involv'd in the mists and intricacies of State who rather then not justifie himself in a thing so generally odious can flatter his integritie with such frivolous excuses against the manifest dissent of all men whether Enemies Neuters or Friends But God and his judgements have not bin mock'd and good men may well perceive what a distance there was ever like to be between him and his Parlament and perhaps between him and all amendment who for one good deed though but consented to askes God forgiveness and from his worst deeds don takes occasion to insist upon his rightecusness IV. Vpon the Insolency of the Tumults WEE have heer I must confess a neat and well-couch'd invective against Tumults expressing a true feare of them in the Author but yet so handsomly compos'd and withall so feelingly that to make a Royal comparison I beleeve Rehoboam the Son of Solomon could not have compos'd it better Yet Rehoboam had more cause to inveigh against them for they had ston'd his Tribute-gatherer and perhaps had as little spar'd his own Person had hee not with all speed betak'n him to his Charret But this King hath stood the worst of them in his own House without danger when his Coach and Horses in a Panic fear have bin to seek which argues that the Tumults at Whitehall were nothing so dangerous as those at Sechem But the matter heer considerable is not whether the King or his Houshold Rhetorician have made a pithy declamation against Tumults but first whether these were Tumults or not next if they were whether the King himself did not cause them Let us examin therfore how things at that time stood The King as before hath bin prov'd having both call'd this Parlament unwillingly and as unwillingly from time to time condescended to thir several acts carrying on a disjoynt and privat interest of his own and not enduring to be so cross'd and overswaid especially in the executing of his chief bold est Instrument the Deputy of Ireland first tempts the English Army with no less reward then the spoil of London to come up and destroy the Parlament That being discover'd by some of the Officers who though bad anough yet abhorr'd so foul a deed the K. hard'nd in his purpose tempts them the 2d time at Burrow Bridge promises to pawn his Jewels for them that they should be mett assisted would they but march on w th a gross body of hors under the E. of Newcastle He tempts them yet the third time though after discovery his own abjuration to have ever tempted them as is affirmd in the Declaration of no more addresses Neither this succeeding he turnes him next to the Scotch Army by his own credential Letters giv'n to Oneal and Sr John Hinderson baites his temptation with a richer reward not only to have the sacking of London but four Northern Counties to be made Scottish w th Jewels of great value to be giv'n in pawn thewhile But neither would the Scots for any promise of reward be bought to such an execrable and odious treachery but with much honesty gave notice of
difficult to be guess'd And those instances wherein valour is not to be question'd for not scuffling with the Sea or an undisciplind Rabble are but subservient to carry on the solemn jest of his fearing Tumults if they discover not withall the true reason why he departed onely to turne his slashing at the Court Gate to slaughtering in the Field his disorderly bickering to an orderly invading which was nothing els but a more orderly disorder Some suspected and affirm'd that he meditated a Warr when he went first from White Hall And they were not the worst heads that did so nor did any of his former acts weak'n him to that as he alleges for himself or if they had they cleere him onely for the time of passing them not for what ever thoughts might come after into his mind Former actions of improvidence or fear not with him unusual cannot absolve him of all after meditations He goes on protesting his no intention to have left White Hall had these horrid Tumults giv'n him but Faire Quarter as if he himself his Wife and Children had bin in peril But to this anough hath bin answer'd Had this Parlament as it was in its first Election Namely with the Lord and Baron Bishops sate full and free he doubts not but all had gon well What warrant this of his to us Whose not doubting was all good mens greatest doubt He was resolv'd to heare reason and to consent so farr as he could comprehend A hopefull resolution what if his reason were found by oft experience to comprehend nothing beyond his own advantages was this a reason fit to be intrusted with the common good of three Nations But saith he as Swine are to gardens so are Tumults to Parlaments This the Parlament had they found it so could best have told us In the meane while who knows not that one great Hogg may doe as much mischief in a Garden as many little Swine He was sometimes prone to think that had he call'd this last Parlament to any other place in England the sad consequences might have bin prevented But change of ayr changes not the mind Was not his first Parlament at Oxford dissolv'd after two Subsidies giv'n him and no Justice receav'd Was not his last in the same place where they sat with as much freedom as much quiet from Tumults as they could desire a Parlament both in his account and thir own consisting of all his Friends that fled after him and suffer'd for him and yet by him nicknam'd and casheer'd for a Mungrill Parlament that vext his Queen with thir base and mutinous motions as his Cabinet letter tells us Wherby the World may see plainly that no shifting of place no sifting of members to his own mind no number no paucity no freedom from tumults could ever bring his arbitrary wilfulness and tyrannical Designes to brook the lest shape or similitude the lest counterfet of a Parlament Finally instead of praying for his people as a good King should doe hee prayes to be deliver'd from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the people from such Intercessors V. Upon the Bill for Trienniall Parlaments And for setling this c. THe Bill for a Triennial Parlament was but the third part of one good step toward that which in times past was our annual right The other Bill for setling this Parlament was new indeed but at that time very necessary and in the Kings own Words no more then what the World was fully confirm'd hee might in Justice Reason Honour and Conscience grant them for to that end he affirms to have don it But wheras he attributes the passing of them to his own act of grace and willingness as his manner is to make vertues of his necessities and giving to himself all the praise heaps ingratitude upon the Parlament a little memory will sett the cleane contrary before us that for those Beneficial acts we ow what wee ow to the Parlament but to his granting them neither praise nor thanks The first Bill granted much less then two former Statutes yet in force by Edward the third that a Parlament should be call'd every yeare or ofter if need were nay from a farr ancienter Law Book call'd the Mirror it is