ma ruine These rabble factious Tumults never mend A Nation but its ruine doth portend The Neapolitans will never forget the miseries brought upon them by a sordid Fisherman Thomas Anello And Munster and other parts of Germany do yet remember with sadness their Anabaptistical tumults The great Turk no sooner hears of the Seditious Rabble but he fears his own neck And Tyler with his rustick Clowns made King Richard submit to their unbounded impudence Nor can it be denyed but that the Londoners and others set up the first post of the Kings Scaffold when by these out-ragious Tumults they began the wicked Warr. The Tumults of which his Sacred Majesty gives the best character in his incomparable Book favour'd the Parliament with a twofold courtesie one was they forced him from London there being no safety for his Royal Person whilst such unbelieving miscreants did domineer The other was they having learn'd the knack to cry Thief first horribly exclaim'd that themselves were thereby only in danger and therefore desired not only a Guard to defend their Worships though they punish'd those appointed to protect them but very modestly to have the disposal of the whole Militia in England And this claim rather then desire of theirs they call just and necessary and for the ease benefit safety and security of the people and that his Majesty could neither in Honour Justice or Conscience deny he having it not legally before And this small request is but to command the Militia Thus the Wolf only desired the Dogs to be divided from the Sheep Thus Alexander would but command the whole World Thus would Calvin only have his Countrey-men and Creatures mingled with the Geneva Senate Thus did Nero desire that Rome might have but one neck And thus the crafty Fryer in the Sumpners tale desired to his dinner only the liver of a Capon and a roasted Pigs-head knowing full well that if he got those he should not want his part of the Pigg and Capon too And thus the Parliament only desired the Militia that they might only command the King and all England All small requests which might have been augmented if the modest Supplicants had had more confidence But an old Scotch Poet would have taught them better manners and discretion if their wicked policy would have given them leisure to have consulted either Morality or Divinity but what is in the Covenant Thou art ane gret fuil soune said he Thyng to desyre quhilk may nocht be This of the Militia though the King deny yet they seize upon it not only in London but in all England and Wales some Countries being so forward at the Parliaments beck that they had begun their Militia assoon as Petitioned for and this before the Queen imbarqued for Holland And what little account they made of the King is visible by their Ordinance for the Militia in which the People are commanded to act nothing but as the Parliament would and that if they did they should be tryed by none but the Parliament and that this should be as long and no longer then the Parliament pleas'd These actions the King might well wonder at which astonishment may be increast when they tell him they can endure no longer his denyals And the same day vindicate those who had armed themselves though contrary to the Kings express Command and Order the day before But the Kings Authority is of no force with these men who proceeded farther by Voting That all Commissions granted under the Great Seal and by the Kings Consent to the Lieutenants in several Counties are illegal and void and that those who act by them shall be disturbers of the Peace But yet that all such persons as shall be nominated by the Parliament shall be cock-sure in their Authority And that their former Ordinance by some Law or other doth oblige the People This the King the same day forbids to be obey'd because against his consent and this command of his the Parliament Votes to be a high breach of the Priviledges of Parliament Thus went or rather ran the sturdy members in opposition to the King as if their malice had exceld Hamilcar's the Carthagenian against the Romans And by this fury they engaged themselves so farre that they thought it not safe to retreat and so brought it to the tryal of the Bloud-thirsty Sword by which was miserably acted The Civil Wars tumultuous Broyls And bloudy Factions of a mighty Land Whose People haughty proud with forraign spoils Upon themselves turn back their conquering hand Whilst Kin their Kin Brother the Brother foils Like-Ensigns all against like-Ensigns Band Bows against Bows against the Crown Whilst all pretending right all Rights fall down Yet for all these and many more miseries of Warr the Parliament could not doubt of many partakers since the Commons had made themselves such a Bug-bear and Terror to the Nation that the power of the King was even shrunk into a Duke of Venice Nor were the Authority and Priviledge of the Peers regarded with any more favourable Aspect being now rather become an other House then a House of Lords If the Peers think it not convenient that the Protestation should be taken all England over the Commons will not only judge the contrary but command it to be done If the Lords Order the Common-Prayer and other Ceremonies confirm'd by act of Parliament to be us'd and read in all Churches in this the Commons will oppose both King and Lords and order the quite contrary and punish those who do not obey them If the Peers refuse to joyn with them to Petition the King for a Guard against the Tumults knowing them to be the fomenters of them They will Petition themselves and think much if the King do deny them though he knew If he gave them an Inch they would take an Ell. If the Lords at first refuse to join with them to obtain the Militia yet will the Commons not only demand it but threaten the dissenting Nobility one of them desiring that a Catalogue might be taken of their names who consented not to them that so they might be known to the Commons Goodly goodly hath not the Peers brought themselves unto a fine pass But I believe they know best whom they may thank for 't Certainly the dapper Commons thought they might as well spurn at King and Lords as the old Gyants fight against Jupiter for I believe from Ovid they took a Scheme of many of their mutations But these men wrought by action as well as words and thoughts which was a high token of the Commons strength who had so much influence amongst the Sectaries a word good enough for him Lord or Clown that takes exception at it and power over the Lords that they gott 9 of the Peers voted never to sit again in Parliament because they were obedient to his Majesty so that Mr. Pym's Item to the Earl of Dover one of
late have done Nor can I subscribe to till I be better informed that Priviledge given to the Commons by I know not whom yet I suppose of no vulgar apprehension viz. That the King may hold his Parliament for the Communalty of the Realm without Bishops Earls and Barons so that they have lawful Monitions or summons albeit they come not Yet the same Book affirms that the King with his Bishops Earls and Barons cannot hold a Parliament without the assistance of the Commons And his reason for all this assertion is because Sometime there was neither Bishop Earl ne Baron and yet the King did keep and hold his Parliaments To which I shall only answer in brief thus That if he mean that our Kings have kept Parliaments when there was no such thing as or distinction in this Nation of Priest or Nobility or some such Rank above the common People I shall utterly deny his Proposition Or if he understand that Parliaments have been held only by the King and Commons I shall not yield to him till I be assured where and when yet if both were allowed it can be no good consequence that it may be done so now if custom have any sway in England which is now a main Card of the Commons Game And because some of late more through malice than judgement have not only asserted the King to be one of the Estates by which plot they will equal themselves to him and so overthrow his Rule and Government of which Sir Edward Deering doth a little hint but also exclude the Clergy It will not be amiss in this place to right both by one or two authentick Instances The first shall be the Parliaments Bill presented to King Richard III. when but Duke of Glocester to desire him to take upon him the Kingship the which is very long but in it you shall find these words Vs the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this Realm of England according to the Election of us the three Estates of this Land Therefore at the request and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm That is to say the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of this Land assembled in this present Parliament Here we have Three Estates the Clergy being one and the King none My second Instance shall be taken out of one Titus Livius de Frulonisiis a Book quoted several times by Stow in Henry V. which Manuscript is also in Latin in St. Benit's Colledge Library in Cambridge where having related the life and death of Henry V. he tells us that After all these things and Ceremonies of his burying were solemnly finished as is to-fore rehersed the Three Estates of the Realm of England assembled them together in great number to take advice and deliberation amongst them what was most necessary to be done for the Regiment and Government of the said Realm of England where they concluded to take for their King the only Son of the late King Henry whose name was also Henry which was the VI. of that Name since the Conquest of England But because some may slight this as only the judgement of a private Historian we will strengthen our Assertion by the Laws of our Land In Queen Elizabeth's time an Act of Parliament affords us these words We your said most loving faithful and obedient subjects representing the Three Estates of your Realm of England as thereunto constrained by Law of God and Man c. Here are again Three Estates and the Queen none and that the Clergy are one another Act of Parliament will inform us in these words The State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm And after this same manner was the Clergy in Scotland one of the Estates as may also appear by their own Acts of Parliament one of which runs thus That the Three Estates especially considering the persons exercising the Offices Titles and Dignities of Prelates which persons have ever represented one of the Estates And in another Parliament some thirteen years before this viz. 1584. it was thus Enacted That none presume to impugne the Dignity and Authority of the Three Estates or to seek or procure the innovation or diminution of their Power and Authority or any of them in time coming under pain of Treason And whether the Scots have of late behaved themselves according to these Laws is well known And it seems strange to me that they durst be so impudent against their King who considering his power in choosing Parliaments was one of the most absolute Monarchs in the World till the modern Rebellious Retrenchments These things are convincing to me that the King never was one or part of but above the Three Estates it being ridiculous that his Majesty should Petition himself and call himself subject to himself Nor see I any reason to doubt that the Clergy was one having Acts of Parliament for it who knew their own Constitution best 'T is true of late the Clergy have had no Representatives in Parliament the Reverend Lords Spiritual being I do not know how thrown out of the Upper-House and the action at last by threats and other villainies procured to be signed by the Royal Assent for which and seeing they are since happily restored again I shall not at this time presume to question though many who are learned in our Fundamental Laws suppose that reasons might be shewn and that grounded upon law of it's nullity to which purpose the learned Dr. Heylin hath given a short Essay both from the binding of Magna Charta the darling too of our Presbyterian Parliaments which especially provides for the Priviledges of the Clergy as also by the voiding of all actions done by the King by compulsion and not of his free-will And that Kings may be so wrought upon appears by King James who when King of Scotland was by his unruly Subjects constrained to declare several times quite contrary to his judgement and so was King Edward III. as appears by the Revocation of a Statute made the 15. year of his raign And how unwilling King Charles the first was to sign this Bill is not unknown the Parliament having got a new Art of getting their ends about viz. by Tumults and Threats so that the King was rather fought than reasoned out of it And what impudence the Commons were brasoned with to presume thus to extirpate the Spiritual Lords whose Antiquity in Parliament was double to theirs is experimentally beyond expression But they and so did the Puritanical Faction of the Nobility for such Animals were amongst them too know well enough that the King would not only be weakened but themselves strengthened by annihilation of 26. such sound Royal and Orthodox Votes for which qualifications the Schismatical Lords and Commons hated them But enough of this only I shall leave some Quaeries to the consideration of the Presbyterian mad-caps Lord or Common of the wicked
Long-Parliament I. Whether or no if the King and two Estates can extirpate the third then the King Lords Spiritual and Temporal cannot turn out the Commons as well as the King Lords Temporal and Commons exclude the Bishops II. Whether or no when the King and two Estates have turn'd out the third the King with another Estate cannot also turn out the second And lastly when only the King and one Estate remains the King as Supream cannot seclude that also III. And if these things will bear a good Consequence Whether the Presbyterians whose chiefest confidence was in the long-Long-Parliament but esecially the Commons have not brought their Hoggs to a fair Market But these People did not only overthrow Episcopacy but struck also at the root of Monarchy it self by their pleadings against the King's Supremacy making themselves not only equal to but above him And this not only when assembled in Parliament but when they are so far from having any Authority there there being no such thing then sitting that they are separately so many private Subjects obliged only to follow their own occasions for in this capacity I suppose they make themselves when they alledge for a Rule Rex est major singules minor Vniversis considering they place this in their Remonstrance as distinct from Parliaments But how weak this Position is let Parliaments themselves be our Judges And I do not love to reason against Authentick Records When God tells us expresly that Whoredom is a grievous sin 't was blasphemy in John de Casa to write in the vindication of Sodomy When Ignatius Irenaeus and other ancient and authentick Authors assure us that Presbytery was subordinate to Episcopacy in the first Century 't is folly in our late Schismaticks to dream of or introduce a Parity When Parliaments acknowledge themselves Subjects to his Majesty for any to conclude thence their Supremacy are in my judgement no less guilty of ignorance than that simpleton of Athens who fancied all the ships and other things to be his when he had no more interest in them then I have relation to the Crown of Castile The Lords and Commons tell us plainly what little signs they have of Superiority in these words Where by divers sundry old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared and exprest that this Realm of England is an Empire and so hath been accepted in the World governed by one Supream Head and King having the Dignity and Royal Estate of the Imperial Crown of the same unto whom a Body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people and divided in tearms and by names of Spiritualty and Temporally been bounden and ought to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience c. And in many other Statutes do they acknowledge themselves the King 's most humble faithful and obedient Subjects But more especially in those two of Supremacy and Allegiance in which they acknowledge the King the Supream under God both of Civil and Ecclesiastical affairs and so swear Allegiance to him each Parliament-man before he sit taking both the Oaths as all other Subjects do Whereby they clearly renounce not only Priority but Parity by which all their Cavils bring nothing upon themselves but Perjury Against this Supremacy of our Kings though it be under God and Christ John Calvin rants in his usual hot-spurr'd zeal calling them Blasphemers and Fools who durst first presume to give such a title to a King And in obedience to this Supream Head of Geneva and Presbytery doth his dear Subject and Disciple Anthony Gilby and others of that Fraternity shoot their Wild-fire against the same Statutes of England by which they shew their Schism and Madness more than Christian Prudence Besides all this our Laws make it Treason to compass or imagin the death of the King Queen or his eldest Son to leavy Warr against the King or any way adhere to or assist his Enemies But for any to commit Treason against the Parliament especially for those who have the King on their side I see little reason because I have express Law to the contrary which tells us that any one who shall attend upon the King in his Wars and for his Defence shall in no ways be convict or attaint of High Treason ne of other offences for that cause by Act of Parliament or otherwayes by any process of Law whereby he or any of them shall loose or forfeit Life Lands Tenements Rents Possessions Hereditaments Goods Chattels or any other things but to be for that deed and service utterly discharged of any vexation trouble or loss And if any Act or Acts or other process of the Law here after thereupon for the same happen to be made contrary to this Ordinance that then that Act or Acts or other process of the Law whatsoever they shall be stand and be utterly void How this Act hath been since violated Compounders Sequestrators and Decimators will best inform you And what a pitiful ridiculous and extorted Comment the Noddles of the Long-Parliament made upon this Act may be seen in their Declarations by which you may view both their ignorance and their malice These are Presidents enough to satisfie any man in the Parliaments subjection to the King it being in his power to constitute them not they him in him being the only Authority to call and dissolve them not any such being in themselves He can pardon Malefactors not they without his consent The death of the King dissolves the Parliament though their breaking up reflects nothing upon him He can call them where he pleaseth but they not remove his Court They Petition him by way of Subjects not he them The King of England can do no wrong and never dyeth being alwayes of full age the breath of the former being no sooner expired but the next Heir is de facto King without the Ceremony of Proclamation or Coronation And whether a Parliament can do no wrong or no I leave to many men now in England to judge The Kings power hath been such that he hath call'd a Parliament with what limitations he pleas'd as King Henry the fourth's Parliament at Coventry in which no Lawyer was to sit And whether too many Lawyers in a Parliament doth more good or bad hath been oft discours'd of in late times And 't is the King hath the power of the Sword not the Parliament as their own Laws tell us for in the year 1271. Octob. 30. We find this Statute To us i. e. the King it belongeth and our part is through our Royal Seignory straitly to defend i. e. to prohibit or stop force of Armour and all other force against our Peace at all times when it shall please us and to punish them who shall do contrary according to the Laws and Usages of our Realm And hereunto they are bound to aid us as their Soveraign Lord at all seasons when need shall be And the meaning
of this Statute hath several times since been made good by practise on the part of the Commons For in King Edward the third's dayes a Parliament was summoned to consult about the security of the Marches of Scotland and the Seas and the advice of the Commons was desired about these things But they humbly declined it submissively desiring that they might not be put to consult of those things whereof they had no cognisance And in the same King's reign when their advice was asked touching a Prosecution of a Warr with France after four dayes consultation they returned their Answer by Justice Thorpe That their humble desire to the King was that he would be advised therein by the Lords being of more experience then themselves in such affairs And in the sixt year of King Richard the second a Parliament was call'd to consult Whether the King should go himself to rescue Gaunt or send an Army The Commons humbly answered by their Speaker Sir Thomas Puckering That the Council of Warr did more belong to the King and his Lords And the next year their advice being asked concerning the Articles of Peace with France they modestly excused themselves as too weak to counsel in so weighty matters and being more earnestly prest to shew their own opinions they humbly advised rather for Peace than Warr. For in those dayes the Knights and Burgesses made it their only care to study the well-fare of and complain of the grievances which afflicted those places for which they served Those of Lin would consult the advancement of the Trade of Fishing those of Norwich the making of Stuffs he of Teverston of Kersies those of Suffolk what conduced to the benefit of Clothing those of Cornwal for their Stanneries and never pry into those things which were farr above many of their Intellectuals Many of them being but of inferiour Trades and so almost as unfit to apprehend the Intrigues of State and manage such grand Concerns as Caligula's Horse to Officiate in Divine Service though made a Priest by the said Emperour or those Priests a hundred years ago to compile a Body of Divinity or a Church-History whose ignorance was such as to think that the New-Testament was composed by Martin Luther Such was the modesty and discretion of former Parliaments And if these of later date have any more Priviledges than the ancient 't is so farr unknown to me that I despair of ever finding them Of this I need say no more but that as a Parliament in Queen Mary's dayes supplicated That the Pope's Supremacy over them might be restored greatly repenting them of their former Schism by which means they got their absolution from Cardinal Pool So had it been well for many of our late Members to have acknowledged the King's Authority and reduced themselves betimes to his Obedience Much more might be said in the behalf of the Prerogative Royal. But this shall suffice since it hath been so well done formerly by the learned and constant true-hearted Judge Jenkins the Ingenious Mr. Diggs and others CHAP. VI. The Priviledges of Parliament and that in some Cases they are Null and Void THough these things afore specified might satisfie a Rational Subject yet as a cloud to obscure this Regal Supremacy the Commons have found out a way to cry Priviledge of Parliament And with this clamorous plea they have lately thought to save their Bacon in the multitude of their bewitched Proselytes be their Actions never so notorious And these Priviledges they are gloriously pleas'd to call Their ancient and undoubted Rights and Inheritance But King James a Prince too wise and learned to submit to or wink at a popular fury informed them plainly and truly that he should rather desire them to say That their Priviledges were but derived from the grace and permission of their Kings most of them growing but from Presidents which shews rather a Toleration than Inheritance And therefore could not endure Subjects to use such Anti-Monarchical words unless subjoyned with acknowledgement of grace and favour What their Priviledges are they have been very unwilling to shew in a particular way But be they what they will these two following they have most made use of and imbraced viz. 1. Liberty of Speech 2. Freedom from Arrest and Imprisonment As for the first 't is true that Sir Arnold Savage 1404 Speaker to the Commons humbly desired King Henry the fourth that they might freely make complaint of any thing amiss in the Government And that the King by the sinister Information of any person would not take it offensive The which the King was royally pleased to grant And after this Sir Thomas More their Speaker 1523 prayed King Henry the Eighth That If in Communication and Reasoning any man in the Common-House should speak more largely then of duty they ought to do that all such offences might be pardoned the which the King was pleased to grant And the same favour was also yielded to Thomas Moyle Esq their Speaker some twenty years after And Queen Elizabeth at the entrance of her reign was graciously pleas'd to allow the same to the Speaker Sir Thomas Gargrave before which mans time 't was very seldom asked and therefore not granted The Speakers commonly only desiring liberty for themselves not including the rest of the Members though since Gargrave's time it hath alwayes been humbly desired and also favourably granted But what of all this the King permits them Liberty of speech or rather winks at some slips which in heat of discourse or debates they may through unadvisedness let fall Therefore they may speak Treason revile Authority intrench upon Prerogative and what not But if this be a Logical Consequence then is a Kings condition as miserable as uncertain And this is something like the long-Long-Parliaments plea for a perpetual Session The King agrees that they shall not be dissolved without their own consent therefore they would sit till call'd to Judgement by the last Trumpet though their Treasonable Actions against the King did not only by the Law dissolve them but left them capable of severe punishments But how weak this pretended Consequence is may appear by a continued practise The Bishop of Carlile for his bold Speech in Parliament was imprisoned by King Henry the Fourth And Queen Elizabeth who was as great a favourite and darling in the eyes of her Subjects as any since the Creation tells her first Parliament at a publick meeting at White-Hall where they desired her to marry that if they had limitted her either to place or person she would then have thought it in you a great presumption being unfitting and altogether unmeet for you to require them that command or those to appoint whose parts are to desire or such to bind and limit whose duties are to obey or to take upon you to draw my love to your likings or to frame my will to your fantasie How severely did she check
the Parliament in the 23. year of her raign for presuming to Vote a Fast to be solemnized at the Temple-Church for such of their own Members as could conveniently be present there telling them by her Messenger Sir Thomas Henneage then Vice-Chamberlain With what admiration she beheld that Incroachment on her Royal Authority in committing such an apparent Innovation without her privaty or pleasure first known Upon which they desired Sir Thomas to present their Submission to the Queen and to crave her pardon Nor would she suffer her Parliaments to meddle in Ecclesiastical affairs And plainly used to tell them that their Priviledges were but the free pronouncing these two words Yea and No. And King James perceiving his last Parliament but one to soar somewhat high told their Speaker Sir Thomas Richardson in a Letter from New-market That some fiery and popular spirits of the Lower-House did debate matters above their capacity to our dishonour and Prerogative Royal. These are therefore to make known to them That none shall hereafter presume to meddle with any thing concerning our Government or matters of State with our Sons match with the Daughter of Spain nor to touch the Honour of that King or any other our Friends or Confederates Nor with any mans particulars which have their due Motion in our Ordinary Courts of Justice But to put them out of doubt of any question hereafter of that nature We think our self very free and able to punish any mans misdemeanour in Parliament as well sitting there as after which we mean not to spare hereafter upon any occasions of any mans And that King James had good grounds for what he wrote I am apt to believe not only considering his own Learning and Knowledge in State-affairs But that if a Parliament man by their own Orders is not abusively to reflect upon any of their own Members to me it seems very irrational to think that they may openly vilifie the Crown and throw dirt upon Regal Authority Therefore I shall perswade my self that Sir Henry Ludlow who said there that King Charles was not worthy to be King of England was farr more unfit to live As for the other Priviledge which the Parliament doth vigorously demand as their due and right we shall find their clamour to be not unlike some Bills in Chancery where many thousand pounds are demanded when scarce twenty is due Or the towring expectations of Lambert Simnell a Bakers son who under a Princely Vizard required the Crown of England as his Birth-right yet after all the bloud-shed in his behalf was happy to be a Turn-spit to King Henry the Seventh 'T is true for Debt and such private and peculiar Engagements a Member cannot be Imprisoned for if so a plot might be framed to shrink the Houses again though in a more plausible method to a New Rump And this was the case of Mr. George Ferrers Burgess for Plymouth 1542. who being arrested for debt was at the desire of the Commons released and the Sheriff of London sent to the Tower for two dayes But yet the best of them may be imprisoned though then actually in Parliament either for Treason Felony or refusing to give security for the Peace And for this cause was Thomas Thorp Speaker to the Commons arrested and put into Prison in the 31. year of King Henry the Sixth And the learned Judges of the Land declared he was not capable of a Release which being made known to the Commons by Walter Moyle one of the Kings Serjeants at Law they presently chose themselves another Speaker viz. Sir Thomas Charleton and never clamour'd that the Priviledges of Parliament were broken In Queen Elizabeth's time nothing was more common then to serve Subpoena's upon and imprison extravagant Members Witness the two upon Mr. Knevet An. Reg. 39. one upon Mr. Coke An. Reg. 127. and Mr. Peter Wentworth was committed to the Tower and Sir Henry Bromley Mr. Stevens Mr. Welch to the Fleet 35. Elizab. for desiring the Intailment of the Crowns Succession And in the 35. of her raign she sent into the House of Commons and took out Mr. Morris and committed him to Prison with divers others for some speeches in the House and when the rest of the Commons petitioned her Majesty for their release she sent them a severe check telling them that they were not to discourse of things of such high nature And the same Answer did King James return them 1621. when they endeavoured to know the reason of Sir Edwin Sandis his restraint And though he was a merciful and peaceful King yet when they presumed to incroach upon him he would make them learn more manners in the Tower and other Prisons witness the committment of several of them in the 12. year of his raign And though never any King was more afflicted and bandied with Parliaments than the late King Charles yet the sweetness of his temper made him wink at many insolent Indiscretions till at last their Impudence grew so high as not to permit the Serjeant of the Mace to go to the King upon his Command to lock the Parliament-door and deny the Kings Messenger entrance to hold by force the Speaker in the Chair swearing deep Oaths that he should sit still as long as they pleas'd though the King command the contrary to deny the Kings Power to dissolve them by Proxy that they are not bound to give an account to the King but to their own House of their actions be they what they will in Parliament upon which several of them were imprisoned the Judges delivering their Opinions positively that their crimes were within cognizance out of Parliament affirming that if it were not so if a Parliament-man should commit murder in time of Parliament he could not be tryed and arraigned until a new Representative and for confirmation of their Opinions they alledged many Presidents as that of Plowden in Queen Mary's time who was fined in the Kings-Bench for words spoken in Parliament against the dignity of the Queen And to be brief though the Long-Parliament made great hubbubs and brags about the five Members yet afterwards when they were in their height of pride they in print did acknowledge and confess that Members might be arrested and detained for Treason Felony and other crimes though they would gladly smooth it up so farr as to make themselves Judges I shall say no more but that what Priviledge soever they have the Laws of our Land allow the same to the Clergy and their Servants and Familiars for that is the word in the Statute when call'd to a Convocation and this either in coming carrying or going home again CHAP. VII The beginning of the Presbyterians with the wicked Principles of the Ring-leaders of that Factious Sect. HAving thus hinted upon the Kings Prerogative the Origin of the Commons and their Priviledges by which 't is plain that the King is Supream and by
Consequence and good Law Treason to warr against him I shall now shew that the Parliament and not himself was the first beginners of these late Confusions the true rise of which I must fetch higher than the Presbyterian Party will give me thanks for And as a leading Card to this Discovery we must observe that a rebellious itching humour of incroaching upon and railing against lawful Authority was the main foundation of our miseries the source of which frantick temper I must draw from Geneva whose Disciples are commonly carryed on with more violence than the furirious Rhosne upon which the City boasts her situation In this City John Calvin confirmed his Presbyterian-Discipline in the same year that Ignatius Loyola the first Founder of the Jesuites was chosen their first General in a solemn manner viz. 1541. And just a hundred years after 1641. was the famous and reverend Church of England over-run and clowded by the Calvinistical Proselytes And as these two Orders of Presbytery and Jesuitism took their rise together so have they gone hand in hand through a blind zeal not only to derogate from but extirpate all Civil Authority not conducible to their Interests And as Calvin's Presbytery at first was begot by Rebellion and Treason they expelling from Geneva their lawful Prince and Magistrate So have their Children following the foot-steps of their Parents as what is in the bone will never out of the flesh made it their business to terrifie the World with this truth that as Schism so Sedition and they are inseparable And in this they have been no way hindred by their Lord and Master John Calvin whose inconsiderate zeal in some things was such that it was so farr from sparing any that it would throw its fury at Kings and Queens Witness his irreverent expression thrown against Queen Mary calling of her Proserpine telling us that she outstrips all the Devils in Hell And in this way of Rhetorick do other of his dear sons follow him as John Knox calls the same Queen wicked Jezabel and Devil and her Rule the monstriferous Empire of a wicked Woman And another Brother viz. Anthony Gilby calls her a Monster and one wanting no will to wickedness And yet this Lady whom they so much abuse and vilifie was as our Authentick Chronicles assure us a Woman truly pious merciful and of most chast and modest behaviour and every way to be prais'd if you consider not her Errour in Religion A charracter so glorious that I fear few of our Disciplinarians dare pretend to But their only railing against Princes doth not shew half their malice for they have found out fine wayes not only to dethrone but murther their Kings by their not only approving of such wickedness but perswading thereto And this power Calvin acknowledgeth to lye in the Parliament consisting of the Three Estates in each Kingdom telling them that they are perfidious and betrayers of their Trust if they do not restrain the Enormities of Kings And with him agrees one of our English Non-conformists Dudlie Fenner and allows the King to be taken away either by Peace or Warr. And what a stiff Enemy he was to our English Church you may imagine by the Education of his two Scholars Tho. Cartwright and Walter Trevers And Robert Rollock one of the Scottish Brethren confirms this way of King-killing under the notion of Tyrants But How furiously doth John Knox his Countrey-man incite the people to Rebellion telling them that Reformation of Religion belongs as well to the Commonalty as Kings and other Magistrates And that the common people may demand of their Kings true Preachers and that others i. e. in his sense Bishops may be expell'd But if the Rulers will not then they may provide themselves which they may defend and maintain against all that shall oppose them And that they may with-hold the fruits and profits from their false Bishops and Clergy And he tells them that their Princes Rulers and Bishops are criminal of Idolatry and Innocent Bloud and Tyranny And that no person whatsoever is exempted from punishment if he can be manifestly convicted to have provoked or led the people to Idolatry And that the punishment of Idolatry Blasphemy and such like doth appertain to the people as well as others And all these incitements are because the Queen was a Roman-Catholick of which he tells the Lords that if they grant Priviledge or Liberty they shall assuredly drink the Cup of Gods Vengeance and shall be reputed before his presence Companions of Thieves and maintainers of Murtherers And that he might make them more willingly throw off all Obedience he perswades them that It is not Birth nor Propinquity of Bloud that makes a King Lawful and plainly tells them that the Rule of a Woman is unlawful And these brave Doctrines he got printed at Geneva 1558. July 14. from whence he sends them into Brittain to move the people into Rebellion From the same place doth Beza afterwards write to Knox then in Scotland to perswade him to extirpate Episcopacy though the being of it might cause Peace and Unity And of this mind was his Patron John Calvin who profest that he could not Exercise the Office of a Minister unless the Presbyterian Government was confirmed and setled in Geneva From this City did Beza write into England to perswade them from all Formalities and Ceremonies used in our Church and from this place sprang all our Troubles about Non-conformity All this which hath been said as the Opinion of private men was publickly concluded on as Orthodox in Scotland if you will give credit to one of their chief Patrons Buchanan one who hath done an irreparable mischief to Princes by his villainous and wretched Book De Jure Regni apud Scotos a poysonous Well from whence the Long-Parliament and our late Common-wealths-men have drawn most of their Pleas and Arguments And is no small demonstration of the Authours Impudence to dedicate it to King James too good a Master for such a wretched Servant Nor was these things any way denyed in the same Nation of late dayes when 1638. August 27. it was ordered That the ablest man in each Parish should be provided to dispute of the King's Power in calling Assemblies and what they meant by this is no hard matter to discern considering that not only they had the moneth before maintained the power of Convocating to lye in themselves but also the same year had actively derided at the King's Authority and the next year bid him Battle And how little many of their Presbyters have since mended their manners may appear by that impudent piece of Non-sense Malice and Treason spoken by one of their Grandees Mr. Robert Duglas at our King's Coronation in Scotland and by him call'd a Sermon but how unbefitting that name as we now take the word to signifie is appropriated let any that dare call
passed more good Bills to the advantage of the Subjects then have been in many ages Yet for all these good turns done them by the King do they Print though the King earnestly desired the contrary and sedulously spread abroad this Remonstrance thereby to make him odious and themselves as Patrons to the people a fair requital for such large benefits and sufficiently to shew their ingratitude and What more wicked then that amongst our vertuous Ancestours The Heathen Heraclians were more noble to their Athenian Enemies and the savage Lions for their thankfulness to Mentor Helpius and Androdus will be a reproach upon record to these Puritanical Members And Alexander was more ingenuous to his Horse than these to their King Yet never was there any who desired Peace and the Subjects good more than He for the obtaining of which he consented to them in such things that he parted with many Jewels from his Crown as Queen Elizabeth used to call such Priviledges granting them Triennial Parliaments abolishing the Star-Chamber High-Commission-Court Writs for Ship-Money Bishops-Votes in Parliament Temporal power of the Clergy slip'd away Tunnage Poundage and gave the Parliament leave to sit as long as they pleas'd and that they might see he privately acted nothing against them he admitted into his Privy-Council several Lords which were great Favourites and Correspondents with the Parliamentary Party and in many other things besides these hath this King valed his Crown as a Learned Doctor phraseth it Yet could not all this please some men being like the Sea insatiable Though a moderate Member of the Parliament asked what they could desire more of the King seeing he had granted them so much he was answered by Mr. Hambden as a late Historian tells us To part with his Power and trust it to us And that some of them had higher thoughts than the Loyalty of a Subject or the trust of Parliament could dispense withal I could easily be perswaded to and those especially who by their former actions in Parliaments had drawn some displeasure upon themselves and knew well enough that the more Prerogative and Power the King lost the more they gain'd which at last would more then preserve them But this Faction as the King tells us was only of a few ambitious discontented and seditious persons who under strange pretences had entered into a Combination to alter the Government both of Church and State And so that this might be done they did not care after what manner nor who perisht so their own heads were but held up that me-thinks I hear them threat and encourage like Tasso's Tyrant Aladin Purche'l Reo non si salvi il guisto pera El'innocente Sù sù fideli mei sù via prendete Le flamme e'l ferro ardete uccidete So I Obtain my wish let just with wicked dye Come come rouse up my faithful friends and shew How bravely you can burn and murther too And what courses they steered to arrive at their hoped for Authority may in part be seen in these following Observations One of their first steps was to make the Court and Church odious amongst the Vulgar under the Title of Popish and Arminians a wickedness quite contrary to the Laws of our Land which make special provision against the publishers of such rumours whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may arise between the King and his People or the Nobility or Bishops yet neither Law nor Gospel can have any any sway with these men who had used this knack of reviling in several former Parliaments and may be seen in the multitude of their long-winded Speeches and printed too forsooth the better to spread the Infection about the Nation yet you may take all the Reason amongst them and never grow madd with too much Learning though the multitude of words are enough to choak the largest Leviathan nor could much be expected many of the Members being so ignorant that I dare boldly say that they did not know what the five Controverted Points signified and I believe would have taken and voted too Jacob van Harmine and the Remonstrants for Calvinists though have damn'd Arminius for a wicked Heathen Thus the Priests in Spain told the people to make them hate the Reformed Religion that Protestants were not like other men had heads like Dogs and such like Beasts They also restored into favour all those who had opposed the Peace of the Nation as Prynne Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburn and such like who were stiff men to raise their Interests as farr as Pen Ink or Brawling could do and that their Interest might be the more strengthened in the Countrey they put into Offices and Imployments of trust all those whom they either found or were by them made discontented against the Court and Religion by which trick they twisted their Obligations so close together that they made good use of this afterwards And to make their Cause more favourable to the People and to blast the Reputation of their Enemies they promoted abundance of bawling Lecturers most of them of no great Learning or Conscience but as furious as Orlando and with throats O heavenly wide who could scold excellently against Bishops and Government and vomit out a Lesson with as much ease as a Matron of Billingsgate both being compos'd of the same materials and to the same purpose viz. strife and for their dexterity and quickness they out-did a Mountebank being alwayes as ready for the Pulpit as a Knight-Errant for combate never out of his way let the Text be what it will like the Sompners Fryer in Chaucer but nothing related to the honest Parson in the same Poet that it is beyond admiration how they can conjure such an Olla Podrida of Sermon-Notes from such good Texts and that of so little coherence that their extraction seems as miraculous as the generation of the Cadmian armed Souldiers from Serpents teeth To raise up Rebellion and Sedition there cannot be a better Trumpet in the World then the mouths of such Hirelings as hath been proved by long experience Wat Tyler and Straw's Rebellion could not want incouraging Sermons as long as John Ball lasted who cheer'd up that Levelling Army at Black-heath with a long Preachment beginning with this Proverb When Adam dolve and Eve span Who was then a Gentleman And 't is observed by Mr. Howell that the Preaching Fryers and Monks were the chief Incendiaries of the Catalonians to their late Revolt And we have it from Authentcik Authority how that Hernando de Avalos and Juan de Padilla in the Spanish Civil Wars against the Emperour Charles V. in the first place imploy'd some Fryers to rail against the Government in their Pulpit and so to incite the people to Warr which according to expectation took fire in Toledo these men being the first thunderers of Seditions into the Castillians and to this purpose the famous Spanish
leaving the Government of all to the Lords of his Parliament Which impudence of theirs hurryed them on so farre that they never left fighting till their King was murder'd but how uncertain Thus are the best men violently opposed by the wicked though the vertue and patience of the former might in reason mollifie the latter to obedience How wishedly will some pitty the case of Argalus and Parthenia the patience of Gryseld in Chaucer the misery and troublesome adventures of the Phanatick Lovers in Cleopatra Cassandra Amadis de Gaul Sidney and such like Yet all these as meer Romantick as Rablaise his Garagantua And yet with an unmoved apprehension can peruse the lamentable murder of Edward the Second of England and James the first and Milcolumb the first of Scotland the cutting off the head of good King Alpinus the poisoning of Fergusius the third by his own Queen and her stabbing her self the strangling of Malvinus by his own Queen and the throat-cutting of King Fethelmachus by a Fidler and besides these the martyrdome of old Queen Ketaban in Persia The stabbing of Henry the fourth in France The sacrilegious poisoning of the Emp. Henry the seventh in Italy The miserable death of Mauricius the Emp. with his Wife and five Children by the wicked Phocas And can read the fatall stories recorded by Boccace with lesse grief then the deplorable narrative of Arnalte's love to Lucenda And the patience of the good King Henry the sixth who being grievously struck by a murthering Varlet only made this Reply Forsooth and forsooth being his words for most earnest expression never using an oath ye do fouly to smite a King anointed so May be farre out-rivall'd by some with the misfortunes and hardship of some inchaunted Lover in Ariosto Parismus the two Palmerins or Mirrour of Knighthood And for the horrid murther of his late Majesty experience tells us that many have been so farre from contracting grief that they have so much triumphantly rejoiced at it that they have thought an action of so much wickednesse to have been honourable to them and their posterity for ever Thus have we come short to our Ancestors in fidelity and Loyalty by studying all occasions to rebell against our King They rather then undergo the ignominions title of Nithing i. e. a knave or a night-filcher swarme to the Service of their King we on the contrary rather then not be branded with the wicked name of a Traytor will court all occasions by our Rebellion to make our selves meritorious to a pair of Gallows And so to conclude this assertion I shall tell you that the Parliament wanted all the qualifications to make a warre really espousable No warre being lawful unlesse it be commanded by the Supream Authority the which the Parliament was not but the King if the Laws of our Land be an authentick Standerd And secondly the occasion of the Warre must be just which was wanting on the Parliaments side all their specious pretences being false and ridiculons their reasons suggested to the people to beget a Warre being to as small purpose as the Duke of Burgundy to quarrell for a cart-load of Sheep-skins or the two Brethren neer Padua about the disposal of the Starrs and Firmament And suppose their jealousies had been true yet it was Treason in them to warre against the Supream Authority the King according to the Laws of our Land and damnable according to the word of God Let Buchanan and such as he by supposing the Apostles and the Spirit to deal with us like Hypocrites evince to the contrary For if the Apostle Paul commandeth the Christians to be obedient to their Heathen and Tyrannical Kings who made it their sport to persecute Christians and that for Conscience-sake telling them that their power was of God certainly we are bound to obey a Christian Prince whose authority can be no lesse If we perceive our selves grieved resist we cannot but by Prayers and Obedience To which purpose the ancient Chaucer instructs us who certainly in this sung according to the rule of his time and therein neither false Law nor Gospel Lordes hestes may not be fayned They may wel be wayled and complained But men must nedes unto her lustre obey And so wol I there nis no more to sey The primitive Christians when collected into great Armies were honoured for their obedience never rebelling against but fighting or quietly living under their Heathen Kings as Tertullian will satisfie more at large But now we are so farre from being peaceable in a Christian Government that if occasion of rebellion cannot handsomly be pluckt by the fore-top yet we can create reason to our selves though upon a serious reflection we acknowledge such endeavours to be unjust Thus the Army when in obedience to the Parliament it had conquer'd and ruin'd the King and Kingdome and by the assistance of the sword and Satan had made themselves Lords and Masters over their Betters then I say when they were at the top of their prosperity they do seriously professe that the Parliament did justifie many extraordinary strange and doubtlesse in respect of the letter of the Law very illegal actions viz. Their taking up Armes raising and forming Armies against the King fighting against his person imprisoning impeaching arraigning trying and executing him cutting off his Head banishing his Children abolishing Bishops Deans and Chapters took away Kingly Government and the House of Lords broke the Crowns sold the Jewels Plate Goods Houses and Lands belonging unto the Kings of this Nation erected extraordinary High Courts of Justice and therein impeached arraigned condemned and executed many notorious enemies to the publick peace when the Laws in being and the ordinary Courts of Justice could not reach them These were strange and unknown practises in this Nation and not at all justifiable as is conceived by any known Laws and Statutes Thus have you the judgment of a ruling Army against their Masters and themselves though this their repentance was but to vindicate another infidelity But here after all this it may be objected that though some factious spirits of the Parliament have been too incroaching upon the King and the chief Incendiaries of these Warres yet why should I lay all this upon the Presbyterian account To which there needs no tedious reply if we do but consider that these factious people were all Non-conformists from whom if examples may be held for proofs as Schismaticks a self-conceited giddy hot-headed zeal and by consequence Rebellion is as inseparable as pride from Menecrates or Children when gallanted up in new cloathes For my part I am apt to believe that the Bloud of many thousand Christians shed in these warrs and before cryeth loud against Presbytery as the people only guilty of the first occasion of quarrel And that they have been the chief occasion of other slaughters may be credited not only from forraign stories but the authentick judgment of the ever great
