necessitated to what they have done and that the people could be no other way made safe lying then upon the brincks of ruine The King to whom the very name of Parliament was alwayes hatefull having so much discontented all his people that in Scotland an Army was raised against him which he knew not how to oppose the English looking upon them as friends and fellow sufferers as his last refuge finding no other way to secure himselfe calls this Parliament for which as soone as they meet together they give him humble thankes they bring him bills which he not daring to denie signes and assents to and with such humble reverence make their addresses to him as if he were as much better then the best as he is worse then the worst of his Ancestors The King finding how weak adversaries he had to deale with conceives new hopes of doing mischiefe he tampers with divers men in the House of Commons he corrupts some of the most eminent as the Lord George Digby Sir John Culpepper with some others but finding notwithstanding their Revolt his partie in Parliament not strong enough to carrie on his base designes he flies to other practizes he deales first with the English Army and that plot discovered with the Scots to destroy the Parliament and for their reward to take the plunder of London This failing he urgeth earnestly to disband the Scotch Army only in which prevailing he against the Counsell of both Houses in haste takes a journey into Scotland there he contrives two plots the one of which tooke effect the most horrid and bloudie that ever any age was witnesse to the Irish Massacre and Rebellion acted by his Commission which was sealed in his owne presence and sent into Ireland as is confest by a Scottish gentleman in a book called Truth its manifest Having done his worst in Scotland he returnes to London and is received by the Citizens in triumph his hopes are every day more and more confirmed Some young gentlemen of the Innes of Court with a number of dissolute needie and debaucht Souldiers and men of broken fortunes flock to White-hall Thus attended he enters the House of Commons and had he found them there he had taken away five of their members the next day he goes into London and makes a faire speech but obtaines no beliefe He then goes to Hampton Court sends for some Aldermen whom he endeavours to make his friends them he Knighted and gave order to be sent home so drunke that their heads aking the next morning all but Sir John Gaire repenting their friendship never did his Majestie any service From thence he goes to Dover with the Queen whom he sends into the Low-Countries to pawne the Crowne Jewels and then flies into open Rebellion The Parliament though all his machinations and plots are discovered to them seeke no way of remedy but by Petition meanes very unlikely to worke upon his nature till they were necessitated to take up Armes and when they are to declare it to the Kingdome they cant and tell them it is for the defence of the King and Parliament Had they had but so much courage as to have informed the Common wealth of the Kings guilt and that his owne faults might have been written in his owne forehead not an evill Councell a thing without body or soule an empty name the old grave mens harmelesse bugbeare the King either had not found so many abettors or the Parliament had been able in a few moneths to have crusht all his forces and to have brought himselfe to Justice In this canting course they steere the Common wealth from the beginning of the yeare 1642. to the end of 1644. both sides seeming so equally strong that but for the cause there was scarce any advantage discoverable The Parliament new modell their Army and in the meane time treate at Vxbridge The treaty ended without successe the new Modell goes on Sir Thomas Fairfax is made General The words For preservation of the Kings person are not inserted in his Commission the King is now a common Rebell we have now an Enemy to fight with and see how God blesseth us upon it They meet no Enemyes in the field but they beat them not as in the time of the old Generall that fought drawn battles with no more advantage then might occasion a City feast counting it a victory not to be beaten they come before no Town but they take it in and in less then eighteenth months reduce all England and Wales to obedience The King thus broken in all places least the harrast Countrey should enjoy the benefit of Peace which he might then have made and miserable Ireland obtain relief falls again to plotting A little before the siege of Oxford in a disguise with one or two he rides through Norfolk and Suffolk endeavoring to raise new Commotions but the Gentlemen of that Countrey taking warning by other mens compositions that designe came to nothing so he leaves them and commits himself to the Scotish Army After some money paid the Scotch his Countreymen knowing him too well to care for his company even in their own Land deliver him up to the Parliament They as men that never stated any quarrel and could not tell what to have if God should give them victory