affirm'd in a late Treatise call'd Rights of the Kingdom that Parlaments by our old Laws ought twice a year to be at London From twice in one year to once in three year it may be soon cast up how great a loss we fell into of our ancient liberty by that act which in the ignorant and Slavish mindes we then were was thought a great purchase Wisest men perhaps were contented for the present at least by this act to have recoverd Parlaments w ch were then upon the brink of danger to be forever lost And this is that which the King preaches heer for a special tok'n of his Princely favour to have abridg'd over reach'd the people five parts in six of what thir due was both by ancient Statute and originally And thus the taking from us all but a Triennial remnant of that English Freedom which our Fathers left us double in a fair annuity enrowl'd is set out and sould to us heer for the gracious and over liberal giving of a new enfranchisment How little may we think did he ever give us who in the Bill of his pretended givings writes down Imprimis that benefit or privilege once in three year giv'n us which by so giving he more then twice every year illegally took from us Such givers as give single to take away sixfold be to our Enemies For certainly this Common-wealth if the Statutes of our Ancestors be worth ought would have found it hard and hazardous to thrive under the dammage of such a guilefull liberatie The other act was so necessary that nothing in the power of Man more seem'd to be the stay support of all things from that steep ruin to which he had nigh brought them then that Act obtain'd He had by his ill Stewardship and to say no worse the needless raising of two Armies intended for a civil War begger'd both himself and the Public and besides had left us upon the score of his needy Enemies for what it cost them in thir own defence against him To disingage him and the Kingdom great sums were to be borrow'd which would never have bin lent nor could ever be repaid had the King chanc'd to dissolve this Parlament as heertofore The errors also of his Goverment had brought the Kingdom to such extremes as were incapable of all recovery without the absolute continuance of a Parlament It had bin els in vaine to goe about the setling of so great distempers if hee who first caus'd the malady might when he pleas'd reject the remedy Notwithstanding all which that he granted both these Acts unwillingly and as a meer passive Instrument was then
visible eev'n to most of those Men who now will see nothing At passing of the former Act he himself conceal'd not his unwillingness and testifying a general dislike of thir actions which they then proceeded in with great approbation of the whole Kingdom he told them with a maisterly Brow that by this Act he had oblig'd them above what they had deserv'd and gave a peece of Justice to the Common wealth six times short of his Predecessors as if he had bin giving som boon or begg'd Office to a sort of his desertless Grooms That he pass'd the latter Act against his will no man in reason can hold it questionable For if the February before he made so dainty and were so loath to bestow a Parlament once in three yeare upon the Nation because this had so oppos'd his courses was it likely that the May following he should bestow willingly on this Parlament an indissoluble sitting when they had offended him much more by cutting short and impeaching of high Treason his chief Favorites It was his feare then not his favor which drew from him that Act lest the Parlament incens'd by his Conspiracies against them about the same time discover'd should with the people have resented too hainously those his doings if to the suspicion of thir danger from him he had also added the denyal of this onely meanes to secure themselves From these Acts therfore in which he glories and wherwith so oft he upbraids the Parlament he cannot justly expect to reape aught but dishonour and dispraise as being both unwillingly granted and the one granting much less then was before allow'd by Statute the other being a testimony of his violent and lawless Custom not onely to break Privileges but whole Parlaments from which enormity they were constrain'd to bind him first of all his Predecessors never any before him having giv'n like causes of distrust and jealousie to his People As for this Parlament how farr he was from being advis'd by them as he ought let his own words express He taxes them with undoing what they found well done and yet knows they undid nothing in the Church but Lord Bishops Liturgies Ceremonies High Commission judg'd worthy by all true Protestants to bee thrown out of the Church They undid nothing in the State but irregular and grinding Courts the maine grievances to be remov'd if these were the things which in his opinion they found well don we may againe from hence be inform'd with what unwillingness he remou'd them and that those gracious Acts wherof so frequently he makes mention may be english'd more properly Acts of feare and dissimulation against his mind and conscience The bill preventing dissolution of this Parlament he calls An unparalell'd Act out of the extreme confidence that his Subjects would not make ill use of it But was it not a greater confidence of the people to put into one mans hand so great a power till he abus'd it as to summon and dissolve Parlaments Hee would be thankt for trusting them and ought to thank them rather for trusting him the trust issuing first from them not from him And that it was a meer trust and not his Prerogative to call and dissolve Parlaments at his pleasure And that Parlaments were not to be dissolv'd till all Petitions were heard all greevances redrest is not onely the assertion of this Parlament but of our ancient Law Books which averr it to be an unwritt'n Law of common Right so ingrav'n in the hearts of our Ancestors and by them so constantly enjoy'd and claim'd as that it needed not enrouling And if the Scots in thir Declaration could charge the King with breach of their Lawes for breaking up that Parlament without their consent while matters of greatest moment were depending it were unreasonable to imagin that the wisdom of England should be so wanting to it self through all Ages as not to provide by som known Law writt'n or unwritt'n against the not calling or the arbitrary dissolving of Parlaments or that they who ordain'd thir summoning twice a yeare or as oft as need requir'd did not tacitly enact also that as necessity of affaires call'd them so the same necessity should keep them undissolv'd till that were fully satisfi'd Were it not for that Parlaments and all the fruit and benefit we receave by having them would turne soon to meer abusion It appeares then that if this Bill of not dissolving were an unparallel'd Act it was a known and common Right which our Ancestors under other Kings enjoyd as firmly as if it had bin grav'n in Marble and that the infringement of this King first brought it into a writt'n Act Who now boasts that as a great