but fire and sword must redress it When the King accused but five Members of High-treason and in a civil way went to demand them of the House the Parliament call'd it an Illegal Seditions and Traiterous act though I cannot vindicate them for it and this was one of the main occasions why the people joyn'd with the Parliament though in so doing they had no more reason then the roaring Blaces in the Counter-scuffle or Quixot's fighting with red-wine or wind-mills And certainly the King hath more right and law in each particle of his body then the whole Army could in reason pretend to And this possibly may be one reason why the Army presently acknowledg'd their secluding the Members to be a course in it self irregular and not justifiable And if the Parliament did so much dis-relish the King 's how might they abominate this of their hired Cossacks But I must confess they were paid with their own coyn the Souldiers sticking as close to their promises to fight for priviledges of Parliament as the Parliament to their Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Vows and Protestations to maintain the King's person and Prerogative so that Neither barrel better Herring The Members being now reduced to a small number and the Lord 's flown away none being suffered to fit but those who had their Consciences like Fortunatus his purse full of gold and self-ends were from a name of several syllables like those of Brasil circumcised for Christians no man can now call them under the short title of RUMP and fagge-end of a Parliament with corrupt Maggots in it as Mr. Walker terms it And the truth of it is considering the many Members that went to the King with those Eleven forced away by the Army and this last Seclusion and then the Remaining will onely be the Rump of a Rump of a Rump of a Parliament That the Rumpers and the Army did comply together is palpable but whether they perswaded the Army to turn out the other members I know not though the Army did a little dash it in their teeth afterwards The Rump being thus fixt and back'd by an inconsiderable Army if either the Kingdome or London to give it no other Epithet durst know their strength compos'd of more Heresies then Rosse or Pratealus could imagin the Rump I say and the Army thus twisting their interests together go as boldly on to the distruction of others as Lazarellos blind Master leap'd to his own And first vote no more addresses to be made to the King and order themselves the supream Authority of the Nation And then two days after by the inspiration of some pretty Demon or other make an Ordinance of their supream Rebell-ships for the Tryal of his Sacred Majesty And having dapperly proceeded thus farre they in the next place conclude that Writts shall no longer run in the Kings name and at last bring the King to tryall for his Life where his declared and manifest enemies were his Judges under the title of a High Court of Justice A thing which the Army highly complain'd of several times the year before when it was their own case 'twixt them and the Parliament calling of it contrary to the law of nature that they should be judge in their own cause But now the case is alter'd quoth Ploydon the Army thinking it very fitting thut any be judges against the King so they do but make sure work of him And to bring this great thing about for all their protestations in favour of his Majesty all stones were turn'd that could be Several of the Sectaries like Hugh Peters were set up to prattle out the necessity of a Reformation in Government so that the people might take the change more peaceably Then were their several villaines imployd to vilifie his Majesty in print running through all the misfortunes of his Raign still implying that his own sins were the occasion of them all stuffing their pamphlets with abominable lyes set down with an infinite deal of malice and all applyed to the ignorant people with an aboundance of smooth-faced jugling most of them making perjury Hypocrisie and such like villanies as inseparable from his Majesty as the Devill from themselves Though if ones living writings and death do shew any thing of a man then there is no such thing as Belief if the world be not satisfied of his Majesties Vertues and Holinesse Besides these Pamphlets several people were instigated to Petition the Commons and General that speedy justice might be executed upon his Majesty and this as soon as the Army had conquered Hamilton and the rest of the Royalists Ponifract excepted For being now Maisters in the field they scorned to be bafled by an imprisoned King or a few talkers at VVestminster for both which they had laid rods in pisse Yet as a small cheat something to gull the world as if their actions were not so much their own as the desires and request of the whole Kingdome Petitions from several parts of the Nation must come thick and threefold clamoring for justice against the King One of the leading cards of this cheating game was thrown from London Westminster Southwark and Hamlets to the house of Commons and then another from Oxfordshire to the same house and the same purpose and a letter made up of the same ingredients from the Garrison of New-Castle and Tinmouth was not Sir Arthur Hazlerig then Governour to the Lord Fairfax And having thus begun they never leave off till they had petitioned the King to the block For the next month another Petition comes posting from Leicester-shire and 't is well known who were their Knights to the Commons desireing his Majesties speedy Tryall for all the passages hapned in his raign and this is back'd by another from the Maior Aldermen c. of New-Castle upon Tyne to the Commons and this hotly pursued by another from Yorkshire And to conclude this month a confident one was presented to the Generall from Iretons Regiment which was farre from complementing but struck home to the purpose In the next month Coll. Inglosbys Regiment solicits Fairfax to the same purpose which is seconded by Fleetwoods Whaleys Barksteads Overtons and blind Hewsons nor were the soldiers of New Castle Tinmouth Hartlepool and Holy Isle satisfied with their former paper but they also fall on again and clamour for justice and now also cometh the Petition of Coll. Hortons Regiment and on the last day of the month another from Sr. Hardresse Wallers tatter-demallions as also from Devonshire and Cornwall And in the next Month the General is stifly solicited for the Kings tryal by the rabble of Bristol Boston Glamorganshire Denbighshire Dover and Kent with the Cinque-ports and Canterbury in whose proposals are these words to the General First that you prosecute the execution of justice upon the person of the King Words strange to proceed from such a County as Kent who have oft
onely approve of but also protect thereby gaining infinite Proselytes as the Devil in the Northern Coasts doth his subjects by making them invulnerable And these they feed up and nourish with strange fears more fantastical then Lazarellos when he thought the dead man would be carried to his Master's house strongly fomented and agitated by unheard of Plots set a foot to destroy Religion and Nation like the Roterdam-ship which would kill the English under water and all this upon worsegrounds and reasons then the influence of a Talisman Though nothing was more false and impudent then these pretended dangers yet what by the authority and countenance of those Grandees who patronized such rumours and what by the power which the Tubthumping boute-feus had over the peoples inclinations and judgments whereby the Pulpit became the worst thing in the Nation many had not onely a bad opinion of the King but thought very well of the Parliament who in all their actions were far more sedulous then his Majesty but most of all as a hindg upon which themselves and designs hung in sending forth their papers to abuse the people by making the King's actions odious and their own for the best And of this they took special care not onely by appointing a Committee to consider of the most convenient way to disperse them and to give an allowance to their Messengers but also by taking care by Order that every Petty Constable or Tythingman throughout England shall have one of every one of their Orders Declarations c. and to read them publickly to their neighbours And how these flattering papers might work in the Country where they commonly believe all that is in Print is easily to be imagined considering that most of them heard but the reasons of one Party the Parliament taking a special care by Declaration that nothing which came from the King should be received or permitted to be read Whilst the Parliamentarian-papers flew plentiful about the Nation swoln with big praises of their worships the better to captivate the ignoranâ— people to their Lure who are naturally of themselves apt to gape after any novelty or change especially when any gain is like to be had by it as there was in this undertaking they knowing that Plundering would be permitted them and the Parliament assuring them that if they received any damage it should be repai'd them out of the estates of their enemies By these ways the Country was droled into an high conceit of the Parliament and nothing stuck with those of the more wise and honest sort but the word Treason which they knew they should incur by assisting the Parliament against the King But this doubt was presently wipt away in the opinion of many by the Parliaments distinction betwixt the Person and Office of a King as also by their daily protestations at the beginning of the Wars That they fought not against the King but against his wicked Council Of which Protestations in 1642. I shall give you a tast whereby you may the better distinguish between their tongues and hearts And first we shall give you the Vote by which the Army was first order'd to be rais'd which was thus Resolved upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised King's Person defence of both houses of Parliament and those who have obey'd their Orders and Commands and preserving of the true Religion the Laws Liberty and Peace of the Kingdome And to confirm the people in their intentions for the preservation of the King they thus profess and protest House of Commons your Loyal Subjects who are ready to lay down their lives and fortunes and spend the last drop of their bloud to maintain your Crown and Royal Person and greatness and glory And they pray your Majesty to rest assured that they will always be tender of your Honour and Reputation with your good Subjects We seek nothing but your Majesties Honour and Peace and the Prosperity of your Kingdomes Their earnest intentions and endeavours to advance your Majesties Service Honour and Contentment c. Do resolve to preserve and govern the Kingdome by the Counsel and Advice of the Parliament for your Majesty and your Posterity according to our Allegiance and the Law of the Land As if there could be a greater care in them the King's friends at York of his Majesties Royal Person then in his Parliament The services which we have been desirous to perform to our Soveraign Lord the King and to his Church and State in proceeding for the publick peace and prosperity of his Majesty and all his Realmes Within the presence of the same all-seeing Diety we Protest to have been and still to be the enely end of all our counsels and endeavours wherein we have Resolved to continue freed and enlarged from all private aimes personal respects or passion whatsoever Who in all their Counsels and Actions have proposed no other end unto themselves but the care of the Kingdomes and the performance of all Duty and Loyalty to his Person Your Majesties most humble and faithful Subjects the Lords and Commons in Parliament having nothing in their thoughts and desires more precious and of higher esteem next to the honour and immediate service of God then the just and faithful performance of their duty to your Majesty and this Kingdome We the Lords and Commons are resolved to expose our lives and fortunes for the defence and maintenance of true Religion the King's Person Honour and Estate Will really endeavour to make both his Majesty and Posterity as great rich and potent as much beloved at home and feared abroad as any Prince that ever sway'd this Scepter which is their firm and constant Resolution And you shall declare unto all men that it hath been and still shall be the care and endeavour of both Houses of Parliament to provide for his Majesties safety Concerning the Allegations that the Army rais'd by the Parliament is to Murther and depose the King we hoped the Contrivers of that Declaration or any that profest but the name of a Christian could not have so little charity as to raise such a scandal especially when they must needs know the Protestation taken by every Member of both Houses whereby they promise in the Presence of Almighty God to defend his Majesties Person The Promise and Protestation made by the Members of both Houses upon the nomination of the Earl of Essex to be General and to live and dye with him wherein is exprest that the Army was rais'd for the Defence of the King's Person And we have always desired from our hearts and souls manifested in our Actions and in many humble Petitions and Remonstrances to his Majesty profest our Loyalty and Obedience to his Crown readiness and resolution to defend his person and support his Estate with our lives and fortunes to the uttermost of our power We
will they allow the Civil Authority to have any thing to do with them or any of their Kirk-actions as I have formerly shew'd in their continual practise and for an assurance take one of their Declared Maxims As the Assembly cannot make Civill Laws nor repeal them nor impede the Parliament from making or repealing Civil Laws No more can the Parliament make Ecclesiastical Laws Originally nor repeal or hinder the Lawful Assemblies to repeal the same For albeit Acts of the Assembly are and may be ratifyed in Parliament that is only that the Civil Sanction may concur with the Ecclesiastical Constitution But will not stop the Assembly to recal their Own Act which being annull'd by them the Civil Ratification falls ex Consequenti For to maintain that the Kirk may not repeal her own Acts ratified once in Parliament is so derogatory to Christs Prerogative and Ordinance to the Liberty of the Kirk and Freedom of the Assembly to the nature and reason of all Ecclesiastical jurisdiction as we have more largely declared in the Protestation 22 September last that we believe few or none will be of that Opinion Nor will they allow the King to Dissolve any of their Juntos with which Impudent humour King Charles I. was sufficiently troubled For having by Proclamation Dissolved their Assembly at Glasgow 1638 They publickly deny his Authority for so doing declaring that It was most unlawful in it self and prejudicial to those Priviledges which Christ in his word hath left to his Church to dissolve or break up the Assembly of this Church or to stop and stay their Proceedings in Constitution of Acts for the welfare of the Church or execution of Discipline against Offenders and so to make it appear that Religion and Church Government should depend absolutely upon the pleasure of the Prince And after this they very solemnly protest against the departure of the Kings Commissioner 'till their humours be satisfyed a sufficient sign of their Presumption to be so malepert with one that represented the Kings Person and Authority but they go on in their boldnesse We again and again do by these presents cite and summon them and every one of them to compeer before this present General Assembly to answer to the premises and to give in their Reasons Defences and Answers against the Complaints given in or to be given against them and to hear Probation sed and Sentence pronounced against them and conform to our former Citations and according to Justice with certification of affairs Like as by these presents we summon and cite all those of his Majesties Council or any other who have procured consented subscribed or ratified this present Proclamation to be responsable to his Majesty and Three Estates of Parliament for their Counsels given them in this Matter so highly importing his Majesty and the whole Realm conform to the 12 Act King James IV. Parliament II. and protest for remedy of Law against them and every one of them Having thus begun to thunder they fall to work though they had no power to act being Dissolved by the Kings Command yet to it they fall in a furious Zeal not stopping at any thing which was once propounded so that in one hour they declar'd six General Assemblies to be null and void In another hour they condemn'd not confuted Armianism In another hour they deprived the Archbishop of St. Andrews and two other Bishops viz. Galloway and Brechen as at other times of that Kirk-Rump all the rest of the Bishops In another hour they declared Episcopal Government to be inconsistent with the Laws of that Church and Kingdom and so abolished it And thus in all haste without fear or wit in a very few dayes they had made almost an hundred Acts sometimes three or four at one time and sometimes more to the utter discredit of their Brethren of our English Assembly who sat hum-druming several years and after all expectations brought forth nothing worth a Mouse But the one was shackled and the other at liberty the one was over-rul'd and aw'd by a Parliamentary Nod but the other would neither be govern'd by God nor Man Though no question had that at London been their own Masters they would have been as hasty as their Brethren An English Covenanter being as good wildfire as any Kirker in Scotland But by this you may guess how deliberate our Northern Seers are how rationall they are that without Archimedes his Engine can skrew up a Government in a moment like those in the Arsenal in Venice who in less than two hours time can make and lanch a compleat Gally But enough of their denying the Kings Authority over them in their Assemblies I shall only give you one of their private Instructions by them carefully sent to some Ministers in every Presbytery in whom they put most special trust Private Instructions Aug. 27. 1638. That the ablest man in every Presbytery be provided to dispute De Potestate Supremi Magistratûs in Ecclesiasticis praesertim in Convocandis Conciliis de Senioribus de Episcopatu de Juramento de Liturgia corruptelis ejusdem How the Saints held these Questions need not be ask'd nor how partially they would go about them for I cannot well say study them When people once dispute Authority practice assures us that they are resolv'd for the Negative and when such questions as these are on purpose propos'd by a byass'd Zealot the Intention is only to confirm people in Opposition The Brethren long before this had found the benefit of such Discourses which made them now trudge in the same way For their seditious Predecessors in the University of St. Andrews insteed of Divinity had thrust up these Politick Questions Whether the Election or Succession of Kings were the better form of Government How farr the Royal Power extended Whether Kings might be censured for abusing the same and depos'd by the Estates of the Kingdom But besides those who expresly deny and fight against the Kings Supremacy his Majesty hath other Enemies to his Authority which are as dangerous amongst the People as any other And these are those who commend his Enemies and so approve their Actions not but that a wicked man in some things might be highly commended for other qualities Thus of one hand I find the great Gustavus Adolphus highly applauded but that he was a Protestant and on the other our Queen Elizabeth's Sister Queen Mary as greatly commended but that she was a Roman-Catholick yet for either of these simply aspersions are not to be cast upon Magistrates or others more inferiour However this hits not our case but the magnifying of those who are really wicked which Epithet let them take offence that will I shall freely bestow upon our Long-Parliament as being the Kings greatest Enemies the only cause of his ruine and the murtherers of many innocent Loyal Gentlemen By these Commendations the People are made to believe that
party I could also tell you how Mr. White once a great Brother in Authority scandalized those who adhered to the King in the late Wars And what wicked Epithets another Brother threw upon the Book of Common-Prayer and severall others as Prynne Vicars Leyton and others mentioned in this Book But that it would be too tedious both for my self and Reader Should I tell you of the abominable railing scolding and brawling of Barlee Bagshaw and Baxter three noted B's you would bless your self to see these people who pretend to all Sanctity and Holiness to have so much of the Devil in their mouths Thus have I stopt their rage against me by making them more angry And if this do not satisfie them I shall treble it the next time yet might all this have been spared if they would as patiently permit others to tell them the Truth as they will impatiently throw Lyes and Scandals upon their betters But these People do not love to be touch'd on their sores though it be to cure them They say 't is one way to find a Thief to note who blusheth at the discourse of stealing but these men are farr from that sign of Grace Tell them but of the sins belonging to their Religion as Treason Schism Perjury c. they will presently fly in your face though take no great notice of other Peccadiglio's like the Baker in the Play who took all names and reproaches without any offence but being once by chance call'd Mealstealer was so inraged that he would have spoiled all their sport unless they had left off such close Reflections And thus much in part to pay them home with their own Coyn. As for the Author whilst a School-Boy he was too much sway'd to Presbytery and delighting in the Stories of our Times had none to peruse but May Vicars Ricraft and such like partial Relators By which means believing with the Ignorant all things in Print to be true was perswaded to incline to the wrong side But a little before his going to the University lighting by chance upon Dr. Bate's Judicious Book Elenchus Motuum he found the Laws and true Government to be opposite to his former Readings and therein the knavery and jugling of their Opposers strange things which he had never heard of before Which with some other assistance so farr prevail'd with him that in a short time he threw off Father Schism and ever since like little Loyal John in the Epitaph For the King Church and Bloud-Royal He went as true as any Sun-Dial As for the Learned in History neither Preface nor Book was intended for them And as for those who are not somewhat studied this way though they are not able of themselves to search out the Truth yet are they not obliged to believe all in Print If they finde something in these Papers not agreeable to the Canting Tales of every zealous Brother let them not censure mine as false because the other pretends himself to be a Saint These People though they make a great deal of noyse being commonly the most ignorant and partial in Humane Story To say no more If we believe every thing in Mr. Clarke's Story-Books we shall with him make wicked men Saints Rebels good Subjects and Schismaticks the best Church-men which all should desire to be really perform'd who wish the Honour of his Majesty Peace of the Church Prosperity and Happiness of the Nation St. George's day 1662. The Contents of the Chapters BOOK I. CHAP. I. Nothing so wicked but some will undertake and vindicate Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The Life of Ignatius Loyola the first founder of the Jesuits Pag. 6. CHAP. III. Some Observations of the Jesuits Political Constitution Temper and Actions especially relating to our late Troubles Pag. 10. CHAP. IV. The helps and assistance which the Calvinist Presbyterian and Jesuite afford one another for the ruine and alteration of Kingdomes with their Plots to destroy the Government and Tranquillity of England Pag. 15. CHAP. V. The Originall of the Commons in Parliament That the Clergy is one of the three Estates and the King supream above all Pag. 30. CHAP. VI. The Priviledges of Parliament and that in some Cases they are null and voyd Pag. 38. CHAP. VII The beginning of the Presbyterians with the wicked Principles of the Ring-leaders of that factious Sect. Pag. 42. CHAP. VIII The Rebellious Actions of the Presbyterians in Scotland till the death of King James Pag. 45. CHAP. IX The illegal malepert and impious plots and designs of our Schismatical Presbyterians in England in the Raigns of Q. Elizabeth King James and K. Charles till the beginning of the Wicked Long Parliament Pag. 59. BOOK II. CHAP. I. THe mischievous and impudent contrivances and innovations of the wicked Long Parliament 1. Their false slaunders thrown upon the Court and Church 2. Their affection to and siding with the chief of the Schismatical Incendiaries 3. The impudence and seditiousnesse of the Lecturers thrust amongst the simple people by the power and cunning of the Parliament 4. Their designs to alter the frame of the Civil Government 5. Their plots to overthrow Episcopacy Divine service and the Orthodox Clergy 6. Their stirring up the people to Tumults whereby they frighted the King and Queen from London 7. The small esteem which the Commons had of the King and Nobility whereby it is plain that it was not the King but the Parliament which occasioned and began the Warrs Pag. 73. CHAP. II. The Abominable Hypocrisie and jugling of the Parliament and Army till the horrid murder of his Majesty Pag. 106. CHAP. III. The inconstancy villany and monstrous Tyranny of the wicked Army till the happy Restauration of the King Pag. 119. CHAP. IV. The grand perjury of the Parliament and Army Pag. 130. CHAP. V. The wicked Sacriledge of the Parliament and Army Pag. 133. CHAP. VI. That some through ignorance and acredulous disposition prompting them to embrace their specious pretences might be charmed to side with the Parliament though really designed no dammage either to the Kings person or Authority Pag. 141. BOOK III. Â THat the Presbyterians were not willingly and actively instrumental for the uncapitulated Restauration of his Majesty Pag. 149 CHAP. II. The wickednesse of our Presbyterians in throwing Aspersions upon his Majesty and instigating the People to Rebellion by assuring them in the Lawfulnesse of Subjects fighting against their Kings Pag. 171. CHAP. III. The small or rather no Authority that the Presbyterians allow the King to have over them Pag. 197. CHAP. IV. THat the Presbyterians are but Conditional Subjects no longer obedient to their King or acknowledging Him then he serves their turns and is subservient to their fancies Pag. 207. CHAP. V. I. The wicked Reproaches the Presbyterians cast upon the present Episcopal Church 2. What small reason they have to desire Toleration from the King and Episcopal Party since they deny the same to them with their scandals upon the Church as Popish
Casuists cannot be ignorant how they annihilate and jeast with sin by their sociable Doctrine of Probable Opinion of Directing the Intention and such like as you may see more at large in the Mystery of Jesuitism of which the last Edition with its Additionals will yield you more satisfaction With these things I should be very unwilling to charge them did I not know that the Agitators of these Political evasions from Sin were the chief Casuists amongst them and their Books printed and reprinted by the consent of their Superiours For those men are very much to blame who scandalize a General Religion with the fancies and extravagancies of some private Writers for by this means might Rebelling-Presbyterianism King-killing Independentism deluded Quakerism and other Heresies be thrown upon the famous Church of England and several absurdities upon the Romanists which cannot be found in the Tridentine Council How obsequious this Order is to their Superiours Commands may be seen in many stories related by Hasenmullerus and others Ignatius himself being willing to throw away his life rather than disobey an ignorant Physitian Nor had it been handsom in him to have been refractory who was the Author of this obedient Constitution and wrote a long Letter from Rome to those of his Order in Portugal to perswade them to it which is yet extant What other Articles they have I need not relate these three being a sufficient taste and the rest of their Order may be had either in Italian or Latin To give a true Character of the Jesuite at large would be too tedious since one of themselves viz. Alexander Haius hath performed it well enough in few words viz. Jesuita est omnis homo one as fit to act any thing as he is able to comply with every condition meerly Tales quales as themselves were pleas'd to term it more publickly at Paris They are generally a sort of people more skilful in the causes and motions of the Body Politick than the Philosopher in the Natural being Richelieu's for plotting as quick-sighted as Lynceus as restless as the Bird of Paradice as insinuating and flattering as Clisophus or Charisophus more cruel than the ill-natur'd Barbarian and like the old woman Ptolomais never in their own Trade but when stirring up mischief and the best Actors on the Political Stage fit to undertake and finish any wickedness for which they have formerly been reproachfully banish'd France Bohemia Hungaria Moravia Turky and Venice though since with much ado restored Several of them have suffered in China England Scotland and other places for their villainies nor hath Germany suffered them to go unpunished nor could they expect more favour from many in that Countrey since the misery of it And the loss of the Palatinate if you believe Sir Simond D'ewes had its source from their Brains And one of this Society who suffer'd at Strasburg confest that he was one of the thirty Jesuits who were imploy'd to be Agents for the Roman Cause in the late German Wars and that their Orders were to poyson and make away the chiefest Officers or others who opposed the Emperour as my Author assures us And Teimurases Prince of the Georgeans a people lying upon the Caspian Sea will have none of them in his Territories whence they were forced to fly for that notorious Imposture of theirs concerning the head of that Martyred Queen Ketaban a story so commonly known that I do not a little admire at de S. Lazare for passing by the fraud and jugling of the Jesuites with silence and untruths Mendoza hot-headed Gret-serus and others of the same Society are as parties bound to commend the Honesty and Religion of this Order But the Ingenious Thuanus Pasquier who affords you Pleadings and Reasons against them and others though Roman-Catholicks think it not fit to attribute any goodness to the Jesuite knowing that he is a Subject too dangerous to live in Liberty in any well setled State Spain excepted these two reciprocally maintaining each other more through politick ends than true love of Religion I am confident Great Brittain and Ireland have felt the force of their active brains as the Raign of Queeen Elizabeth and the dangerous beginning of King James can testifie Nor were they any more beneficial to King Charles doing what they could to foment our Dissentions as the Long Parliament could not deny As appears by their Articles against Father Philips one of which was this The damnable Doctrine which he and other Jesuites have taught to destroy and depose Kings hath been the cause of the Civil Warrs like to befal these Kingdoms if God in his mercy did not prevent it And his Seditiousness is somewhat apparent by his Letter sent to Mr. Mountague in France and produced to the House of Commons June 25 in which was this expression Can the wise Cardinal endure England and Scotland to unite and not be able to discern In the end it is like they will joyn together and turn head against France And how vigilant the Cardinal was to keep the two Nations from uniting is visible from the presence and great endeavours of Mr. Thomas Chamberlain a Scotch-man Chaplain and Almoner to Richelieu amongst the Scots who play'd likewise his Cards well in England before our late Rebellion with Order not to depart from Scotland till things succeeding as the Cardinal wish'd he might return into France with good news of a perfect dissention betwixt England and Scotland And to this may be added the Industry of the Cardinal's Secretary in the said Nation where he carryed himself so cunningly that he was taken into Consultation with the Heads of the Covenanters And what good counsel could spring from such a Fountain cannot be ignorant to any who either understood the experience or knew the political biass of the said Cardinal which might well move him to say concerning our late Troubles That 't was easie for one with half an eye to have foreseen them Whereby it seems strange to me that he would never imploy a Jesuite if we may credit Mr. Howell though it may be that he supposed them too much linked to the Interest of Spain to doe him or France any good Nor is the multitudes of them in England any small probability of their bad Intentions being unwilling to hazard their lives as here they do unless upon some grand Design Jarrigius one of their own Society affirmeth that fifty of them clad in several habits kept Council in London whence they deputed a General Agent to Rome And Oliver Cromwell profest that he could prove by witness that they had a Consistory and Council that rul'd all the affairs in England as he could prove by the Particular Instrument then in his power And how formerly they swarm'd in England Mr. Gee will at large inform you And King James could never forget the miseries he suffered whilst King of
of the Earl of Manchester In which two Universities there was a thorough Purge to the perpetual reproach and ignominy of the Undertakers many famous and learned Doctors Heads of Houses Masters of Arts and others were turned out of their Fellowships and Colledges because they would not submit to that which was contrary to their Oaths and the Priviledges of both places imposed upon them by those who had no more authority in such things than they had to behead or rebel against their Master IX Contzenus saith these Revolutions must be done moderately and with abundance of cunning the first step being to make the followers and abetters of the contrary Opinion odious and as it were a scorn in the Countrey and this by disgracing them especially with things which seem most ridiculous absurd and hate ful to the common people either by nick-naming or any way else The scandalous Reports and Pamphlets thrown against both King and Bishop as Popish though they thought nothing less may be some sign what good use hath been made of Contzen's Observation What disgrace cast upon the decent Habits of Church and University though the first according to the Canons and the other appointed by the Statutes of the place What unseemly Titles given to Organs as Bag-pipes and what irreverent names to Churches as Steeple-houses How were the Clergy nick-named with the title of Hirelings Humane Learning as Heathenish and Scholars as professing enmity against the Gospel How Cromwel's Faction spread abroad Pamphlets against King City and Parliament 1647. that the people might take the Army for honest men is somewhat pointed at by Mr. Walker And since that What scurrilous Books hath been contrived by Needham Goodwin Milton Rogers and such like Billingsgate Authors is not unknown to to any Nor is it forgot what impertinent Reports the Long-Parliament spread amongst the People to make the King odious as that he was a Favourite to the Catholicks and those call'd Arminians which sufficiently demonstrated a Presbyterian malice since the first was false and the other no crime And this must also be laid in the dish of Archbishop Laud though Prynne and they knew that he wrote more against the Romanists than all our Brittain Presbyterians who have spent more time in the commendation of Rebellion than in the Service of God And certainly I may as well call Prynne a Stage-Player for writing his Histriomastix as he the Archbishop Papistical because he wrote so learnedly against them And as if this were not mischief enough the People must now and then be alarum'd with strange Reports of Forces from Denmark Lorraign and other strange places as if the Nation were to be conquer'd and the Natifs throats cut which if we yield yet will the ignominy only fall upon the Presbyterian Party who by their want of Allegiance would bring the King to such straits that his own Subjects were not able to defend him from their Tyranny They thought it fit for us to send aid into the Palatinate and yet unlawful for Denmark to assist his own Kinsman against his Rebellious Subjects It was convenient they thought to give help to the French against their lawful King yet held it abominable for Forraigners to give a good wish to the King of England against his rebellious people The Covenanters in Scotland might with honesty crave aid from the French King though a Roman-Catholick against their Anointed Soveraign But so must not the King of England from the Duke of Lorraign though his life endangered by his bloud-thirsty Subjects The Parliament forsooth may make a Pacification with the Irish Catholicks but the King must not harbour such a thought without grand aspersions If the King but march towards Scotland the malignity of envious tongues endeavours to blast his Reputation as not fit to wear the Crown But many thousands of the Scotch-Covenanters may come into England fight against their King kill his faithful Subjects and inrich themselves by their plundering and stealing from the honest People and for their villainies receive large rewards with the Epithet of Brethren and so they were but in Iniquity being guilty of High-Treason because marched and acted against the Kings consent who is the Supreme Authority of the three Nations And that the Supream Head may when rebell'd against for his own security and defence desire help of his Neighbours though of a different perswasion in Religion I think needs no dispute He that would lose his Kingdom quietly is as simple as the Rebel 's wicked and if his own Sword be not long enough for the tryal he may lawfully borrow his Friends If the Parliament stood so much upon their Priviledges I know no reason but that the King might maintain his Prerogative and if any Contradiction be betwixt these two they are obliged to yield to their betters Nor doth it thwart the practise of former times for the Supream Authority to desire assistance from people of a contrary Religion as may be seen by the following examples as I find them set down to my hand in a late French Treatise Aza the good King of Judaea procured assistance from Benhadad the Idolatrous King Syria And so did the Great Constantine imploy in his Armies many Heathenish Goths So were the wicked Vandals call'd into Africa by good Boniface And after this manner did Narses under the Emperour Justinian imploy the Pagan Lombards The good Arcadius Emperour of Constantinople though a Christian delivered the tuition of his young son Theodosius and the Government of the Empire till his Son came to age into the hands of Isdigerdis King of Persia a Heathen who accordingly kept his promise with the Emperour Heraclius the Emperour was beholden to the Saracens as Basilius and Constantine's sons to John Emperour of Constantinople were to Ostelzi And by these people were also Henry and Frederick Brothers to the King of Castile mainly benefited in their Wars against the French Ludouick Sforza Duke of Milan and others begg'd assistance from the Turk against the French as Maximilian of Austria did against the Venetians And if it be lawful to procure aid from Heathens certainly a Christian may seek help from those who profess Jesus Christ though in every thing they cannot absolutely agree But enough of this since the Presbyterian commits ten times more sin in Rebelling than the wickedst man can do in defending his own right though by the assistance of Turks and Infidels X. What a great stickler Robert Parsons the Jesuite was to overthrow both England and the Protestant Religion in it is well known the great States-man Cardinal D'Ossat taketh notice several times of his designs against these Kingdoms Some of his Plots and Contrivances shall follow as they were publisht by some Roman Catholicks One of his means is to alter the Municipal Laws of the Land that the Civil Laws might have sway 'T is needless to relate how the Laws have been chopped and changed by diversity of Governments not
court the Continent for self-preservation where they must provide for a rainy-day And what is become of all our Gold I know not unless it hath travell'd too XIV Another means to overthrow England Campanella thinks is to set them and the Dutch together by the Ears The fulfilling of which is fresh in every ones memory XV. After all Campanella's pumping to undo England and root out the Protestant Religion he can imagine no way more conducible to such ends then the reducing of that Kingdom into a Common-wealth Of which Observation there needs no Remarks but Experience not yet forgot CHAP. V. The Original of the Commons in Parliament That the Clergy is one of the Three Estates and the King Supream above all WHen I find God himself calling Rebellion the sin of Witchcraft for me to speak against it by endeavouring to aggravate the Iniquity would be to as small purpose to an Ingenious man as the pains and expences of Calvisius Sabinus to attain to the height of Learning since his memory was so weak that it could scarce retain the Names of Ulysses Achilles and Priamus Yet were it neerer allyed to Hell then it is it would not want both daring and knowing Patrons which doth something mitigate my admiration when I consider what Paper Time besides too much Bloud hath been spent by some men of late dayes to Apologize for the greatest Wickedness and thereby to strengthen themselves through their Actions in the Peoples Affections These though they had the worst Plea yet came off with the best Success by which they clamourously declared the Justness of their Cause hinting to the Royalists that it was owned by a Supernatural Power But Careat successibus opto Quisquis ab eventu facta notanda putat Let him ne're gain applause That from th' event states th' goodness of the cause And how Orthodox such Arguments are is obvious if we do but consider the often prosperity of the wicked who are sometimes permitted to conquer more for a scourge to others than any justness in themselves And I dare be confident in our case it holds the unlawfulness of these late domestick Commotions being rightly more appropriated to the Parliament than his Majesty as in it's due place shall be shewn But first to make the way more plain and easie to those who call themselves the weak Brethren the first fomenters of this Rebellion we shall in brief consider the Antiquity Subordination and Priviledges of Parliaments as they now stand whereby it is plain they had no power given them thus to raise Wars against and imprison much less behead their Soveraign For what I here speak is intended chiefly against the Long-Parliament The most ancient Government in this Island that Records can instruct us of is Monarchy and that in its Antiquity the most absolute the higher we go finding our Kings more free and powerful That reciprocal Compact between King and People so much boasted of by our Common-wealths-men and others being but a meer dream and Chamaera as that great Soul of Reason and Divinity the Reverend Bishop Sanderson hath compendiously and fully evinced That the ancient Kings of this Island had Meetings for Consultations reason prompts me to believe though I do not remember after what certain fashion yet since Christianity was setled here the Kings used to imploy the Archbishops Bishops and Nobility by way of Advice and Counsel Ethelbert the famous King of our Kentish Saxons being converted unto the Christian Faith about the year 596. some nine years after viz. 605. summons a Council in which were not only the Laity but the Clergy also After which time the Reverend Archbishops and Bishops have sat as a part of those grand Meetings till the late Exclusion by the Long-Parliament as the well-read Dr. Heylin who though under a great decay of sight sees more than a whole Nation of Presbytery hath sufficiently asserted These Lords Spiritual and Temporal were the only Parliament known to former Kings and so but one House However sometimes upon great concerns the King would when himself best pleas'd have some of the Commoners joyned with them but then they were not as now elected but particularly chosen according to the Kings desire and these were of more than ordinary savour and discretion and therefore call'd Wise-men The first time that in History we can meet with a Parliament consisting of the Clergy Nobility and Commons is in King Henry the firsts dayes at Salisbury Anno 1116. and so the Clergy were 500. years before the Commons in Parliaments But why this King should be the first that threw this favour so generally upon the Commons was as some are pleas'd to affirm grounded upon his own Usurpation For he being but the younger Son of William the Conquerour following the President of William Rufus seized upon the Crown in the absence of his eldest Brother Robert and afterwards most cruelly put out his eyes This they say moved many Discontents amongst the Nobility against whom to strengthen himself he thought it best to pleasure the Commons which was done by calling them to this Parliament at Salisbury whereby his Usurpation became more formidable against his Enemies But though the Commons were call'd to Counsel at this time if at this time since Prynne denyeth it yet were they not thereby made or esteem'd necessary since in several Kings raigns successively after Parliaments were held as Prynne their chief Patron doth acknowledge consisting only of the Spiritual and Temporal Barons And when afterwards they did really sit is as uncertain as after what manner or when they had their first Speaker The first by that Title upon Record being Sir Thomas Hungerford Anno 1376. though the year before John Stow calls Sir Peter de la More their Prolocutor And before these two but three viz. Petrus de Mountford Scroope and Sir William Trussel the first of these viz. Mountford being in the 44 th year of Henry III. that are known are supposed to officiate as Speakers for in what nature they were of is not yet known though for certain if the Commons sat by themselves they could not want some such like Officer It being many years afterwards viz. Anno 1401. that the King Henry IV. required the Commons to choose a Speaker before which time no such Command being recorded Thus we see the small Antiquity of Parliaments as they now stand with us representing the three Estates the Clergy Nobility and Commons This I write to shew how strangely confident the Commons were of late dayes who if you will believe Prynne one of themselves had really no such Power and Judicatureship as they did in the least pretend to Nor would I be thought in this or any thing in the sequent Discourse to invalid the true and real Authority of Parliaments or to lessen the Credit of the Commons House holding it now to be an Essential part of Parliament but yet not so much as some of