having him now in their hands know not what to do with him They bring him to Holdenby and put him into a condition of making all Knaves that come neer him in a short time he administred and sent by his several Agents so much poyson to the Parliament that had it not pleased God to strengthen the hearts and hands of the Army he had been a yeer and a half since restored to his place and power and by this time those few that had survived had been the unhappy witnesses of a miserable Land For Mr. Denzil Hollis who was long since touched and infected by the King and the disease being contagious had in time infected divers of his company as Sir William Waller Sir Philip Stapleton and many others they together making up a Committee of eleven besides my Lady Carlile plotted and contrived to restore the King upon his own conditions To which purpose they consider of how little the King may offer the Parliament and how able they should be to perswade them that those offers were satisfactory in hast they send Letters to the Queen and in them their opinions how the Common-wealth might be cheated she returns their Papers with amendments which they send to the King who following their advice sends to the Parliament a Message the twelf of May 1647. Which caused all that Petitioning and all those tumults which followed immediately after forcing into the very house of Commons compelling the Speaker to put what questions they pleased and the Houses to vote them Upon these just fears there being no other refuge the honest Members of each House fly to the Army the Army receive them and marching up to
London reseat them in their several Houses and return to quarter as before in the Countrey every day drawning further from London least they might seem to be a force upon the Parliament The Parliament now freed from tumults and the Heads of that Faction which had so long hindered Peace fled into parts beyond the Seas it was hoped that we might see an happy end of all our troubles The Parliament consider of Conditions of Peace to be sent to the King and accordingly send them to Hampton Court but he refuseth them and in hopes of doing mischief which is the ground-work of all his designes puts on a new disguise and goes to try his fortune in the Isle of Wight whither also they follow him with Propositions for Peace But he being vir sanguinum will have no Peace unless such an one as may put him into a capacity of being heavier upon the people then a continued War Hereupon the Parliament Vote no more Addresses to the King the Army hearing of their Vote ingage themselves to live and dye in maintaining it The eyes of all good men are now upon the Parliament hoping to see the Common-wealth settled in a short time But the Malignants having shaken hands with the Malignants jure divino contrive a new War which begins with Petitioning the Counties of Bucks Surrey Essex and Kent ply the Parliament with Malignant Petitions Wales without that formality flies into actual Rebellion This occasions the dividing of the Army to each party of which it pleased God to give such victory as that his own hand was more especially seen in every one of them The Army now wholly imployed the Malignant party of both Houses send divers of their Members of the honest party into their several Countreys under pretence of suppressing Insurrections And now being able to Vote what they list they call home and restore to their places in Parliament Mr. Hollis Sir Iohn Clotworthy and eight more whom they had not long before expelled the House as guilty of high Treason and other misdemeanors Now they may truly be called the Kings two Houses and as diligently act his part as if it were their own onely this misfortune intervened the Countreys being a little beaten inclined generally to peace and the honest Members had leasure to attend the service of the House a rub not easily to be removed However they continue their endeavors and since they can work it no more to their advantage they Vote a Personal Treaty with the King in the Isle of Wight In this condition was the Parliament from the beginning of the last Rebellion to the coming in of the Army In publike Affairs the King had bought the greatest part in private their particular Clyents no Justice could be had at any Committee nor in the House it self without money except for Malignants of one sort or the other Venalis curia Patrum The Writs that were sent into Cornwal under the Parliaments Seal for Election of Burgesses brought up a great number of Malignants to the House for the Gentry of that County who rule the people as slaves having engaged in the Rebellion and therefore uncapable of being chosen sold places to men ill-affected for as much money as they could get A Gentleman going to Mr. Harris and acquainting him with his desires to serve in Parliament received this Answer That he knew not of any Burrough that was unprovided but if any such there were it could not now be had for a hundred pounds To live under such a supreme power is such a Tyranny as never any English man was yet acquainted with And