favour don us which his own less fidelity then was in former Kings constrain'd us onely of an old undoubted Right to make a new writt'n Act. But what needed writt'n Acts when as anciently it was esteem'd part of his Crown Oath not to dissolve Parlaments till all greevances were consider'd wherupon the old Modi of Parlament calls it flat perjury if he dissolve them before as I find cited in a Booke mention'd at the beginning of this Chapter to which and other Law-tractats I referr the more Lawyerlie mooting of this point which is neither my element nor my proper work heer since the Book which I have to Answer pretends reason not Autoritys and quotations and I hold reason to be the best Arbitrator and the Law of Law it self T is true that good Subjects think it not just that the Kings condition should be worse by bettering theirs But then the King must not be at such a distance from the people in judging what is better and what worse which might have bin agreed had he known for his own words condemn him as well with moderation to use as with earnestness to desire his own advantages A continual Parlament he thought would keep the Common-wealth in tune Judge Common wealth what proofs he gave that this boasted profession was ever in his thought Some saith he gave out that I repented me of that setling Act. His own actions gave it out beyond all supposition For doubtless it repented him to have establish'd that by Law which he went about so soon after to abrogat by the Sword He calls those Acts which he confesses tended to thir good not more Princely then friendly contributions As if to doe his dutie were of curtesie and the discharge of his trust a parcell of his liberality so nigh lost in his esteem was the birthright of our Liberties that to give them back againe upon demand stood at the mercy of his Contribution He doubts not but the affections of his People will compensate his sufferings for those acts of confidence And imputes his sufferings to a contrary cause Not his confidence but his distrust was that which brought him to those sufferings from the time that he forsook his Parlament and trusted them ne're the sooner for what he tells of
down all other men into the condition of Slaves and beasts they quite loose thir commendation He confesses a rational sovrantie of soule and freedom of will in every man and yet with an implicit repugnancy would have his reason the sovran ofthat sovranty and would captivate and make useless that natural freedom of will in all other men but himself But them that yeeld him this obedience he so well rewards as to pronounce them worthy to be Slaves They who have lost all to be his Subjects may stoop and take up the reward What that freedom is which cannot be deni'd him as a King because it belongs to him as a Man and a Christian I understand not If it be his negative voice it concludes all men who have not such a negative as his against a whole Parlament to be neither Men nor Christians and what was he himself then all this while that we deni'd it him as a King Will hee say that hee enjoy'd within himself the less freedom for that Might not he both as a Man and as a Christian have raignd within himself in full sovranty of soule no man repining but that his outward and imperious will must invade the civil Liberties of a Nation Did wee therfore not permit him to use his reason or his conscience not permitting him to bereave us the use of ours And might not he have enjoy'd both as a King governing us as Free men by what Laws we our selves would be govern'd It was not the inward use of his reason and of his conscience that would content him but to use them both as a Law over all his Subjects in whatever he declar'd as a King to like or dislike Which use of reason most reasonless and unconseionable is the utmost that any Tyrant ever pretended over his Vassals In all wise Nations the Legislative power and the judicial execution of that power have bin most commonly distinct and in several hands but yet the former supreme the other subordinat If then the King be only set up to execute the Law which is indeed the highest of his office he ought no more to make or forbidd the making of any law agreed upon in Parlament then other inferior Judges who are his Deputies Neither can he more reject a Law offerd him by the Commons then he can new make a Law which they reject And yet the more to credit and uphold his cause he would seeme to have Philosophie on his side straining her wise dictates to unphilosophical purposes But when Kings come so low as to fawn upon Philosophie which before they neither valu'd nor understood t is a signe that failes not they are then put to thir last Trump And Philosophie as well requites them by not suffering her gold'n sayings either to become their lipps or to be us'd as masks and colours of injurious and violent deeds So that what they presume to borrow from her sage and vertuous rules like the Riddle of Sphinx not understood breaks the neck of thir own cause But now againe to Politics He cannot think the Majestie of the Crowne of England to be bound by any Coronation Oath in a blind and brutish formalitie to consent to whatever its Subjects in Parlament shall require What Tyrant could presume to say more when he meant to kick down all Law Goverment and bond of Oath But why he so desires to absolve himself the Oath of his Coronation would be worth the knowing It cannot but be yeelded that the Oath which bindes him to performance of his trust ought in reason to contain the summ of what his chief trust and Office is But if it neither doe enjoyn nor mention to him as a part of his duty the making or the marring of any Law or scrap of Law but requires only his assent to to those Laws which the people have already chos'n or shall choose for so both the Latin of that Oath and the old English and all Reason admits that the People should not lose under a new King what freedom they had before then that negative voice so contended for to deny the passing of any Law which the Commons choose is both against the Oath of his Coronation and his Kingly Office And if the King may deny to pass what the Parlament hath chos'n to be a Law then doth the King make himself Superiour to his whole Kingdom which not onely the general Maxims of Policy gainsay but eev'n our own standing Laws as hath bin cited to him in Remonstrances heertosore that The King hath two Superiours the Law and his Court of Parlament But this he counts to be a blind and brutish formality whether it be Law or Oath or his duty and thinks to turn itoff with wholsom words and phrases which he then first learnt of the honest People when they were so oft'n compell'd to use them against those more truely blind and brutish formalities thrust upon us by his own command not in civil matters onely but in Spiritual And if his Oath to perform what the People require when they Crown him be in his esteem a brutish formality then doubtless those other Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy tak'n absolute on our part may most justly appear to us in all respects as brutish and as formal and so by his own sentence no more binding to us then his Oath to him As for his instance in case He and the House of Peers attempted to enjoyne the House of Commons it beares no equalitie for hee and the Peers represent but themselves the Commons are the whole Kingdom Thus he concludes his Oath to be fully discharg'd in Governing by Laws already made as being not bound to pass any new if his Reason bids him deny And so may infinite mischeifs grow and he with a pernicious negative may deny us all things good or just or safe wherof our ancestors in times much differing from ours had either no fore sight or no occasion to foresee while our general good and safety shall depend upo the privat and overweening Reason of one obstinat Man who against all the Kingdom if he list will interpret both the Law and his Oath of Coronation by the tenor of his own will Which he himself confesses to be an arbitrary power yet doubts not in his Argument to imply as if he thought it more fit the Parlament should be subject to his will then he to their advice a man neither by nature nor by nurture wise How is it possible that he in whom such Principles as these were so deep rooted could ever though restor'd again have raign'd otherwise then Tyrannically He objects That force was but a slavish method to dispell his error But how oft'n shall it be answer'd him that no force was us'd to dispell the error out of his head but to drive it from off our necks for his error was imperious and would command all other men to ronounce thir own reason and understanding till they perish'd under
cannot but be farr short of spirit and autority without dores to govern a whole Nation Her tarrying heer he could not think safe among them who were shaking hands with Allegiance to lay faster hold on Religion and taxes them of a duty rather then a crime it being just to obey God rather then Man and impossible to serve two Maisters I would they had quite shak'n off what they stood shaking hands with the fault was in thir courage not in thir cause In his Prayer he prayes that The disloyaltie of his Protestant Subjects may not be a hindrance to her love of the true Religion and never prays that the dissoluteness of his Court the scandals of his Clergy the unsoundness of his own judgement the lukewarmness of his life his Letter of compliance to the Pope his permitting Agents at Rome the Popes Nuntio and her Jesuited Mother here may not be found in the sight of God farr greater hindrances to her conversion But this had bin a suttle Prayer indeed and well pray'd though as duely as a Pater-noster if it could have charm'd us to sit still and have Religion and our Liberties one by one snatch'd from us for fear least rising to defend our selves wee should fright the Queen a stiff Papist from turning Protestant As if the way to make his Queen a Protestant had bin to make his Subjects more then half way Papists He prays next That his constancy may be an antidote against the poyson of other mens example His constancy in what Not in Religion for it is op'nly known that her Religion wrought more upon him then his Religion upon her and his op'n favouring of Papists and his hatred of them call'd Puritants the ministers also that prayd in Churches for her Conversion being checkt from Court made most men suspect she had quite perverted him But what is it that the blindness of hypocrisy dares not doe It dares pray and thinks to hide that from the eyes of God which it cannot hide from the op'n view of man VIII Upon His repulse at Hull and the fate of the Hothams Hull a town of great strength and opportunitie both to sea and land affaires was at that time the Magazin of all those armes which the King had bought with mony most illegally extorted from his subjects of England to use in a causless and most unjust civil warr against his Subjects of Scotland The King in high discontent and anger had left the Parlament and was gon toward the North the Queen into Holland where she pawn'd and set to sale the Crown-Jewels a crime heretofore counted treasonable in Kings and to what intent these summs were rais'd the Parlament was not ignorant His going northward in so high a chafe they doubted was to possess himself of that strength which the storehouse and situation of Hull might add suddenly to his malignant party Having first therefore in many Petitions earnestly pray'd him to dispose and settle with consent of both Houses the military power in trusty hands and he as oft refusing they were necessitated by the turbulence and danger of those times to put the Kingdom by thir own autority into a posture ofdefence and very timely sent sir John Hotham a member of the House and Knight of that county to take Hull into his custody and some of the Train'd bands to his assistance For besides the General danger they had before the Kings going to York notice giv'n them of his privat Commissions to the Earl of Newcastle and to Colonel Legg one of those imploid to bring the Army up against the ParParlament who had already made som attempts the latter of them under a disguise to surprise that place for the Kings party And letters of the Lord Digby were intercepted wherin was wisht that the K. would declare himself and retire to some safe place other information came from abroad that Hull was the place design'd for some new enterprise And accordingly Digby himself not long after with many other Commanders and much forrain Ammunition landed in those parts But these attempts not succeeding and that Town being now in custody of the Parlament he sends a message to them that he had firmely resolv'd to go in person into Ireland to chastise those wicked Rebels for these and wors words he then gave them and that toward this work he intended forthwith to raise by his commissions in the Counties neere Westchester a guard for his own person consisting of 2000. foot and 200. horse that should be arm'd from his Magazin at Hull On the other side the Parlament forseeing the Kings drift about the same time send him a Petition that they might have leave for necessary causes to remoove the magazin of Hull to the Towre of London to which the King returnes his denial and soon after going to Hull attended with about 400. Horse requires the Governour to deliver him up the Town wherof the Governour besought humbly to be excus'd till he could send notice to the Parlament who had intrusted him wherat the King much incens'd proclaims him Traitor before the Town Walls and gives immediat order to stop all passages between him and the Parlament Yet he himself dispatches post after post to demand justice as upon a Traitor using a strange iniquitie to require justice upon him whom he then way layd and debari'd from his appearance The Parlament no sooner understood what had pass'd but they declare that Sir John Hotham had don no more then was his duty and was therfore no Traitor This relation being most true proves that