restrain'd the punishment of their disorders against her Person and Authority the more liberty they took to offend To this Knox impudently answers That his patience in suffering abominations made him not guilty of any fault and if his tongue took liberty in Pulpit she might take it as she pleas'd since in the Pulpit he had no Superiour but God and that his gifts made him equal to any of her Peers And as for her weeping he said He could better sustain her tears than the trouble of his Cause or to betray the Common-wealth Nor durst the Queen question him for his sawcy replyes knowing the strength of his Faction which being uot unhid to Knox made him more Insolent as afterwards publickly to affirm That For her sins the Land must lament and that it was absolute Rebellion in her not to turn Protestant and compared her to Simon Magus thinking it impossible that her sins could be forgiven her Nor did others of his Fraternity hold their peace And having got thus sure footing nothing would satisfie them but to have all for which purpose at a General Assembly at Edenburgh they draw up a Petition of several Heads the first of which was That the Queen her self with all her Family should not only forsake Mass and Popish Idolatry but that all none excepted should be punished who transgrest this Article To this she answered being then at St. Johnstons That as she freely gave every one Liberty of Conscience so she hoped that her Subjects would not press her to do against her Conscience and that she did not only think that there was no impiety in the Mass but that her Religion was true and grounded upon the Word of God But this gave them no full satisfaction Henry Stewart Lord Darnley being now marryed to the Queen July 1565. and proclaimed King the Knoxian Lords fly to their Arms and so doth the King also but before his march hears Knox preach at Edenburgh at St. Giles Kirk where he rail'd against the present Government reflectively saying That for the sins of the People God gives them Boyes the King was about 21. years old and Women to rule over them After which the King marcheth against the Lords who fly into England yet through Intercession all was reconciled Not long after this the Queen was brought to Bed in Edenburgh Castle betwixt 9. 10. at night July 19. of a Son which was afterwards Christned at Sterling and call'd James who became at last the happy Uniter of the two Crowns At the latter end of the same year John Knox intending to visit his sons at Cambridge moved the Assembly to write to the English Bishops in favour of the Non-conformists then buzzing in England The which they do but in their wonted language railing against the Surplice Square-Caps Tippets and calling them Badges and Garments of Idolatry Romish Raggs vain Trifles telling them as if the serious Bishops need take advice from such Hair-brains That they may boldly oppose all such Authority which dare command such things brave language and anew way of begging to get curtesies by Some few weeks after this the King was most barbarously murder'd 9 th February but by whom and how because History will not tell us the truth at large I think it not convenient to relate by peice-meal Then was the Queen whether willing or constrained is nothing to me marryed to Bothwell against whom the Lords raise an Army and forced him to fly into Denmark where he was imprisoned and they also seize on the forsaken Queen whom they secure in the Island of Lochlevin where by threats and fear they forced her to resign tears trickling down her face abundantly her Interest in the Crown to her young Son few days above a year old who was Crowned few days after at Sterling July 29. And if you will believe a late Historian Knox and other Ministers were not satisfied with this Resignation of hers but would have her also deprived of life nor is this Treasonable cruelty contradictory to his fore-mentioned Principles Now could the Knoxians desire nothing more having their King young in his Cradle and so capable of what impression they pleas'd and their Queen in close Prison so that they appeared Lords and Masters Yet she presently escapes out of Prison gets some Forces fights Murray the Regent but being beat fled into England where Queen Elizabeth imprisoned her till she was to the astonishment of many beheaded 1586. after 18. years close Imprisonment The next year the Regent Murray was slain at Lithgow by one Hamilton And then Lenox the Kings Grand-father obtained that dignity against whom the Lord Hamilton in behalf of the Queen raiseth a Warr in which Lenox was slain at Sterling Then was the Earl of Marre chosen who not long after dyed of a Feavour After whom the Earl of Morton succeeded as Regent after which the Queens Party by degrees lost all Authority In this year did John Knox dye at Edenburgh Novemb. 27. one that as I am apt to believe all things considered gained more esteem amongst the people by the reverence of his long-beard reaching down to his middle than any real wisdom or discretion that could be appropriated to him And now comes Andrew Melvil burning from Geneva against Bishops denying the lawfulness of their Function labouring for the absolute Presbyterial Discipline according to the Geneva mode which rais'd some Tempests in the Church insomuch that some of the Presbytery forbad Mr. Patrick Adamson lately by the Regent presented and by the Chapter chosen to the See of St. Andrews to Exercise any part of his Jurisdiction till he had acknowledged and satisfied them After this Argyle and Athol not affecting the Regent go to the young King at Sterling complaining against Morton and desiring him to take the Rule upon himself And so the King doth at 12. years old and thus the Regency fell The young King being brought up in the Reformed way confirms the Religion in Parliament but not their Discipline he affecting the Episcopal Government and ever since he was ten years old as himself confesseth disliked the Presbyterian way And truly Experience gave him good reason for it But to make all sure a Negative Oath by way of a Confession of Faith wherein all the Romish Ceremonies and Doctrines were abjured was drawn up by Mr. John Craig and this the King himself took and this he reflected upon in the Conference at Hampton-Court Having thus tyed his Conscience as they thought his Body must be secured too and so at Ruthen they seize upon him and that with so much inhumanity and irreverence that he burst forth into tears for which he got nothing but this Answer from the Master of Glammis It is no matter for his tears better that Barns should weep then Bearded-men Upon this the Earl of Arran going to know the Kings condition was secured and his Brother sore
wounded And none being suffered to speak with the King but whom they pleas'd he cryed out to some Noble-men whom the Duke of Lenox had sent to see him that he was a Captive and desired his good Subjects to release him But this his Jaylors forced him presently to recant by setting forth a Proclamation in his Name that all things were done according to his own desire Then is the King carryed to Edenburgh where the Estates and Assemblies of Ministers justifie this bold action singing in triumph as they went up the High-street the 124. Psalm Now Israel may say c. Whilst the King lay under this constraint from France came two Embassadours Monsieur la Motte and Menevel to get the King releas'd and a Treaty betwixt the two Crowns Against these the Ministers declaim in their Sermons most bitterly but especially against La Motte who being Knight of the Order du Sainct Esprit an Order constituted at Paris by Henry the third King of France and Poland 1579. did wear according to the custom of his Order the Badge of a White-Cross upon his shoulder This they call the Badge of Antichrist and him the Embassadour of a bloudy Murtherer brave language to those who knew the Authority of such Persons and whom they represented These dayly out-cryes and perceiving nothing to be done moved the Embassadours to depart But the King being willing to dismiss them with some content desired the Magistrates of Edenburgh to Feast them before their parting for he for his part was not suffered to do any thing the which they did the next next Munday But the Ministry to shew their rebellious Authority and Devillish crossness proclaim a Fast to be kept upon the next Munday the day appointed for the Embassadours Entertainment at this Fast the Ministers thundred out against the Magistrates and other Noble-men that waited upon the Embassadours by the Kings directions Nor was this all but they pursued the Magistrates with the Censures of the Church and could scarce be stay'd from Excommunicating them for not observing the Fast they proclaimed The King not liking his Restraint and perceiving how Imperious his Subjects grew whilst he was under hatches consults an Escape which was performed by the means of Col. Stewart Captain of the Guard upon which those who would not now submit to his Majesty were proclaimed Traytors he also declaring that however his Proclamation came forth yet it was extorted from him by violence and therefore of no validity But for all this the Ministers in their Pulpits vindicate the late Imprisoning of the King for which Andrew Melvil was charged to enter his person at Blackness but he instead of obedience fled to Barwick which proceedings against Melvil caused great grumblings amongst the Brethren who affirmed that neither King nor Council can censure men for words in Pulpit but their own Associates the Presbytery only The next year the Earl of Gowry with whom joyned some of the Ministers run into open Rebellion but the Earl being taken was beheaded and the Ministers fled for it The Nation being thus rent into distractions by a company of babling malepert Boute-feus the Parliament hoped by giving Caesar his due and gagging his Enemies mouths all things would then tend to Peace and Settlement For which purpose they confirm his Majesties Authority over all Persons and in all Causes And that to decline the Kings Judgement and the Councils in any thing should be High-Treason and that any thing whatsoever not approved of by the King and the Three Estates should be null And that no person whatsoever should either privately or publickly either in Sermon Declamation or Discourse utter any false untrue or slanderous speeches to the reproach dishonour hurt or prejudice of the King or any of his Parents or Progenitors or his Council nor meddle with the affairs of the King or State These good and honests Acts made the Presbyters Horn-madd who like our bordering Moss-Troopers are never content but when doing mischief to others They protest against these wholsom Statutes many of them fly away into England scorning to live in such subjection and Libels and Pamphlets fly plentifully against the King and Court And by Letter protest those Acts to be against the Word of God and therefore if they submit to them they should then be Traytors to God reviling Bishops whom they call Gross Libertines Belly-gods and Infamous and such like charitable stuff as this This turbulent spirit flowing amongst them made many of them be imprisoned and others suspended from their Livings But this lasted not long for the next year the Scales turned the banished Lords being come again into Scotland they joyn Forces and march to Sterling where they seize upon the Kings Person again whom they constrain by Proclamation to pardon them all Now did the Court put on a new face the old Officers are turn'd out and others put in This imboldens the Ministers who fled to return again but much of their intended malice was stopt by a Parliament who order that none shall reproach his Majesties Person State or Government This incensed the Ministry so much as to stir up one Watson in his Sermon to rail to the Kings face of his evil Government for which he was imprisoned at Blackness This mans mouth being thus stopt another of that gang call'd James Gibson in his Sermon at Edenburgh affirmed the King to be the Persecutour of the Church and calls him to his face Jeroboam pronouncing this Curse against him That He should dye childless and be the last of his Race For this because before the Council he maintained the same again he was committed yet afterwards 1587. upon better advice he acknowledged his fault and was ordered publickly to do the same in his next Sermon the which he promised to do yet did not whereupon being charged for breaking his promise he stubbornly answered That out of infirmity and weakness he had confess'd a fault but now his Conscience told him that his words were innocent The Chancellour perceiving the mans inconstancy put it to the Assembly whether Gibson had done well or no where though many were ready to vindicate him yet at last a majority found him slanderous and offensive but he not appearing in the afternoon to receive his censute after much bandying to and fro he was only suspended during the pleasure of the Assembly and this lasted but to the next August when without ever acquainting the King he was by his Brethren quitted the which Countenancing of such Seditious Actions did so incense his Majesty that Gibson was forced to fly into England where he was entertained by the hot-brain'd Non-conformists The Presbytery to shew themselves more formidable call a Synod at St. Andrews where they accuse the Bishop of the same place for having had a hand in the late Acts against the unruliness of the Brethren as Melvil accused him The Bishop appeals to the King and three Estates and
Policy Questions used to be discust 1. Whether the Election or Succession of Kings were the better Form of Government 2. How farr the Royal Power extended 3. Whether Kings might be censured for abusing their Power and deposed by the Estates of the Kingdom And how they stated these Questions let their deeds be judge as they are most proper and then let any man tell me if men of such turbulent spirits can be good Subjects and by consequence good Christians for I believe the World can scarse parallel in one Kingdom so many treasonable and impudent actions in so short a time as less then fifty years let but our late English madness of which theirs and our Presbytery were the Original be at this time excepted And most of these Actions you will find confirm'd and owned though in a different style by the History of The Scots Reformation wrote by whom I know not for a late Reverend Authour denyes it to be Knox's And it is the custom of men of this perswasion to Father their Brats upon others witness Wilson's History of King James a Book not to be believed in all things Nor is it all the Nation hath these spots There is a Church as well as Kirk of Scots And to vilifie the whole Kingdom because it hath nurst up some hot-spurs would be implacable malice and to bring all the World into Ignomy If the Proverb assure us That it is a good Family which hath neither Whore nor Thief in it 't will be a difficult thing to expel Vice from a whole Nation The Virgin-City Venice esteem'd one of the Glories of the World and whose Government for Exactness yields to none abounds with more Venerian pleasures than any of her Christian Neighbours The Spaniards are famous for loyal Subjects yet a Rebel is no Monster in Castile her self Scotland hath been the Mother of as famous men as any other Kingdom if Denmark Germany Poland and the Low-Countries may testifie their valour whilest France will assure you of their fidelity whose Kings have altogether trusted their persons to their Guardship But enough since David Camerarius hath writ a whole Volume in the Commendation of the Scottish Nation CHAP. IX The illegal malepart and impious Plots and Designes of our Schismatical Presbyterians in England in the Raigns of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles till the beginning of the wicked long-Long-Parliament NOr was this hot-braind humour fostered alone in Scotland but England also tasted the fiery tryal of their madd pranks Queen Elizabeth no sooner setled in her Throne but the Zealots deface all Monuments and Pictures in Churches they met withall nor did the ashes of the dead lie undisturb'd which caus'd the Queen to set forth a Proclamation against such violations But these men having their malice stopt against Stones and Glasswindores will vent it against those who can be sensible of injuries Goodman Whittingham Gilbie and others having learn'd their lessons at Geneva came roring over against our English Church venting their venom not only by their Preachments and Conventicling but also in Print The latter of these viz. Anthony Gilby of whom formerly born in Lincolnshire and of Christs Colledge in Cambridge tearmed our Ceremonies Liveries of Antichrist accursed Leaven of the blasphemous Popish Priesthood cursed patches of Popery and Idolatry Nor must the Ceremonies alone suffer but the Reverend Bishops too by others of the same gang as Throgmorton Penry Fenner Udal and such like Bravado's calling them Antichristian Petty-Popes Bishops of the Devil cogging and cozening Knaves dumb Dogs Enemies of God c. And for our Worship they affirmed it to be an impious thing to hold any thing common with Rome and from this Argument they refused to come to Divine Service But at last such was the vigilancy of the Queens Council that the fautours of these seditious Non-conformists were found out and Sir Richard Knightly and Sir Wigston were fined in the Starr-Chamber for receiving the Printers and Publishers of such Schismatical Books the celler of one of the Gentlemen bringing forth like Lucian some foul mouth'd Pamphlets against the Church or other Neither do these men mount their Battery only against the Church but also throw their wild-fire and indignation against the Queen and their Supream Authority witness Mr. Edward Deering of Kent's Sermon in which how unworthily let others judge he compared her Highness to an untamed Heifer and Christopher Goodman in a Book publickly vindicated Wiat's Rebellion affirming All who took not his part were Traytors to God his People and their Countrey And as some Common-Lawyers towl'd away by inticing tongues and Gold of the Non-conformists wrote against the Authority of Bishops so some pretending to the Civil and Canon-Law were obliged to oppose and deny the Queens Supremacy in Causes Ecclesiastical Nor might these fore-mentioned things seem strange since they were easily to be vindicated from some of the Geneva Notes upon our Bible where you may find the Disciplinarians highly to complain against Asa because he did not kill his Mother furiously calling of it lack of zeal and foolish pity And maliciously to compare our Arch-bishops Bishops Doctors and such like degrees with the Locusts though they carelesly seem to quit themselves in the exit And yet these are the very same men who profest to Queen Elizabeth That their Applications are such as may most appertain to Gods glory though how hide-bound they were at the same time from Charity may appear by their then slandering the Reverend and Learned Bishops with the ignominious title of ambitious Thus was Authority begun to be blasted by the Puritans a name now almost an hundred years old beginning in 1564. as Fuller thinks though Dr. Heylin out of Genebrard makes it two years younger though in a later History he seems to moderate its original between both viz. 1565. And these were so denominated as the word implyes and Genebrard and experience tells us because they thought themselves so much purer then other Christians that they would not perform Divine Service with them utterly rejecting all Forms used in the Primitive Ages and looking upon all decent Garbes to be unlawful in Church-affairs if different from the common wear or rather if not according to the Geneva-cut The Antiquity of this Name is very ancient as we may see in the old Hereticks who presumptuously call'd themselves Caethari i. e. Puritans the same with the Novatiani with whom the Parmenianistae in supposed purity did something agree and by this Name of Cathari I find Johnstonus in his large History to signifie our Non-conformists The Queen perceiving these men to sleight both her and the Bishops and to act only by the advice of private persons as Mr. Tho. Cartwright who affirm'd That we ought rather to conform our selves in Orders and Ceremonies to the fashion of the Turks then to the Papists Mr. Travers c. who had
from this Swashbuckler These and many other innovating and cross grain'd actions you may find storied down by their almost-own Fuller for so may I well take the boldnesse to call him since they could never desire a more complyable Historian And therefore these may carry the more probability with the Reader let his education be either sound or rotten KING JAMES succeeding upon the death of Queen Elizabeth the Non-conformists thought to gain ground apace having to deal with a Prince as they thought bred up in their own way and a stranger not only to England but as they hoped to her government also 'T is true He had been nurst up in the Presbyterian way in Scotland but their insolencies and incroachments to get all the power into their own hands as a stiff Presbyterian under the fained name of Wilson doth confesse gave him so much experience as not only to allow of no alteration or that very small in the Church of England but also publickly to testifie his happinesse in ruling over and amongst people so sweetly united in such a Church-government whereas in Scotland He was a a King without State without Honour without Order where beardlesse boyes would brave him to his face As himself did word it Yet to satisfie their clamours He gave them a conference at Hampior-Court where their Objections seemed so trivial that Self will and an erronious Conscience was thought to be more predominant then Reason Upon which the King put forth a Proclamation for Uniformity to which all the Ministers in England and they are above nine thousand submitted except forty nine such a noise will a few disturbers cause in any society when tolerated Nor need this seem strange to those who know that in the first year of Queen Elizabeth the number of our Clergy-men who refused the Oath of Supremacy did not amount to 200. though they had all not only been bred up in the Romish Religion but also for some few years before had violently asserted the Pope's authority in England And we now see those who have been the Chief-tains of the Non-conformists to turn tail and acknowledge Episcopal government the which I hope they do more for Conscience then Covetousnesse Yet for all this though King Law and all things else were against the Disciplinarian Interest they grow resolute and as one saith starkmaa and send to their Brethren in Scotland informing them of all which had hapned and that they in Scotland must expect to conform too and then God wot would follow the utter destruction of Sion Upon which some of them take an Alarum and meet at Aberdeen in spight of the King and his Authority intending to declare against and root out all the foot-steps and memory of Episcopacy for which some of them afterwards were forced to acknowledge their fault And Andrew Melvil for writing Libels against our English Church he then being at London was called before the Council where behaving himself insolently and like a mad man he was committed to the Tower By these actions our Non-conformists easily perceived that they could gain nothing but their own shame and destruction whilst they acted only as private men whereupon they resolve under-hand to blow up the Parliaments against Prerogative to which purpose by their industry they never wanted a good party in the House who carried themselves so resolutely and cunningly that for the future Westminster only rung with the clamours of Grievancies liberty of Subject and Priviledge of Parliament A Parliament never sitting but some Member or other throwing dirt in his Majesties face and this conscionably done by freedom of speech never or very seldom satisfying the King in what he conveniently required for when his pleasure for any reasonable thing was any time made known to them then they grumble and reply that God must be served before man and then for a moneth or two nothing is done in the House but the uttering of long-winded speeches against Arminianism and Popery And this to as little purpose as Cardinal Rapacciolus his prayer that the Devils fins and transgressions might be forgiven him that so he might receive some comfort and be of good cheer For any thing or reason besides bitter Invectives is as difficult to be found amongst them as Coach horses at Venice or a Gondola in Themes as is obvious to any who have seen the Speeches in the two last Kings raigns 'T is true all were not carryed on with the same Spirit for the House was still composed of two different tempers Like Orense a Town in Gallaecia of Spain one side of which in Winter is covered with Snow and num'd by the fury of frozen blasts whilest the other side doth not only want these white Robes but is favoured with a continual warmth arising from the adjacent medicinal hot Baths yet the more wicked party obliged by being so to be more industrious will commonly gain advantages whilst the good People trusting in their honesty act altogether too supinely I shall not now trace the Extravagancies of private men but shew you some of their hot-headed prancks in Parliament because they have now made that the Stage on which they intended to act for the future and in this I shall study brevity and pass by many notorious insolencies In the first Parliament of King James which was drawn out into several Sessions one of the Members bid the rest take heed lest they gave too much to the King lest they endanger their own throats cutting when they went home Others bob'd his Majesty in his teeth for rewarding some of his own Countreymen affirming that their silver and gold abounded at Edenburgh And one Piggot after he had spoken disgracefully of the Scots added withall That it would never be well with England till a Sicilian Vesper was made of the Scotish Nation as if he had not known what Countrey-man the King was Words of such high nature that Queen Elizabeth would have shewn her Prerogative But having now to deal with a King whom they thought might have been trampled upon here as well as beyond the Tweed they left nothing unturn'd whereby they might strengthen their own Faction And this spirit of Contradiction and Contention ruling amongst them is pointed at by one of their own Brethren though clad in more favourable words these bickerings and the Members unrestless humour forced the King to dissolve the Parliament having sat long enough in all Conscience to do any good if they intended any Afterwards another Parliament being call'd and consisting of the same Temperature was presently dissolved In the next Parliament the King desires some Moneys having not had any assistance from his People for several years so that he was constrained to lessen his Houshold This necessary request the Parliament hears but never intend to grant And the better to lay it aside they first begin with the spacious and specious subject of Complaints and with a high hand
fall upon the Grievances of the Subject in which having spent some time they drew up a Remonstrance though they not only knew that the things therein contain'd would be highly displeasing to his Majesty but also that the King had expresly forbad them to meddle with any such Concerns And in this Paper they greatly brag'd what their Priviledges were and how they were their undoubted Right and Inheritance These actions the King who above all things loved Peace did a little resent and gave them a small check in a Letter upon which the discontented part of the Members grumble and having plotted a thin House and a late hour six a clock at night in December not a third part of the number being there drew up a Protestation in behalf of their Liberty Priviledges and Jurisdiction as they pretended and recorded it in their Journal Book 19. Decemb. 1621. thereby declaring their supposed valour to Posterity Nor can we imagine but that such Presidents as these inflamed our late rebellious Spirits with presumption The King thus perceiving that the longer they satt the prouder they grew dissolved them by Proclamation so unwilling were these men to satisfie the King with any reasonable supply and this is somewhat hinted at by a Non-conformist himself by observing out of Sir Cotton's History that Henry the third was so pester'd with Parliaments that he would rather pawn his Crown-Jewels give over his House and feed himself with the benevolence of Monks than be beholden to his People and this he tells us was thought to be a Parallel for King James his time This wise and peaceful King by dear-bought Experience will farther tell you in his Excellent Book to Prince Henry how pernicious the Puritans were to good Government and what small trust is to be had in them KING CHARLES succeeded his Father King James who dyed at Theobalds 27. March 1625. and was as much or rather more tormented by his Presbyterian Subjects as his Father for this Non-conforming humour once advanced into a Parliament never left working till they had barbarously brought their King upon the Scaffold and delivered him over to his Independent Executioners These Politick Whirl-winds having begun the Storm and presumed to bluster against the Father resolve never to cease the Tempest till they had blown up the Children and Church-Government Root and Branch And to leave off from what they had begun they thought would bespeak them Cowards Let the Honour and Title of good Subjects be attributed to those who want Courage and Conscience to be bold Villains In a Parliament in the first year of this Kings Raign instead of Supplyes desired by the King for the guarding of the Seas defending our Coasts and molesting our Enemies many of the Members fly very high in opposition and that with unseemly language Mr Clement Coke son to Sir Edward affirming That it is better to dye by a forraign Enemy then be destroyed at home and Turner a Doctor of Physick seconded him by more then ordinary reflections upon the Kings Government and though the King complain'd of them yet the House rather hug'd then reproved such actions In the next Parliament the King had great hopes that all things would work for the good of the Nation and be carryed on without any discontents But in this he found himself greatly deceived 'T is true at the beginning they freely Vote the King five Subsidies whereof he being informed by Secretary Cook and that the House was so unanimous therein that they made but one voyce the King is said by some to have wept for joy hoping now he had a Parliament free from any turbulent humours but this was but a bitter Pill covered over with Gold For never was there any man more deceived since the first temptation then He They no sooner had given this Supply but frame the Petition of Right and desire the Kings consent to it for know they never gave the King any thing but they receive as good from him a new way of Merchandize the which because they had publickly questioned whether they might trust his Royal word he solemnly confirms the Houses thereat testifying their joy with a mighty shout and other people by ringing of Bels and Bon-fires Yet scarce had the King graciously granted this but they not yet content drew up a Remonstrance ranting against the Innovation and Alteration in Religion against the Arminians and some of our Bishops and other things which was highly disliked by the King which so much incensed the Commons that they over Boots over Shooes fell to draw up another against Tonnage and Poundage but the King not liking them to meddle after this manner prorogued the Parliament But being returned again they fall very heavy upon the Customers from which severity the King endeavouring to perswade them work'd such a contrary effect upon them that in a high passion and distaste they adjourned themselves for some days as if their sitting there would be to no purpose seeing they could not command the King His Majesty being informed that they had adjourned themselves thought fitting to allow them some more play-dayes and so Adjourns them to the 2. of March and then again for 8 dayes longer But they met the second day and fell a ranting against the mis-government whereupon their Speaker Sir John Finch informed them of the Kings Order to adjourn them till the tenth at this the House storms affirming the Speaker had nothing to do to deliver such messages and that Adjournment properly belonged to them and so they took fire and fell presently into an hubbub whether without fighting I know not though a Member was afterwards accused for striking The Speaker according to his Majesties command endeavours to leave the House but is violently held in his Chair by Mr. Denzil Hollis and Mr. Benjamin Valentine and after watching his opportunity having got a little out of his Chair was by them two thrust back again and there held the first of the couple as an Authour tells us swearing a deep Oath that he should sit still as long as they pleas'd And to make all cock-sure Sir Miles Hobart locks the door and puts the Key in his pocket which afterwards was call'd an Imprisonment of the Parliament These Figgaries continued so long that the King heard of them and sends for the Serjeant of the Mace Grimston but he was not suffered to go upon which contempt he sends Maxwell Usher of the Black-Rod but they so little regarded such Summons that they neither admitted him nor his message which refusals so much incensed his Majesty that he sent for the Captain of the Pensioners and the Guard resolving rather to force an entrance than be thus out-braved by his Subjects But the Members perceiving what danger their passion had brought upon them nimbly quitted the House though before their departure they had noys'd out a Protestation against Tonnage and Poundage Arminianism Popery and Church-Innovations And this
was done by the Instigation of Sir John Eliot a great stickler in such things who also read it the Speaker and Clerk denying to do it These Actions may well be brought to savour of a Non-conforming Spirit of Contradiction and as a Glass more really to observe their humours by It is not unworth the notice by what artifices they did really endeavour to make the King odious to his Subjects of which I shall only hint upon one grand Imposture fobb'd about by many of these chief Ring-leading Members And this was of a Papet by them carefully and plantifully spread abroad to discover the impertinence of Parliaments and how by the Subjects Purses to keep the Nation in a good defence against the Kings Enemies And this was suggested that the King had not only such a Design a foot but that by him or his means this Plot first took birth whereas it was discovered by Sir David Foulis one not ignorant of State-affairs being thereunto several times imploy'd by King James of blessed memory that this Paper was contrived several years before viz. about 1613. by Sir Robert Dudley then living at Florence under the title of Duke of Northumberland By which means it seems some men would not leave any stone unturned rather than fail of their intended ends Nor can I quit him from the same ignorance and malice who long afterwards published it under the name of Strafford's Plot discovered c. endeavouring thereby to make him odious to the simple people as if he had been the Composer of it and this only because a Copy of it was found in his Study an argument by which I might be proved the Compiler of it and other Memoires of State if Transcripts could make Syllogisms The Actions of this Parliament countenanced many Puritans to shew their teeth and amongst the rest one Leighton a Doctor in Physick and a hot-headed Scotch-man put forth a Book call'd Sions Plea and dedicated it to this Parliament wherein he did not only rail against but endeavoured as much as in him lay to stirr up the People to kill all the Bishops and storm'd highly against the Queen calling her the Daughter of Heth a Canaanite and Idolatress and with such like language was his Book stuft for these and other things he was sentenced in the Starr-chamber to be punish'd to quit which he made an escape but being taken again felt the smart accordingly And whether or no such Incendiaries did not deserve severe punishments let any moderate man judge Yet the Long-Parliament afterwards did so much pitty his case forsooth because he seem'd by it to be an asserter of their Cause that they ordered him for requital 10000 l. and this a great while before the wars whence a consequence may be drawn that that Presbyterian body did not only permit but encourage Villains to scribble both against Church and State which denotes them the Authors of our following mischiefs and therefore will be a brand upon those Members to eternity After this the Scots who had a long time been stuffing themselves with discontents took an occasion to vent it upon the Divine service-book sent to them by the King in some things differing from our English one especially in those most agreeable to that Nation viewed over first by some learned Bishops but not as that impudent and maliciously lying wretch that Protean Gage would make some believe a man unworthy the Relation of such a noble Brother as he had This book no sooner began to be read in Saint Giles Church in Edinburgh by the Dean of that City but the people in a fury threw their stools Bibles and any thing that came in their way at the Dean who was rescued from their hands by the Provost and Bayliffs but not from their malice who all the while pelted the Church-windows with stones and so violently assaulted the Bishop going home that if he had not been rescued he had probably been murthered And in the afternoon sell upon the Bishop again These tumults with much ado were a little pacified but broke out again For the Council observing multitudes of people from most parts of the kingdom to haste to Edinburgh and when there to keep Conventicles and rant against Bishops the book by Proclamation command upon pain of Rebellion all people to depart to their own homes but those who could shew reason of Lawful businesse which incensed the Kirk-party so much that the next day they pursue the Bishop of Galloway into the Council-house which they beset and with threatnings demanded his Person upon which the Lord-Treasurer and the Earl of Wighton going to pacifie the people were most barbarously set upon by them and with that fury that they pulled down the Lord-Treasurer took away his hat cloak and white wand and so haled him to the Council-house and this Tumult lasted till they were pacified by some of the Non-conforming Lords and Gentlemen who were desired by the assaulted Nobility to quiet their brethren Upon this the Lords of the Council by Proclamation forbid any tumults for the time following and another from the King to the same purpose and for adjourning the Term to Sterling but the King's Proclamation was no sooner read at Edenburgh but the Earl of Hume Lord Lindsey and others caused their Protestation against it to be read and in despight of the King's Proclamation gathered four Tables The first for the Nobility Second for the Gentry Third for the Burroughs Fourth for the Ministers These four prepared what they thought fit to propound to the General Table consisting of several Commissioners chosen from the rest And having thus ordered themselves to make all more strong they unite themselves by entring into a Covenant a thing exceeding like the Coward Clinias in Sir Philip Sydney viz. The very Fritter of fraud and seething pot of iniquity And yet this Imp for all its wickedness raised it self to an high esteem amongst many as if it had been something related to Tereus in the Poet as probably it was which is Ipso sceleris molimine Creditur esse pius laudemque à crimine sumit Prais'd for its sin and as some think and trust Is in its very wickedness most just The chief Promoters of the Covenant were these three Ministers Henderson Dickson and Cant who with their Covenant were learnedly repulst by the Orthodox Divines of Aberdeen The King not liking these Combinations sent the Marquess of Hamilton as High-Commissioner to pacifie them but took no effect they declaring to renounce their Baptism rather then Covenant though to give them content the King null'd the Service-book and gave them an Assembly and Parliament The Assembly was held at Glascow Novemb. 21. 1638. In which the Presbyterie were so far from suffering Bishops to sit as if they had not been Clergy-men that they would have had them to appear before their Kirkships as guilty persons and so to be proceeded against But this the Bishops
denyed and put in a large Declinator and Protestation against their proceedings By these and other cross-grain'd humours of the Presbyterie the Duke perceiving the longer they sat the wider the breaches would grow dissolved the Assembly they opposing the King in all things though he had granted them all convenient requests To the dissolving of this Assembly all the Council consented and subscribed but the Earl of Argtle who ever after proved an instrument of mischief to both Kingdoms Against this dissolution the Covenanters protest and act accordingly but especially against Bishops whom they afterwards by their goodly Authority deposed and alienate their Lands no great matter God wot the Rents of all the Bishops in Scotland not amounting to seven thousand pounds sterling per Annum as a Native informs us And yet this small pittance amongst so many grave and hospitable Bishops was a great eye-sore to the Covenanters though several private Presbyterians might be nominated whose estate surmount this And not content with these actions they began to gird themselves to their Arms. Against whom the King marcheth and both Armies draw up near Barwick where a peace was concluded by which means Aberdeen escaped a scouring the Earl of Montross then misled a General of the Covenanters marching then against it with a Commission to burn it This peace lasted not long the Covenanters not sticking close to the Articles of agreement and which was more a great part of the walls of Edinburgh-Castle falling one night down and the King ordering the Governour and others to see it rebuilt the Covenanters would not suffer it by forbidding any materials to be carryed to its reparation And which was most of all they perceiving the King incens'd at their actions and therefore fearing some checks address themselves to their old Ally the King of France from whom they desired aid and assistance an action so strange for subjects to appeal from their own King to Forrainers and that against their King too that it will easily silence the old story of the King 's German horse Yet whether their Letter and Messenger was sent or no it matters not that it was drawn up and subscribed to be sent is certain which is as much By these affronts the King being sufficiently provoked raiseth an Army and marcheth against the Scotch Covenanters who with a great force had entred England and that with cheerfulness having more friends than the King they having some twenty eight Lords and Earls Whereas the King had not above twenty besides they had the good wishes of the English Prebyterians who by their Sermons Discourses and Pamphlets had made the King's actions and friends so odious to the people that many of the Royal Army marched unwillingly against the Scots wishing them victorious hoping by that means to work their malice upon our Bishops and other persons of quality And accordingly it fell out a part of the English being routed the Scots possess all Northumberland and the Bishoprick of Durham with Newcastle This Prosperity of the Covenanters cheers up our Nonconformists who in this joyning themselves with the Scots presently get the King assaulted for a Parliament which was granted and to sit Novemb. 3. at London and a cessation between the two Armies was made and orders taken for a further Treaty In the mean time the Scots Army miserably tormenting the Northern Counties of Cumberland Westmorland Northamberland and the Bishoprick of Durham from which they raised a Contribution of 850. li. per diem for their assistance a thing by many thought very strange that an enemies Army should thus by compact be maintained by those who wisht them farther off This Covenanting Army kept correspondency with the Parliament having a safe convoy granted by the King for their Letters by which means many an odd design was probably nurst up the Parliament giving them thanks and monies to boot for their good service But must the Scotch Covenanters be only guilty in affronting their King No that would derogate much from the zeal and forwardness of our English Presbyterians who had so far countenanced their Caledonian brethren as to have beseeched them into a native conspiracy and then beckoned them to a Southern march And therefore to shew their answerable forwardness they bestirr'd themselves to the purpose to get non-conforming Members chosen which accordingly answered their expectation in the short Covenant sympathizing Parliament whose refractory humours occasioned their sudden dissolution Our English Presbyterians perceiving now what a great stroak they had in choosing members thought it fitting to see what mettal their Proselytes were made of to which purpose several were instigated to murther that great Prop of Learning the Arch-bishop of Canterbury then the main eye-sore to our factious splrits and to carry on this design more unanimously a Paper was posted upon the Old Exchange May 9. exhorting all Prentices to rise and sack his house at Lambeth the Munday following supposing they had as much authority to tumultuate against the Reverend Bishops as the Covenanters had Of this plot the Archbishop having intelligence prepared for his defence and well was it that he did so for accordingly on the following Munday in the dead time of the night above 500. men well armed for the purpose assaulted his Palace endeavouring by all the strength and force they had to break open his Gates thereby to come to his person but he had so well provided for his security that all their attempts only shewed their devilish malice and murtherous intentions which was also demonstrated by their railing and cursing tongues The next day several of them were apprehended and imprisoned in the White-Lion prison who were violently released within three days by some of their wicked complices by breaking open the prison so unanimous were some of the Anti-episcopal men to intolerable villainy Nevertheless one of their Chief-tains was re-taken and for this rebellious riot was condemned and for example-sake hang'd and quartered which so terrified the rest of the Non-conforming brethren that a kind of a peace was outwardly kept for a while And as no small incendiaries to these intolerable practices were the wicked Pamphlets spred abroad to delude the vulgar by divers seditious persons but especially by Prynn Burton Bastwick and John Lilburn people of such implacable spirits that no government could satisfie them And were so hot-headedly led by their erronious and spightful Principles that as they took a pride in their own deserved sufferings so nothing could satisfie them but the Confusion of others Yet these men afterwards took such opposite interests that they became utter enemies endeavouring what in them lay not only to vilifie but ruine one another though Prynn still held up his head above the rest Thus were these Presbyterians the authors of our after-miseries that I may well sob with a time serving Poet Eheu Turba rapax primique miserrima belli Perfida gens Auctrix Alas the first promoters of our stirs Were
the perfidious hot-spurr'd Presbyters THE HISTORY Of the Wicked PLOTS and CONSPIRACIES OF OUR Pretended Saints BOOK II. CHAP. I. The mischievous and impudent Contrivances and Innovations of the wicked long-Parliament 1. Their slandering of the Court and Church 2. Their Affection to the Schismaticall Incendiaries 3. The Impudence and seditiousnesse of their Lecturers 4. Their designes to alter the frame of Civil Government 5. Their Plots to overthrow Episeopacy 6. Their stirring up the people to Tumults 7. The small esteem the Commons had of the King and Nobility Whereby it appears that it was not the King but the Parliament that occasioned and began the Warres HAving now and that as succinctly as I could somewhat discovered the peace-consuming zeal of our Presbyterians I shall come to the subject intended to wit our late unhappy Distractions The seeds of which was not only before sown by the Nonconformists but began a little to take root and sprout forth through the temper of our English Parliament 1628. and the after actions of the Scottish Covenanters by whom the King was cajol'd to call a Parliament to fit November the third 1640. A day ominous to the Clergy by a former president upon that day the 20. year of King Henry the Eighth that Parliament beginning which began the ruine of Cardinal Woolsey the power of the Clergy and the dissolution of those famous Monuments of Charity the Abbeys and such like hospitable buildings England hath afforded us many Parliaments yet but one of them honoured with the Epithet of Good and that some hundred years agoe though since his Majesty hath been pleas'd to memorize one with the character of the healing and blessed Parliament as many of our former Representatives have had several names added to them as the Parliament that wrought wonders The great Parliament The marvellous Parliament The Laymens Parliament because no Lawyer was to be in it The unlearned Parliament either for the unlearnedness of the Members or for their malice to learned men Barebones Parliament The short Parliament and in the same year 1640. did our long wicked Parliament commence and I have heard of a Mad Parliament No sooner did the long Parliament sit but their proceedings were hurryed on with that fiery zeal that if distractions had not followed thereupon it would have been as strange to the discreeter sort as Margaret Countess of Hollands year-like birth at Lusdunen to our Country-women or the story of the womanly girle who at six years old was brought to bed of a son in Indostain For instantly they fell upon grievances abuses in Religion violation of laws liberties and what not Concerning which their speeches flew plentifully about and releas'd the grand Incendiaries Prynne Burton Bastwick and Dr. Leighton and giving them great rewards Some of them being triumphantly guarded into London by many thousands of horse and foot with rose-mary and bays in their hands and hats Novemb. 28. which was not only an high affront to the Kings Authority but a political glass to the Nonconformists through which they might see the strength and unanimity of their own Faction who were grown so valiant that a little before this upon the fast day Novemb. 17. where Dr. Burgess and Marshall preacht above 7 houres before the Commons and before the Lords two Bishops but as the second service was reading a Psalm was struck up by some of the Brethren which presently disturbd the Divine service to the amazement of the civill and orthodox Auditors who could little expect any such thing without an express order by authority But this is no great matter in respect of their after actions which are so many against the King and Kingdom and that too before his Majesty's horrid murther that it is impossible for me in this Compendium to decimate them into a relation their very printed Acts and Ordinances in that time amounting to above 530. Besides their Declarations Petitions Remonstrances Votes Proclamations Messages Speeches and such like passages and all stuft with some worshipful thing or other by which their pretty actions were confirmed Yet as farr as brevity will allow me I shall endeavour to speak out and as plain as I can yet must I not accuse all nor half it may be of the members many of them spur'd on by their Loyalty following his Majesty and sitting in Parliament in the Schools at Oxford after whose departure the House at Westminster seemed like Pandora's box from whence all our future mischiefs and diseases flew over the Nation The Parliament a little after its beginning having triumph'd over divers persons of quality whom they knew to be opposers of their intended Presbytery thought it fitting to seek some absolute way of security to themselves for the future And to this nothing could be thought more conducible considering how they had gul'd an odium of Reverend Episcopacy into the simple people than by the certainty of Parliaments for which purpose they procured of the King who dreamt nothing of their after-games and fetches an Act for Triennial Parliaments And that their own actions might appear of more grandure by the stability of their own foundation they also obtain'd from his Majesty who was never wanting to grant any thing to his Parliaments pretended to be for the good of his subjects an Act whereby themselves should not be dissolved prorogued or adjourn'd but by their own consent By which means they were fancied by many of the Kingdome to be of such high Authority that neither King law or any power else could have any influence over them let their actions be never so treasonable or wicked And so might Phaeton suppose when his Father had given him the command of his refulgent Chariot though his indiscreet authority brought ruine to himself and destruction to some parts of the world And well may any one in this turn their own weapons against themselves and yet not be deem'd too medling Such a continuing-Commission is freely given yet cunningly procured to the Captain of a ship But when this Governour falls so farr distracted as to indeavour nothing more then the ruine of his Vessel by their own popular consequence his Commission is void as being no more able to govern his charge to the best This instance I quote more because oft alledged against Regall authority than for any similitude it carrieth unlesse upon our perpetual Parliamentary account And therefore the reviving of this long-Parliament by a modern Writer seems to be to as small purpose as Don Quixot's martial endeavours to retrive the I know not what Knight-errantry by his paper helmet his wind-mill and claret-butts encounters or Hortensius the self-conceited School-master in du Parques Franchion to obtain the Crown and Kingdome of Poland The King having as he thought pacifyed his Subjects in England having granted them what they desired thought it likewise expedient to settle all things in Scotland in a peaceable temper for which purpose he put himself to the