this Parliament must continue till it be dissolved by Act At the time when the Act was past for continuing the Parliament till it should be dissolved by Act They had furnished the Kings necessities they had removed that War which the King by his injustice had drawn upon the English Nation they paid the Army which he had raised they had contracted several great publike Debts for which they could have no other security as also that grievances should be redrest they by reason of those troubles which the King still gave them not having time sooner to consider of them Besides the Parliament was then honest fit to reform which it was not now at the time when the Army came into London If it be a sin in a particular person to neglect an opportunity of doing good it is much more a sin in this Army whom God hath owned so wonderfully in all their Actions and whom I am confident he hath raised to do this work It is therefore ignorance or malice in them that publikely write and prate in Pulpits and at other meetings That it is a great Breach of Parliament priviledg to stop the Members going into the House to discharge their duty Had it been to discharge their duty to the Countreys and Towns for which they were elected they had not been stopt But Mr. Prynne and the rest of his imprisoned friends came with no such intention they came to serve the common enemy and to deserve at his hands the Offices and such other things as he hath promised them and would should he be inthroned cheat them of except he chance to finde a knave or two amongst them more able to help him in cousening the people then those fellows whom he had earlier engaged in that employment They indeed may live gallantly and enjoy every thing but a good conscience and dying shall leave their children a rich inheritance of slavery and thraldom For my part I honour Parliaments so long as they Act in Order to the publique good But if like standing pooles they only gather mudd and filth I thinke it very fit to cleanse them This trouble the Army hath taken upon them which if they had not done this Nations ruine had been unavoidable Can it be thought that the King likes the Condition that he is in or that he tooke it kindly to be beaten or that he hath already forgotten his overthrowes and that he may in a moneth or two being restored to liberty with honour safetie and freedome forget his present imprisonment Are not his Letters of most concernment printed by Order of Parliament to his perpetuall dishonour Votes past against any more addresses his wife charged with high Treason his revenue seized c. Are these such provocations as may be easily forgotten In the tenth yeare of Richard the second the Duke of Glocester unckle to the King the Earle of Arundell the Earle of Warwick with others raise Armes to redresse grievances this Army doth lesse and may doe more they call a Parliament this Army may as lawfully if it be for the peoples good and no other way be found dissolve a Parliament trie Delinquents and bring them to punishment Kindred in either house was no reprieve The King after this seemes to forget all all is kindnesse betwixt him and those Lords till the 18th yeare of his Raigne when he calls a Parliament overaweth them with an Army enforceth them to recall his Charters of pardon puts his Unckle to death at Callis without any forme of Tryall beheads Arundell and banisheth Warwick into the Isle of Man Better things are not to be expected from this King FINIS
A WORD TO Mr. VVil. Prynn Esq AND TWO FOR THE Parliament and Army Reproving the one and justifying the other in their late proceedings Presented to the consideration of the Readers of Mr. William Prynns last Book LONDON Printed for T. Brewster and are to be sold at the West-end of Pauls 164â— THere was never any age before this in which writing was so much in fashion Scribimus indocti doctique so as it should seem there is a certain Letchery in Scribling to which I fear Mr. William Prynne of Lincolns Inne Esquire is not a little given For how much Paper he hath spoyled in this kinde I leave to the judgment of all men that are not as he pretenders onely to learning When this disease first took him he chose to make the Hierarchy his enemies afterward the King the Queen and all the Court at a time when neither his Pen nor sufferings were he the man he would be thought could advantage the godly party His Books were then as they are now stuft with non-sence railing improper Instances misunderstood and mis-applyed Authorities onely he was ever most careful of a gingling Title as unlovely love locks unhealthy drinking of healths c. And indeed this may be said for him His whole Book is suitable to his Title For writing these Books he suffered very much and truly as I think not altogether undeservedly for it cannot appear to any reasonable man that he brought himself into all his troubles otherwise then following his own wicked spirit of contradiction For the Parliament as soon almost as they were met together sent for him then a Prisoner they review all proceedings both in the High Commission