which is affirm'd heer to be most fals seeing the Parlament whom he accounts his greatest Enemies had more confidence to abett and own what Sir John Hotham had don then the King had confidence to let him answer in his own behalf To speake of his patience and in that solemn manner he might better have forborne God knows saith he it affected me more with sorrow for others then with anger for my self nor did the affront trouble me so much as their sin This is read I doubt not and beleev'd and as there is some use of every thing so is there of this Book were it but to shew us what a miserable credulous deluded thing that creature is which is call'd the Vulgar who notwithstanding what they might know will beleeve such vain-glories as these Did not that choleric and vengefull act of proclaiming him Traitor before due process of Law having bin convinc'd so late before of his illegallity with the five Members declare his anger to be incens'd doth not his own relation confess as much and his second Message left him fuming three dayes after and in plaine words testifies bis impatience of delay till Hotham be severely punish'd for that which he there termes an insupportable affront Surely if his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin were greater then his anger for the affront it was an exceeding great sorrow indeed and wondrous charitable But if it
Propositions were obtruded on him with the point of the Sword till he first with the point of the Sword thrust from him both the Propositions and the Propounders He never reck'ns those violent and merciless obtrusions which for almost twenty years he had bin forcing upon tender consciences by all sorts of Persecution till through the multitude of them that were to suffer it could no more be call'd a Persecution but a plain VVarr From which when first the Scots then the English were constrain'd to defend themselves this thir just defence is that which he cals heer Thir making Warr upon his soul. He grudges that So many things are requir'd of him and nothing offerd him in requital of those favours which he had granted What could satiate the desires of this man who being king of England and Maister of almost two millions yearly what by hook or crook was still in want and those acts of Justice which he was to doe in duty counts don as favours and such favors as were not don without the avaritious hope of other rewards besides supreme honour and the constant Revennue of his place This honour he saith they did him to put him on the giving part And spake truer then he intended it beeing meerly for honours sake that they did so not that it belong'd to him of right For what can he give to a Parlament who receaves all he hath from the People and for the Peoples good Yet now he brings his own conditional rights to contest and be preferr'd before the Peoples good and yet unless it be in order to their good he hath no rights at all raigning by the Laws of the Land not by his own which Laws are in the hands of Parlament to change or abrogate as they shall see best for the Common-wealth eev'n to the taking away of King-ship it self when it grows too Maisterfull and Burd'nsome For every Common-wealth is in general defin'd a societie sufficient of it self in all things conducible to well being and commodious life Any of which requisit things if it cannot have without the gift and favour of a single person or without leave of his privat reason or his conscience it cannot be thought sufficient of it self and by consequence no Common-wealth nor free but a multitude of Vassalls in the Possession and domaine of one absolute Lord and wholly obnoxious to his will If the King have power to give or deny any thing to his Parlament he must doe it either as a Person several from them or as one greater neither of which will be allow'd him not to be consider'd severally from them for as the King of England can doe no wrong so neither can he doe right but in his Courts and by his Courts and what is legally don in them shall be deem'd the Kings assent though he as a several Person shall judge or endeavour the contrary So that indeed without his Courts or against them he is no King If therefore he obtrude upon us any public mischeif or withhold from us any general good which is wrong in the highest degree he must doe it as a Tyrant not as a King of England by the known Maxims of our Law Neither can he as one greater give aught to the Parlament which is not in thir own power but he must be greater also then the Kingdom which they represent So that to honour him with the giving part was a meer civility and may be well term'd the courtesie of England not the Kings due But the incommunicable Jewell of his conscience he will not give but reserve to himself It seemes that his conscience was none of the Crown Jewels for those we know were in Holland not incommunicable to buy Armes against his Subjects Being therfore but a privat Jewel he could not have don a greater pleasure to the Kingdom then by reserving it to himself But he contrary to what is heer profess'd would have his conscience not an incommunicable but a universal conscience the whole Kingdoms conscience Thus what he seemes to feare least we should ravish from him is our chief complaint that he obtruded upon us we never forc'd him to part with his conscience but it was he that would have forc'd us to part with ours Som things he taxes them to have offer'd him which while he had the maistery of his Reason he would never consent to Very likely but had his reason maisterd him as it ought and not bin maisterd long agoe by his sense and humour as the breeding of most Kings hath bin ever sensual and most humour'd perhaps he would have made no difficulty Mean while at what a fine pass is the Kingdom that must depend in greatest exigencies vpon the fantasie of a Kings reason be he wise or foole who arrogantly shall answer all the wisdom of the Land that what they offer seemes to him unreasonable He preferrs his love of Truth before his love of the People His love of Truth would have ledd him to the search of Truth and have taught him not to lean so much upon his own understanding He met at first with Doctrines of unaccountable Prerogative in them he rested because they pleas'd him they therfore pleas'd him because they gave him all and this he calls his love of Truth and preferrs it before the love of his peoples peace Som things they propos'd which would have wounded the inward peace of his conscience The more our evil happ that three Kingdoms should be thus pesterd with one Conscience who chiefly scrupl'd to grant us that which the parlament advis'd him to as the chief meanes of our public welfare and Reformation These scruples to many perhaps will seem pretended to others upon as good grounds may seem real and that it was the just judgement of God that he who was so cruel and so remorseless to other mens consciences should have a conscience within him as cruel to himself constraining him as he constrain'd others and insnaring him in such waies and counsels as were certain to be his destruction Other things though he could approve yet in honour and policy he thought fit to deny lest he should seem to dare aeny nothing By this meanes he will be sure what with reason conscience honour policy or puntilios to be found never unfurnisht of a denyal Whether it were his envy not to be over bounteous or that the submissness of our asking stirr'd up in him a certain pleasure of denying Good Princes have thought it thir chief happiness to be alwayes granting if good things for the things sake if things indifferent for the peoples sake while this man sits calculating varietie of excuses how he may grant least as if his whole strength and royaltie were plac'd in a meer negative Of one Proposition especially he laments him much that they would bind him to a generall and implicit consent for what ever they desir'd Which though I find not among the nineteene yet undoubtedly the Oath of his coronation