trouble of a journy thither yet not without some notable observators No sooner he being departed but our Parliament ordering some members to go also into Scotland in notion of a Committee to inform them of all passages in Scotland Yet when the King went into Scotland the Parliament adjourn'd though appointed a Committee of the Commons consisting of 50 of and over which Mr. Pym was the chief Lord and Maister of mis-rule and him I find nominated at the very beginning of this Parliament with the Emphasis of the great parliament man And the truth of it is that he was so farre the dominus fac totum in this juncto that his words were laws all things being acted according to his desire Here many things of Church matters were by these Gentlemen purely innovated and then prosecuted with such violence that the Episcopal clergy durst not gainsay him as Dr. Fuller Mr. Hutton Mr. Fletcher and others of St. Giles Cripplegate Mr. Booth the Minister of St. Botolphs Aldersgate Dr. Heywood of St. Giles the Ministers of St. George Southwark of Margarets new Fish-street c. could very well testifie by experience Although the house of Lords would not consent in these things to join with the Commons yet did they so farre supinely wink at the others actions that their Authority was now so much intrench'd upon by the Commons that their priviledges slipt from them unperceived though without all question the presbyterian party both understood and smiled at such proceedings About this time there was a great deal of noise and clamour about a Letter forsooth against Mr. Pym with I know not what plaister in it and written God wot when and delivered by no body knows whom but a Gentleman forsooth in a gray-coat on horseback and great searching and inquiring for this man in the moon was made but all to as little purpose as the Northwest passage or the philosophers stone And many times hath it been printed and spread abroad to let the good people see the wickedness forsooth of Malignants and with such chaffe as this have many of our old fools been taken Yet when that impudent Libel stuft with as much malice as either this letter or hell could afford was vented against that great prop of learning the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Laud no notice was in the least wise taken of it nor did he himself any thing regard it though it thus threatned his destruction Laud look to thy self be assured thy life is sought as thou art the fountain of wickedness Repent of thy monstrous sins before thou be taken out of the World c. And assure thy self neither God nor the world can endure such a vile Councellor or Whisperer to live Than this what more implacable destructive and abominable considering his nearness to the Kings person his trust and beneficial endeavours for the publick good Yet had he been better or if I may say here the best and the designes against him more devilish yet would our Non-conformists have hug'd and blest themselves at this opposition had it been as after malicious experience proved to his ruine and all this because he was an absolute opposer of the Presbyterian innovations who though but of a very little body yet had a soul more large and vast for the good of Church and Literature then a whole Parliament of Disciplinarians But let us now think of his Majesties return from Scotland in whose absence some of the Parliament had rais'd large reports of strange and terrible plots and designs against John an Oaks and John a Stiles by which means many people were endeavour'd to be whisper'd into dissatisfaction of the King and such a jealousie was grown by the noise of this Chimaera that many did according as they were bid think that things were not then well carryed and this was cunningly aimed at the King and his Favourites by those who had their Coy-ducks in such obedience that their Commands was not unlike that of Madam Fame to Aeolus in our ingenious Chaucer Bring eke his other claviown That hight Sclaunder in every Towne With which he wont is to diffame Hem that me lyst and do * hem shame But these Alarums served the Parliaments turn being a Cloak under which they might deceive the People in their pretences for raising a Guard the which they did and it may be to defend them from a Pedicularie disease of which possibly they saw some symptoms then in the House Of these Romantick Jealousies Frights Alarums and unheard of Plots and Designs his Majesty tells the Parliament and of the evil consequences of such slanders in his first Speech to them after his return from Scotland And in his next earnestly desires them to prosecute the Irish affairs and perceiving them considering about pressing of Souldiers with a check at his Prerogative He desires that the bounds of his ancient and undoubted Authority might not then fall into debate however that it may pass with a Salvo jure he is willing rather then such disputes should take up time in such an hour of extreamity for whilest the Grass groweth the Horse may sterve Upon this they clamour against his Majesties dealings professing the Priviledges of Parliament were broken by these his Exceptions for which they demand satisfaction and earnestly desire his Majesty not only to declare the names of but also to deliver up to punishment those persons who had given such counsel Nor was this mode of dealing one of their least Plots upon all occasions desiring the King to betray his faithful Counsellors by that means not only to leave him naked but to the discretion of the Houses But these things carryed no great shew of unhandsomness though like the Apples of Sodem beautiful without yet stuft with filthiness in respect of their after Thunder-claps which like Brutus shew'd their malice in their fronts For the next day after their Petition they welcome him home with a Remonstrance as they call it in which maliciously they endeavour to rip up all the faults and none is good but God of his Majesties Raign and that in as civil a way as their zeal could allow them as you may see in the Paper it self for in it through his actions they tax him with Cruelty Injustice Oppression Violence and what not They out-braid him for putting forth untrue scandalous false and impudent Declarations in it they highly commend the Schismatical Non-conformists blaming the King for punishing them Nor is this all but the Scotch Invasion of England too is extoll'd and defended and the King scandalized as if he endeavoured to root out the true Religion and bring in Popery nor are they silent against the Bishops and their Orthodox Divines by which it is plain the Presbyterian ruled the Parliament nor must the Innocent Ceremonies and forsooth Superstition escape a scouring And yet in this very same mogende-Paper they confess they must acknowledge that his Majesty hath
and Chapters Prebendaries c. So that in four dayes time the hasty Commons over-throw as much as in them lay the Reverend Church of England which had continued many hundreds of years a flourishing glory to the Nation The Commons for their parts having thus pull'd down the pale of our Church fastned and strengthened by so many Authentick and Fundamental Laws as old again as the House of Commons will not leave Religion without some Government No good souls they were more kind-hearted And therefore in the first place they Vote that all the Lands and Means belonging to Deans and Chapters Chancellors or Commissaries Archdeacons Deans Prebendaries Chapter Canon c. shall be taken away and disposed of to the advancement of Learning and Piety That is if their after-actions may be taken for Expositors to maintain Rebellion Heresie Sacriledge and ruine Universities for these mens promises like Hebrew must still be read backwards and after this rule did they send a request to the King by Secretary Vain That he would give them leave to look into his Revenues and Expences and they would make him the richest King in Christendom But the Parliament will not spend their time only in selling Lands but something must be considered of a Church-Government too and therefore they Vote that all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction fit to be exercised in England shall be committed to such a number of persons and in such a manner as their Worships shall think fit Nor were they long without making the Nation happy with the discovery of their Intellectuals which was That six of the Clergy and six of the Laity should be appointed in every County for the setling of Church-Government But this was a little shaken by an after conclusion viz. That nine of the Laity and three of the Clergy in every Diocess should have power to exercise all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction as shall be ordered by Parliament and to have their Monethly meetings for that purpose And the next day to make this hotch-potch Model more compleat they Vote That there shall be several select Committees of the Clergy appointed for the Ordination of Clergy-men into the Ministry But yet this Presbyterian Brat would not come to perfection And therefore to give more encouragement to the Covenanting-admirers they conclude That all Archiepiscopal and Episcopal Jurisdiction shall be exercised in this Kingdom by the Commissioners as there was by Bishops And the same day read the Bill for the using of Lectures taking away Cross in Baptism Surplis bowing at the Name of Jesus standing up at the Gospel Gloria Patri Pictures in Churches c. and conclude the day with the appointing of a Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel And the next day they give further power to their nine Commissioners to wit That after the first of August any five of them shall be a Quorum and have full power to try all Ecclesiastical Causes and to appoint Deputies under them in several places And after this they further agreed That if any of the nine Commissioners should dye that five or more of them are to choose another presently and so if any of them resign and that if any came to take Orders that these Commissioners shall appoint five Clergy men to grant Ordinations And for the more speedy putting of this medly in practise the Knights and Burgesses of every Shire are commanded to bring in the Names of the nine Commissioners for their several Counties to be appointed and that no Clergy-man be of the Commission Thus farr had the Commons thrown I cannot say built up this their confused Babylon when on a sodain an unexpected Remora was joyned to their further proceedings by some fallings out betwixt the Lords and them about the Protestation For the Commons having ordered that it should be taken all over the Kingdom were in this opposed by the Peers who threw it out of their House which so incensed the Commons that they presently Vote That what person soever shall not take the Protestation is unfit to bear Office in Church or Common-wealth And thinking that the Bishops were the reason of the Lords dissent appoint a Committee for impeaching them about the late Canons who accordingly Voted thirteen Bishops to be Delinquents whom the Lords also suspended their house till a further hearing And so violently were these good men persecuted by the Presbyters that they never left plotting till they had got them Voted Traytors and sent to the Tower Nor could they have any outward content any where considering the reproaches threats and curses daily thrown against them by the wicked the danger of their lives by Tumults and their Lands Voted from them long before by their and Religions Enemies the Non-conforming Commons though they agreed to allow them a liberal allowance during life and how unhandsomly the Parliament in this neglected this promise the Reverend Bishop Hall will satisfie you The Commons now having as they thought bridled the Bishops and their Party are resolved to root out the Common-Prayer Book too to which purpose some of them desire that it might be altered and some thing added to it the which after some speeches being put to the Vote it appear'd that there were then but 55. Disciplinarians in the House no more voting for Alterations so that the Book came off with credit the Orthodox Party knowing well enough that if that House once fell to alter it it rather belonging to able and lawful Divines they would equal the Tinker who made two holes for mending one The Anti-Episcopalians being thus baffled fall to it again getting it to be moved again in the House the next week where they came off with the like success And the next day being a Thanks-giving day for the Peace between the two Nations to shew their malice to Church-Government and countenance the Schismaticks the Commons would not go to St. Margarets Westminster as was by them appointed because the Bishop of Lincoln had caus'd a set Form of Prayer for that occasion to be printed and used in the Church the news of which so started their Worships that they turn'd tail and went to the preachment at Lincolns Inne But if the Commons were troubled at this they were after out of their wits and all stark-madd against the Lords Because they had put forth an Order and sent it all over the Nation strictly injoyning the reading of the Common-Prayer against which and many other Church-affairs the Commons the same day put forth a Declaration ordering it to be printed and sent over the Kingdom and with them they also got the nine dissenting Lords to protest against the Order made by the House of Peers This cross-graind action of the Commons so incensed the Lords that they left off sitting for a while causing the Hangings of their House to be taken down Nor did this any way vex the Commons
who neither cared for them nor their sitting nor any else that would not dance after them and Geneva For they are resolved for Jack Presbyter and therefore being informed that the Lords Order for the Common-Prayer had been read in Churches and not their Declaration they drew up an Order and sent it to be printed enjoyning that their aforesaid Declaration should be read in all Churches And so severe were they in this point that they put Dr. Haywood of St. Giles to some trouble for not permitting their Order to be read though he had not only his own Conscience and the Lords Order but the Law of the Land to testifie his justness And what more ridiculous then to astonish the people into discontents and sidings by reading to them at the same time two contrary Orders and that of the Commons being quite against the Laws of the Land Thus did the Commons batter down Religion as Captain Jones in the Poet did the Jesuites more by strong hand then reason yet had they left one thing undone which was the extirpation of Episcopacy root and branch to bring which villany about they Voted them to have no place in the House of Lords nor to meddle with any secular affairs But here before they went any further they were somewhat troubled at the King because he being then in Scotland had sent Mr. Warwick Orders to draw up five Congé d'Eslire's for five new Bishops there being then so many Sees vacant but in this strait Mr. Stroud thinks it fitting to Petition the King to stop these five till they had dispacht the charge against the other Bishops Yet what need they care whether the King make Bishops or no since they are resolved never to acknowledge them to be so for they can with the same ease cut off all as one Therefore seeing the King for Bishops they bend themselves more resolutely against them and so prepare their charge against those formerly accused and for the Champions to mannage this Combate Pymme and St Johns by the commendations of one another are chosen The death of the first is noys'd by report and the honesty of the latter is not unknown to any The Parliament was something stopt in their proceedings against Bishops by the Irish Rebellion yet having taken some breath they sent a message to the Lords desiring that the 13. Bishops might speedily come to answer And not long after as an incouragement to the factious they released Simmonds a Printer who had been in custody for printing a Book against the Common-Prayer yet the very same day was Walker the Iremonger imprisoned only for Printing a Book concerning Mr. Prynne though the first deserved as much hanging as the latter Imprisonment and from these men the Bishops might well expect good justice But still they sit and Vote in the House of Lords which vext the Sectaries to the guts because they could not tell how to get them out handsomly for they had no great confidence in their Articles of Canons and Constitutions and whilest they Voted there the Orthodox Party would still exceed At last some ill spirit or other put it into the noddles of Isaac Pennington Captain Ven and such combustible humours to raise such tumults against the Reverend Fathers the fear whereof should either keep them from the House or bring some ruine sacrilegiously to be acted upon them And accordingly up cometh the Rabble of London to the Parliament House crying out No Bishops no Bishops And at last got the Bishop of Lincoln then going to the House with the Earl of Dover into the midst of them where they had like to have squeez'd him to death And having thus begun many hundreds of them come again the same day with Swords and Staves causing great uproars both in Westminster and London not only to the affrightment of the Bishops but the King and Queen and the next day also assaulted Westminster Abby These Tumults obtain'd the end of their Contrivers keeping the Bishops from the House pelting of them with stones as they endeavoured to go By which they drew up a Petition to the King how that the Tumults kept them out and therefore protested against all things that should be done in the House of Peers in time of their thus violent seclusion Which did trouble the Parliament so much that one Mr. Weston of the Commons House thought he had spoke bravely when he moved that the Bishops might be sent to Bedlam But Glyn and others were cleerly for High Treason which accordingly was done and ten of them sent to the Tower and two to the Black Rod. And thus their businesse being don the great tumults ceas'd the Presbyterians sang Victoria whilst the reverend Church of England lay in the dust miserably trod upon by a Schismatical zeal yet had they they nothing to accuse the Bishops of and so were forced to release them all but two against one of which they could say nothing for if they could they would and whether the cry of the others bloud be yet stopt I know not How were the Country cheated with swarms of Petitions against this Ecclesiastical Order yet in this none more ridiculous then the Londoners One troup of Tradesmen petition against Bishops and their reason was because their being was the decay of trading and in the clause of all gave a notable lash at the House of Lords Nor is this all but the very Porters 15000 said to be in number Petition too and affirm that they cannot indure the weight of Episcopacy any longer and therefore must have redress Nay the very women by the pushing on of their hot-headed associates thought themselves so much concerned in these Church-affairs that they must petition too And these as fit persons to apprehend Chuch-government as the simple Cockney country-businesse who thought a bush hung about with black moles skins to be a black pudding tree yet these sort of Fanaticks are apt to have abominable discretions for thus the Scots some years before in their Petition against the Common Prayer Book begun it thus We Men Women and Children and Servants having considered c. Most miraculous Children Born like Adam at the top of understanding O the happiness to spring from the loins of a Covenanter who as it was said of the Lady Margaret can bring forth men instead of children Certainly these children were akin to that boy of Cracovia in Poland which had not only teeth but spake the first day of its birth but when he received Christianity lost that faculty And probably had these covenanting Children women and such like known more of Christianity then these did they had never acted so violently against Church-government Or it may be they were somewhat related to that other child born in the same City which spoke distinctly at half a year old yet nothing but mischief was by it uttered distruction to all Poland and that
good Definition as in his Latin yet may we pick a sound truth of it in English That a seditious person is both an evil and unuseful Member in the Common-wealth Yet were this vice more wicked then it is it would never want admirers as long as Idleness is permitted the former being inseparable from the latter if we will believe the Historian And whether did leasurely foment our discontents or no I know not though I believe by this our turbulent spirits obtained many Proselytes who if they had had any thing else to do would never have spent so much time in an obstinate schism running dayly into more enormities under some pretence or other but never thinking of a return And they that are unwilling to amend Will take offence because they will offend Which was the true temperature of our Non-conformists not that they had any real cause of such disgusts but what they brought forth themselves And they having once taken fire found it no great difficulty to allure the multitude into their faction by their preachments whisperings pamphleting and such like rumours without which it is impossible to get a party moulded to act such destructive wickedness For though the people like the bounded Ocean do naturally affect ease tranquillity and such like peaceable vertues yet are they apt by the seditious blusterings and malicious insinuations of some factious Grandees or neighbours to be perswaded and agitated into turbulent extravagancies and Rebellion The minds of the irrational multitude as one calls them being thus seasoned and tempered with the principles of discontent and sedition are now ordered to put in practice what they have been taught and they so long meditated upon and these proceedings must run parallel to those of their good brethren the Covenanters in Scotland For as one ingeniously observes the English did derive from them not only the rudiments but the method also of revolt Our first probationary Tumult commencing in a rude assault upon the Arch-bishop of Canterbury as theirs upon the Arch-bishop of Saint Andrews Above five hundred of the Rabble one night assaulted the Arch-bishop's house at Lambeth and to what purpose is easy to conjecture And a little after about two thousand Sectaries made a tumult in London where they tore down the benches in the Consistory of Saint Paul's crying out they would have no Bishop nor no high Commission actions so inconsistent with good Subjects that the obedient Parret in Brasil will be as a reproach to these irrational Rebels Nor did their sury end here for when they perceived the execution of the Earl of Strafford was not so hasted on as their hot heads expected and when the Court dream't of nothing but joy the Princess Mary being then marryed to the Prince of Orange the very next morning after the wedding above five thousand Londoners most of them girded to their swords came yelling for justice against the said Earl affirming for want of it they were like to perish having no bread an excellent Non-conforming consequence calling the Earl of Bristol an Apostate and vilifying his son the Lord Digby one of them balling out If we get not satisfaction of the Lievtenant we will have it of the King or as some affirm If we have not the Lievtenants life we will have the King 's And posted up a Paper in Westminster with the names of 55. Lords Knights Gentlemen with the Title of Straffordians with this under-written This and more shall be done to the enemirs of justice afore-written Thus was this Earl rather murthered by malice then condemned by Law or Reason yet so impatiently wicked was the Rabble and Presbyterie that as Darius appointed a man every day to prompt him with a Sir Remember to be revenged on the Athenians so had these men their dayly agitators and contrivers by-jugled up Petitions and such like monitors to mind them of three things the destruction of this Earl the Extirpation of Episcopacy and the abolishing of the Common-prayer-book and Ceremonies The which at last by God's permission and Satan's assistance they obtained And immediatly before they had assaulted the Spanish Embassador's house with a great deal of violence and their pretended reason for so doing was because Mass was there said A Priviledge used by all Embassadors to exercise their own Religion be what it will and this allowed them by the Law of Nations yet was their malice such that if they had not been prevented by the Lord Maior they might have done abundance of mischief though what they did was no small blemish to the civility of a Nation These actions by the Sectaries were look'd upon as a blessing to the Nation and to keep the hands of these Myrmidons in use the City and Kingdom must now and anon too be alarum'd with false rumours and un-heard of plots and designs against something or other Now must the Houses of Parliament be said to be on fire and together by the ears and the City for sorrow thereof like to tumult and uproar themselves into Bedlam Then must strange plots come from unknown parts of the world be discovered at which the careful Commons take fears and jealousies and order the Arch-bishop's House at Lambeth to be searcht for arms as if the Arch-bishop then in the Tower should pelt the Parliament from Lambeth cross the water Then must there be a strange thing in Scotland agitating against Duke Hamilton and their true friend Argyle and this discover'd and seen by Mr. Pym at Westminster upon which the Members are in a hubbub and in great fear of their lives forsooth and therefore a strong guard under Essex is provided for the security of their Worship 's against temptations And the Burgesses of Westminster and the Knights for Middlesex are ordered in all haste to provide bullets and match and to shoot like little John at the Sun and Moon being resolved for the future to work altogether in darkness Yet were all these and many more acted with as much seriousness and gravity as Sancho Pança governed the Iland Barataria so that the abused people did not only believe such stories but feared their events which being once setled in their noddles is impossible to be removed the people being like the lineage of the Pança's all head-strong These jugling Transactions were enough to perswade the King and his friends to look about them but being innocent seemed also fearless Yet for prevention of disorders and tumults some people were ordered to keep watch near the Parliament thereby to keep off the Rabble which used daily to tumble out by thousands in great disorder ranting and railing against something or other in government according to the Items of their Patrons very beneficial to and desirable by the Commons Who took it so ill that their good friends the Multitude should thus be kept back that they did not only question the Justices of peace of
Middlesex who by Order had commanded those men to keep watch but sent one of them viz. Justice Long to the Tower This favour of the Commons so animated the people that they thought sedition was then lawful and those tumults a glory to the City because they shewed its strength And therefore many thousands of them run crowding to Westminster crying out No Bishops no Bishops and having thus ranted it in the morning they come again in the afternoon armed with swords and staves and other weapons and then they domineer to the purpose running up and down Westminster inquiring for the Bishops protesting they would pull them in pieces whereupon they were desired by the Marquess of Hertford to stay in the house all night the people vowing to watch their going out and to search every Coach with Torches it being then dark that they might not escape And when the Lords sent down to the Commons that an order might be taken with the tumult and care of the Bishops lives they would do nothing in the business laughing in their sleeves that they had thus brought that great City to worship them and Villainy Yet were the Bishops some way or other cunningly stoln out of the house to the great grief of the blood thirsty Rebels that they had thus lost their sacralegiously intended sacrifice Yet what they mist then they hoped to obtain the next day and therefore away they hurry again to Westminster having Sir Richard Wisman for their Captain And being thus spurr'd on they assault the Abby where the Archbishop of York was then but the doors being strongly lock'd and barr'd and good opposition made they gain'd nothing to boast of and Sir Richard's head was so broke with a tyle thrown from the Leads that he dyed of it nor did John Lilbourn one well known depart without the loss of some rebellious bloud being with some others pelted with stones to the purpose This repulse did something discourage them yet the next day they were coming again but at White-Hall were stopt by the Train-Band and forced to return back some of them being well cudgell'd which action was highly resented by the Parliament who therefore ordered that those who stopt the Londoners coming to Parliament should be found out and examined before a Committee which Order was a good New-years-gift to the seditious Schismaticks Such is the malice of Presbytery against Bishops as if they were all inspired with the same spirit of venome and hatred that he had who long ago cryed out Short red God red shea we the Byshop And accordingly was the Bishop with a hundred men murthered And not inferiour to the former was he in London when the Tumult was railing against the Reverend and Learned Bishop Morton some crying Pull him out of his Coach others acting so violently that the Bishop believed he should never have escaped alive if a leading man amongst the rabble had not cryed out Let him go and hang himself words wicked enough and vomitted with as much malice though by Providence they saved the good Bishop's life The chief men tamper'd withal by some of the factious Members to stirr up these Tumults were Alderman Pennington and Venne two King-Tryers and Manwaring nominated one of the Kings Judges and other such like Instruments they could not want Venne pleading to the people That the worser Party was like to have the better of the good Party and used to imploy his Wife as a Mercury to run about and stir up the people And it is an old Note that Sectaries used in the first place to tamper with such soft-hearted Creatures The truth on 't is the audaciousness of these men was intolerable being like one of their Predecessors Constantinus who is branded for a lover of Tumults and then confidently to glory in such villanies Yet had his Majesty but stript himself of so much mercy as to have eas'd the Nation of the Ring-leaders of these disorders by some meritorious exemplary punishment it may be the rest of the rabble would have learn'd better manners by the Precedent of such an execution But the Kings tenderness made them more audacious so that they never left murmuring and tumultuating till they had terrified the King from White-Hall where he could neither stay with safety nor honour having his power so much scorned that when he went into London the Rabble rung nothing in his ears but Priviledges of Parliament Priviledges of Parliament Alderman Fowke one that went under the notion of one of the Kings Judges as long as the Times were accordingly but they no sooner change but then he denyes and publickly clears himself this man made a worshipful Speech to the King taking upon him to vindicate the accused Members and to give his Majesty advice concerning Fears and Jealousies Nor was this all but that City also protects the accused Members and brings them again to the Parliament-House in the greatest triumph that their wit could imagine with Guns Trumpets flying colours and such like bravado's which was not only an absolute defying but contempt of his Majesty So that Hugh Peters that scandal to the Pulpit spake no false Doctrine when he affirm'd in Alhallows Church in Lumbardstreet That If ever this Kingdom was brought into slavery this City would be the cause of it These Tumults though confest by the Common-Council of London to be the great trouble and affrightment of his Majesties good Subjects and experience also proved it yet must they not be supprest though the Lords earnestly perswaded the Commons to it because as they affirm'd They must not discourage their Friends this being a time they must make use of their Friends Mr. Pym saying God forbid that the House of Commons should proceed in any way to dishearten people to obtain their just desires in such a way The favourablest construction of which words must be by Petition and yet this way was not then acted without Tumults it being then grown to a custom as their own Historian confesseth for a Petition to be backt by great multitudes to Westminster or White-Hall As that was from Kent which was brought to Westminster by about 5000. all a Horse-back and all this noyse was to thank the Lords for their acting so bravely against Bishops And with such like Presbyterian trash were most of their Papers stuft and in so plentiful a manner that if Visions had been then in frequent use that as the Priests formerly saw St. Peters Church in Rome full of Serpents so might England but London especially have been view'd cramb'd full of Devils But where the Albertus Magnus would be I know not And yet the simple people are easily drawn to fancy that Tumults are the only way to make a Nation happy though the ingenuous Tasso will assure them in the contrary Quando sia poi di sì gran moti il fine Non fabriche di Regni
the 9 Lords was not unsignificant viz. That if he look'd for any preferment he must comply with them in their waies and not hope to have it by serving the King Words of such a Mandrake-sound that they would have astonished a Roman ear whose generosity and vertue made them raise a Temple to Fidelity But all bonds of obedience and loyalty were hurld off by these sons of contradiction and Majesty it self so farr disrepected that Martin could with confidence wipe his lips with the whore in the Proverb and think he had done no wrong when he affirmd that the Kings Office is forfeitable and that the happiness of this Kingdome doth not depend upon him or any of the Royall branches of that stock and this was seconded by that worshipful Champion Sir Henry Ludlow who peremptorily said that he was not worthie to be King of England Nor are these words unbefitting the Father of such a known Son as Edmud Ludlow one of the Kings noted Tryers and an immortal Enemy to all goodnesse Church-government and literature Nor did the whole Parliament speak little lesse then the former when they affirmed he had no negative vote call'd all his Actions illegall and his Letters Declarations and Proclamations scandalous and false forbidding people to be obedient to him upon pain of displeasure declaring all such as did to be Traitors Taxing him with an intention towards Popery O implacable Malice foisted into the world by these his back-friends and spread abroad with abundance of impudence and malice by their zealous Myrmidon and Journy-work-jobber Prynne one that if he had lived amongst the Malabars in the East-Indies where long eares is a Token of honour comlinesse and bravery would have been held a man of no great credit But the best on 't is Pryn's scandalous pamphlet call'd the Popish Royall Favourite i. e. the King was many years ago learnedly and industriously answer'd to the Honour of his Majesty honesty of the undertaker and discredit and confusion of the Mercury-admiring accuser And therefore Mr. Baxter was somewhat to blame to cull such false trifles out of Prynne to prove the King reconcileable to Rome though he believes he was no Papist and this ten years after the Kings Beheading But to return to the Parliament who will yeild to none in bitterness against his Majesty who protest to him when no nearer York then New-Market That they would make use of that power which they had for their security and professing in the same paper that it was not words that could secure them And what their intention was in this may be gathered by voting some few daies before That the Nation should be put into a posture of Defence and only by Authority of Parliament And all those Extravagancies were acted by the Parliament in opposition and discredit to the King before his Majesty had so much as one man either in offensive or defensive Armes in a publick way So that he might well admire at those who charg'd him to be the first beginner and raiser of this Warre Thus the Kings mildnesse gave encouragement to those furious spirits who never left plotting till they had fill'd England with more villanies then Rome is in the vacancy of her Popedome or Tacitus could reckon up in the front of his History and this by their unjust dealings with him by warre and such like wickednesses though they might have consulted the Apothegm of that great Goth Athanaricus being good Divinity Law and Reason that A King is a earthly God and whosoever rebels against him is guiltie of his own death Nor doth the great Father of the Church intimate to us lesse obedience to our Kings then the former But these men cared little for reason or authority in any but themselves as appears by those impudent and irrational Propositions sent to the King at New Castle when they were Masters and had him in hold whereby he would be but a King of clouts and the Nobility and Gentry of his party bound to hop headlesse Articles so palpably wicked that an Italian through his Majesty looks upon them as distructive both to Church and State Nor could lesse be expected from these men in the height of their Pride and prosperity when at the beginning of these wicked Warres long before the stroak at Edghill The good King weeping as it were over the approaching ruine of his Subjects earnestly endeavours to perswade the Parliament to a Reconciliation in the lamentable breathings of Tancredi to the violent Rinaldo Dimmi che pensi far vorrai le mani Del civil sangue tu dunque bruttarte E con le piaghe ind egnede ' Christiani Trafiger Cristo ond'ei son membra e perte c. Ah non per Dio vinci te stesso Tell me what mean you now Will you yet stain Your hands in your friends bloud by Civill Warre And by your killing Christians now again Pierce Christ his side of whom we members are c. Ah no for Gods sake conquer your passion Desiring that they might both lay down their Armes and recall all their papers against each other upon an appointed day and so enter into a Treaty But they being carryed along with a Spirit of contradiction like the Scotch Presbyter who railing against King Church and Government and being commanded by King James to speak either sense or come down replyed like himself I say man I 'se nowther speak sense nor come down They I say resolved to run counter absolutely declare that they will not think of peace till the King have taken down his Standard left his Armies repair'd to the Parliament that so justice might be done upon those who had adhear'd to them and how by this his Majesty himself could escape they having some few daies before taxed him with most mischievous Tyranny I know not And in the same paper the lands of all those who were of the Kings party were forfeited and I think it is not unknown how they were disposed on afterwards Nor need we doubt but those men who without Blushing could Vote the Queen a Traitor would not care to draw up some blood into their faces soe they might have their revenge on his Majesty And whether this clause For the preservation of his Majesties person was voted to be left out in the New modled Commission the Commons and my Lord Fairfaz know best and what the meaning of such a seclusion was the revolution of a few years did fully import Thus did the English use the King as the Scots did their James the third who hated him as Mr. Drummond informes us because he got the love of his people by Piety and Justice and having taken up armes against him would not hearken to any termes of reconciliation unlesse he freely resigned the title of his Crown and Realm in favour of his Son then in theirs Hands and voluntarily deposed himself
Grotius one born and bred amongst them yet so farr satisfied or rather nauseated with their manners that he looks upon them as factious turbulent and rebellious spirits and so not fit for Subjects And this character it may be hath been the occasion of their gnashing their teeth so much against him CHAP. II. The Abominable Hypocrisie and Jugling of the Parliament and Army till the Murther of his Majesty AMongst the Ancients Proteus was look'd upon as a pretty fellow that could vary his shape according to his own pleasure And with what equal respect we have lately favour'd those who have hugg'd themselves for their same knack of jugling is not nor never will be worn out of memory The smooth-tongued St. Martins Quacksalvers at Venice have delt honestly and open-handed in respect of our Modern State-Mountebancks who were so farr Pharisees that they blab'd their zeal at the corner of every street yet kept their Intentions more secret than the Boy did who dyed by the devouring Fox hid under his coat Our Politicians like Eutrapelus in the Poet were grown to the true pitch of callidity to charm their Neighbours to the changing of their Opinions with their Habits and all this industry as Bythius did the Roman Cannius meerly to cheat those who deal with them I must confess I am apt to smile though I do not approve when I read or hear a neat piece of small cousenage But for those who through private Interests by their plots and devices endeavour to over-throw whole Kingdoms no man of honesty but must abominate That man which through judgement though erronious sticks to his Principles shall be more in my favour than those who outwardly offend less yet are so peccant through design which makes me have a better opinion of many misled German-Boors at Munster then some of our late English Grandees who for their own profit have not only sided with all Parties but run counter to their former Oaths Declarations Principles if they have had any firm to make a private advantage How many have we had who have confidently given out themselves the only men of honesty and sanctity yet such as against all Morarality who have fill'd the World with strange Declarations and Vows by calling Heaven and Earth to witness that their intentions were so and so whereas if that be true of the Poet Exitus acta probat Actions do show If they intended really or no. Then may we justly conclude that they intended nothing less then that which they most engaged to perform And of this I shall give some few hints whereby infallibly may be collected the knavery of the Presbyterian and great Anti-Royalist which may serve as a warning-piece to keep us from any more Rebellion and prompt us to keep close to our true and ancient Government Monarchy and Episcopacy I have shewed before how that the King did not only not begin the Warr but that the Presbyterian Parliament by their plots and devices forced him to the endeavour of opposing strength by strength And I shall shortly demonstrate from their own deceitful lips how that they and their Party did not only protest to have no bad Intentions against the King but also to defend and maintain him and his Royal Progeny and make them more glorious and famous then ever But this I may say was done when they were either too weak or to gain more friends for when they were Conquerers and had him in their disposal nothing could satisfie their well tutor'd Army and many of themselves but the taking away his innocent life that with Thieves and Robbers after the murther they might possess all so that I may sing of them with the well known Colletet Voyez vous ce saincte Nitouche Ce juge à quo cet homme froit Il presche tous jours pour le droit Et ne l'a jamais qu ' en la bouche Which may thus be rendred O! Self-time-serving Knaves who still profess You 're for the Right when you think nothing less Thus did these men steer their Intentions according as the wind sat for most benefit Thus Aeneas Sylvius wrote many things before he was Pope which when he had once obtain'd the Triple-Crown he censured as dangerous Hence came the saying That Pius condemn'd what Aeneas thought good This jugling amongst us may allow me to affirm with a great Presbyterian I am perswaded there never was a more hypocritical false dissembling cunning Generation in England then many of the Grandees of our Sectaries Thus the Parliament for all their former Protestation to defend and preserve the King and his Posterity as if they had been double-tongued like those Islanders mentioned by Diodorus Siculus or that Boy recorded by Borel not long afterwards Voted the Queen a Traytor because she acted nothing but what became her tending to the preservation of the King her Husband and the People And within a fourth-night after this took that treasonable being against the Kings consent and the Laws of the Land and therefore abominable Vow and Covenant wherein how much their hearts agreed with their tongues to preserve the King may be deduced from their actions but the next year after wherein the Commons Voted that this clause For Preservation of his Majesties Person should be left out in Sir Thomas Fairfax his Commission So that we may well suppose these men to have taken example from the ancient Spartans whom neither Religion Contract nor Oath could bind with which variable temper the Graecians were generally inured And for their Politicks without all question they agreed so farr with their good friend Machiavil as to imbrace that good and plausible humour of the Parthians who acknowledged no Honesty nor Religion but what was for their own private Interests How did our Grandees now and then sweeten the people into good liking of them by amusing them with the joyful hopes of Peace by Treaties when in truth the thoughts of composition was as farr from their Intentions as Joab's when he slew Amasa with a kiss of seeming friendship or rather as Mr. Love who at Uxbridge Treaty instead of friendship vomitted out nothing but threatning and vilifying-contradictions to the Peace-makers yet nothing unbecoming one of his Faction in Religion When some honest meaning Sea-men drew up a Petition for an Agreement and Peace other Sea-men were procured to protest against this Petition the honest Petitioners commanded to repair home again with this instruction for the future that they need not trouble themselves about the Peace the Parliament intending to take care about it And what great care they took though the King dayly plyed them with Messages about it is not unknown to the World What imperious and wicked Propositions sent they continually to him upon such debates as at the beginning of the Wars after that to New-castle and after that to him at Carisbrook-Castle to which when he