Court and Star Chamber against him they vote them illegal they restore what they can his Liberty but instead of his Ears they being irrecoverable he is voted 5000 l. A man might now without fear of being judged rash ingage himself for this mans honesty to the Parliament but as a Dog to his Vomit he returns to scribling and having catcht at the desires of wisemen who admitted him because of his sufferings to their company fit some yeers after for publication he not being able to hold any longer untimely acquaints the people with what they were not then enabled to understand by which means divers persons staggering betwixt honesty and malignancy quite fell off and many others pretty well inclined to the publike began to waver and thus fitted for temptation soon found an opportunity of departing from us Thus was the common enemy furnisht with friends by the folly and letchery of writing of M. William Prynne and his companions and put into a better condition of rebelling against the Parliament then otherwise he could have been The Wars begun the Parliament seems something too strong for the King the Scots in consideration of a great sum of money present us with a cheat which they call a Covenant divers honest men discovering the snare avoyd it Here 's an opportunity for the Crop-Eared Lawyer he sees the Parliament breaking into faction and now he lays about him First he writes for the Scotch Ecclefiastick Government in England and within six weeks in maner against it The two Factions obtain names of Independent and Presbyterian which is malignant jure divino he now calls them by their names and rayls at them one after another till within these twenty months or thereabouts he hath contented himself to rayl onely on one side This humor of his puts me in minde of a Gentleman that was as nimble with his sword as this Mr. William with his Pen. It happened that two set upon one this blade taking pleasure in fighting draws and takes part with the single man now they are two to two It fell out that two men friends to the single man come by and seeing their friend ingaged take part with him the contentious Gentleman seeing that goes over to the other side and making them three to three fights as eagerly as before Were we so happy as to close up all breaches and that all parties were now resolved into one this Mr. Prynne would singly oppose the whole Common-Wealth and rayl as dogs bark against the Moon Should the Apostles come from Heaven sent thence to institute a Government Mr. Prynne would dissent from and wrangle with them I cannot therefore choose but wonder that he should be so much troubled at his sufferings especially at his present imprisonment since if he have but so much time as to look into himself seriously he must needs finde that he can live in no place nor in any age but that he must suffer For making his Protestation and Printing it I blame him not for I beleeve he could not wellavoyd it his fit thentaking him which must have its course but that he should so much complain of his former sufferings is a non-sence though non-sence be natural to him that becomes him not His business is to write lyes in the Name of the Lord as the Priests of that Sect Preach To rayl to jeer at Saints being a name in which he is uninterested and misapply Scripture By these marks as himself by his no Ears hath his stile been hitherto known I shall not advise him against writing it being as necessary as meat and drink a thing without which he cannot live But I would advise his Readers to read him as they would read or hear a tale of Oyster women soolding with each other at Billings-Gate That his Books can be of no advantage to the people in generall nor particularly to any person is most plaine in themselves for he doth not only make one discourse contradict another which might be excused by his naturall infirmitie of being inconstant but even the same discourse contradict it selfe Besides his scope is not to informe but calumniate to cast dirt in the face though if he throw it it can stick no where long of some one or more men and commonly he picks out the honestest and most faithfull persons too nay saviours of the Common-wealth Witnesse his Protestation in which he endeavours through the sides of Sir Hardresse Waller and Colonell Pride to wound the whole Army by whose valour the Common-wealth is safe and from whom only a safe and wel-grounded peace may be hoped for and expected He complaines in his Protestation that comming to the House of Commons to discharge his duty his spleen he meant for which reason he bought his membership twentie pounds cheaper then Thomas Temple as Master Harris told him He was the sixt of December last stopped on the staires neare the dore of the Commons House and that ever since he hath been restrained of his liberty which he calls a breath of Parliament Priviledge I did intend to have given Mr. Prynne a particular answer but because divers other gentlemen are involved in the same case with Mr. Prynne I shall therefore give no other Then as briefly as may be to shew that the Army was