binds him to no less neither is he at all by his Office to interpose against a Parlament in the making or not making of any Law but to take that for just and good legally which is there decreed and to see it executed accordingly Nor was he set over us to vie wisdom with his Parlament but to be guided by them any of whome possibly may as farr excell him in the gift of wisdom as he them in place and dignitie But much neerer is it to impossibilitie that any King alone should be wiser then all his councel sure anough it was not he though no King ever before him so much contended to have it thought so And if the Parlament so thought not but desir'd him to follow their advice and deliberation in things of public concernment he accounts it the same proposition as if Sampson had bin mov'd to the putting out his eyes that the Philistims might abuse him And thus out of an unwise or pretended feare least others should make a scorn of him for yeilding to his Parlament he regards not to give cause of worse suspicion that he made a scorn of his regal Oath But to exclude him from all power of deniall seemes an arrogance in the Parlament he means what in him then to deny against the Parlament None at all by what he argues For by Petitioning they confess thir inferioritie and that obliges them to rest if not satisfi'd yet quieted with such an Answer as the will and reason of their Superior thinks sit to give First Petitioning in better English is no more then requesting or requiring and men require not favours onely but thir due and that not onely from Superiors but from Equals and Inferiors also The noblest Romans when they stood for that which was a kind of Regal honour the Consulship were wont in a submissive manner to goe about and begg that highest Dignity of the meanest Plebeians naming them man by man which in their tongue was call'd Petitio consulatus And the Parlament of England Petition'd the King not because all of them were inferior to him but because he was superior to any one of them which they did of civil custom and for fashions sake more then of duty for by plaine Law cited before the Parlament is his Superiour But what law in any trial or dispute enjoynes a free man to rest quieted though not satisfi'd with the will and reason of his Superior It were a mad law that would subject reason to superioritie of place And if our highest consultations and purpos'd lawes must be terminated by the Kings will then is the will of one man our Law and no suttletie of dispute can redeem the Parlament and Nation from being Slaves neither can any Tyrant require more then that his will or reason though not satisfying should yet be rested in and determin all things We may conclude therfore that when the Parlament petition'd the King it was but meerly forme let it be as foolish and absurd as he pleases It cannot certainly be so absurd as what he requires that the Parlament should confine thir own and all the Kingdoms reason to the will of one man because it was his hap to succeed his Father For neither God nor the Lawes have subjected us to his will nor sett his reason to be our sovran above Law which must needs be if he can strangle it in the birth but sett his person over us in the sovran execution of such Laws as the Parlament establish The Parlament therfore without any usurpation hath had it alwaies in thir power to limit and confine the exorbitancie of Kings whether they call it thir will thir reason or thir conscience But this above all was never expected nor is to be endur'd that a King who is bound by law and Oath to follow the advice of his Parlament should be permitted to except against them as young Statesmen and proudly to suspend his following thir advice untill his seven yeares experience had shewn him how well they could govern themselves Doubtless the Law never suppos'd so great an arrogance could be in one man that he whose seventeen yeares unexperience had almost ruin'd all should sit another seven yeares Schoolmaster to tutor those who were sent by the whole Realme to be his Counselers and teachers And with what modesty can he pretend to be a Statesman himself who with his Fathers Kingcraft and his own did never that of his own accord which was not directly opposit to his professed Interest both at home and abroad discontenting and alienating his Subjects at home weakning and deserting his Confederats abroad and with them the Common cause of Religion So that the whole course of his raign by an example of his own furnishing hath resembl'd Phaeton more then Phoebus and forc'd the Parlament to drive like Jehu which Omen tak'n from his own mouth God hath not diverted And he on the other side might have rememberd that the Parlament sit in that body not as his Subjects but as his Superiors call'd not by him but by the Law not onely twice every yeare but as oft as great affaires require to be his Counselers and Dictators though he stomac it nor to be dissolv'd at his pleasure but when all greevances be first remov'd all Petitions heard and answer'd This is not onely Reason but the known Law of the Land When he heard that Propositions would be sent him he satt conjecturing what they would propound and because they propounded what he expected not he takes that to be a warrant for his denying them But what did he expect he expected that the Parlament would reinforce some old Laws But if those Laws were not a sufficient remedy to all greevances nay were found to be greevances themselves when did we loose that other part of our freedom to establish new He thought some injuries done by himself and others to the Common wealth were to be repair'd But how could that be while he the chief offender took upon him to be sole Judge both of the injury and the reparation He staid till the advantages of his Crown consider'd might induce him to condiscend to the Peoples good Whenas the Crown it self with all those advantages were therfore giv'n him that the peoples good should be first consider'd not bargain'd for and bought by inches with the bribe of more offertures and advantages to his Crown He look'd for moderate desires of due Reformation as if any such desires could be immoderate He lookd for such a Reformation both in Church and State as might preserve the roots of every greevance and abuse in both still growing which he calls The foundation and essentials and would have onely the excrescencies of evil prun'd away for the present as was plotted before that they might grow fast anough between Triennial Parlaments to hinder them by worke anough besides from ever striking at the root He alleges They should have had regard to the Laws in force