declared that he could not in Honour and Conscience consent for by them he was not only devested of all Regal Authority but the Church ruined and his Loyal Party bound to suffer what deaths and miseries the Parliament please then they impiously Vote that no more addresses should be made to the King nor none received from him whereby they dash all hopes of a future settlement by the Kings ruling over them contrary to their former Vows and Protestations so that their seeming friendship by Treaties seems to me not unlike that of Rhadamistus King of Iberia whereby he betray'd well-meaning Mithridates King of Armenia to his destruction This action with their Vote against the Queen and that concerning Sir Fairfax's Commission doth not a little or'e-cloud the Presbyterians who think they come off with honour when they deny it was them but the Independants who beheaded his Majesty But what little difference there is in the offence let others judge The Presbyterians by this Vote of Non-address actually deny the King to be their King by professing themselves his enemies for ever and thereby they not subject to his Kingship or Rule And the Independents take him acknowledg'd thus by consequence by the Presbyterians to be no King and in the notion of no King behead him And what suitable intentions they had for more then disowning him may be collected from them selves in the reasons inducing them to such a Vote which were because he was a coutinual breaker of promise and trust His punishing of Prynne Burton Bastwick and such like dicturbers of the peace His Wars with Scotland His accusing some of the Members not forgot by some then in Parliament His raising War against or rather defending himself from the Parliament and such like accusatious which they call Tyranny And that He hath wholly forgotten his duty to the Kingdome they meant themselves and so thus conclude These are some of the many reasons why we cannot repose any more trust in him and have made those former resolutions that is the Votes against any more addresses Yet they say they will settle the Government though it seems without them so that the Army might very well tell us that these Votes were understood by all To imply some farther intentions of proceeding in justice against him and settling the Kingdome without him To this the Presbyterians cannot reply that the Army forced them because it is utterly denied by the Souldiery who look upon themselves with sorrow and shame because they were so slack in putting such a good action forward as they accusingly affirme themselves Nor can they say that they were out voted by the Independent-faction because 't is well known they were far the greater number till they were Secluded the House almost a year after And whether their thus Voting and Scandalizing his Majesty was done more like Presbyterians then good Subjects let those judge who know that it was once enacted Treason To attempt any harm to the person of the King Queen c. or deprive them of their Dignity Title or Name of their Royal Estates or standerously and maliciously pronounce by express writing or words that the King should be Heretick Schismatick Tyrant Infidel or Usurper or to hold from him his Castles Holds or Marches or Artillery or Ordnances of War Yet were the intentions of Parliament more severe against his Majesty the Army and others would be as wicked as the best of them of which some authentick testimonies will not be amiss And first you shall have the story of some pure Rogues chickens of the Parliaments and Armies own breeding and I warrant you brave boys for King and Parliament though their zeal for the latter devoured the former as appears by their Loyalty James Symball Deputy-Keeper of Winchester-house Prison said King's head upon the Tower-block Francis Wade being urged to drink the King's health denied it his reason was because the King was no King but a Tyrant having put the Parliament out of his Protection and so the whole Kingdome Robert White a Souldier on the Parliaments party being demanded what he would have done to the King had he met him in the head of his Army answered He would have as soon killed him as another man Words as full of Loyally as Harry Martin of chastity or the Rump of true piety If Doctor Chayfield must be brought upon his knees by the long-Long-Parliament for saying From all Lay-Puritans and all Lay-Parliament-men good Lord deliver me If Sir John Lamb must undergo the same punishment for setting up Organs If Master Hollis the Burgess for Newark upon Trent must be banished the Parliament-house for saying that the Scotch Army should be prosecuted with all rigour and extremity and speedily expulst the Kingdome by main force If Master Smith must be committed to the Gate-house onely for speaking against the Parliament If a poor Printer must be condemned to the same prison onely for Printing an Elegy in commendation of the Earl of Strafford If the Lord Digby's speech in the behalf of the Earl must be voted to the flames onely for being Printed And his Brother-in-law Sir Lewis Dives be condemn'd as a Delinquent onely for ordering the same to be Printed a thing allowable to all other Parliament-men If these and many more severe judgements be thought fitting by the Parliament what punishment is meritorius for the former verlits for vomitting out such hellish assertions against his Sacred Majesty But for all this you shall see how cleverly they came off as if with Saint Dominick they had never committed a sin worthy damnation or rather had been as innocent as the child unborn For though at first they were committed to prison by Serjeant Creswell Yet was it soon taken notice of by the Adjutators in the Army a sort of underlings secretly put on by Cromwell whom they call their Patron and Protectour to carry on his designs in the Army every Regiment having two who used to meet in Juntos and there consult for the seducing the rest of the Souldiers these Rabscallies who neither must nor durst be denied present the case of the former fellows to Sir Thomas Fairfax their nominal General desiring their releasment from their Tyrannical sufferings for so they call it He accordingly writes to Speaker Lenthall Upon which the Commons order the business to be consider'd by the Committee of Indempnity and to relieve them as they see cause and so how they came off you may judge The imprisonment of these men made such a noise in the Army that it presently flew as far as Yorkshire and was there taken notice on and by the Adjutators in Pointz his Army amongst other things sent up as a grievance to Fairfax Nor was this action then let alone but was the next year brought upon the stage again by the Sectaries of London Westminster and Southwark complaining of the imprisonment of such good
and faithful men Thus might the King and People expect aboundance of Loyalty from this Army composed of Independents Levellers and such like Enthusiasts people of different ends in their private respects but all agreeing in the destruction of his Majesty Notwithstanding to make themselves favorites with the people they can protest that it is their desire that a firm peace in the Kingdome may be setled according to the Declarations by which they were invited and induced to ingage in the late war And that you might see what zealots they were for the honour safety and right of the King You shall have their own words We shall be as ready also to assure unto the King his just rights and authority as any that pretend it never so much All this is very good nor doth that which follows in another of their Papers bear less honesty viz. We desire the same i. e. right and just freedome for the King and others of his party And me do clearly profess we do not see how there can be any peace to this Kingdome firm or lasting without a due consideration of provision for the rights qutet and immunity of his Majesty his Royal Family and his late Partakers And this was subscrib'd to by Cromwell Hamond Ireton Sir Hardr. Waller Fleetwood Lambert Rich Lilborne Okey Hewson Scroop Harrison Barkstead Horton Pride Deane Cobbet Ewers Goffe and several others But how much their hearts differ'd from their mouths and hands may be known both by their former and after actions Thus like the Satyre in the Fable they breath'd as they pleas'd so that advantage came by it and 't is a bad wind bloweth no body any good After this manner in 1647. did they play fast and loose nor was the fashion alter'd in 48. In which two years was more Paper spoil'd betwixt Parliament and Army then hath been amongst the Turks since the first beginning of that Empire So lavish was the first as if they had intended to tear the Nation into rags for their supplies and so frugal the others who take more care for the preservation of Paper then the Parliament or Army did of their Consciences By this time and means these two parties endeavouring to discover one another's nakedness the good people began to perceive the knavery of them both and as with one voice murmur'd against their Tyranny and so indeavour'd what in them poor broken and harrass'd people lay to free themselves from such yoaks of slavery for which purpose the Prentises rise up in London though their Triumph was not long their timerous and self-ended Masters onely looking on though it may be some of them wish'd well Barwick was also surprised by the Loyal and Valiant Sir Mar. Langdale And Carltle by the truly Noble Sir Phil. Musgrave and Sir Tho. Glenham The same moneth the people of Saint Edmonds-bury rise up And those of Kent draw themselves to a considerable body A great part of the Navy revolts And the next week Pontfract Castle in Yorkshire was surprised by Col. Morris who was afterwards unhumanely butcher'd at York as Judge Puliston well remembers And the Scots under Duke Hamilton with a great Army enter England Whilst Argile Casels and other Kirkers in opposition mounts several thousands tatterdemallions upon the Craigs of Lieth near Edinbourgh valiantly to fight Munro waiting for them three miles off on plain ground but alas the Burrow moor where the Gallows stands was betwixt and Argile loved not to turn his face either that way-wards or against an enemy for there were no boats near The Messengers of this bad news one on the neck of another struck terror into the Parliament who perceiving now such an universal clamour for the Restauration of his Majesty that the condition of themselves if the people were not pacified seem'd desperate such an odium had their selvish actions pull'd upon them Whereupon something to please the people by making of them believe that their affections were also high towards his Majesty they null'd their former votes of no more Addresses to the King But this policy of theirs favour'd them not long for the Army having quash'd all these Royal insurrections grew so imperious that they look'd upon the Houses but as a Junta bound to satisfie their desires and accordingly began to act high which the Members perceiving thought it would befriend them more with the Nation to agree with his Majesty then to lye under the lash of every Schismatical though in this something related to themselves Trouper For which purpose they commence a Treaty in the Isle of Wight with his Majesty But this design of theirs was soon broken off by the self-denying for so they would be call'd Army who complain'd that the Houses intended to leave them in the Lurch by making peace with the King without comprehending them in it whereby they might lye under the censure of King and Parliament For which trick they accuse several of the Members and march up to London with an intention to shackle the two Houses which the Parliament perceiving and thereby their own ruin if not speedily prevented Vote the Kings Concessions to their Proposals lawful to make a firm peace upon Hoping by this means that not onely the Royalists but that the Presbyterians also would assist them against this Independent Army Though 't is no thanks to them upon such a pinch and their owne interest to make peace with his Majesty for if they had not been utter enemies to him they might have done it sooner and then their courtesie or rather Royalty had been double But now cry you mercy horse they would treat with the King not to save him but themselves So that for all the boasts of these Braggadocio's of their endeavours to preserve the King's person I shall easily be perswaded to believe that their intentions were as real and to as smal purpose as the Statue of Henry the great to defend the Parisians from robbing upon Pont Neuf Nor could any more be expected from them a true Royalist being as rare amongst them as a Virgin at sixteen in Marolle a village in France But now 't is too late for the Parliament to comply with the King the Army being resolved not to be govern'd by either of them considering what they might suffer as May himself confesseth if he should come to Raign again and for this jealousie the Nation may thank Cromwell and Ireton And the Army thus resolved the next day seise upon the major part of the Members whom they imprison suffering none to Vote but those who would dance after their Pipe Thus may some men better steal a horse then others look on Hasterig and Tate Knights for Leicestershire may without any fear disobey the Parliament in not returning when they sent for him But if the King deny them any thing then shall you hear a great clamour of the breaking of Priviledges of Parliament and nothing
bradg'd of their Loyalty but if there be Knaves in all Families much more are there Rogues in all Provinces But not unlike to the former was the letter of Exceptions and Doubts made by sixteen Kentish Gentleman as they titled themselves directed from Maidstone to Speaker Lenthal for which they had not only his but the thanks of the house to boot In the next month the fatall stroak was given in which month for the more hastning of the Execution several Petitions made haste from many parts of the Nation to the same intent as the former One was presented to the General from the then Capt. Smiths Troop in Oxfordshire another from Hartfordshire with a third from Surrey and a hot-headed one from London to the House of Commons which was seconded by one from the Common-Councell of the same City to the same purpose and members But that which gave the deepest stroak of all was that Long winded Remonstrance from the General Counsel of Officers at St. Albans wherein after many extravagant expressions against his Majesty and some Common-wealth-like puny reasons for their so doing they think it fitting to proceed against the King the which thoughts of theirs they at last vomit out with more impudence malice and inhumanity then an Army of Savage Canabells could in these astonishing words That that capital and grand Author of our troubles the Person of the King may be speedily brought to justice for the Treason Blood and mischief he is guilty of Desires so abominably wicked that it is impossible for any but their inspiring Satan to give them a befitting descant And that they had before this an intention to alter the Government is palpable by the often consultations and proposals of their Agitators and themselves in 1647. about the Government of the Nation by succession of Parliaments some advising Biennial others Triennial and some other modells And now Cromwell and Ireton all along cheated the King under specious pretences Major Huntington demonstrated in his Articles against them to the Parliament Yet could Cromwell with good store of seeming sanctity by his natural brasen face presume to bring off all those his seeming pretensions for his Majesty under the Hypocritical and sacrilegious Vizard of profound Revelations from some Deity or other By which means he would seem to patronize all the Armies wickednesse upon Divinity So that the jugling humour of this Army well considered we may well question both the modesty and Religion of one of their scribling patrons who had confidence publickly to assert that the Nation had far lesse cause to be jealous of the innocency or integrity of the Army then the Disciples of Christ These treacherous dealings of a perfidious Army not a little assisted by the self-ended members brought his Majesty to his Tryall a thing found out but as a politick trick to blinde the people with their open intentions as may appear not only by their ridiculous indictment but their former votes and actions whereby 't is palpable that they were pre-resolved not only to alter the Government but also to cut him off as accordingly hapned to the astonishment of humanity And how ancient these wicked intentions of some of them were hatch'd was not a little hinted at by one of Cromwels Captains two years before at Daintry who then fully related the resolutions of the Army and himself to bring the King to destruction Nor was the Revelation of Mrs. Grace Cary of Bristol though I do not use to give credit to such whimms much out in this exactly pointing out before these Warrs the Beheading of the King And whether all Poets are Prophets or no need not here be discuss'd though I am confident that an ingenious Gentleman did prognosticate better then those time-serving Schismatical Scriblers Lilly Booker Culpepper or such like Sectaries when he sung the Requiem of the King and Kingdome at the beginning of the Warres They would not have the Kingdome fall By an ignoble Funerall But piously preferre the Nation To a Renowned Decollation The feet and lower parts 't is sed Would trample on and off the Head What e're they say this is the thing They love the Charles but hate the King To make an even Grove one stroak Should lift the shrub unto the Oake A new found musick they would make A Gamut but no Ela take This is the pious good intent Of Priviledge of Parliament Thus fell the best of men by the worst of Devills so that this one wicked action will verifie that old saying that Brittain is crouded with the multitude of Tyrants and the horrid Actors may be for the future judged by the more Noble inhabitants of Nicaragua in America who formerly as Solon appointed no Law for a mans killing of his Father had none for the murtherer of a King conceiving no man to be so unnatural as to commit such crimes And for that vast Chaos the City of London who thus basely suffred their King to be murthered before their faces their Ancestors will rise up in judgment against them nor will the valour of Sir William Walworth a former Lord Maior of that City be mentioned but in derision of those Schismaticks of late daies When King Richard the second was in danger of his Life and Crown by Wat Tylers Rebellion Walworth raising up the Citizens by crying out Yee good Citizens help your King that is to be murthered and succour me your Maior that am in the like danger Or if you will not succour me yet leave not your King destitute By means of which the Rebells were dispers'd and the King rescued This was the loyalty of that City in former times But how little they have trod the steps of their Ancestors let themselves judge and blush for shame For being no small occasion of the ruine of his Majesty The Beheading of whom puts me in minde of a story recorded in our Chronicles in King Richard the seconds time viz. Of an Image of Wax or an Head of Earth framed by Necromancy at Oxford which at a time appointed spake these words Caput decidetur caput elevabitur Pedes elevabuntur supra caput The Head shall be cut off the Head shall be lift up The feet shall be lift above the Head And never did it happen so true as at this time when a company of beggerly peasants by horrid Rebellion did not only cut off their Kings head but also made themselves supream But whether this was made for a prophesie or no I know not yet Nostradamus Physitian to Henry the second King of France one much given to predictions and in great repute in those times for them had a happy guesse when long since he prognosticated that Senat de Londres metront a mort leur Roy. The London Parliament shall kill their King An action so treacherous that it would not be expected from the Devill himself after so many vows and protestations
would weep pray bemoan and call upon God till he had destroy'd him to whom he seem'd most friendly so that in this he seem'd to be typified by Alete in the Italian Heroick Poem Alete è l'un che da principio indegno Tra le brutture de la Plebe è sorto Ma l'innalzaro à i primi honor del Regne Parlar facondo e lusinghiero e scorto Pieghevoli costumi e vario ingegno Al finger pronto à l'ingannare accorto Gran fabro di calunnie adorne in modi Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi Alete from the basest Rabble came From a vile Clown's unworthy loyns being sprung Yet did he rise unto the greatest Name By a dissembling lying cunning tongue His temper to all humours could he frame And by his craft and lyes blanch o're all wrong A great back-biter but in such quaint wayes As whom h'accuseth most he seems to praise Nor may we be branded with want of Charity if we suspect his Religion to be as true as he pretended for that he confided more in the sharpness of his Sword than the right of his Cause is evident from his swerving from all his Oaths Protestations and Promises for the advantage of his own Interest in which he was not unlike Argante in the former Poet who D'ogni Dio sprezzator eche ripone Ne la spada sua legge e sua ragione Did scorn and spurn at God and would afford Nor Law nor Reason but his bloudy Sword Yet for all his Valour and Knavery as Piedro Messia admires the sodain rise of Julius Caesar so may I of Oliver considering he had not only the Royalists his Enemies and Experience tells us and a Venetian well observeth he was the greatest that ever the King had but also the Presbyterians to both which Cromwel's Faction was but a handful yet may this wonder be somewhat lessen'd by considering that the Parliament and Non-conformists had done formerly the main drudgery of the work to his hands Many Articles was he sworn to observe contain'd in the Book of Government which with his Oath were afterwards alter'd by The Advice As he gain'd his Government by bloud and craft so did he keep it cutting off all people whom he the least suspected and toleing the people along to their own slavery and destruction as the Pyed Pyper did the Children and Rats of Hamel in Brunswick some four years he protected it giving Laws to and dissolving Parliaments at pleasure a thing which he and his Creatures formerly judged most wicked But many men commend themselves in that for which they despise others And thus shall I leave Oliver with Nostradamus his Praediction above a hundred years ago Le Roy des Isles sera chassé par force Mis à son Lieu qui de Roy n'aura signe A King of Islands shall be bannish'd and An upstart Jack by force shall rule the Land Oliver being thus wafted away in a whirlwind his Son Richard as the Father had appointed succeeded to whom all the Armies of the three Nations with some others shoal with innumerable Addresses pittifully lamenting the death of his Father whom they profainly honour with all the good titles they could pick out of the Holy Scriptures protesting to stand by him and professing and acknowledging their happiness under his Rule But for all these their Asseverations he had not govern'd prudently piously faithfully to his immortal honour as his great friend and admirer Mr. Baxter saith long but they by the contrivance of Lambert and others having weakned his Party by forcing him to dissolve his Parliament thrust him out of the Throne too by which action as Mr. Baxter saith he was very ill used The Officers of the Army having thus sleighted him command all things by their Consultations at Wallingford-House and from thence issued forth a Declaration to recal the Rump again who the next day accordingly met And this forsooth was by them call'd the Good old Cause but why it should be honour'd with that Epethite I know no more than why the wicked sin of Sodomie should be commended by Johannes Casa These men having Triumph'd for about half a year a great jealousie grew betwixt them and their Army For Lambert returning to London proud with his pretty Conquest over Sir George Booth instigated his Red-coats to Petition the Parliament for a General and then he knew how to act his part as well as Cromwell did in 1648 But the cunning Rumpers smelling the design Voted this grand Office as in a single Person to be needless chargeable and dangerous which denyal of theirs was so farr from danting the Resolved Commanders who knew that if they were now baffled their ruine by Rump-craft would soon follow who made no more use of the Parliament nor the Members of the Army then they would serve for one anothers Interests and so after several Consultations at Wallingford House publickly desired a Chief Commander again in their Representation delivered by Gyant Desborough The Rump perceiving the Army resolute and fearing a change of Government enact it Treason for any to raise Moneys but by their consent and the next day their disease being desperate Vote Lambert and the chief of his Faction out of Commission and appoint seven Commissioners over the Army Fleetwood being Lieutenant-General a man of an easie disposition and so apt to be both cozened and commanded But this hindred nothing the Armies prosecution of their own designs who to requite the good turn done them by the Rump turn'd them out of Authority leaving us without any Government only appointing Fleetwood Commander in Chief whose soft nature made him imploy'd by both Factions wanting wit of himself to do any man any harm yet as a Cyfer could add something to the number The Rump being now defunct and the Army-Lords Paramount are continued some days without any Form of Government but those Ranters at Wallingford-House who at last constituted ten pure Youths to carry on the affairs of the State But the glory of these Decemviri lasted not long being null'd by their Lords and Masters the Army so unconstant were their actions who order'd another Model of Government under the pretty Title of The Committee of Safety consisting of Twenty three Brethren in Iniquity all people of great pretended Sanctity though their villany made some think that Hell was broke loose and sat in Council in a place built for their betters The Committee of Safety who now appointed a pack of Beagles to hunt after some Form of Government from Utopia Atlantis the fairy Country or some Terra incognita or other provided there should be no such thing as King-ship continued not long in any peaceable condition For General Monk hating the Tyranny of the English Army opposed their proceedings which occasioned Lambert with some tatterdemallions to march Northwards the same day that the wicked Long-Parliament
commenced thinking by the terror of these Forces to reduce those in Scotland having had formeely good luck there to his Obedience But in this he ruined himself for London more then could be expected from that Monster of Wood and Stone considering their former proneness to and complyance with intolerable mischief and when many of them will really be honest and dutiful to the Laws considering the multitude of their Schismatical Presbyterian-Pulpitiers I know not this City I say opposing the Committee of Safety in the City and the Rumpers playing their Cards well at Portsmouth and other places and General Monk politickly droling Lambert to delays Fleetwood and the rest of his seeming sanctified Associates fell to durt By which means the indefatigable Rump was restored again and with a seeming joy received by the Time-serving Army their former stiff Enemies now protesting themselves their especial friends Nor need this Hypocrisie appear any strange matter from such like Hirelings as they were who are Masters of their own tongues and humours and can commend and vilifie according as their own Interest leads of which their actions towards this very Rump will testifie sufficiently For when they dissolved them 1653. 20. April they then call'd them a corrupt Party having an aversion to things conducible to the good of the Common-wealth and opposition to the people of God And that through the corruption of some and jealousie of others the non-attendance and negligence of many would never answer those ends which God his People and the whole Nation expected from them This is an Indictment black enough to make any man odious to all the World yet few years after the Scene was altered and those aspersions quite forgot For when their Interest ingaged them to restore the Rump again Good God! how they Stroak them on the head Call them good Boys and buy them Ginger-bread Then they look upon them as people faln from Heaven and think nothing can be too good for such white Boys professing That the want of them is one cause of the Lords with-drawing his wonted presence for they were eminent Asserters of the Good Cause and had a special presence of God with them and were signally blest in that work And with this same Legerdemain was the poor Rump gull'd the third time For but some six dayes before they were again cast out by these Souldiers the very Army call themselves several times the Parliaments Army and humble and faithful Servants protesting through the help of God that they would be found notwithstanding all endeavours to the contrary faithful to them But Experience proved that this their Protestation lasted no longer then that the Rump acknowledged them or rather five or six Chieftains in Authority so that I may say of the Army as was formerly sung of the Pope by one of our own Poets Nulla non concessa potestas Illius Imperium fasque nefasque facit Dat rapit exarmat ditat depauperat ornat Foedera rescindit bella cruenta ciet Cuncta tamen licitè quoniam generale Imperium nil nisi jure facit These have all power and by their Swords can cause Things to be good or bad though ' gainst all Laws Can make us poor or rich can give or take Raise cruel Wars and all Agreements break Yet all these things are legal cause their might So frames their Rule that what they do is right By which means we seem'd to be return'd to the first Chaos of Government where people were ruled by no Laws but the will and lust of their Chieftains as Justin informs us And probably that people under no Laws live more happy than those whose Laws and Government are so apt to change that they know not what to trust to next day The Rump being thus restored thought nothing but that all would fall down and worship them But in this they quickly found that they reckon'd without their Hoast For General Monke perceiving the inconsistency of these self-ended erroneous popular Governments with the good of the Nations resolved to crush the proceedings of any more such like wickedness For which purpose with his small Army he moved towards London by any easie and tedious motion by which means he sounded the hearts of all the Nation by their Address to him where he found all the clamour for a Free-Parliament and through it the Restauration of their desired King And to bring this about after some complements with the Rump who now fear'd him for a blind and fashion sake he restored the long-banish'd Secluded Members A piece of a Parliament being now drawn together by the addition of the Secluded Members to the Rump the good Nobility and Gentry of the Nation began to be valiant once more and to utter some thoughts of Kingship Knowing that the animosity of the two parties in the House against each other would be the Rump's destruction and the occasion of a New-representative for which they nominated a Council of State consisting of thirty Members and the next Moneth Dissolved themselves from being a Parliament leaving the Government of the Nation to the aforesaid Council till the New-representative met The New-Parliament being met according to their Writs received his Majesties Gratious Letters to them by Sir John Greenvill and unanimously acknowledge him for their King and Soveraign with desires of his return to receive his Crown And having prepar'd all things for his reception he accordingly return'd to England where long may he raign to the unspeakable joy and benefit of the good and Loyal people and the confusion of Rebellion and Schism Thus in the space of eleven years have we run the Gant-lope through the series of seventeen Governments of which take this following scheme 1. King Charles the first 2. Rump 3. Oliver and his Officers 20. April 1653. 4. Council of State 30. April 5. Barebones Parliament 4. July 6. Oliver and his Officers 12. Decemb. 7. O. Cromwell Protectour 16. Decemb. 8. Richard Protectour 3. Septem 1658. 9. Rump the second time 6. May 1659. 10. Wallingford-house Junto with Lambert and Fleetwood 13. Octob. 11. Council of ten men 19. Octob. 12. Committee of Safety 26. Octob. 13. Rump the third time 26. Decemb. 14. Secluded Members and Rump 21. Feb. 1659 60. 15. Council of State 16. March 16. Parliament 25. Apr. 1660. 17. King Charles the second And what miseries the Nation underwent in these chopping and changing of Models is not yet forgot This thing was to day High-treason which to morrow was good law and the seduced people swore to maintain that the contrary to which the next week they were constrain'd to defend So that old Chaucer's complaint may well be here revived O sterne people unsad and untrewe Aye undiscrete and chaungying as a fane Delyting ever in rumur that is new For like the Moon ever waxe ye and wane Ever full of clappying dere enough a iane Your dome is false your
and uprightness of heart Yet all this not half so true as the sea burns let the Country people confide never so much in the Proverb 'T was a mad world my Masters when John of Leyden a Taylor must be made King of the Universe And Robert Kett a Tanner ruin our English inclosers according to his discretion Or Michael Joseph a Black-smith endeavour to correct the King and his Council Naples we may suppose was well reformed when Thomas Anello a poor Fisher-man would there rule the roast to the destruction of many stately buildings And the Kingdome of Spain had small reason to bless her happiness when the sortish Commonalty against their King the Emperor Charles the fifth and Nobility must be govern'd by the basest sort of people as Bodadilla a Cloth-worker at Medina del Campo Villeria a Skinner in Salamanca and such like offals of rationality What prosperity could they expect from their Junta's when in their great Assembly none durst speak but such as one Pinelles a Cloth-worker was pleased to order by the pointing to them with his Rod of an Usurpt Authority And what a Bedlam should we have had in England if the Inferior rusticks of Kent Essex c. under Wat Tyler a Taylor Jack Straw and others such low-born chieftains had prevail'd against King Richard the second who endeavoured to destroy the King Nobility and Clergy extirpate all Learning and overthrow all Government by their levelling humours For which purpose they murdered all persons of quality which fell into their clutches if not of their society burnt and distroy'd the best houses in London And had so little respect of persons that every slave amongst them would sport themselves upon the King's bed and impudently invite the King's Mother to kiss with them whose head they also broak in a Tyrannizing frolick And that their villany might be compleat by a bloudy Sacriledge they took Simon Tibald aliàs Sudbury Arch-bishop of Canterbury and in their devilish fury by eight mangling stroaks cut off his head and for more infamy set it upon London-bridge How parallel or rather excell'd our late Rebellion hath run to this is not unknown How hath our Nobility and Gentry been trod upon and that by the scum of Manhood whose wicked designes were mainly carried on for their utter annihilation And they began betimes witness that confident Petition of the Rascally Londoners at the beginning of the Long-Parliament that the House of Lords might not be distinct from the Commons but both to sit together by which means the King would be forced to descend too And with what applause the Commons received this durty Paper is clear from their swagring with it before the Lords whereas their Loyalty had been more shewn had they burnt the Petition and cut off the Presenters ears but then I believe some of the Composers would have pleaded Protection by Priviledge of Parliament for 't is more then suspected who set such people on work Thus was Nobility struck at and afterwards by the rabble held in real reproach so that their intentions seem'd to comply in wickedness with those dung-hil Rebels in Valentia who were resolved to destroy all the Gentry which occasioned a Hat-makers wife in Saint Catharines-street in the same City seeing some Gentlemen go by to shew them to her children and they asking the reason she replyed Because when you come to be men you may say that you have seen Gentlemen Nor is it the Gentry alone that suffer but how also have our Princes been not onely abused but murthered How hath learning been out-vapoured by ignorance And our Reverend Clergy outed by a swarm of Enthusiastick Schismaticks Nor do we want the loud Cry of a Reverend Arch-bishop to make the story alike Yet how far our modern Hectors are from Repentance I need not tell For my part I have a better opinion for the Tyrian slaves who slew all their Lords and Masters onely one by chance escaped call'd Strato yet afterwards on their own accord repented and chose Strato for their King then I have for those Scythians who though their occasional crime was not great would not be brought to obedience but by force and scourges CHAP. IV. The Grand Perjury of the Parliament and Army OF all things nothing is more destructive to government then Perjury and falseness amongst the retainers of these sins all Laws or Constitutions the foundation of Rule being of no validity Nor is this of it self onely a political fault but a great sin against the Almighty of which the Poet speaks like a good Divine as he might be for ought I know Quid enim magis esse profanum Aut mage turpe potest quà m sacris ludere pactis Vincláque divini violare sacerrima juris Nothing a man more base and wicked shows Then to break Sacred Promises and Vows Yet nothing hath been more familiar with our late Grandees then this which makes me sometimes apt to fancy that our Phanaticks hold all manner of Oaths unlawful though before a Magistrate meerly as a pretty salvo for their Perjury thinking those not fit to be kept which in the Original is unwarrantable to be taken And this reason as Prateolus doth hint was formerly in use amongst Priscillians who though they opposed the legality of Oaths yet had this for a rule amongst themselves Jura perjura secretum prodere noli Swear and forswear But from discovering your designs forbear Thus the Graecian Lysander made so little Conscience of Oaths that he affirm'd they were but to deceive men as false-play children And whether our Non-conformists are of the same opinion or no I know not though I am confident King James tells us and experience makes it not altogether untrue that they care as little for the Observation of Oaths as another Though I believe that many of them at their last hour will be asham'd at their hands either for holding them up at the Covenant or subscribing our late Engagements as Rodulphus the Duke of Schweben by some of our English Writers erroniously call'd Duke of Saxony was for violating his Faith to the Emperour Henry the fourth And without question if many of our Time-servers were to have their fidelity tryed by Ordeal a fashion amongst the Ancient Saxons there is few of them but would either burn their toes or end their dayes by their knack of sinking Or if we had but here some of those ancient Fountains mentioned by Alexander ab Alexandro how many thousands would make as good sport by diveing as Lazarello when shew'd about Spain in a Tub for a strange fish But to return to our late times in which we are first to consider the two Oaths one of Supremacy made in Queen Elizabeth's time and the other of Allegiance made in King James his reign wherein all are sworn to defend the Kings Person Progeny Power Authority and Priviledges and acknowledge him to be Supream over all
a God-Mother And thus did they also baptise a Pig and were so farre from repenting at these villanies that they boasted they had done the same in many other places This unheard of impiety would make Martinus de Olave dumb with astonishment when many years ago he bitterly exclaimed against those who turn'd out the Reverend Divines and kept the Church only to be stables for horses and such like Beasts Nor did Westminster under the very nose of the Parliament escape scot-free The souldiers breaking down the Organs pawning the pipes of them for Ale eating drinking smoaking Tobacco at the Communion Table and easing themselves in most parts of the Church Nor was this all but keeping their whores in the Church and lying with them upon the very Altar it self if you will believe the learned Author of Mercurius rusticus who will inform you more at large concerning some of the fore-mentioned passages And here I shall not speak of the wicked selling of Church-lands by the Parliament who had no authority to do so And this is the happy Reformation begun and intended by the wicked long-Parliament a pack of such impious Varlets that they were forced to call themselves Saints because their neighbours could not Yet for all their Saint-ship several of their Members were not only instigators but high Actors of this Sacriledge who though not here named yet I suppose are as conscious to themselves as a great Lord was when the word Sectary was spoken by Arch-Bishop Land Nor were the Members altogether devested of Sacriledge when they acted and voted so furiously against the King Church and good of the Nation in their house which was formerly St. Stephens Chappel And how well many of them have feather'd their nests in Bishops lands is not unknown But goods thus got as the Proverb saith will never prosper Of which none of the least examples is King Henry the eighth who although besides the vast summe of Abby Lands and the 5100000 l. left him by his father in ready mony received more from his Subjects by loans taxes and subsidies then all the Kings of England had in 500 years before yet what King was ever prest with so much poverty all things considered as he was who about the 36 year of his raign as one observes of all the Kings of England was forced to coyn not only base Tinne and Copper but leather monies And it is observed as the same Author saith since the accession of Abbies and Impropriations to the Crown even the Crown-lands which formerly have been thought sufficient to support the ordinary charge of the Crown are since so wasted though I hope the Loyalty of our Parliaments will augment them that they will scarce defray the ordinary charge of the Kings houshold Nor hath it happened otherwise with our wicked long-Long-Parliament and their sacrilegious adherents who could never keep their accounts straight for though in the heat of the warre they demanded not much above 50000 l. a month to carry on their designes yet in time of peace they could not observe just scores though they had 90000 l. 100000 l. per mensem and sold all the Kings and Bishops and such like lands which amounted to a vast summe besides taxes excise customes and such like commings in Nor was this all but they had the composition moneys of those they call'd Delinquents which consisted of many thousand Loyal Subjects and to what a vast summe this came to may somewhat be collected from this If ten thousand men at two hundred pounds per annum pay two years for Composition for so the ordinance appointed which amounts to two Millions to what an incredible summe will it amount when several of the Compounders estates were 2 4 6 8 10. and some above thousand pounds a year But if this summe was great what was the Decimation Sequestration and such like knacks of procuring monyes And yet poverty still pleaded so that their Armies and Navies could not be paid till our Gracious Majesty did it for them who though they hoorded up much monies and lands to themselves yet the ever blessed divine Providence hath now brought them to give an account to the Loyall Royall and Rightful owners And such or a worse Exit let there alwaies fall upon all sacrilegious persons To whom as man hath appointed severe judgments so will not the all seeing and ever-just Almighty be backward in requiting such prefidious and sacrilegious villains according to their iniquity who I hope will swallow down the Ophiusian herb as fast as the Church patrimony that the dread or terrour of their consciences shall either force them to restore the unjustly detain'd Lands and riches or Hoyl-like to swing their own requiem for the better example and terror of posterity CHAP. VI. That some through ignorance and a credulous disposition prompting them to embrace their specious Pretences might be charmed to side with the Parliament though really they designed no damage either to the King's Person nor Authority TO vindicate Rebellion as hath been the unhappy mode of late is the worst office that can be done to a Nation yet to make all it's partakers of equal guilt will be a token of no great share of charity I am apt to believe that hitherto there hath never been any war but some men as well of honest intentions as others knavishly-designed have been of both sides It is not all men that rightly understand the frame by which they are govern'd either the Prerogative of the Supream or their own Priviledges and it is but few can see into the contriving hearts of their neighbours A harmless woman may be deceived into the reality of the Actors at the Hostel de Bourgogue in Paris or an English Play-house and 't is no difficult thing under the specious vail of Religion and Common good to make many people believe that actions which are really the most wicked tend to the best like the Physician in the Fable who made his Patient think that every Temper he was in was still for his health By these insinuations increaseth the number of Hereticks and Rebels many being rather misled then acting out of design being not so much used for any benefit to themselves as ignorant instruments to promote their flattering Grandees to the desired Haven of Supremacy and this once obtain'd are either thrown by as Day-labourers when the work is done as needless and impertinent or as ingratefully rewarded as Trebellius King of Bulgaria was by the most unfortunate Emperour Justinian the second As I shew'd before that the pretended squeamish stomacks of the Non-conformists were as Peter the Hermit the first Trumpet to sound Alarum to this supposed holy war setting the Lecturers up to teach Non-conformity schism and disobedience the forerunners of Rebellion so were the tongues and pens of this Novel Covenanting fraternity the main instruments that infused disloyalty into the peoples hearts which the Parliament did not
call God to witness that though our quarrel be against the Malignant party for his Majesties sake yet not in that sense as is here affirmed but out of our Loyalty and affection to his Majesty Shall not the frequent protestations of both Houses of Parliament for his Majesties security to the utmost power that the Law can give to them or they unto the Law be sufficient to take away the pretence of danger to his Majesties Person To think they i. e. the Militia or Army would have followed us in any Act of dis-loyalty against his Majesty if we should have been so wicked as to have had them to do it Thus you see what glorious protestatious are here for the preservation of the King which I dare boldly say did ingage many honest men to joyn with the Parliament really dreaming that those men who have thus so solemnly vow'd before the Almighty to preserve the King and Laws must be men of publick honest spirits and not to be drawn though by chains of gold the wealth of Peru or East-Indies to the magnifying of their own Interest and the relinquishing of that publick Good to which they have tyed themselves by so many oaths And after the same manner did the City of London declare themselves by Petition Yet let their Promises Vows or Protestations be never so many a French Poet sings not amiss S'il promen s'il rit de sa promesse faile C'est qu'il en jure en Amant ou qu'il parle en Poëte He that doth swear and ne're means to do it Swears like a Lover or sings like a Poet. And really if experience may be a rule 't is more then probable that many of the Members had learn'd the Jesuit's rule by them call'd The Direction of the Intention whereby you may do any wickness if you propose to your self a good intent And after this manner hath our former Rebels blanch'd over their designs Wat Tyler and his Companions pretended onely to act against King Richards the seconds evil Counsel but if they had once got to have been Masters their intentions were to have kill'd the King and Nobility Jack Cade and his rabble under the colour of holy and good intents rais'd a Rebellion against King Henry the sixth and what iniquities such rubbish of humanity would have acted if they had been Masters is not known The Cornish rusticks under the notion to deliver King Henry the seventh from evil Council rais'd a Rebellion And the subtile Fox in Chaucer profest he onely came to hear the Cock sing but when by that craft he had once got hold of him the case and story was alter'd And after this deceitful manner acted the Parliament if you will give any credit to one of the King 's greatest enemies who thus informs us So powerful perswasive and contentful were their first Engagements Papers and Remonstances so fraught with self-denying doctrines tender regard to the peace of the Nation and satisfaction to all Interests as even lull'd all peaceable people into a sound sleep of security casting all the care upon the General Council of the Army as upon a people they thought could never have the face to decline either these principles or to neglect the performance of so many Engagements Promises and Protestations made as in the presence of the All-seeing God frequently calling upon him the searcher of all hearts to bear witness to their integrity and sincerity therein Insomuch that we who always with some wissness observed them many times denied our own understandings rather then we would draw hasty conclusions from evident testimonies of their defection And this principle of believing but especially their publick multiplyed affections for the preservation of the King were the motions which led Major General Massey to joyn himself to the Parliament as himself declareth and that they led many others is more then probable We see by experience that Religion is rooted into some men not so much by good and true reason as by birth and education the which if after they change is as oft for the worse as the contrary 'T is custome and fashion that over-powers or rather overthrows the rationality of all men The Indian women of Tiembas have always torn and bloody faces by which lacerating they judge themselves most beautiful The Goths gloried in a tall corpulent King on the contrary the Saracens liked none unless he were little and lean Custome hath made it as natural to a Brittish Presbyterian as it is to all Schismaticks to babble up sedition as to the Spaniard to court gravity whilst their neighbouring French affect an active airyness The Teneriff or Pico shall sooner shrink to Mole-hills the name of the Escurial be forgot and the great Tun at Heidleburgh fill'd with Renish-wine but a mornings draught to a Pigmie then a Non-conformist cease from being disobedient or our Disciplinarians as if they had been stuft with a Biscayners ignorance and spirit from hating and persecuing our lawful government of Bishops and how sedulous and crafty they have been to inveagle themselves into other mens affections is not unknown Many who take exception at Government can produce no other reason for their dissent but because others do so too so that to sin with company is thought by them rather a glory then shame If a great man take distast at Majesty he is confident to have most of his Relations and Servants of his opinion being apt to run as blindly into their Master's quarrel as their own ruin Nor is it a difficult thing among such variety of humours to entise some into the greatest wickedness some mens malice so far overclouding their reason that like Le Faucheur and Chauvinus they destroy those spectacles which should give them a sight and knowledge of truth and reality of the business by the malignity and wicked humours of their eyes and spirits Other men though their Grandeur of estate or affection with the people may after espouse them to be ring-leaders of the rabble yet at first were rather entised themselves then they the instruments of others wickedness Juam de Padilla's fault was that he was young good natur'd and so easily wrought upon by his haughty wife Donna Maria Pacheco to rebel against Charles the fifth And many others have been led the same way 'T is observed that Dod Pedro Lasso's sweet disposition love to justice and publick good engaged him in the same quarrel being noted for one clearly without malice but by the Inhabitants of Toledo hug'd into Treason and what influence great Cities have upon the people London knoweth too too well Many men through the hatred of some other person by way of Revenge and what more sweet and inticing may be drawn into Factions and so to espouse a bad quarrel to work their malice upon private enemies as the Venavides and Caravajales two noble familes in Castile or the Feuds antiently in
use in Scotland and thus the Duke of Matalone the chief of the Caraffa's falling out with the Prince of Sanza at a Ball had like to have brought their private injuries into a publick hostility to the trouble of the Kingdome of Naples Thus the insupportable malice of private men may be a publick detriment as the breach between the English and French was not a little widened by the hatred and brags of the Lord Cordes who us'd to say that he could be content to lye in Hell for seven years so he might win Calice from the English And to these I may add Don Pedro de Ayala Earl of Salvatierra who through the enmity betwixt him and his Lady Margarita whom the Court favour'd against him and therefore by way of opposition was invited to side with the Commonalty against the Emperour In which case the late Earl of Essex by a favourable construction was not much different Yet far is it from me to vindicate these mens actions but rather to mitigate some by considering the powerfulness of perswasion it being natural for a man to run into errors and mistakes and if of his own Temper he be so prone to vice how easy is it to draw him thither when he is made more flexible by the subtle allurements of his seeming best friends Many men who have been most serviceable and loyal have at first through mistakes slipt into some faults De la Force run himself so much into the displeasure of Lewis the thirteenth King of France that he was proclaimed Traytor but afterwards did so recover his Reputation with his Majesty that he received the Trunchion to be Marshal of France and grew to be a great favorite Sir Robert Clifford was a great adhearer to Perkin Werbeck but upon the sight of his error became very advantageous to King Henry the seventh in discovering the King's enemies The Macedonian souldiers did once muteny and that in a furious manner against Alexander but when they had considered the greatness of their crime they came weeping to him and that in such an humble manner confessing their faults and desiring his favour and pardon that story will scarce allow such another president And the King did not onely forgive them but satisfied their former desires by sending many of them home where by his special Command they were honoured not onely by having the chief places in Theaters but with Crowns also The Athenians would pardon him who confest his fault And the Abbot Serapion conquer'd the Devil by acknowledging the sin of Theft frequent with him when young If a woman by the true repentance of her most horrid iniquity obtain'd the pardon of Pope Innocent The King's grace and favour will not be wanting to those who by their timely repentance denote the reality whilst those who stave off the acknowledgement of their offence to the last can in reason expect no hopes of reconciliation their repentance being so late that it demonstrates rather a jugling and time-serving humor then a true and genuine remorse The Noble Earl of Montross that Scotish Oak and regal Buckler of fidelity and valour at first was as much peccant as the greatest Covenanter yet none proved afterwards more faithful to his Majesty and active against his former associates because the King's enemies then himself The great Earl of Strafford and Atturney General Noy were look'd upon at first great courters of the Commonalty and dis-regarders of Prerogative yet upon better insight became the greatest admirers of the King's Authority And I have heard of those who have so far grieved for their former actions that they have wish't themselves breathless when they first drew sword for the Parliament It is repentance that doth please God himself and Kings who are truely call'd God's upon Earth have received into favour their greatest enemies upon remorse of their former villanies Yet all mens intellectuals do not so sympathize as to perceive their errors at the same time Some with Sir F. Fortescue may know themselves erronious at the first onset others as we have too frequent examples are so stiff neck't opinionated that they will not be convinced of their guilt till their appearance before the greatest and last Tribunal As for the first they deserve pardon and favour because they deal ingenuously and like men of reason and nobleness whilst the latter merit the severity of laws and scorn And as I cannot plead for these so shall I never for those who did not onely oppose all Treaties with the King but those also who when any such thing was obtain'd still shoved it off by uncivil impudent and abominable Propositions framed either for the prolonging of war and bloud-shed or the reducing of his Majesty to be but a King of Clouts and so under the obedience and lash of their Schismatical Presbyterian Tyranny from which scourge I hope these three Kingdomes and all good people will for the future be delivered THE HISTORY Of the Wicked PLOTS and CONSPIRACIES OF OUR Pretended Saints BOOK III. CHAP. I. That the Presbyterians were not willingly and actively Instrumental for the uncapitulated restauration of his Majesty I Have often smiled at the Story of an old Knight who in the small space of one Battle changed his opinion twice and that with so much zeal and vehemency as to cry out when his Clerk brought him news that Prince Rupert had beat his enemies O the goodness of God! that will not suffer Traytors to prosper Those who fight against their King must expect to have God for their enemy c. And a Posset must be made too to cherish up the wearied spirits of the Messenger Yet scarce had finished his discourse against the wickedness of Rebellion when being truly assured of the mistake of his former information and that the Parliament remained victorious he alters his note and bauls out O the Gospel the Gospel the Gospel Blessed be God who hath thus put to shame the enemies of Reformation O! had the Malignants got the better we should have had Popery restored again But O the goodness of God who hath thus dispersed the members and raggs of Antichrist c. And after this manner did Master Gawen Hamilton who at Edinbourgh when the Victory seem'd to incline to the Queen Regent abused those of the Kirk but when the French were at last forced to retreat turn'd his coat and fought against the Queen Regent's party with all vehemency Old Savill in the Play rather then lose his beloved bunch of Keys would comply with any thing and how far a Presbyterian would stretch his Conscience rather then lose Authority must be left to judgment for I am apt to believe that many of them are not unlike Paulet the old Marquiss of Winchester who would rather bow then break being always of the King's Religion I have known some in these late times seriously deny any difference betwixt the Ministry and Laity and yet
upon this last change have call'd those irrational who questioned the jus divinum of Episcopacy And how many of our Presbyterians have declared their perpetual adhearing to their Covenant against our present Church-government yet since the Change have taken contrary preferments with a pretty distinction that they onely swore against the wickedness accidentally happening to such forms These Non-conformists have been originally the main enemies as far as sword would go against the late King and This present yet now that he is restored none courts the rising Sun-more then they and that with thwacking Rodomantado's of their activity for his Restauration and what danger and jeopardy they have incurr'd for his cause which puts me in mind of the first Reformation in Scotland When the Scriptures were allowed to be read in English then those who had ever scarce read ten sentences of it would chop their acquaintances on the cheek with it and say This hath lain under my beds feet these ten years Others would glory O! how oft have I been in danger for this book How secretly have I stoln from my wife at midnight to read upon it All which was done meerly to curry favour the Governour being then held one of the most servent Protestants in Europe And how far this story quadrates with our Presbyterian temper may be seen by the sequel discourse I have seen some men in the Rump's time when condemn'd to death for Felony by the then Judges earnestly plead their former siding with and activity for the Parliament thinking thereby to gain so much favour from the Judge who had been formerly brothers in one and the same iniquity as the procurement of a Reprieve if not a pardon But now the plea is so much alter'd that the same Faction pretends to hold forth some small favours to the present King as a badge to denote the bearers so stuft with Loyalty as to be capable of the greatest trust When the Father was alive then they fought against him to make him more glorious And now that the Son 's restored they onely sent the Earl of Warwick to pelt him beyond seas to learn humility because Affliction and Presbytery are the best Tutors to that vertue For rather then He or his Father should suffer any real damage or hurt they would do just nothing Which calâ—s to my remembrance the flatterer Afranius who swore to Caligula then sick that he would willingly dye so the Emperour might recover who upon Caligula's restoration to health was by command slain that he might not be for sworn Whether Afranius meant really or no I know not but this I am confident of That our Presbyterians take little care of any oaths tending to the safety and peace of King and Country and therefore take what liberty they please to protest knowing his Majesties mercy is such that he had rather give them time to repent for their former wickedness and perjury then put a period to their beings by the mode of Trussing as they had done formerly to many of his most faithful Subjects Americus Vespacian the Florentine had the confidence to denominate the best Continent of the West-Indies by his name though if he had not had the benefit of Colono or Colombo of Genua his observations he might as soon it's probable have found out Nigra Rupis or the certain Station of Ophir as have seen that other world And if the ever to be honour'd Duke of Albermarle had not contrived and as I may say of himself wrought out the happy Restauration of his Majesty The Brethren alas would as soon have found out the ten tribes as of themselves endeavoured the King's return unless upon Tyrannical Conditions So that if Virgil took it ill that Bathyllus had robb'd him of the honour but of one Distick the Duke of Albermarle hath no reason to favour those people who would pluck from him the greatest glory that in possibility could be thrown upon a Subject If the Presbyterians did any thing advance his Majesties Restauration it must either be by Chance or Industry As for the first they cannot expect any thanks since this event proceeded not from resolution but rather contrary to their desire or at least expectation The Ape little thought by putting on his Master's Cap to cure him of a Pluresy and he who wrote to the Lord Monteagle did not think thereby to discover the Gun-powder plot The Surgion had no intention to destroy Charles II. King of Navarre by burning the thread too carelesly and what resolutions the Presbyterians had to restore our Charles II I must yet plead ignorance till better informed but I am confident they would never willingly have this way pleasured King Charles the first And that they ever so much troubled their thoughts with the King as to make his Restauration a part of their business is hitherto as far from my discovery as the true situation of the old Towns in Ptolemy or the Northern bounders of America I hear not of any of their actions in England when his Majesty was beyond seas before his agreement with the Scots I hear of none of their designs here to assist the King or their own Brethren for him in Scotland I know of no assistance that they afforded or brought to the King when he marched for Worcester but have heard of some who have then opposed him with all their might Nor am I informed of their activeness in any of the many Plots against Oliver and if in none of these things they have been stirring their Grand Plea of Loyalty must fall to the ground unless they did his Majesty good service by being obedient and faithfull subjects to the Rump and Oliver sworn enemies to the King and in this case their plea cannot be so ingenious as that of the immortal Poet John Cleaveland I remember Antonio de Torquemeda tells a story of some men and their horses that were carried to Granada in Spain by the advantage of one Cloak though they thought they had onely been getting their dinners not thinking of such a journey And if the Presbytery did any service for the King it was I suppose after this manner when they never dreamed of it Nay I do not so much as hear the whispering of any relief till the other day of monies or such like conveniencies that they assisted the King with or any of his distressed followers Major General Massey and Captain Titus excepted and that but a poor pittance too some 400l between them not for any design but a supply of personal necessities And the reason of this beggerly liberality was not so much because they were sufferers for the King as that the former had done good services for the Presbyterian Parliament as Master Love himself doth more then hint besides this we will not forget the huge summe of 40l to Coll. Bampfield and his man Yet as a pretty token of their Loyalty they keep a great deal of clutter concerning the
actions of Master Love and a few of his associates as if this were sufficient to afford scraps of Loyalty to every particular Member of that Faction But to this may be answered First that if the story were as absolute Royal as man could imagine yet will it onely demonstrate that there were some three or four and twenty Presbyterians which were active for the good of his Majesty no more stirring in it as Master Love himself doth confess being utterly unknown to the rest of their party professing upon the Scaffold that the saying the contrary is onely a politick Engine to make the Presbyterian party odious so that the actions of these men are nothing to the vindication of the rest Besides compleat Loyalty they looked upon as odious But secondly the compleat honour of the story may upon very good grounds in the main be questioned For though they did sometimes meet at Master Love's house yet their Consultations were rather for the misery then benefit of King Church or Kingdome The main of their contrivances being to send to some about his Majesty advising them by all means to use their interests to Provoke Him i. e. the King to agree with the Scots and to take the Covenant as also to advise the Scots Commissioners that in their agreement with their King they should have a special respect to the Interest of Religion and Terms of the Covenant and to this purpose they must tumble out their prayers and send into Scotland to know whether they did maintain Religion and Covenant Interest So that the Scots were not onely guilty of their after Covenanting Tyranny with their betters but the English Brethren also by their thus thrusting on the design Hitherto we see all the Loyalty and affection by these men shew'd to their Soveraign was meerly conditionally and that upon a Covenant-account little beneficial to the King or his Party as may appear by the acknowledgement of one of their Patrons viz. Mr. Love I do retain as vehement a detestation of Malignancy whether in England or in Scotland as ever I did and shall in my place and calling oppose such a Design and Interest with as much zeal and faithfulness as ever Nor was his rancour towards the Kings best friends staid here but even upon the Scaffold just before his death as if thereby he intended to proclaim them odious to Posterity he thus endeavours to charm his Auditours I dye with my judgement set against Malignity I do hate both name and thing I shall retain as vehement a detestation of a Malignant Interest as ever I did And what he meant by a Malignant himself shall declare though 't is well enough understood I do not count the godly party our Covenanting Brethren in Scotland I do not count them a Malignant Party But who then he presently thus tells you My judgement then was and still is for bringing Malignants who did seduce him i. e. King Charles the first and draw him from the Parliament to condign punishment And the best friends his Majesty had beyond-Sea with him he calls desperate Malignants and bad Council so that I believe little honour can be attributed to this Conventicle for what they did However if through civility though not any share of merit we should grant that this little meeting was of a greater consequence for the benefit of the King than it either was or could be imagined though Mr. Love doth protest in the presence of God the searcher of all hearts that he knoweth no Plot or Design against the present Government i. e. Rump nor is he privy in the least to any preparations for or intendments towards any intestine Insurrections or forraign Invasions or to any Correspondencies now held with any in or of the Scottish Nation or any other whatsoever Though I say some credit were given to this Design yet will it not advance the reputation of the contrivers considering their after-submission to the Rump calling them the Supream Authority the Parliament of the Common-wealth of England c. Mr. Love professing That he is unfaignedly sorry for his so acting and promiseth never to plot contrive or design any thing to the hurt of this present Government Rump and that he is sorrowful for his high crimes and offences against the Parliament in his late and great miscarriages and desires them to pass by these sundry and great offences and at last thus fairly concludes That I shall devote the remainder of my dayes to the glory of God and good of his people the peace and safety of this Common-wealth against all the Malignant Enemies and opposers thereof Nor did he alone recant but also Jenkins Case and others of the same Club. Here we see a Company of Penitents hanging down their heads as if upon a Scottish-stool of Repentance acknowledging their Iniquity and sins for talking of the King with a great deal of remorse and sorrow faithfully promising for the future to live obedient subjects to their Rumpships and al this to procure the favour and love of those Usurping and King-killing Tyrants Yet when Love saw that all his whining and puleing would not work his Pardon but that they were resolved to let him bloud Then forsooth he thought it best to put a good face upon the business and so being on the Scaffold and perceiving no hopes of life he plucks up his courage and for the credit of himself and Brethren he begins to â—ant dapperly against the Rump affirming for all his former repentance That for the things I am condemn'd neither God nor mine own Conscience condemn me and I would not be look'd upon as a man owning this present Government I dye with my judgement against it and at last calls himself a Martyr Though he had a little before acknowledged himself guilty of the sentence of death justly passed on him And affirmed that he was insnared into the business and that through unadvisedness and weakness yet this complyance he boldly denyeth upon the Scaffold I am accused to be an Apostate to be a Turn-coat to be this to be that to be any thing but what I am but a long Sword a bloudy Scaffold hath not made me in the least to alter my Principles The truth of which I must leave to the Reader only telling him that the Margaiates in America scorn to submit to their Enemies because they know that it will not save their lives though probably if repentance would be an advantage they might be as ready as others If Mr. Love dyed a Martyr it was as unwillingly as ever man did it being the Rumps resolution for example sake not his constancy that brought him to the Block In plain English the man was of a hasty and violent spirit which seldom hath a rational or sound foundation and by many is accused to be the breaker up of the Uxbridge-Treaty by his ranting
Sermon of which Preachment the Kings Commissioners complained though to small purpose as appears by the Answers yet I shall willingly quit him from this knowing that neither the Parliament nor their Commissioners would be guided by his pratling and being fully satisfied that the Parliament never really intended a Peace unless they had thereby reduced the King to a Royal slave or worse and have got liberty for themselves to have acted Treason and Tyrannized over the poor Nation cum Privilegio and this was the design of all their counterfeited Treaties Yet I must needs acknowledge that Mr. Love did what in him lay to dissolve the Peace as is palpable from the wicked and malicious assertions and admonitions laid down by him in that Sermon concluding it Whiles our Enemies go on in their wicked practises and whiles we keep our Principles we may assoon make Fire and Water to agree and I had almost said reconcile Heaven and Hell as their spirits and ours either they must grow better or we must grow worse before it is possible for us to agree Words denoting such a malignant principle that I am willing to quit those whom he and the rest of his gang are pleas'd to call so by putting the Saddle on the right Horse and attributing the Epithet to himself I might here also intimate some of his sacrilegious vapours by discoursing upon his extravagant reproaches thrown upon the Church of England which I am confident might lawfully defend herself by force of Arms against the impious actions of her spurious Antagonists if that be true which Mr. Love affirms viz. That it is an hurtful Opinion to imagine that the people might not do so against their Soveraign I shall conclude with our supposed Martyr by asserting that he who had the ignorance blind-zeal and impudence to tearm Episcopacy and the Common-Prayer-Book the two Plague-sores several times in one Preachment had need have set-Forms of Sermons enjoyned him as well as Prayers And the Presbyterian House of Commons who cleared Mr. Love from any slander for pratling such stuff did plainly demonstrate what little desire they had for Peace and thereby intimated their abominable hypocrisie to the whole world since the Sermon pardon the giving it so good a Title seemed more like an Harangue to encourage the People to a bloudy slaughter and it is not unknown how oft he mentioned the necessity of drawing bloud than the imbracement of a happy and setled Peace Having thus sufficiently proved Mr. Love to be no such Martyr as his Fraternity flab out though much more might be enlarged upon this Subject and upon every discourse fly to him as a sufficient Asylum where they think they may handsomly secure a Reputation I shall now say something to another Objection whose main force lyeth upon the credit of the Covenant and so may with its Dam sleep with ignominy rather than be held forth as a badge of honesty In this plea they boast much in their taking the Covenant in which there is one clause for the Preservation of the Kings Person to which League one of their Chieftains brags that above 600. Ministers did subscribe To which I shall answer that if he glory in the number 600. is but a poor Bed-role in respect of 10000. for about so many Ministers are there in England But again the taking of this Covenant is no consequence of a good and loyal Subject but rather the contrary being against the Kings express command But again It is not the taking of an Oath provided it be a lawful one but the keeping of it that may demand commendations And when Subjects break Allegiance at pleasure as they are a trouble to their King and Countrey so are they wicked before God and so merit no commendation no good being entended either to King or Countrey by this knack of Perjury What benefit was it for Ataulphus Sigericus Thurismundus Theudesilus Agila and Luyba those Goths in Spain or for Friola and Sancho Kings of Leon to confide in their people and expect obedience since they were slain by their own Subjects What advantage was it for St. Wenceslaw Jaromirus and Wenceslaw the V. Dukes and Kings of Bohemia or for Gotrick and the three Eric's of Denmark to trust to the obedience which Law and Nature might assure them of since contrary to all fidelity they were murdered by their own People Those of Swedland cannot handsomly boast of their Loyalty by killing Ingevallus Eric Aorsel or Stanchil and Swercherus their Kings Nor could the Queen of the same Countrey expect Commendations by affirming her subjection and love to her King and Husband Ingemarus since she broak both by hanging him in a Gold Chain as Queen Fredegunde did hers by procuring the murder of Chilperic King of France as Fergusius III. and Malvinus Kings of Scotland were thus assassinated by their Queens Will any man quit the Treasons of Zedechias for saying that he was sworn Physitian to the Emperour or pardon Jaques Clement Jean Chastel or Francis Ravaillac if they should say Their Religion obliged them to obedience since the first poysoned Charles le Chauve the second stabbed Henry III. of France Chastel assaulted Henry IV. and the last man murdered him Would it not heighten the wickedness of Dowall the three Donalds and the two Fidlers by pleading that they were Subjects when they were so farr from observing their Allegiance that they impiously murdered their Soveraigns Nothatus Ethodius I. Findocus Fethelmacus Conranus or Goranus and Duffus Kings of Scotland and to these I may add the Assassinators of James I. of the same Nation But to return home passing by the disobedience shewn to some of our own Kings of former ages will it any way diminish the crimes of the Presbyterian Ministry with the rest of the Schismaticks if they should plead that they formerly subscribed the Articles of the Church of England but especially the 36. Canon when they took their Degrees as appears by their own hands in the two Universities a Catalogue of which might be produced to the eternal ignomy and perjury of the Brotherhood since they violently broke all their promises to the destruction of our Church and State Can any quit the long Parliament of Hypocrisie when they affirm that they all took the Protestation for the Kings Preservation and therefore wonder'd that he should think much at their actions though they were in actual rebellion against him Would it not be a pretty plea for the Kings Enemies to say Alas How could we intend any harm against him since we all took the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy Or can any man give any credit to the wicked long-Long-Parliament when they affirm that they never rejected the Common-Prayer-Book nor do intend only to alter it When the enmity of those then in the Houses against that Book both before and after is well enough known But truth in those dayes was not used to be spoken within those walls
neither out of them by the Zealots then in Possession Our late Grandees made many hundred Protestations that all their actions were only for the Preservation of the Kings Person yet they most wickedly murthered him because he was a Defender of the true Faith as the ancient Sweeds martyr'd their good King Eric Stenchil because he intended to bring the Christian Religion amongst them And our Presbyterians swore in the Covenant to preserve the King yet never did in the least assist him but fought what they could against him as appears by the series of the whole Warr. When the Parliament threw by their King and Oaths in the Votes for Non-Address the Nation saw that they were then contriving his ruine And the Royalists knew that their Soveraign must be saved then or never for which purpose in 1648. they seize upon Carlisle Barwick and Pontefrait in the North whilst those of Kent grow numerous in the South Thus the Kings Party though devested of Arms and Strength bestirr themselves like faithful Subjects But what did the Brethren do Alas they acted very high too though the clean contrary way The Parliament cursing the Royal design with Bell Book and Candle contriving night and day how to bring them to distruction whilst their Associates in the Countrey and Army furiously opposed and at last as the Devil was permitted to triumph over Job proved victorious to the ruine of the Kings best friends Yet had these Zealots according to their Oaths taken up their Weapons probably the Kings murder and other following mischiefs had been stopt But God would not suffer such wicked perjured Wretches to be Authors of so much good It being miraculous which are now ceased that the madd Bulls of Spain should be so favourable to the Corps of St. James And that the Devil that delighter in mischief should wait upon a good Knight so faithfully and be so beneficial to Christianity as to pay for a Bell that the people might with more facility be drawn to Church Thus did these people for all their gude Covenant suffer their King to be murdred before their faces without moving one hand for a rescue unless you will allow the Petitioning of a few when it was too late to do any good by soft words though it was more than could be expected from those who had done him all the mischief that Sword Gun or Malice could do which puts me in mind of a passage in a Paper printed for Robert White before the decollation of his Majesty The well-known Gilb. Mabbot being Imprimatur It 's conceived absurd and hypocritical to swear the Preservation of the Kings Person as a man when at the same time a Warr is ingaged against him and he known to be in the Field subject to death by the Bullet and Sword And it is well known that some of the Souldiers said that they would kill the King asson as another man Though I do not say that the Presbyterians were the men that did actually murder him yet we know that the Rump was not free from some of that Faction and so whether any of that party consented to the stroak or no yet I am confident that most if not all of that gang brought him to the Scaffold concerning which I shall borrow a Story from an Ingenious Knight for I do not love like some of late to steal whole pages and attribute their product to mine own Brain and this may very well reflect upon the whole Presbyterian Party Some Robbers on Shooters-Hill assault an honest Gentleman yet the Thieves among themselves are divided some inclining only to bind him and leave him helpless in the adjacent Woods But others for their greater security from pursuit determin rather to murther him out-right Now I suppose an honest Jury will find both Parties guilty of and agreed in the main Design viz. Robbery The Application is so true and plain that any man will judge the Presbyterians as well guilty of High-Treason For 1. Fighting against their King 2. Voting all his Assisters to be Traytors contrary to the Law 3. Hanging and Beheading many gallant Gentlemen only for their Loyalty 4. Sequestrating the Orthodox and ruining the Church both against Law and King 5. Calling his Majesty through his Declarations scandalous impious false wicked tyrannical and what not 6. Voting the Queen a Traytor for assisting the King her Husband against Rebels 7. Ordering such abominable Propositions that a Peace could not be agitated unless the Kings best Friends were delivered up to hop headless 8. Forcing Oaths upon the People contrary to the Kings Command and the Law of the Land 9. Confining his Majesty 10. Pinding him up to such intolerable Rules and Covenants or else they will have none of him 11. Throwing him by or rather disowning him to be their King by their Votes for Non-Address 12. Voting and Fighting against those who in 1648. endeavoured to release him from his Imprisonment and save him from the Block With several other such like mad pranks as these which if not singly as most of them will yet I am confident will make Accumulative Treason which will either hang them according to their own deeds or else they murdered the Earl of Strafford and murther is death both by the Laws of God and Man I say an Indifferent Jury need never go from the Barr to consider but at the first hearing would freely find the Presbyterian Subjects as well guilty of Treason against their Soveraign as those who would not add sin to sin by Hypocrisie but impiously declared their dislike to Monarchy by a wicked Decollation Another refuge and that the last that the Brethren have is in the action of Sir George Booth That some of them were well-wishers to it I cannot because my knowledge is not Omnipotent deny but what assistance and upon what conditions they afforded to that design I shall leave for them to demonstrate I being unwilling to say what Lords utter Enemies to Episcopacy would not so much as Interest themselves in it if reports be true or at least so cowardly that they only advantaged the Kings Enemies But enough of this it being farr from my humour to be so malepert with some Nobles as the Presbyterians are impudent with his Majesty Though I am really of Opinion that had that Design taken effect we should have had our old warre renew'd again the Puritans having been once armed and imbodyed would have fought down our legal Episcopal Government and chained up his Majesty to some New-Castle or Isle of Wight-like conditions or if they had proved Maisters sent the King beyond Sea again or secured him if not yielded him up also to the Independants for what wickednesse have they not undertaken to bring about their ends whether it be true or noe that the Devils have had several conventions for the extirpating of the Franciscan Order it matters not though I am confident the Brethren seldome consult but
for the distruction of our Church But if 8000 Fiends could no way endamage seven poor Fryers I hope nor they nor Presbytery will ever be able to do any mischief to the Church of England Yet as a descant upon the Objection of those who plead their activity in Sir George Booth's businesse I shall propose one Query Whether if the Presbyterians had supposed that our present King would have been so opposite to their Interests as his glorious Father was They would any way have bestirr'd themselves for his Restauration Here I would not be understood of those who at the beginning of these troubles had the misfortune to be of that Faction yet since turn'd to the true Church with an acknowledgment of their former errours and this through conscience not preferment the once-flourishing Church being then in a persecution But I intend those whose frantick zeal yet binds them up to Schism as well as those who are stuft with Presbytery in Sr. George's rising and since of whom I believe repentance is not yet impossible because I read that the Devill himself hath humbly acknowledged and confessed his offences But to the Query if they would not have endeavour'd his restorement being so qualified then must they needs have a large stock of confidence to demand thanks where none is due but rather an halter for their assistance in the businesse But if they did desire the King again and so qualyfied then must they either declare that they have been wicked Villains and Traytors against the late King or that this present King was help'd in by them more through their goodness to him than his own desert For my part I am apt to give credit to the negative really thinking that if they had had as bad thoughts of this King as of his Father who yet was better than the best of his enemies they would have made it their businesse to have kept him out though under favour 't is as much Treason to depose a Tyrant as a good King And I am drawn to be of this perswasion by these following Motives That they looked upon his Fathers non-complyance with their peevish humours as a monstrous wickednesse is a truth not hitherto denyed Wherefore else should Mr. Love pray that God would redeem him i. e. Charles II. from the iniquity of his Fathers house And not half an houre before his own death to be so farre out of Charity with the oppressed and Martyr'd King as to bluster out For my part I have opposed the Tyranny of a King And with this Love great in the eyes of the Presbyterians doth the grand Patron of that Sect in Scotland Mr. Robert Dowglas agree who had the impudence pardon that low expression for language cannot reach the wickednesse of his pretended Sermon to tell the King to his face several times of the sins of his Father and Family Of which I shall give you some taste and that in his own words It is earnestly wished that our Kings heart may be tender and be truly humbled before the Lord for the sins of his Fathers house And for the many evils that are upon that Family Again Our late King did build much mischief to Religion all the days of his Life And again Sir there is too much iniquity upon the throne of your predecessors who framed mischief by a Law such Laws as have been destructive to Religion and grievous to the Lords people And again I may say freely that a chief cause of the judgment upon the Kings house hath been the Grand-fathers breach of Covenant with God and the Fathers following his steps in opposing the work of God and the Kirk within this Realm And since he holds the King to be so wicked what must be done with him himself doth intimate in these following words This may serve to justifie the proceedings of this Kingdome against the late King who in an hostile way set himself to overthrow Religion Parliament Laws and Liberties If Elisha call'd judgment from Heaven upon little Children for calling of him bald-head What punishment do these Boute-feus deserve for throwing such false and wicked slanders and reproaches upon a just and good King If the Romans according to their custome broak the legs of the wicked accuser of Apollonius because he could not prove his words what tortures do those merit who so falsly revile their innocent Ruler And if Nerva would have servants slain as ungrateful wretches who presumed to accuse their Masters What death would he inflict upon those who had the impudence thus to vilifie their Soveraign But it was not Dowglas alone who thought the late Rebellion against the King to be lawful and commendable but others of them and those the chief too nor indeed do I remember that any Presbyterian denyed it Amongst its chief assertors thus doth Love declare himself I did it is true oppose in my place and calling the forces of the late King and were he alive again and should I live longer the cause being as then it was I should oppose him longer And of the same Rebellious humour is the much talked of Baxter who several times professeth that if he had not been on the Parliaments party he had been guilty of High Treason against the Higher power which his hasty zeal took to be the Parliament But I shall leave him to the meditation of the Rebels plea which if he do but seriously consider I am confident he may have a sight of his sins against which conversion I believe the Brethren pray daily And of this opinion concerning the lawfulnesse of the Warre was old Hall of Kings-Norton canting and recanting Jenkins of London mad-pated Crofton railing Vicars with the rest of the covenanting Diegoes It being one Article in their League and Creed that all Malignants that divided the King from his people c. contrary to the League and Covenant be brought to publick Tryal and receive condigne punishment and by whom this is meant needs no Oedipus to unriddle So that if the King offer to protect these eye-sores of theirs they think themselves obliged by their Oath to take Armes to punish the Kings best subjects according to their pretty oath And yet must these mens actions be held ever for the best as if they had taken infallibility from the Papall Chair Which puts me in mind of a Quaker who not long since through ignorance led a friend of mine above 4 miles out of his way going to Oxford and when he perceived his error greatly cryed up the good providence of God which had brought them that way because as he said for ought he knew they might have been rob'd had they gone the right road And how many of the Puritans have hug'd themselves because they have been in a wrong way against King and Church may appear by many of their Thanks-giving Sermons and speeches And whether these men can be call'd good
Subjects who would thus shackle their King extirpate and ruine his most faithful friends I should willingly leave to the judgment of Cornelius Burges himself if he would but throw by his malice and those ill-got lands which binds him to a perpetual partiality But because some may object that this was but the fancy of some fiery Lecturers though I think it would be difficult to nominate so much as one of this faction then of age who did not actively acknowledge the legality of the Rebellion and yet I hear of small repentance we will see what they say in their so much cryed up Representatives in Parliament and this multitude we shall consider in two respects I. In their Actions from the beginning of the Warre till the end of it II. In their Principles after their happy seclusion by the Independent Army til the Restauration of his Majesty As for the first It is as true as Penry Martin marre Prelat was hang'd or Burton and Bastwicks eares cut off that the members and 't is well known what they were of the wicked Long Parliament remaining at Westminster did declare the lawfulnesse of the War and accordingly by their wicked Counsels carryed it on which is as impossible to be denyed as the fight of Lepanto or 88. As for the second viz. the malevolent humours of the secluded Members if their hearts may be known by their actions and we have no other Index they shall presently appear as bad as their Neighbours For after that God had allowed them some ten or eleven years time of repentance they still harden their own hearts looking upon their former actions against their King to be too honest to require remorse or sorrow as if they had done God good service by fighting against his Laws and Anointed For no sooner were they restored by the now Duke of Albemarle but they fell again to the adoring and doing homage to their long-forgotten Idol the Holy-League and for it 's greater honour vomiting out this Order Ordered that the Solemn League and Covenant be printed and published and set up and forthwith read in every Church and that also once every year according to former Order of Parliament and that the same Solemn League and Covenant be also set up in this House And to shew themselves as pert blades against the King as ever it was Ordered by their Worships that no Commissioner or Commissionated Officer should exercise any power or Authority till he had acknowledged as followeth I do acknowledge and declare that the War undertaken by both Houses of Parliament in their defence against the Forces raised in the name of the late King was just and lawful c. Nor is this all though enough in conscience to make a Traytor or else farewell Poulton but the better to make the insuing Parliament according to their Puritanical humours thereby to bring the Nations again into slavery They a little after the former Orders Decree that none shall be capable of being chosen a Member of Parliament which hath any way assisted the King against their Worships unless he had since recanted his former adhearing to the King Hitherto we see no sign of repentance for their former Rebellion but rather a stubborn malepert zeal swaying amongst this Faction and prompting them to a readiness of their own justification for their so doing Though it is a certain truth that they were the Causa sine quâ non of the King's Murther they putting the sword into the Independent hand which gave the fatal stroke And these who are thus so confident to justifie their wickedness against the Father will not be wanting to create the same jealousies that they might have the same opportunity against the Son as the multitude of scandalous and seditious Pamphlets and I wish many Lectures were not so too yet daily flying abroad doth somewhat intimate However had their malice hurried them on to far more extravagant actions and who knows what they might have done if their Carreer had not been stopt yet had they done but like themselves A Presbyteri an Parliament being as far from doing Soveraignity any good for hitherto an instance cannot be cull'd out of any story as the rest of the Puritans studious for the reall peace of the Church and Kingdome against both which such is their malice that I could easily believe that they Tutor up one another as Amilcar the Carthagenian did his young son Hannibal by making him swear to persecute the Romans with all fury imaginable And we know that Beza perswaded his Brother hot-head John Knox by all means to extirpate Episcopal Government out of Scotland though the being of it there might cause peace and unity And what mad pranks old Knox play'd in that Kingdome their own stories can inform us And the truth of it is the old zealot had been so well nurtured up at Geneva by Beza and others that no other could be expected from him of whole factious humour and doctrine take this for a Tast He maintained That Subjects may not onely God's Law not as a King but as an Offender Certainly Master John was very well acquainted with the poor fellow of Collen who bittingly distinguished betwixt the Prince Elector and the Arch-bishop And probably the Logicians in the long-winded Juncto were beholden to these two cunning Pates who could with aboundance of dapperness squeeze out of their infected brains the forgotten distinction of the Person and Office of a King which is not unlike some Pole-Axes with a Gun and tuck all in one piece if one fail to distroy you the other is certain of execution The Proverb assureth us that it is good to have two strings to a bow thus the Presbyterians when they cannot hurt they King they will punish the Offender and rather then their malice in this must not take effect they will sacrifice the lives of many thousands of Innocents Though when all is sum'd up all their specious pretenses is far short of the value of one drop of bloud The Roman Rebels under Catiline could tell the people that they fought not for Supremacy or Riches but meer Liberry And how hath the air of Great Britain been putrified with the hypocritical clamours of Religion Reformation and Priviledges and that with such fury as if our Puritans like Catilines associates had encouraged one another into a wicked conspiracy with the intoxicating healths of humane blood It is reported of Pope Boniface VIII that he entred like a Fox ruled like a Lyon and dyed like a Dog And I am confident our Puritans obstain'd more by hypocricy then true piety And having once made themselves Masters it is not forgot how they Tyrannized over the poor Nation and the King 's best friends which hath brought such an odium upon them in the Nostrils of all good men that I believe their exit wil be as reproachful to themselves as beneficial to the Nations so that of them