all of them agree in one song with this heer that they are sorry to see so little regard had to Laws establisht and the Religion settl'd Popular compliance dissolution of all order and goverment in the Church Scisms Opinions Undecencies Confusions Sacrilegious invasions contempt of the Clergie and thir Liturgie Diminution of Princes all these complaints are to be read in the Messages and Speeches almost of every Legat from the Pope to those States and Citties which began Reformation From whence he either learnt the same pretences or had them naturally in him from the same spirit Neither was there ever so sincere a Reformation that hath escap'd these clamours He offer'd a Synod or Convocation rightly chosen So offerd all those Popish Kings heertofore a cours the most unsatisfactory as matters have been long carried and found by experience in the Church liable to the greatest fraud and packing no solution or redress of evil but an increase rather detested therfore by Nazianzen and som other of the Fathers And let it bee produc'd what good hath bin don by Synods from the first times of Reformation Not to justifie what enormities the Vulgar may committ in the rudeness of thir zeal we need but onely instance how he bemoanes the pulling down of Crosses and other superstitious Monuments as the effect of a popular and deceitful Reformation How little this savours of a Protestant is too easily perceav'd What he charges in defect of Piety Charity and Morality hath bin also charg'd by Papists upon the best reformed Churches not as if they the accusers were not tenfold more to be accus'd but out of thir Malignity to all endeavour of amendment as we know who accus'd to God the sincerity of Job an accusation of all others the most easie when as there livs not any mortal man so excellent who in these things is not alwaies deficient But the infirmities of best men and the scandals of mixt Hypocrits in all times of reforming whose bold intrusion covets to bee ever seen in things most sacred as they are most specious can lay no just blemish upon the integritie of others much less upon the purpose of Reformation it self Neither can the evil doings of som be the excuse of our delaying or deserting that duty to the Church which for no respect of times or carnal policies can be at any time unseasonable He tells with great shew of piety what kinde of persons public Reformers ought to be and what they ought to doe T is strange that in above twenty years the Church growing still wors and wors under him he could neither be as he bids others be nor doe as he pretends heer so well to know nay which is worst of all after the greatest part of his Raign spent in neither knowing nor doing aught toward a Reformation either in Church or State should spend the residue in hindring those by a seven years Warr whom it concernd with his consent or without it to doe thir parts in that great performance T is true that the method of reforming may well subsist without perturbation of the State but that it falls out otherwise for the most part is the plaine Text of Scripture And if by his own rule hee had allow'd us to feare God first and the King in due order our Allegeance might have still follow'd our Religion in a fit subordination But if Christs Kingdom be tak'n for the true Discipline of the Church and by his Kingdom be meant the violence he us'd against it and to uphold an Antichristian Hierarchie then sure anough it is that Christs Kingdom could not be sett up without pulling down his And they were best Christians who were least subject to him Christs Goverment out of question meaning it Prelatical hee thought would confirm his and this was that which overthrew it He professes to own his Kingdom from Christ and to desire to rule for his glory and the Churches good The Pope and the King of Spain profess every where as much and both his practice and all his reasonings all his enmitie against the true Church we see hath bin the same with theirs since the time that in his Letter to the Pope he assur'd them both of his full compliance But evil beginnings never bring forth good conclusions they are his own words and he ratifi'd them by his own ending To the Pope he ingag'd himself to hazard life and estate for the Roman Religion whether in complement he did it or in earnest and God who stood neerer then he for complementing minded writ down those words that according to his resolution so it should come to pass He praies against his hypocrisie and Pharisaical washings a Prayer to him most pertinent but choaks it straight with other words which pray him deeper into his old errors and delusions XXI Vpon His Letters tak'n and divulg'd THE Kings Letters taken at the Battell of Naesby being of greatest importance to let the people see what Faith there was in all his promises and solemn Protestations were transmitted to public view by special Order of the Parlament They discover'd his good affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the straight intelligence he held the pernitious dishonorable peace he made with them not solicited but rather soliciting w ch by all invocations that were holy he had in public abjur'd They reveal'd his endeavours to bring in forren Forces Irish French Dutch Lorrainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon us besides his suttleties and mysterious arts in treating to summ up all they shewd him govern'd by a Woman All which though suspected vehemently before and from good grounds beleev'd yet by him and his adherents peremptorily deny'd were by the op'ning of that Cabinet visible to all men under his own hand The Parlament therfore to cleer themselves of aspersing him without cause and that the people might no longer be abus'd and cajol'd as they call it by falsities and Court impudence in matters of so high concernment to let them know on what termes thir duty stood and the Kingdoms peace conceavd it most expedient and necessary that those Letters should be made public This the King affirmes was by them don without honour and civilitie words which if they contain not in them as in the language of a Courtier most commonly they do not more of substance and realitie then complement Ceremony Court fauning and dissembling enter not I suppose furder then the eare into any wise mans consideration Matters were not then between the Parlament and a King thir enemie in that state of trifling as to observ those superficial vanities But if honour and civilitie mean as they did of old discretion honesty prudence and plaine truth it will be then maintain'd against any Sect of those Cabalists that the Parlament in doing what they did with those Letters could suffer in thir honour and civilitie no diminution The reasons are already heard And that it is with none more familiar then with Kings
him nor condemn'd themselves But he will needs have vengeance to pursue and overtake them though to bring it in it cost him an inconvenient and obnoxious comparison As the Mice and Ratts overtook a German Bishop I would our Mice and Ratts had bin as Orthodoxal heer and had so pursu'd all his Bishops out of England then vermin had ridd away vermin which now hath lost the lives of too many thousand honest men to doe He cannot but observe this Divine Justice yet with sorrow and pitty But sorrow and pitty in a weak and over-maister'd enemy is lookt upon no otherwise then as the ashes of his revenge burnt out upon it self or as the damp of a coold fury when we say it gives But in this manner to sit spelling and observing divine justice upon every accident slight disturbance that may happ'n humanly to the affaires of men is but another fragment of his brok'n revenge yet the shrewdest the cunningest obloquy that can be thrown upon thir actions For if he can perswade men that the Parlament and thir cause is pursu'd with Divine vengeance he hath attain'd his end to make all men forsake them and think the worst that can be thought of them Nor is he onely content to suborn Divine Justice in his censure of what is past but he assumes the person of Christ himself to prognosticate over us what he wishes would come So little is any thing or person sacred from him no not in Heav'n which he will not use and put on if it may serve him plausibly to wreck his spleen or ease his mind upon the Parlament Although if ever fatal blindness did both attend and punish wilfulness if ever any enjoy'd not comforts for neglecting counsel belonging to thir peace it was in none more conspicuously brought to pass then in himself and his predictions against the Parlament and thir adherents have for the most part bin verify'd upon his own head and upon his chief Counselors He concludes with high praises of the Army But praises in an enemy are superfluous or smell of craft and the Army shall not need his praises nor the Parlament fare worse for his accusing prayers that follow Wherin as his Charity can be no way comparable to that of Christ so neither can his assurance that they whom he seems to pray for in doing what they did against him knew not what they did It was but arrogance therfore and not charity to lay such ignorance to others in the sight of God till he himself had bin infallible like him whose peculiar words he overweeningly assumes XXVII Intitil'd to the Prince of Wales VVHat the King wrote to his Son as a Father concerns not us what he wrote to him as a King of England concerns not him God and the Parlament having now otherwise dispos'd of England But because I see it don with some artifice and labour to possess the people that they might amend thir present condition by his or by his Sons restorement I shall shew point by point that although the King had bin reinstall'd to his desire or that his Son admitted should observe exactly all his Fathers precepts yet that this would be so farr from conducing to our happiness either as a remedy to the present distempers or a prevention of the like to come that it would inevitably throw us back again into all our past and fulfill'd miseries would force us to fight over again all our tedious Warrs and put us to another fatal struggling for Libertie and life more dubious then the former In which as our success hath bin no other then our cause so it will be evident to all posteritie that his misfortunes were the meer consequence of his perverse judgement First he argues from the experience of those troubles which both he and his Son have had to the improvement of thir pietie and patience and by the way beares witness in his own words that the corrupt education of his youth which was but glanc'd at onely in some former passages of this answer was a thing neither of mean consideration nor untruly charg'd upon him or his Son himself confessing heer that Court delights are prone either to root up all true vertue and honour or to be contented only with some leaves and withering formalities of them without any reall fruits tending to the public good Which presents him still in his own words another Rehoboam soft'nd by a farr wors Court then Salomons and so corrupted by flatteries which he affirmes to be unseparable to the overturning of all peace and the loss of his own honour and Kingdoms That he came therfore thus bredd up and nurtur'd to the Throne farr wors then Rehoboam unless he be of those who equaliz'd his Father to King Salomon we have heer his own confession And how voluptuously how idlely raigning in the hands of other men he either tyranniz'd or trifl'd away those seventeen yeares of peace without care or thought as if to be a King had bin nothing els in his apprehension but to eat and drink and have his will and take his pleasure though there be who can relate his domestic life to the exactness of a diary there shall be heer no mention made This yet we might have then foreseen that he who spent his leisure so remissly and so corruptly to his own pleasing would one day or other be wors busied and imployd to our sorrow And that he acted in good earnest what Rehoboam did but threat'n to make his little finger heavier then his Fathers loynes and to whip us with his two twisted Scorpions both temporal and spiritual Tyranny all his Kingdoms have felt What good use he made afterward of his adversitie both his impenitence and obstinacy to the end for he was no Manasseh and the sequel of these his meditated resolutions abundantly express retaining commending teaching to his Son all those putrid and pernicious documents both of State and of Religion instill'd by wicked Doctors and receav'd by him as in a Vessel nothing better seasond which were the first occasion both of his own and all our miseries And if he in the best maturity of his yeares and understanding made no better use to himself or others of his so long and manifold afflictions either looking up to God or looking down upon the reason of his own affaires there can be no probability that his son bred up not in the soft effeminacies of Court onely but in the rugged and more boistrous licence of undisciplin'd Camps and Garrisons for yeares unable to reflect with judgement upon his own condition and thus ill instructed by his Father should give his mind to walk by any other rules then these bequeath'd him as on his Fathers death-bed as the choisest of all that experience w ch his most serious observation and retirement in good or evil dayes had taught him David indeed by suffering without just cause learnt that meekness and that wisdom by adversity