might be said as Platina said of the same Pope Thus expired these Bonte-feus who rather endeavour'd to make themselves a terror to Kings Magistrates then study the increase and propagation of true Religion However if after all this we should grant though I see small reason for so doing that the Presbyterians did contribute something to his Majestie 's restauration yet will the credit if rightly considered be so little that they have aboundance of confidence who can boast of it It being done supposing that they were assisters rather for their own ends then any real love which they bore towards his Majesty And what will not these men do for their own advantage We need not tell here of some Patrons of that Faction who first subscribed to Episcopacy then took the Covenant against it then took the Engagement against Kingship and since have embraced both King and Episcopal Government And certainly most ignorant must that man be who supposeth that those who thus vary do it really by perswasion of the excellent goodness of that thing they then engage for rather then a time-serving humour for a private benefit And what little thanks much lesse reward the Puritans merit by their assistance supposing that they were advantagious may be hinted at by these following parallel stories At that famous Siege of Ostend a Frenchman by disobeying his Serjeant caus'd a Tumult for which he was condemned by a Councel of War to be Shot to Death Yet at the intercession of the French Captain that renowned General Sir Francis Vere granted him life upon condition he asked the Serjeant forgiveness This he scorned however had eight days allow'd him to consider at the end of which he seeming still obstinate was Ordered to Execution and accordingly was tyed to a Stake But no sooner did the Monsieur see the Harquebusiers ready to discharge but the fear of death falling upon him he desired to be unbound and so asked the Serjeant forgiveness Our Brittish Presbyterians by disobedience to their King caused a most wicked war to the ruin of many Noble families and the King himself The merciful King for the preservation of his Subjects bloud sent to the Malefactors Post after Post a full pardon provided there might be a sure peace and a perfect Amnesty To these propositions they scorn to hearken and by their Covenant swear to ruin all the King's friends and in this manner being confident in their own strength they run on in obstinacy and in this stubborn fashion did they continue many years thinking themselves secure But at last to their amazement they beheld the Independent ready to cut their throats this fear of a sudden destruction brought such a terrour upon these zealots that they were even at their wits ends they look round about for relief cast out many a sigh to obtain favour but they perceive no safety unless they would acknowledge themselves Subjects to their King This they thought a hard lesson and contradictory to their Christian Liberty but taking it for a good rule that of two Evils the lesse is to be chosen they with a low voyce not willing to be heard mumble out that Charles II. is their King and so through his Majesties mercy were relieved from their bondage though innocent souls they scorned to ask pardon for their former villanies in which they came short of the French mans ingenuity But to bring the Simile somewhat more pat in respect of the relation betwixt a Soveraign and a Subject Above 300. years past the Danes banished their King Christophorus II. and Imprisoned his eldest son Eric in the strong Castle of Hadersleben in the Dukedome of Schleswick These dissentions having weakened the Nation those of Holstein endeavour'd to get Denmark under their subjection which the Danes perceiving were glad to re-call their King and set free his Son This story will unfold it self in the application of the following Narrative which is exactly to the business and hath formerly been used by an Ingenious Gentleman in a speech at Nottngham though in the relating I shall not only somewhat differ from him but also inlarge my self out of the Chronicles themselves James I. King of Scotland when but Prince and young going into France was taken Prisoner by the English 7. Henry IV. 1406. where he was detain'd some 18. years In the mean time the Government of Scotland was usurped by Robert Steward Duke of Albany and Earl of Fyfe after whose death his Son Mordack or Murdo got the command never endeavouring the resettlement of his King but lorded it over the Nation wasting and alientating the King's Revenue and the Churches Patrimony turning all things upside down according to his Tyrannical humour In the mean while Mordac had three sons Walter Alexander and James though André de Chesne through brevity taketh no notice of the latter who grew very unruly and imperious obedient to no laws but their own wills presumptiously destroying what their Father most delighted in to his great grief and discontent And not being able to endure their sawciness he resolved to free himself from their Tyrannical yoak to which purpose he told his eldest son Walter who had just then snatch'd a Faulcon from his fathers hand and wrong off her neck that since he would not be obedient to his government and pleasure he would procure one who should rule them both After which time all his Counsels were for the restauration of King James resolving rather to be a Subject to a lawful King then a slave to his own Children For which purpose he gets a Parliament call'd at Saint Johnstown where all being weary of the present Government and Tyranny it was unanimously concluded to send for their own King home again which accordingly was done 1424. and he presently restoreth both the Crown and Church Revenues And in a Parliament held at Sterling Mordacus with his two sons were condemn'd as Traytors and beheaded his youngest son flying into Ireland where he dyed The Application of this Story is obvious Our present King when also but a young Prince by the malignancy of self-ended Traytors being secluded from his own for the space also of eighteen years The Government of the Nation was seised upon by the furious Presbyterians who Tyrannize to the purpose over the distracted Country getting the King's Lands selling his Woods loading the Nation with Excise and Taxes ruining the Church imprisoning and murthering the Bishops and others of the Chief Gentry whose estates they also put into their pockets imposing wicked oaths upon the people vilifying their King murthering his Subjects and in a word violating all Laws After this fashion did old Father Presbytery Tyrannize for some years But at last Independency Anabaptism and the Fifth-Monarchy-men the three ungracious sons of Presbytery began to perk up grow headstrong and so malepert as to contemn scorn and deride their Father spitting in his face and throwing all reproaches they could upon him
and at last fairly took the Old Knave by the beard giving him a swing from the seat of Correction to the utter discredit and defilement of his short Lecturing Coat and Sister-visiting black and white Caps for Two Caps he had and turns up that within You 'd think he wore a black Pot tip't with Tin These three younkers being now on Cock-horse so tryumph'd over their old wicked Parent that he durst scarce say his soul was his own not allowing him his will in any thing and by a just judgment of God paying him home in his own coyn as the learned and judicious Patron of our Church observeth For as this old jugler had impudently quiped the Reverend Church of England with what command or example have you for kneeling at the Communion for wearing a Surplice c for Lord Bishops for a penned Liturgy for keeping Holy-days c. So these three Mad-caps thus retort upon their amazed Father where are your Lay-Presbyters your Classes c. to be found in Scripture where your Steeple-houses your National-Church your Tithes and Mortuaries your Infant-sprinklings nay where your Meeter-Psalms your two Sacraments your observing a weekly Sabbath Shew us say they a Command or Example for them in Scripture Thus did these three hopefalls retort tearming all the old Knaves actions selvish worldly wicked and onely of humany institution which proceeding from his own Brats so perplext old Father Schism that being naturally of a cholerick temper he could no longer endure the injuries and ingratefulness of these three Hot-spurs who received life and nourishment under the shadow of his fiery zeal but that which touch'd his heart most was their plucking from him all Rule and Authority so that his credit could scarce obtain a beast to trott it to the next Lecture These affronts sufficient to make the Father run horn-mad and the multitude of Conventicles may allow some Presbyterian Cockolds or else what would the Sister-hood do prompts him to a resolution to free himself from the lash of these his three boys who out strip'd him in new inlighten'd zeal and being thus grown mad with dispair and willing to submit to any thing so he might be freed from this yoak and having consulted his pillow with aboundance of time and leasure he saw no way to quel these his insulting Children but the restauration of his Majesty And because a late repentance is better then none he hoped by thus working his own benefit to obtain his own pardon knowing the King's mercy to be as great as the Presbyterian wickedness Thus for his own advantage to obtain the return of his Majesty he procured a Parliament which to the joy of the Nation recall'd the King yet not according to the Presbyterian hopes who expected not a free but conditional return The truth of this Application must be left to the understanding Reader who shall be minded of the Spanish Proverb Hagase el milagro y hagalo Mahoma Let us but have our desires though the Devil or Turk be our instruments or Assistants And with this I am pretty confident the Brethren did not disagree is appearing by their long compliance yet hatred to be kept under that they did not care so be that they were but relieved from the Independent slavery though it were done by him whom they always hated and was the son of him who they always held for the Common enemy and whose friends they had solemnly sworn to punish and ruin What good wishes these people had for the King was meerly for their own ends as I am apt to credit when I consider their high complying with Richard one of their Chieftains viz. Master Baxter applying himself several times to him by way of a faithful subject and advising him how to behave himself the better to perpetuate his usurp'd authority and seem'd very discontented at his deposing And though many of them disliked Oliver yet if you do but inquire of Doctor Manton for so he is now for which he may thank the negligence of the Proposer I suppose he can inform you who it was that when Oliver was re-made Protectour 1657. pray'd so heartily for him in Westminster Hall And for the Saints of the Committee of Safety you would bless your self to see how the Brotherhood of Leicestershire accosted them humbling themselves under the protection of those Lords of Wallingford house declaring their utter dislike to the intentions of those who in Sir George Booths business stir'd for the King Nay should I say that some of this faction were a part of the very Rump it self I supposed the Brethren would be puzzel'd to prove the Contrary Thus like Diogenes's Archer do they hit every where but the right mark and this through an innated spirit of wickedness and inconstancy which puts me in mind of a story Robert King of Naples having desired Giotto then famous in Italy to paint him out his Kingdome drew an Asse with a Saddle on his back and smelling to another new Saddle and upon each Saddle a Crown and a Scepter the King demanding what he meant thereby he replyed Such is your Kingdome and Subjects for they desire new Lords daily I am confident that the best Hieroglyphick of a Time-server would be a fat-beneficed Presbyterian yet did that Faction but once grow powerful they would be like Giotto's Asse still smelling after new Governments and Neapolitan Courser in Boccalini always ready to cast his Rider So that if one should ask many of them Where was the binding force of their Covenant in Oliver's Richard's the Rump's and the Committee of Safety 's time there would be but a shuffling Answer return'd Thus I suppose the Query is sufficiently satisfied information being particularly given of their Opinions and Actions all running cross-grain'd to the King and his Interest and therefore I suppose little beneficial to his restauration A tast of which you may see in these few instances I. The late war against the King was lawful and commendable II. It is lawful for Subjects to fight against their King and so the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy of small validity III. The King is not above the two Houses of Parliament and so they not subject to him IV. They are bound to oppose all Arch-bishops Bishops Deans Prebends c. having exactly sworn against them in the Covenant and so against Church-government appointed by the King and the Laws V. They are by the same Oath obliged to bring to condign Punishment all Malignants that is all those who assisted the King and were sufferers with him here or beyond-sea so that had these men been such a main stake in the King's restauration they would according to their Oaths and Cruelty either have stopt the King's friends as the Scots did from returning with him or have proceeded against them as Malefactors and Malignants and so have butcher'd them out of this world as they formerly did with the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Sir
Alexander Carew Master Bowcher Master Yeomans Master Tomkins Master Challoner Sir George Lysle Sir Charles Lucas and several others some by a dissembling method of judicature and other by the quick and speedy mode of Abington VI. They never assisted any Plot in behalf of the King Nay suffered him to be Murthered without one stroke not taking the Royalists part in his relief Nay when a little before his murther the Royal party rose up in Armes for his rescue the Presbyterians of the Parliament opposed their actions by Voting and Ordering whilst those in the Country fought against them VII If this present King be as bad as his Father that is thwart their Schismatical humours as much they are bound to fight against him and so not to restore him freely as he was For if they be not obliged to oppose him so qualified then was their late war against his Father unnecessary and so by their own confession themselves Traytors If again they are bound to oppose him so qualified then must they confess that the restauration of the present King so qualified was more through their own goodness and hopes of his amendment than any desert or merit in himself This shews that they are for the King onely when he is for their ends And Conditional Subjects in a Pure Monarchy deserve a Halter rather then Commendation VIII None fit to be a Commission-Officer that would not affirm the late Rebellion lawful so that it is no hard matter to judge what a pretty Militia they would have had again and being once up God knows how they would have imploy'd them IX None is capable of being a Parliament-man that was ever on the Kings Party unless he had recanted and declared his sorrow therefore by his after-adhering to the Parliament So that the Faction of the Houses so qualified would presently drive the King from White-Hall again and How would they then Tyrannize having the Militia at their beck as abovesaid X. They have quietly submitted to every Party and usurped Authority yet grumble to live obedient to that commanded by the King and the Laws of the Land so that it appears that they have no great share of Love or Obedience to Charles II. as their King and Soveraign but it may be only because he releas'd them from an Independent bondage for which they deserve no store of thanks their duty being rather bought than freely bestowed How these Opinions and Actions can agree with honest and faithful Subjects I cannot in the least conjecture And therefore I must think it very improbable that those men should freely and without any Conditions restore the Son and set him over them whose Father they had fought against imprisoned vilified and basely delivered up into the hands of his bloudy Executioners Certainly these Principles can never quadrate with the free and uncapitulated Restauration of his Majesty some being unwilling to have him ride in on Horse-back and others looking as farr back as the Isle of Wight Mordake though Instrumental in the Restauration of King James I. of Scotland yet he with two of his sons suffer'd death for their former Treasons whilst the third fled into Ireland And really the Presbyterians do very badly yet like themselves requite his Majesty for his free Pardon of their Villanies by their refractory behaviour and wicked Pamphlets which prompts me to agree with an Ingenious Gentleman That Men possibly may repent of Presbytery but Presbytery never yet repented of any thing To be short For any thing that I yet perceive I may as well give credit to Sedulius his Apology in behalf of Pisa's Conformity of St. Francis with our Saviour as to the high brags of our Presbyterians concerning their restoring the King many men making high pretences though without any ground or reason Old Falstaff swore that he fought a long hour by Shrewsbury Clock with stout Percy and at last slew him though if you will believe the Comaedian the sight of a drawn Sword would be a sufficient purge to his Knightship Our Legendaries affirm that the reason of no venomous Creatures in Ireland is because St. Patrick beat them away with his staff which I believe to be as true as his causing the stoln Sheep to bleat in the Theifs belly along time after it had been eaten Our modern Exorcists will tell you pretty Stories of their afrighting the Devil with some Priests Gloves and Shirts Dibdale's Stockings Campian's Girdle and such like knick-knacks though the truth of the business is undeniably false Some Witches will relate fine tales of their travailing in divers shapes hither and thither though all that while they have not budged out of their Chambers being deluded by a Trance A late Printer hath boasted himself the Author of a modern Book though the poor Soul as they say understands no Latin a language often made use of in that Treatise And the Indians confidently believe and relate that those little sandish Islands adjoyning to the Island Manare were miraculously done by the leaping and jumping of an Ape call'd Hanimantus their chief God and to these may I add the whimsical boasts of the Presbyterians of their activeness for his Majesties uncapitulated Restauration However to pleasure these people I shall freely confess that they have done this King a great deal of good by making themselves odious his Parliaments obedient himself by all confest to be Supream and the People taught to beware of any more trusting to specious Pretences since thereby they are but cajoll'd to set up Usurpers in Authority and ruine themselves yet was all this not done by the consent of the Brethren they having all this while fought against them and therefore cannot expect any thanks To conclude if the Presbyterians did not assist the Kings return then are they perjured as neglecters of their Allegiance And if they were the Restorers then are they perjured too as neglecters of their League and Covenant For its Obligation Crofton and others of that gang maintain to be perpetual which they so solemnly swore to defend because they did not bring to condign Punishment the Malignants i. e. the Kings best friends according to their Oath all which they Voted Traytors And how many of those persons of Quality which return'd with his Majesty were by the Presbyterian faction excepted from Pardon may appear in Qualification in their Propositions to the King That they all broak the Oath of Allegiance is palpable that they have not fulfill'd their Covenant is as true the first they did freely the latter by constraint as appears by their yet whining after it So they could not be actively Instrumental And the Independents Anabaptists and such like Phanaticks may boast of a forced Passive Subjection as well as they CHAP. II. The wickedness of our Presbyterians in throwing Aspersions upon his Majesty and Instigating the People to Rebellion by assuring them in the Lawfulness of Subjects Fighting against their Kings THe astonishment of the
to them by their own fears they skud to their Dam with all speed and secure themselves in the same paunch whence they first proceeded At this time I dare boldly say that there is none pleads more in behalf and toleration of the Phanaticks then their Presbyterian Mother doth under the specious and whining pretence of Tender Conscience though when they were on Cock-horse none did more oppose that plea than themselves as I shall shew hereafter Which abominable jugling with many others used by this Fraternity prompts me to so much indignation that I can scarce allow the Foundation of Presbytery so charitable a thought as I do that poor miserable fellow who being accused of Bestiality at his Arraignment confessed it yet that it was not out of any evill intention he had done it but only to procreate a Monster with which having nothing to sustain his life he might win his bread by going about the Country to shew it These Puritans having formerly stirr'd up the Rabble by their seditious Pamphlets and Lectures to Rebellion against King Charles the Father are now driving the same way against the Son as a preparative to which they are daily instilling into the peoples Noddles Principles of disobedience schisme discontent and Rebellion for they Still find it good To keep th' infection high i th' peoples blood For Active Treason must be doing still Lest she unlearn her Art of doing ill I shall not tell the Londoners how King Henry III and King Richard II used them nor how Frederick Barbarossa the German Emperour clawd the Milanois and their City but it will not be amisse to hint to our factious Presbytery how the same Emperour made Hermon the Elector Palatine with his associates carry dogs upon their backs then held a punishment and disgrace for being disturbers of the peace And were the same inflicted upon our Boute-feu's Good God! what snarling would there be at Christ-Church in London and the lecturing junctos how zealously would the sister-hood meditate on the Temple-Barre Off-spring of Lay-Elders how would it puzzle the tender-hearted souls to decide the grand controversies which ears were longest or which animal best conditioned Thus would the Pulpit be guarded like St. Malo And our Non-conformists would have another plea against Tobit as Apocryphal because not agreeable to their practise his Dog running before but these lugd behind By this means dogs would be used to smell out a Presbyter as the Italian dog could Fornicators and Adulterers and it may be by this conjunction the Brethren might smell Popery in Obedience and Decencie as they do Idolatry in kneeling and loyalty in opposing the King For Monsieur Borel tells us of a man that by the biting of a dog had his common smelling rais'd to the sagacity of a hound or spaniel And possibly the presence of those crafty and cruel Hyena's might make the dogs as silent as those found in Africa and the East-indies or those in Virginia which cannot bark but howle and since fair means and gentlenesse will not work upon the churlish humour of the men they should blame themselves if severity like a Wolfe should appear to silence them otherwaies if the dog and man should be thus coupled together our Curs at London and other places would in time be brought to be as devout at Lectures and Conventicles as the Lisboan dog Tudesco so call'd I suppose in hatred to the Dutch as a Lancashire Gentlewoman call'd her three Cats having no ears Pryn Burton and Bastwick was serious and zealous for the Romish Church But because they may grumble and call this railing though you see how merry I make my self at their Worships I shall since they will not give me leave to anger them make them so odious to posterity that a sign of Jack Presbyters head would intice no Customers but Fauxes Ravilliacks Olivers and such like detestable animals And for these things in this and the following Chapters I shall go no higher than our late times which may serve as part of a Supplement to the Reverend Bishop Bancroft But it may be said To what purpose is all this since they themselves do not deny it and all the world knows it 'T is true However a few hints will not be amiss if it be only to tell the people that these Blades are still of the same mettall So that I dare boldly affirm that if this Loyall Parliament or the Reverend Bishops would make these Incendiaries recant their former Rebellious and seditious speeches formerly affirm'd in Pulpit and Writings it would be the greatest blow that ever the enemies of Church or State received and the only way to make the simple people see how they have been misled and abused If they refuse such Recantations it must either be through scorn and contempt or that they are still of the same Rebellious humour for both which the Laws provide punishment and I hope their interest would not be so great as to stop This. I need not tell you who they were who Rebell'd lately against his Majesty yet would I gladly have the Consistory to enform me in these three Quaeries First Why the Non-conformists and only the Non-conformists did oppose fight and rebel against the King Secondly Why the Episcopal part of the Lords and Commons with the Judges Lawyers and others who followed his Majesty should not did not or could not understand the Prerogative of the King Priviledges of Parliament and Liberty of the Subject as well as the Puritanical party which opposed his Majesty Thirdly Why since the Reformation None of the Reformed Episcopal perswasion have in Arms Rebelled against their Soveraigns Whereas ever now and anon we are alarm'd with some Presbyterian Rebellion or other The Proverb assures us that There is no smoak without some fire And why all these men should be seditious as experience assureth us I shall leave to the consideration of Dr. Burges being one of the oldest amongst them But it may be some of them in answer to these Quaeries will say in the seditious Tenent of that Scotch-firebrand Mr. Robert Blair who taught his Schollers in his Lectures upon Aristotle That Monarchial Government was unlawful And were not the blew-capt Covenanting Brethren pretty birds that could finde no fitter man to make Professor of Divinity in the University of St. Andrews then this furious Orestes Some it might be would affirm that they only fought to obtain the desire of that Scotch Bully who in his sermon thus stirr'd up his Auditors Let us never give over 'till we have the King in our power and then he shall see how good Subjects we are Others it might be were weary of the Kings ruling over them and so might act for England as others belcht out concerning a neighbour-Kingdome viz. That Scotland had been too long a Monarchy and that they would never do well so long as one of the Stuarts was alive And possibly some
were so farre for liberty of subject and Conscience that they hoped by their hands that God would fulfill the desires of him who prayd to Almighty God in the Kirk of St. Andro That He would carry through the good cause against all his Enemies especially against Kings Devils and Parliaments Are not these precious souls to promote the Holy League or to put forward the cause of Muntzer or John a Leyden Well if you will have any more of this Caledonian doctrine Then what do you think Was not he a dapper Covenanter that could thus twit his late Majesty We must not lose you and the Kingdome by preferring your Fancies and groundlesse affections before sound reason you should complain to the heart that the head is much distempered The Lyon must be cured of the Kings Evill Is not this a pretty reflection fitting to prompt a Rumper to do what he will against a King But if this be not enough Bradshaw may pick a small vindication from the Covenanters who thus assure Kings that The people may be well enough without them for there was NONE TILL Cains days Happy souls that have the sole power of understanding Scripture and History Nor is their knowledge stinted here only but they can as if they had a strange spirit of Divination even know the hearts of their betters for thus one of their Grandees R. B. from the Pulpit could assure his Beloved that the Lord hath forsaken our King and given him over to be led by the Bishops the blind brood of Anti-Christ who are hot Beagles hunting for the blood of Gods Saints Is not this fit stuff from the jaws of an hot-headed Covenanter I can tell you also that when his Majesty sufficiently provoked by these furious Rebells went himself to reduce them to obedience one of these Tub-Pratlers told his Hearers that they of the Holy Covenant were like Israel at the Red sea and Pharaoh and his host comming upon them And another H. R. was as forward as any of them when he compared the King to a Wicked Italian who delighted to kill men both in soul and body And was not the King highly beholden to these his gude Subjects And had no the reason to thank Mr. Cant. for his good opinion of and wishes for him when in his Sermon at Glascow he could dapperly pray to God To take away the Kings Idolatry But words are but winde and therefore deeds must do the feat for obtaining of which they think themselves obliged to vindicate any manner of murder or bloodshed Thus one of their Zealots highly applauding John Feltons stabbing the Duke of Buckingham God hath chalked out the way unto you God offer'd himself to guide you by the hand in giving this first blow will you not follow home The sprinkling of the blood of the Wolfe if we can follow the Lord in it may prove a means to save us c. But because the life of a Subject is too small a recompence for their Revenge the pouring out of Sacred Royall bloud would not be amisse as appears by the words of a Covenanting Brother Tell the Head it 's sick presse the people to Arms to strike the BASILIKE VEIN since nothing but THAT will cure the pleurisie of your Estate And is not this a good way to plead for Zion Is it not an hard case that none but these blood-shot eyes can discern the Pattern in the Mount Would not a man think King Charles the I by these Characters to be a stranger Monster than ever Aldrovandus heard of And can any man think that these Kirkers spoke like subjects when they publickly declared that We deserve and expect a proper word to their betters Approbation and Thanks from his Majesty And all this only for Rebellion according to Mr. Andrew Ramsey Minister of Edenburgh his Doctrine viz. That it was Gods will that the primitive Church should confirm the Truth by suffering and that now the truth being confirm'd It 's his will that we defend the Truth by Action in Resisting TYRANTS And what was meant by this word Tyrants the Time when the word was spoke doth sufficiently demonstrate And so little respect have these Brethren to the Supream Powers that a great Grandee well known in England if you say but Thomas Cartwright did thus proudly give his judgement concerning this Question Whether the King himself might be Excommunicated That Excommunication should not be exercised upon Kings I utterly mislike And how exactly these Disciplinarians Quadrate with the Jesuites in Politicks the learned Mr. Corbet under the Name of Lysimachus Nicanor hath Ingeniously discover'd which Book so handsomly exposed the Zealots that the Author being after murthered by the Irish Robert Bayly that Scavinger of Presbytery betwixt snarling and rejoycing could not refrain from crying out O the judgement of God! The Aethiopians paint the Devil white and look upon our Europians as not beautiful because not of their black and obscure Complexion And our dark-souled Puritans censure all Vertue and Loyalty as abominable because contrary to their Principles which perswades them to espouse such Maxims as these I. That it is lawful for Subjects to make a Covenant and Combination without the King and to enter into a Band of mutual defence against their King and all persons whatsoever II. After a Law is made and confirmed yet if the Subjects or rather as appears by practise if onely a part of them protest against such established Law or Laws Then that doth void all obedience to those Laws and the Protestors are discharged from any obligation to live under them although the Protestations and the validity of them be not discussed before the competent Judges of them III. A number of men being the greater part of the Kingdome because they are the greater may do any thing what they themselves do conceive to be conducible to the glory of God and the good of the Church notwithstanding of any Laws standing in force to the contrary And that these especially met in a Representative Assembly may not onely without the Authority of the King but against the express Commandement of the King and his Council and Judges declaration of it to be against the Laws of the Land sit act and determine of things concerning the Church and State as if there were neither King Council or Judges in the Land and several other such like dangerous positions as these whereby they ruin and destroy Kingdomes Which can never be upon a sure foundation as long as such Bonte-feu's are tolerated Schism being the chief overthrower of Nations Upon these Principles our English Presbyterians rebell'd against their Soveraign and upon the same account their Neighbours did in Scotland and then trudg'd forwards to the assistance of their Southern associates declaring the necessity of such a Rebellion Unless we will either Betray our Religion Liberties and Laws and all that we and ours do possess
into their hands i. e. The opposite and malignant Party of Papists Prelats and others the sons of defection and contention their adherents and suffer our selves to be cut off and massacred by such bloody and barbarous cruelty as they have executed this time past in Ireland and England There is a necessity of taking of Armes for mutual defence In this case it is most necessary that every one against all doubting be perswaded in his mind of the lawfulness of this undertaking and of the goodness of the cause maintain'd by him To assist our Brethren in England who are calling for our help and are shedding their blood in defence of that Power without which Religion can neither be defended nor reformed nor unity of Religion with us and other Reformed Kirks be attained To whom of old and of late we have made Promises of the real Declarations of all Christian duty and thankfulness and who upon our desires and their endeavours for unity in Religion have often warn'd us that the Malignant Party would bend all their invention and forces to interrupt the work and to ruin and destroy them in the undertaking of it which we see this day come to pass The Question is no sooner rightly stated but it is soon resolved the Lord save us from the Curse of Meroz who came not to help the Lord to help the Lord against the mighty when we look upon the cause which they maintain the Prayers Tears and Blood which they have poured forth and the insolencies and the blasphemies of the enemies we cannot doubt but inlargement and deliverance shall arise unto England God forbid and be it far from us to sit down at ease on this side of Jordan till our Brethren be possessed in the Liberties of the Kingdome of Christ. And this Seditious canting-language they second in another of their Declarations to the same purpose Unless we can which God forbid blot out of our thoughts the sense of piety and Religion toward God of honour and duty towards our Soveraign and of gratitude toward the Parliament and Kingdome of England we can in no wise resist our present call to this Expedition Very pretty that their duty to their King should oblige them to fight against him and his Authority But the people of this Gang are very much given to make Bulls and Non-sense This is not unlike to our long-Long-Parliament who thus very gravely Ordered To the intent that his Majesties Revenue might no more be mis-applyed and that the same may be imploy'd for the good of his Majesty and the Common-wealth The Lords and Commons therefore do Ordain That all his Majesties the Queens and Princes Revenue shall be seized upon But what if I should tell you that some of these Diegos can affirm for their excuse that they were bound by the Oath of Allegiance to take the Parliaments part against the King would you not think that the price of Oaths is faln very low Well if you will enquire of old Master Thomas Hall the Parson of Kings-Norton he can tell you what is the opinion of him and others in this case He is a notable Champion against May-poles and will give you aboundance of arguments to prove that they are the Devils Angle-rods which being well baited with Holy-sisters is the onely way to catch Puritans as an old woman told a zealous Grandee but enough of his precise and simple Objections of which I may say as the famous Selden said of some old fashioned Rhimes You may read them and then laugh at them If their Allegiance obliged them to fight against the King they may well suppose that by the Covenant they were bound to cut him off by the Article of bringing Malignants to punishent and what may be the sequel of such assertions I hope our Superiours will consider And what do you think of another swash-buckler of this Tribe who assures the world that the English had as much cause to rejoyce for their Conquests over his Majesty as the Israelites for their deliverance from wicked Pharaoh and his Egyptians And this use of Exhortation the better to advantage the memory of the whining Sisterhood he coughs out in as good Dogril Rhime as ever John Cotton or Vavasor Powel were guilty of a tast of whose hatred to the King's Party you may see in these following Sing praise sing praise unto Jehova high For he hath Tryumphed most gloriously O're all our foes The Horse and Rider He Hath tumbled down to deepest misery Yea all the rotten-rout of Romanists Papists and Prelates Atheists Royallists And Mad-Malignants void of grace or sence To whom God now hath made just recompence Why he should distinguish betwixt Royalists and Malignants I know not though I might very well and I am as ignorant what difference he finds betwixt a Romanist and a Papist unless all this be with the fellow in the Play to make up Meeter And who must this boaster be but the furious John Vicars one that hated all people that loved obedience as the Devil doth Holy water and could out-scold the boldest face at Billings-gate if Kings Bishops Organs or May-pole were to be the objects of their zealous indignation of which I shall give you but one tast to wit against his Sacred Majesty The King's Letter full indeed of much EVIL and Demonstration of no Change of heart from his former BLOODY CRUEL and UNKINGLY PRACTISES of the RUINE of Himself and His Kingdomes as much as in Him lay Is this fit to be Printed for the information of the people and yet Ja. Cranford thought it very fitting Was is convenient to dedicate such stuff as this to Almighty God yet the Author thought nothing more Would any man call this a fair and famous History yet Vicars himself could give it that Encomium Or could any imagine that such a Rayler against the King and Church should even the other day deserve the Title of The Worthy Patriot of his Countrey and yet so is he honoured but by whom Edward Thomas Mr. Pryn's Bookseller can better inform you than my self The truth of it is this man's Histories only look like a Company of Thanks-giving Sermons stitch'd up together as Georgius Hornius well Characteriz'd them Yet must I needs say that of all men that pretended to deep Learning and good History this Hornius of Strangers is the most partial in his short Story of our late English Wars which makes me somewhat mistrust the mans Principles seeing at his being then in England he might have more exactly informed himself if Interest had not sway'd him But I hope his History of the Scottish Rebellion and the beginning of the English when it is printed will be more Ingenuous or else I shall desire him to acquaint himself with his friend Monsieur de Parival or the two Italians Priorato and Bisaccione and other Forraigners who are more impartial I need not tell you how the Presbyterian
Army and all this forsooth against the Cause of God the souls of his true Saints the peace of the Directory and the happiness of the Elect the true children of Grace the poor people gaping all the while really believing no Devils to be in the World but Cavaliers not a word proceeding from the lying Throats of these Pulpiteers but fill'd the soft-brain'd Auditors with more indignation against the King and his Cause than our Women are against Popery at the sight of a flaming Picture in the Book of Martyrs All their prittle-prattle was to shew the goodness of their Cause and I wish some of the Presbyterian Churches beyond-Seas were not too much complying in this the abominable wickedness of the Kings Party and to perswade their friends never to make peace with such Malignants Of which I shall afford you two or three Instances Mr. Herbert Palmer of Ashwell in Hertfordshire made a long-winded tittle-tattle stuft with Rebellion and Sedition before the House of Commons at the latter end of which he finds out a pretty device to have all the Cavaliers throats cut and all this to be justified by Inspiration from God Almighty I humbly entreat you to ask Gods Consent first whether he will spare such or such or pardon them and if he will not you must not Probably this Politician was very well acquainted with the subtle Robber of old time who made the Countrey-Parson pray for Riches and upon that account took all his Gold from him Or it may be Oliver used this Art to murder his Majesty for we are told that he said he pray'd to know Gods mind in that case and he took the Answer Affirmatively Thus our Red-Coats of Wallingford-House after they had concluded upon any mischief would for a blind to the People appoint a Day of Humiliation to enquire of God what should be done though they were before resolved that all the Prayers in the World should not alter their fore-going Determination Whence it came to be a vulgar and true Observation That whensoever those Saints had a Fast they were then broaching some mischief or other To be short the greatest wickedness in the World may be perpetrated by this Rule of Palmer's and so Religion prove but a piece of Policy yet was it very fitting for the Parliaments actions which I suppose was the cause that they ordered Sir Oliver Luke to give him thanks for his Seditious Preachment and to desire him to print it the better to infect the People Another of these Bawlers seldom thought of a Bishop or the Kings Party but with Indignation and this must be Mr. Thomas Coleman formerly of Blyton in Lincolnshire but since by the Schismaticks was put into St. Peters Cornhill London from which they had not only wickedly Sequestred Dr. Fairfax but Plunder'd and Imprison'd him in Ely-House and in the Ships and turn'd his Wife and Children out of doors But to return to Coleman who in one of his Sermons thus rants against the Church of England and violently perswades the Parliament to execute severe justice upon her Children Our Cathedrals in great part of late become the Nest of Idle Drones and the roosting place of Superstitious Formallists Our Formallists and Government in the whole Hierarchy is become a fretting Gangrene a spreading Leprosie an unsupportable Tyranny Up with it up with it to the bottom Root and Branch Hip and Thigh Destroy these Amalekites and let their place be no more found Throw away the Rubs out with the Lords Enemies and the Lands Vex the Midianites abolish the Amalekites or else they will vex you with their wiles as they have done heretofore Let Popery find no favour because it is Treasonable Prelacy as little because it is Tyrannical This was rare stuff for the Blades at Westminster and pleas'd admirable well and therefore they strait order Sir Edward Aiscough and Sir John Wray to give the Zealot hearty thanks for his good directions and to desire him by all means to print it which accordingly he did and in requital of thanks Dedicates his fury to their Worships where he fals to his old Trade again very pretily by his Art of Rhetorick calling the Kings Army Partakers with Atheists Infidels Papists c. That it hath Popish Masses superstitious Worships cold Forms in the Service of God That it is stored with Popish Priests That it Persecutes Godly Ministers painful Preachers That it doth harbour all our drunken debauched Clergy our Idle Non-Preaching dumb Ministry our Ambitious Tyrannical Prelacy and the sinck and dregs of the Times the receptacle of the filth of the present and former Ages our spiritual-Courts-men This mans rayling pleas'd the Commons so well that they could think no man fitter to prate when their wicked League and Covenant was taken than He which accordingly he did to the purpose tickling their filthy Ears with the same strains of malice Impudently affirming That none but an Atheist Papist Oppressour Rebel or the guilty desperate Cavaliers and light and empty men can refuse the Covenant and so concludes with a reflection upon the Kings Party as Idolaters And for this stuff Colonel Long must be Ordered to give him thanks from the House Another of these Parliamentary Furies Mr. Arth. Salwey of Severnstoak in Worcestershire thus desires them to destroy the Kings friends Follow God I beseech you in the speedy and impartial Execution of Justice The hearts of your true Friends are grieved that so many Delinquents are in Prison and yet but very few of them brought to their Tryal When Elijah had done execution upon Baals Priests there was rain enough 1 King 18. 40 41. Who knows how soon the Lord may bless us with an holy Peace and blessed Reformation if Justice were more fully executed And this man must have thanks sent him too from the Parliament by Mr. Rouse Another of their Thumpers viz. Mr. George Walker of St. John Evangelists London thus stirs up execution against Malignants Cut them down with the Sword of Justice Root them out and consume them as with fire that no root may spring again let their mischief fall upon their own Heads that the land may be eas'd which hath a long time and doth still groan under them as an heavy curse And was not this a fit Sermon to be preacht just the day before the Treaty at Uxbridge and then to be printed too by the Presbyterian Authority Could these men desire peace that thus countenanced men to rail against their betters with whom they were to Treat But this is short of Mr. Love's malice let one of their witts sing out his Commendations as he pleaseth he at the very day of the Treaty must needs thunder it at the place it self perswading the people by all means not to treat with the Royalists as I have in part before insisted on but besides that which I told you then he could thus also animate his friends
to have been so abused or had they had ever any reall intentions of peace they would never have permitted these Roysters to have widened the breach by their perpetual prating against Treaties But both of them were well agreed against peace especially the Parliament hated a personal Treaty by all means lest any of them should be convinced of his error as a former Earl of Ormond was He was a Fryer of St. Francis Order call'd Vincent and through mis-information thought our King Henry V to have been the most wicked man in the world and so thought his Warre unjust in France but after a little discourse with the King himself he was so satisfied on the contrary that he thus bespake the Kings Army My Lords and Masters all see ye that ye do to the King your Master diligent and true service as you have till now well done For in your so doing you shall well please God This morning before I came hither I believed that the King your Maister had been the greatest Tyrant among all other Princes Christian but now I perceive the contrary for I assure you He is the most acceptable unto God of all them that be here present this day and his Quarrel is so just and true that undoubtedly God is and shall be his Aide in all these Warres And this is not much unlike the Reply of that great sufferer the Noble Marquesse of Worcester to the Maior of Bala in Merioneth-shire who came to excuse himself and Town for his Lordships bad Lodging Lord what a thing is this misunderstanding I warrant you might but the King and Parliament conserre together as you and I have done there might be as right an understanding as betwixt you and I. Some body hath told the Parliament that the King was an Enemy and their believing of him is such hath wrought all the jealousies which are come to these distractions The Parliament being now in such a case as I my self am in having green Eares over their Heads and false Ground under their Feet Had the Presbyterians been content with the concessions granted them by his Majesty farre above their desert or cause they might have enjoyed peace and liberty and the government to boot but their resolutions to have all was the cause of their losing all by the intervening of the Independents Not unlike the Clown to whom St. Bernard promis'd his Mule whereon he then rode if he could say the Lords Prayer without the interposition of any vain thoughts The fellow very glad of the bargain falls a saying Pater Noster c. but before he had said half there came an idle thought into his head whether St. Bernard would give him the Bridle and Saddle too which making him faulter and confesse the truth he lost all I shall not here trouble my self to rake up all the sedition of that Scotch fire-brand Mr. Robert Bailey but only tell you that he greatly wonders that the Reverend Lord Bishop of London-Derry should deny so grand a Presbyterian Maxime viz. That it is altogether lawfull for the Parliament to take up arms for the defence of the liberties or any other imaginable cause against any party countenanced by the Kings presence against his Laws And of all this who must be judge but themselves But I shall tell you the passages of one or two great men now alive and great Bustlers in London against our true Church Mr. George Cockain of Pancras Soperlane London whence Mr. Eccop was sequestred plundred forced to fly and his Wife and Children turn'd out of doors This Cockain held forth before the Commons and whether or no he did not presse them to murther his Sacred Majesty let any man judge by these his following words Think not to save your selves by an unrighteous saving of them who are the Lords and the peoples known enemies You may not Imagine to obtain the favour of those amongst whom you will not do justice For certainly if you act not like Gods in this particular against men truly obnoxious to justice they will be like Devils against you Observe that place 1 Kings 22. 31. compared with chap. 20. It is said in chap. 20. That the King of Syria came against Israel and by the mighty power of God he and his Army were overthrown and the King was taken Prisoner Now the mind of God was which he then discovered only by that present providence that justice should have been executed upon him but it was not whereupon the Prophet comes with Ashes on his face and waited for the King of Israel in the way where he should return and as the King passed by he cryed unto him thus saith the Lord Because thou hast let go a man whom I appointed for destruction therefore thy life shall go for his Life Now see how the King of Syria after this answers Ahab's love About three years after Israel and Syria engage in a new Warre And the King of Syria gives command unto his Souldiers that they should fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Benhadad's life was once in Ahabs hands and he ventured Gods displeasure to let him go but see how Benhadad rewards him for it Fight neither against small nor great but against the King of Israel Honourable and worthy if God do not lead you to do justice upon those that have been the great Actors in shedding innocent blood never think to gain their love by sparing of them For they will if opportunnity be ever offerd return again upon you and then they will not fight against the poor and mean ones but against those that have been the Fountain of that Authority and Power which have been improved against them Was not this spoke in very good time viz. Just upon the breaking off the Isle of Wight-Treaty and when the Great ones were consulting about the Kings Tryall which may serve for a Comment upon the Author If you shake your head at Cockain I make no question but you will bite your nailes when you hear the plain dealing of one of their Chiefrains his words I shall give you upon the honesty and ingenuity of Mr. Roger L'estrange for I have not the Sermon by me This spruce piece of Rebellion in one of his Preachments before one of Oliver's Parliaments like a zealous Covenanter thus delivered himself Worthy Patriots You that are our Rulers in this Parliament 't is often said we live in times wherein we may be as good as we please Wherein we enjoy in purity and plenty the Ordinances of Jesus Christ Prais'd be God for this even that God who hath delivered as from the imposition of prelatical Innovations Altar-genuflections and cringings with crossings and all that Popish Trash and Trampery And truly I speak no more then what I have often thought and said The removal of these insupportable Burdens countervails for the blood and treasure shed
and spent in these late distractions Nor did I as yet ever hear of any godly men that desired wert it possible to purchase their FRIENDS or money again at so dear a rate as with the return of these to have those soul-burdening Anti-Christian yokes re-imposed upon us And if any such there be I am sure that desire is no part of their Godlinesse and I professe my self in that to be none of the number Would not this man be a fit Chaplain to an Army of Cannabals whose delight is to devoure one another Well I shall desire to ask Mr. William one or two Questions which will be worth his answering I. Is Episcopacy such a devilish Government and Presbytery so good and necessary that the first ought to be null'd and the latter set up though the doing of it will cost an hundred thousand mens lives and the destruction of three Kingdoms and the King to boot II. Had not the King some friends that were truly Godly who wisht the Restauration of his Life Crown Throne Authority Supremacy and Prerogative and the Episcopal Church-Government too Or could no man that was Godly desire these things If not then III. Would the Brethren wish this King upon the Scaffold too provided that would free them from our Episcopacy Or do they think it fitting or lawful to rebell again and destroy so many families for the rooting out of our Bishops Though Mr. L'estrange will not shame the man by concealing his name Yet because I am pretty confident of no alteration in his judgment unlesse it be according to his custome from worse to worse I shall tell thee where thou maist find him out After thou hast put on a mortified countenance and obtain'd the art of a counterfeited cough but muster all the wickednesse thou canst hear of into thine heart foot it demurely to Mr. Jenkin's house I mean the very same man of Christ Church London the very same man that petitioned and recanted with a breath and if thou canst meet with him he may tell thee who was the utterer of that Sermon But not to trouble you any longer with particular instances I shall give you the Vote of a whole Club of London Levites where you may see what good opinion they had of the King The wofull miscarriages of the King himself which we cannot but acknowledge to be many and very great in his Government that have cost the three Kingdomes so dear and cast him down from his Excellency into an horrid Pit of misery almost beyond example Pray that God would give him effectual Repentance For subjects to give such a Character upon their Soveraign is the highest piece of impudence but for them to throw such aspersions upon the most vertuous of men is a malitious slander not to be found in Christians Yet was this piece of falshood approved of and subscribed to by 59 Presbyterian cushion-dusters about London all which in the same paper acknowledge the legality of the Rebellion If the King be such a wicked man as these Brethren make of him what must then be done with him Some of them say 't is no great matter if execution be done upon him However it may be most of them will agree with their Champion Mr. Baxter who decrees that he must be deposed Nor are the subjects afterwards to trouble themselves for his Restauration Nor is the Injured Prince himself to seek his re-settlement if the Common Wealth may prosper without him and so he is obliged to resigne his Government And thus the people being free from any obedience to him may choose another King Or if a Common-Wealth be pitcht upon it is not at all displeasing to Baxter who is not fond that is his word of any one Government above another only his desire is that the Parliaments may be Holy and this ascertained from Generation to Generation by such a necessary Regulation of Elections as I have after here at large described and that all those that by wickednesse have †forfeited their †liberties may neither choose nor be chosen But I shall leave Mr. Baxter to his own Repentance only I would put him in mind that once he thus magnied a Government of Traytors which were his Majesties profest Enemies If that Nation that is most happy of any upon Earth in a Government suited to the highest Interest and to Gods description Rom. 3. 3. should yet murmure and despise that Government It would be a most hainous sin and a terrible Prognostick especially to the guilty souls These men must be brave Subjects that make it their whole business to study Rebellion and where they cannot execute the King will imprison and spit upon the face of the person like those beyond Seas that hang the Effigies when they cannot ruine the life Of which Presbyterian wickednesse and policy thus a good Poet. By this self-pregnant sin improves to rh ' full Affront at London Treason growes at Hull A bold Repulse succeeds perplext abode Despis'd at home thrives to refus'd abroad Place tutors Place on Cities Cities call He may not here be safe nor there at all When lo the spreading mischief not content To force up breaches in One Element Invades his Navy doth insulting stand O're the joint-Trophies both of Sea and Land To gild this Rapine for the Vulgar eies They chase him through all His Capacities Shift lights and distances untill they see Another self in him which is not He. Vex Stills and Crucibles the Furnace ply To soft and drain a Chymick Majesty At last their careful sweats auspicious howr Drops him apart distinguisht from his Power I cannot but smile when I see the Independent girding at the Presbyterians and vindicate their own actions by the Disciplinarian Principles proving them to be as great enemies to the King as those who cut off his head as the laws of the land makes the Trespass as great felloniously to lop off the noble branches as to root up the whole body of the Royall Oak To which purpose one of the Presbyterian seconds though at last their Interest were differently bottom'd thus twits the Brethren If by the Covenant we were indispensably obliged to preserve his Person i. e. the Kings How comes it to pass that we were oblig'd by the same Covenant to wage Warr against him I have heard of a distinction betwixt his Power and his Person but never of any betwixt his Person and Himself So that if the Covenant would have dispenc'd any Souldier of England or Scotland to kill his Person by an accident of Wars as his life was oft in danger before he came to the Scaffold his death had been violent and the Obligation to preserve him had ended and yet according to this Argument the Covenant had not been broken Why then should these men think the World so dull as not to understand plainly enough that The Covenant provided for his Death more ways than one Though
this Objection may sound harsh in a Presbyterians ear who do not love to hear of their Iniquities yet that famous Geneva Bull Stephen Marshall can out-rore this though its clamours were as loud as the Nilan Thunderings of Catadupa Noysing it out to the World that if he had been so slain it had been none of the Parliaments fault for he might have kept himself farther off if he pleas'd These men rail against the Pope as Antichrist and the Whore of Babylon and their wording is all for they never yet proved it but whether they do not both tread in the same way both taking upon them to depose Kings let those who are skill'd in Story judge yet for my part I think that one of our Countrey-men was not amiss in this They depose Kings by force by force you 'll do 't But first use fair means to perswade them to 't They dare kill Kings now 'twixt you here 's the strife You dare shoot at the King to save his life And what 's the difference pray whether they fall By the Popes Bull or your Oxe-General Three Kingdoms you have striv'd to make your own And like the Pope usurp a Triple-Crown But somewhat more to this purpose the former Writer thus reasoneth If in matter of Supream Command we of the People may not obey any but the Husband or the King Why then did the Presbyterian Party for so many years oppose and not totally submit to their now supposed Husband Why did they Commissionate so many thousand men who by accident of Warr had the power though not the Chance to kill him Nay in the Parliaments Case it was alwayes conjoyntly argued by them that it was he the Husband that would have kill'd them the supposed Wife for which reason the Kirk of Scotland long ago sent him a Bill of Divorce unless he satisfied for the bloud of three Kingdoms Which of the two Parties it was that at last kill'd him belongs not much to the satisfaction of us the people though here questioned because those Parties as to that Act differ'd no more than Diminutio and Obtruncatio Capitis do for they who after a long Warr and by long Imprisonment dispoil'd him of that Regal power did according to the Term of the Civil Law Diminuere Caput Regis and they who in Consequence of his Civil death took away his Natural life did Obtruncare Caput Regis If he had been kill'd in an Action of Warr before should the Souldier or he who gave the Souldier Commission have answer'd for his life For the more clearing of this I shall desire Jack Presbyter to resolve me these two Quaeries First Whether he doth approve of Cook ' s Appeal or Vindication of the King's Tryal except where he demands Justice though I need not except it If he doth take him Jaylor and Lord have mercy upon him But if he doth not then Secondly Whether he can shew me any thing in that Hellish piece of Treason except when Cook doth vindicate his Majesty from some slanders but I can show the same wickedness in Books publish'd by the Authority of Presbyterians or made and printed by people of that Faction For a piece of Parallel I shall at present point you to one or two Instances See The Mystery of Iniquity yet working in the Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland Printed for Sam. Gellibrand 1643. Declaration of the Commons of England concerning no farther Address or Application to be made to the King 1647. A Remonstrance of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to his Majesty 1645. Mr. Robert Douglas being Moderator whose Sermon at Scoon 1651. you may also read John Vicars his several lying and scandalous Pamphlets And the several Presbyterian Books and expressions mentioned in this Book needless now to be repeated And to this purpose thus saith the learned Mr. Rich. Watson Whosoever will take the pains to compare the particulars in the Scottish Remonstrance which they brought in their hands when they came in upon the Covenant with those in the accursed Court proceeding against his late Royal Majesty may be able to do Dorislaw Steel Cook c. some little courtesie in their credit and plead for them that they drew not up but only Transcrib'd a Charge brought long since from Edenburgh to London Thus both Parties think the King alike guilty though it was the Presbyterian that first perswaded the Independent to think him so Then here must be all the difference The first declares him abominably wicked the latter being credulous believes the Declaration One part cowardly deliver him up I shall not hint upon the word selling to Execution and the other being more hardy strike the stroak Not that by this I lessen the wickedness of a Rumper as I cannot excuse that of a secluded Member since the latter knowingly destroy'd and kill'd the King 1642. the other under the notion of a private man murther'd Charles Stuart six years after The Laws of the Land not only in Killing but also in Fighting against the Kings Command making it Treason How to that Heaven did this Pilot Steer 'Twixt th' Independent and the Presbyter Plac'd in the Confines of two shipwracks thus The Greeks are seated 'twixt the Turks and Vs Whom did Bizantium free Rome would condemn And freed from Rome they are enslav'd by Them So plac'd betwixt a Precipice and Wolf There the Aegean here the Venice-gulf What with the rising and the setting Sun By these th' are hated and by those undone Thus Vertue 's hemm'd with Vices and though either Solicites her Consent she yields to neither Nay thus our Saviour to enhance his grief Was hung betwixt a Murderer and a Thief What the Powder-plot intended the Independent acted and I am confident the Presbyterians acted more mischief than Faux or his Complices Both of them were stopt in their designs and actions Only we know how farr the Romanists would have gone but we cannot understand what would have been the conclusion of the Puritans Villanies As we have a fifth of November in memory of one so shall we never think of the third of November but in detestation of the other two If the Presbyter would repent his former Vindications of the late Rebellion against their King It would convert the Act of Indempnity into one of Oblivion and people instead of dashing them in the teeth with their Iniquities would pitty their former blindness But when at this day they still continue in the same faults 't is not a sign of infirmity but real malice and enmity to that which is good Still we hear them perswade the people to the legality of the late Warr and that by consequence the same may be lawful against the Son which was against the Father and that upon such petit jealousies as their factious brains can possess the poor people with all whose easie natures are accustomed to take Pique against any thing that their hot-spurr'd Parson
doth call Antichristian Popish or Arminian though two to one that neither the Prater nor Hearer understand what really those words signifie Yet the Nation is come to that pass that the ignorant zeal of our Furies hath made the later drown the noyse of the other two That if the word Arminian be but named How do the poor people startle and bogle themselves into a sweat looking as distractedly as if they had been rid with the Night-mare a name that gets a man more envy than the title of Turk or Infidel the people in part knowing what these signifie but for the Arminian their ignorance of what he is puts them into such a fright that they think themselves never secure till they get the destruction of these strange creatures for they do not know what things they are Not unlike those simple people of Munding in Schwaben who having by chance found a Crab which none of them had ever seen before by toling the Bell as if their Enemies had been upon them they all hurryed together and did seriously consult what sort of Animal it should be its creeping backwards putting a terrour into them all At last they enquired of a poor fellow amongst them because for his livelyhood he had been farther from home than any of them who said it must be a Stag or Pigeon but this not satisfying and they not knowing how to be resolved lest it should do them some mischief standing a good way off they for the safety of themselves and Town very valiantly shot this Monster and lest any of themselves or Cattle should be poysoned or venom'd by it they very carefully fortifi'd it about with a strong fence Thus ignorance musters up all the jealousies and fears that can be and when these are once a Cock-Horse they can never want stuff to kindle up their hatred I need not trouble the Reader by telling him how Mr. John Corbet the other day partly whisper'd out the lawfulness of the Warr. Nor how another of the Brethren a great servant and adorer of the Murtherous Bradshaw told the people that it was those with the King that began the Warr and not the Presbyterians nor how the same man threatens the probability of another Rebellion unless the Saints have liberty of Conventicling allowed them Nor need I trouble you by relating the wicked humour of Baxter who protests that if the Warr were to begin again he would take the Parliaments part his reason is because If I should do otherwise I should be guilty of Treason or Disloyalty against the Soveraign Power of the Land for I knew not how to resist and disobey them without violation of the command of God Rom. 13. Let every soul be subject to the Higher Powers c. and without encurring the danger of the Condemnation there threatned to Resisters Nor is it needful to repeat to you how the whole body of the Presbyterian secluded Members vindicated not long since the Rebellion by their Authority Since all these particulars are to small purpose I never yet hearing through all mine enquiry as I can remember of any one Presbyterian but held forth the lawfulness of the late Rebellion Thus we find the Puritans more raging than fat Vrsula in Bartholomew-Fair and certainly Bedlam will be full of Mad-Boys when the Master thereof is Rampant We may well expect extravagant Principles from these Disciplinarians when those who are held most moderate and the chief amongst them cannot hold from prating Treason People are apt to go beyond their Commission but when such Chief-tains amongst them as Baxter whose zeal cannot be perswaded from Preaching Sedition to say no worse word even since the happy restauration of his Majesty with a Club of Presbyterian-secluded Members and others of that Faction can declare write and Vote the late Rebellion against the King to be lawful others of that perswasion may think it no breach of Conscience to take the other step and justifie the securing of his Person and when a King is once imprisoned by his unruly Subjects 't is time for him to prepare himself for a journey to the other World Doubtful Oracles are alwayes interpreted to the desires of the Interested Faction That dubious Letter Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est To kill Edward do not fear is a good thing was so well understood by Sir Thomas Gurney and Sir John Maltravers that the horrid Murther of Edward II. was its result Our Puritans well understand their Teachers when they mince Loyalty and though they carry nothing else away with them they are sure to keep that close and at last put it into practise When from the Pulpit Authority is tainted with abominable wickedness and Texts of Scripture wrested to prove the necessity of destroying Tyrants and Idolaters The ignorantly zealous Auditors may think they do God and the Cause good service by doing what they can to bring such a Malefactor to the block and will at all times be ready to Warragainst the Son against whose good Father they have been thus instigated to take Arms and thus at last their bewitching sin of Treason will dwindle to a Commendation amongst these Zealots But well-fare Mr. Baxter that hath found out two pretty Salvo's for his former wickedness First That he is pardoned by the Act of Indempnity And is not he a very thankful man that in requital of the Kings mercy hath since that preach'd seditiously but he and the rest of his fraternity are resolv'd to confirm the character given them by the Emperour Ferdinand and King James as afore related Secondly That now the Parliament had declared where the Soveraign Power was he should acknowledge it and submit to it As if the Soveraign Power did not lye in the King before this Parliament and yet the Gentleman could be very well perswaded to Richard's Supremacy But a man that is altogether ignorant of our Laws is the fittest to make the Nation a Common-wealth and yet none is so blind as him that will not see nor none so wicked as him whose Interest alwayes prompts him to take the staff by the wrong end The best excuse that I know for them is Their being drunk with Zeal created in them a strange spirit of Prejudice which fancy'd the Nation to be in such a distracted condition that all things were running to distruction And these good souls thinking to free themselves and the Kingdom from such miseries busled into a body to expel those evils which their debauch'd fury thought might give ease to the Nation and quietness to themselves Like those guzling Companions upon the Texel's side in Amsterdam who tippled so long looking out of a Casement that really thinking they were at Sea in a Tempest to lighten their Ship began to throw Tables and Stools with other luggage out of the windows thinking they were in danger of Shipwrack But if these men have the liberty to create jealousies and fears
they will also tell the people that they are obliged to right themselves which is the only way to set up the Stage that the Tragedy may be acted over again But I hope the Lecturers and Pamphleters will forget their Parts and then the People will be more unwilling and unfit for Action CHAP. III. The small or rather no Authority or Power that the Presbyterians allow the King to have over them TO lessen Authority is the only way to null it and 't is as true that those who desire and act the first do it meerly to make it subservient to the latter People will not declare their designs at first a plausible pretence being half a Conquest which may be spoil'd by too much haste For A'voli troppo alti e repentini Sogliono i precipitii esser vicini Those men who too too high and hasty go Do take the course to their own over-throw The Turks will shew you friendship but thereby to make you embrace their Faith Zopirus made a fair Relation to the Babylonians but quite different from his Intentions Warr is in vain if not maintain'd by stratagems as well as force Towns have been taken by shew of Friendship as many men with Darius have been ruin'd by those who promis'd to be their defence Our Parliament at first declar'd their Intentions were only to relieve the King from his wicked Council But having once done that as they supposed they not only afforded him no better but took away his Authority clapt him up in Prison and there kept him secure till his Cut-throats convey'd him to the Scaffold And which was an augmentation to their wickednes they did not do this only to make themselves Supream but looking upon themselves as the highest Authority they thought they might thereby lawfully do this and farr more fancying the King to be as subject to their wills as a Gally-slave to his Captain For proof of which 't is in vain to quote practice or the multitude of their Declarations each of them pen'd to prove the legality of their actions Only it will not be amiss to give you the opinion concerning this point of a noted Presbyterian Writer yet making a noyse in his Fetters who would gladly perswade the people that they are bound to obey the Parliament and their Orders though against the Kings express command The Parliament ever retain'd a Jurisdiction in themselves over both Church and Crown Of which in another place he speaks more plain thus The Votes Orders and Ordinances of the Lords and Commons in Parliament even without or against the Kings Personal Command is to be obey'd and observed But it is not only the Parliament but the People too forsooth that must be hail fellow well mett with or rather above the King And they know that this familiarity with Majesty is the only way to bring it into contempt which Crofton thinks a good Card for him to play and therefore he thus very pertly be-speaks the People Is not the meanest Subject interested in the Kings Oath and capacitated humbly to demand performance Do not Royal Acts fall under the consideration of Casuists resolving Conscience Are not Kings Objects of Ministerial admonition How bold soever it may seem none but a proud Pashur and shameless Semaiah could count it odious in Jeremiah to say to the King Keep the Oath and thou shalt be delivered from that distress which may too late engage his Majesty to send to his faithful Monitor to Pray For Him Doth not the last clause speak little Crofton a pert blade who with Calvin Knox and others of that gang would make brave Modlers for a New Utopia by making the Parliament as bounders and controllers over the King and allow the People over the Parliament and then should we have a brave World the King and Three Estates lying at the mercy of the People and the bold Presbyterian Tub-tatler allow'd to infuse into the Rabble what Principles are most agreeable to the sense of their Classes but I hope this Plot is too visible to take effect Yet thus did the Scots with King Charls I. by appealing from him and his Council to a General Assembly in these words And because we did in our former Protestation Appeal from the Lords of his Majesties Council so do we now by these renew our solemn Appeal with all Solemnities requisite unto the next Free General Assembly and Parliament as the only Supream National Judicatories competent to judge of National causes and proceedings Which way of Appealing is High-Treason by the Law of Scotland as they knew very well by a good Token For when their Ministers held an Assembly at Aberdene after it was Prorogued by King James they were cited to appear before the Lords of the Council to answer that high contempt but they denying the Authority and appealing to a General Assembly were therefore arraigned and found guilty of High-Treason and had received the sentence accordingly if King James out of his mercy had not reprieved them before sentence and only inflicted upon them perpetual banishment which they under-went But that they may know themselves the better for the future I shall transcribe them a Copy of the Scotch Statute that they may learn how to avoid Treason The eighth Parliament current holden at Edenburgh the 22. of May in the year of God 1584. by the Right Excellent Right High and Mighty Prince James the sixt by the Grace of God King of Scots and Three Estates of this Realm An Act for Confirming the Kings Majesties Royal Power over all Estates and Subjects within this Realm FOR AS MUCH as some persons being lately call'd before the Kings Majesty and his Secret Council to answer upon certain Points to have been enquired of them concerning some Treasonable Seditions and Contumelious Speeches uttered by them in Pulpits Schools and other wayes to the disdain and reproach of His Highness his Progenitors and present Council contemptuously declined the judgement of his Highness and his said Council in that behalf to the evil example of others to do the like if timely remedy be not provided Therefore our Soveraign Lord and his Three Estates assembled in this present Parliament ratifieth and approveth and perpetually confirmeth the Royal Power and Authority over all Estates as well Spiritual as Temporal within this Realm in the Person of the Kings Majesty our Soveraign Lord his Heirs and Successors And also statuteth and ordaineth That his Highness his Heirs and Successors by themselves and their Councils are and in time to come shall be Judges competent to all persons his Highness Subjects of what Estate Degree Function or Condition soever they be of Spiritual or Temporal in all matters wherein they or any of them shall be apprehended summoned or charged to answer to such things as shall be enquired of them by our said Soveraign Lord and his Council And that none of them which shall happen to be apprehended called or
summoned to the effect aforesaid presume to take in hand to decline the judgement of his Highness his Heirs and Successors or their Council in the Premises under the pain of Treason To make this way of Appealing more plausible to the People they are very willing to make a separation betwixt the two words Sacred and Majesty sticking close to Calvin who calls it blasphemy to yield the King a Supremacy in the Church under God and Christ to which purpose thus the Zealot Henderson delivered himself to his Majesty Such an Headship as the Kings of England have claimed and such a Supremacy as the Houses of Parliament crave with Appeals from the Supream Ecclesiastical Judicature to them as set over the Church in the same line of subordination I do utterly disclaim upon such reasons as give my self satisfaction And to this purpose against the Kings Supremacy in Church affairs he ranted before the House of Lords the year before Yet when he was Moderator of the Assembly of Glasgow in one of his Speeches there he attributed very much to the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical Causes and Assemblies and at last affirm'd That the King was Universal Bishop over all his Kingdom A Copy of this Speech his Majesties Commissioner James then Marquess of Hamilton used means to obtain but could not get it presently because those expressions had offended the Covenanters yet at last a Copy was sent him but with all those Expressions left out which were spoak in favour of the Kings Power in Ecclesiastical businesses by which one may guess at their jugling Another of these Brethren is very furious against the giving these Titles to the King and must call it Blasphemy too But this man is not only against this but also against the attributing any such Epithets as Vertuous Pious or Religious to our Superiours as if he had borrowed his breeding from Buchanan who rants against those who give the Titles of Majesty Lordship Illustrious c. And these two also agree very well together in slaundering those who will not fight against their Kings since they say Dame Nature knows no such distinction And this is agreeable to our Long-Parliament-Worthies who gravely declared it a fit Foundation for all Tyranny and a most distructive Maxim or Principle for the King to avow That He oweth an account of his Actions to none but God alone And that the Houses of Parliament joynt or separate have no power either to make or declare any Law And this power over the King Henderson doth not only give to the Representatives but also to the People over both them and the King especially in Reforming and so by consequence must make them also judges too and then shall we have a mad world my Masters If the Prince or Supreme Magistrate be unwilling then may the Inferiour Magistrate and the People being before rightly inform'd in the grounds of Religion lawfully reform within their own sphere and if the light shine upon all or the major part they may after all other means assayed make a publick Reformation And a few lines after thus to the same purpose It is not to be deny'd but the prime Reforming Power is in Kings and Princes quibus deficientibus it comes to the Inferior Magistrate quibus deficientibus it descends to the body of the People And this you must suppose to be a pretty Rule to make the People believe that no Religion can be true but the Presbyterians and the Covenanters and so a necessity of Reforming to their Directory For if not how will they answer the common Quaere How came they then or how durst they alter the Church Government against his Majesties express command Well necessity or no necessity the English Presbyterians will swear that they have power to Reforme and in that the King signifyeth but a Cypher For Could not they null Episcopacy against the Kings command Could not they devide their Lands amongst themselves against the Kings command Could not they Ruine the Common-Prayer-Book against the Kings command Could not they call a Pye-bald Assembly against his command Could they not swear a wicked Covenant against his command Could they not set up the Directory against his command Could they not set up Classical Provincial and National Assemblies against his command Could they not Murther and begger an Archbishop and others of the Orthodox and Loyal Clergy against his command Could they not destroy Cathedrals against his command Could they not make Perjury lawful against his command Could they not commit Sacriledge against his command Could they not turn the Kings Loyal Subjects out of both the Universities against his command Could they not make Schismatical Presbyterian Ordinations against his command Could they not make what they pleased to be Idolatry and Superstition against his command Could they not make Treason a Rule of Christianity against his command Nay could they not do any thing but make a man a woman and a woman a man according to Pembrokes oath and judgement For those who vote Loyalty Treason and cloak Rebellion with high Commendations and Religion will fancy a Legal Power into themselves obliging them to oppose their Prince And puft on with this perswasion a Puritanical Committee of our long Parliament order this to be Printed and Dispers'd in behalf of their Associates They have only used that Legal Power which was in them for the punishment of Delinquents and for the prevention and restraint of the Power of Tyranny of all which they are the legal Judges and all the Subjects of this Kingdom are bound by the Laws to obey them herein And this Opinion might be the reason why Prinne and his Fellows were so angry against that Murther'd Archbishop Laud for not suffering such seditious expressions as these to be used to the people in their Sermons It is lawful for the Inferior and subordinate Magistrates to defend the Church and Common-wealth when the Supreme Magistrate degenerates and falleth into Tyranny or Idolatry for Kings are subject to their Common-wealths And that Subjects may lawfully take up Armes against their Kings command and in their Sermons revile the Kings Court with Pride Avarice Idleness Flattery Folly Wickedness and such like Yet had a man in London but hinted half so much against the Parliament he had been claw'd for it to the purpose But it is not the English Puritans alone that would thus trample upon their Kings Nay the Scots too will be as wicked as them or else they could not handsomely call one another Brethren And this is especially practised by their zealous Hinters who deny the King to have no more to do in or with their Assemblies than the meanest Cobler amongst them whilst they thus Impudently told his Majesties Commissioner That if the King himself were amongst them he should have but one voice and that not Negative neither nor more affirmative than any one Member of their Assembly had Nor
Heathen yet would he be as much King and have as much right to the Crown and Rule as if he were Presbyterian 'T is not the Religion of the Magistrate but that in me be what it will that I do call Religion or Conscience which obligeth my obedience to him The Roman-Catholick had as much Reason and Law for their Gun-Powder Treason as the Scotch and English Puritans for their many Rebellions and may as to themselves as much rejoyce for their delivery from the Presbyterian Tyranny as they from the others intended cruelty but in this they may both shake hands and cry quits Brother which hath made me smile as often as I hear a Disciplinarian rail against the Romanists for that wicked design since themselves have been as guilty only some difference in the method one putting their confidence in Fire and the other in the Sword The many Rebellions of these People and their resolutions never to lay down their Swords till the King would satisfie them in what they pleas'd is a sufficient manifestation of their Conditional Obedience and that they are not farther Subject to that Authority than the King is obedient to their Wills examples of which are yet fresh in every mans memory At the very beginning of their Rebellion they having declar'd those who adhear'd to the King to be Traytors and He had done the same to the Earl of Essex His Majesty unwilling to have the bloud of his Subjects shed and delighting in Peace sent to the Parliament to call in their Declarations against his Party and he would call in all his against them and their Associates and that both the Armies might be disbanded an Act of Oblivion to be pass'd and a perfect Peace compos'd And What could be more gracious then this yet this they deny Nor will they hearken to any Overtures of a Treaty with him unless he first call in all his Declarations against them Disband his Army yield himself to them and permit those who were with him to be proceeded against and suffer as Delinquents Thus will they have none of him unless he submit to them and permit his best Friends to be ruined And yet these men must think themselves so good Subjects that they deserve his Majesties thanks for their so acting and in so doing think themselves Obedient enough in all Conscience But if this be their duty I wish they would tell me what they think disobedience to be This rejecting their Soveraign is sufficient to stop the mouths of these men from railing against Pope Gregory VII call'd Hildebrand who having excommunicated the Emperour Henry IV. would not absolve him nor receive him into favour till throwing off all his Princely attire he had waited three several dayes in the coldest time of Winter bare-footed at the walls of Vercelli in Piemonte in Italy where the Pope then was to beg audience and forgiveness Phaëton had no reason to question his birth-right unless Phoebus would allow him the command of his flaming Chariot to the ruin of the Youth and a great part of the World And 't is strange Logick and impudence in our Puritans to deny themselves to be Subjects unless they command as Supream A pretty mode to trample upon Authority as if they had set for their pattern Pope Alexander III. who insteed of offering his Toe to be kist by Frederick Barbarossa set his foot upon the Emperours neck If at the beginning of the Warr they were so stubborn as not to receive their King into their favour unless he yield to their mercy and suffer his friends to be distroy'd he must expect stranger Conditions when they are heightned with bloud and villany For then must he ask them Pardon give them satisfaction and carry nothing about him but the bare Title or else he shall be none of their King To which purpose a whole Club of them having sufficiently rail'd against Hâ—m after all their lies scandals and hellish forgeries thus conclude their malice and obedience These are some few of the many reasons Why we cannot repose any more trust in him i. e. King Charles I. and have made those former resolutions yet we shall use our utmost endeavour to settle the present Government as may best stand with the Peace and Happiness of this Kingdom Here they quite renounce any more Obedience to him nay make it by Vote both of their Lords and Commons to be High-Treason for any to make any Application or Address to him And if these be good Subjects without all question 't is Treason to be obedient And what they meant by their utmost endeavours I know not only this I am certain of having thus thrown away the Father they never apply'd themselves to the Son unlesse it were the motion of some of them to proclaim him Traytor and the conclusion of them all was to send the Earl of Warwick to fight him How long before they had been resolved to renounce their King and his Government I know not yet the Earl of Loudoun then Lord Chancellor of Scotland a pretty while before this gave the King notice of their intentions telling him that Some are so afraid others so unwilling to submit themselves to your Majesties Government as they desire not you nor any of your Race longer to raign over them If your Majesty refuse to assent to the Propositions you will lose all your Friends lose the City and all the Country and all England will join against you as one man and when all hope of Reconciliation is past it is to be feard They will processe and depose you and sett up another Government They will charge us to deliver your Majesty to them and to render the Northern Garrisons and to remove our Army out of England And upon your Majesties refusing the Propositions both Kingdomes will be constrain'd to agree and settle Religion and Peace without you which will ruine your Majesty and your Posterity And if your Majesty reject our faithful advice and lose England by your wilfulnesse your Majesty will not be permitted to come and ruine Scotland And at the beginning of the same year when his Majesty from Oxford earnestly desired them that there might be a personal Treaty The Lords and Commons of the English Parliament and the Commissioners of the Scotch Parliament after they had impudently hinted at his Majesty as a most wicked person they expresly deny any such means for peace untill he had given them satisfaction and security And this was still their custome with his Majesty first must he satisfie them before they will hear any thing from him In the same year the Committee of Scotland tell his Majesty at New Castle We hope you come with intentions and full resolutions to give all just satisfaction to the joint-desires of both your Kingdomes And two daies after assure him that If your Majesty shal delay the present performing thereof we shal be necessitated for our own exoneration
order the same they deny its obligation when King Charles I desires any thing by order then they refuse also affirming that such things cannot stop the force of Laws Yet when his present Majesty by Proclamation gratiously giveth a kind of toleration then they take hold of it and will stand by it let the Act of Conformity say what it will to the contrary And indeed his Majesty is greatly beholden to them thus to testifie their Obedience It being the first time that ever they comply'd with King or Command in matters of Religion Nor is their present obedience upon any vertue or stress of the Command but that it is agreeable to their wills Balthassar Cossa and other Cardinals being at Bologna to choose a Pope several they named but none could content Cossa wherefore they desired him to nominate whom he would whereupon he declared that he would be Pope himself and so was chosen and nominated John XXIII After this manner do our Presbyterians no King Law Councill Convocation or any thing else can please them but what is of their own election or beneficial to their own designes When themselves make a Covenant then they will swear for uniformity and the ruine of those who do not agree with them But if the King and laws demand unity then they are for liberty of Conscience yet if the Anabaptists Independents c. being then in supremacy plead and allow that liberty then they cry out that the Church is undone for want of Government Though now being not Lords and Maisters they are against such a settlement and stick to that license granted by the Kings Declaration which though but temporary yet will they never quit its Freedome till they be come Conquerors again by Rebellion let King and Parliament act what they will to the contrary and in this I am confirm'd by an expression in one of their Grandees We doubt not but his Majesty will appoint such persons to review our Liturgy as will agree in one which shall not be liable to just Exceptions TILL THAT TIME HIS MAJESTY GRANTS A LIBERTY What arguments these Resolute hot-spurrs will make out of just exceptions and the last words till that time his Majesty grants a liberty may very easily be suspected and I am confident the event will shew to be most seditious pleading the Kings Declaration against their Future Conformity though the King Parliament and Convocation agree on the contrary Thus will they act like the Bitch in Justine which desired the benefit of a place to whelp in which being granted begs of the Shepherd liberty also to bring up her young there this being performed too then confidently demands for the future a propriety in that Kennell But these men might know that Agesilaus the great King of the Lacedemonians us'd to condiscend to the pleasuring of his Son when a Child by riding with him on an Hobby-horse and what liberty our King grants to consciences that are truly tender cannot handsomly be laid hold on by these wicked Incendiaries whose abominable actions proclaim them to have no Conscience unlesse it be to commit mischief If these men will not allow liberty to the Episcopal Clergy I know no reason they should have it themselves as for the first 't is plain of which take some examples Where you have the kneeling at the Sacrament call'd an horrible stumbling block and that the kneeler is a Thief and in the same place tells the people that if none would communicate with the Ring-leaders and Introducers they would be forced to desist and had desisted long ago for shame Nay he goeth farther and tells them that though they receive much good and comfort by the Common-prayer yet they sin if they go to it And fairly assures us that we are bound to oppose the Liturgy for otherwise the Superiours will be embolden'd to sin whilst they think that to be lawfully imposed which is by us received and obeyd Mr. Matthew Newcomen now a great man amongst them and an old Smecty M Nuan when the Presbyterians were top and top gallant if I mistake not preach'd a Sermon against Toleration And one of their great Pulpit-teers of Scotland publickly told our House of Lords that Liberty of Conscience is no remedy but Physick worse then the Disease And in the same temper were this mans Country men when they cry'd out God defend all those who will defend Gods cause and God confound the Service-Book and all the maintainers of it And this was the heat of the Scotch people at the beginning of their Covenant turning out all those that would not subscribe it though contrary to the Kings command They presently expell'd two Regents from the Colledge of Edinburgh for not taking it In Fyfe they order'd a Communion throughout their Churches at which they made every one to swear not to subscribe any thing but their Covenant Nor were there few Ministers in that Kingdom not subscribers of their Covenant whom they did not presently process and cite before their several Presbyteries and others were kept from their Priviledges Nor was this all One of their Ministers refused to pray for Sir William Nesbett late Provost of Edinburgh when he was lying upon his Death-bed only because he had not subscribed their Covenant Another pray'd God to scatter them all in Israel and to divide them in Jacob who had counsell'd the King to require the Confession of Faith to be subscribed by His Authority Many would not admit to the Communion those who had not subscribed their Covenant Others would not suffer children to be baptized in the Churches of those Ministers who were out of the Covenant though they were their own Parish-Churches but carryed them sometimes many miles to be baptized by Covenanting-Ministers One preach'd That all the Non-subscribers of the Covenant were Atheists and so concluded that All the Lords of the Kings Council and all the Lords of the Session were such because none of them had subscrib'd it Another preach'd That as the wrath of God never was diverted from his people until the seven Sons of Saul were hang'd up before the Lord in Gibeon so the wrath of God would never depart from Scotland till the twice seven Prelates the number of the Bishops in that Kingdom were hang'd up before the Lord there Another preach'd That though there were never so many Acts of Parliament against the Covenant yet it ought to be maintain'd against them all Another deliver'd in his Sermon That the bloudiest and sharpest Warr was rather to be endured than the least Error in Doctrine and Discipline And another of these Bloud-Hounds in his Pulpit thus furiously wished That he and all the Bishops in that Kingdom were in a bottomless Boat at Sea together for he could be well content to lose his life so they might lose theirs And what do you think of another of these Furies who affirm'd that Every man ought to be
excommunicated that took not the Covenant and then any man might lawfully kill him who would put himself to so much trouble as to do it But we need not trouble our selves much by a recital of their words since their actions all along in that Kingdom were furiously hurryed on against Episcopacy or the Toleration of any thing that did thwart their Covenant And after this manner have we in England proceeded the Brethren thinking it impossible for any thing to thrive unless Episcopacy be pluck'd up root and branch of which take the words of Crofton I 'le stand by it It i. e. Episcopacy must be extirpated if King and Kingdom or Peace and Glory must be preserved from Gods angry extirpation It it not unknown to any that is conversant in their Writings and Sermons How for many years together they thundred before their Parliament the ruine of Episcopal Government pronouncing sad woes and judgements if any such things were tolerated which highly stir'd up the people of both Houses to act so fiercely against all Law and Reason for the maintenance of their wicked Covenant and Presbytery allowing no more mercy to the Orthodox Clergy than a Jew who sometimes might breathe amongst them but not do any thing in satisfaction of their Consciences These men being then Supream being against neutrality in Religion as well as Warr concerning which thus their Chieftains of both Kingdoms declare We give now publick warning to such Persons to rest no longer upon their Neutrality or to please themselves with the naughty and slothful pretext of Indifferency But that they address themselves speedily to take the Covenant and joyn with all their power in the defence of this Cause against the common Enemy and by their zeal and forwardness hereafter to make up what hath been wanting through their luke-warmness This they shall finde to be their greatest wisdom and safety Otherwise we do declare them to be publick Enemies to the Religion and Countrey and that they are to be censured and punished as profess'd Adversaries and Malignants Nor had they only the Solemn League but another Covenant as full of Treason and Wickedness as ever was invented by Satan and the refusers of this and none could take it but such wretches as themselves they Ordered to be dealt withall as Conspirators and Enemies and their Estates disposed of accordingly And besides this their Lords and Commons put forth another Oath stuft with non-sense for the preservation of themselves and their City with the power granted to seize upon the persons of all such as refused the said Oath Thus had these Puritans several gins laid to ruine the Orthodox and Loyal Subjects I might here tell of their giving Sir William Brereton and his Cheshire Associates Authority to turn out all the Ministers and School-Masters of that County who were for the King I might tell how they order'd every man upon his peril to submit to the destruction of Fonts Surplisses Organs painted Glass-windows c. I can also tell you how their Lords and Commons Ordain'd That if any Person or Persons shall use or caus'd to be used the Common-Prayer-Book That then every such person so offending therein shall for the first offence forfeit and pay the sum of five pounds For the second offence the sum of ten pound and for the third offence shall suffer one whole years Imprisonment without Bail or Main-prize And it is further Ordain'd That every Minister which shall not hence-forth pursue and observe the Directory for publick Worship according to the true intent and meaning thereof in all Exercises of the Publick Worship of God shall for every time that he shall so offend lose and forfeit the sum of forty shillings And that what person soever shall with intent to bring the said Directory into contempt and neglect or to raise opposition against it Preach Write Print or cause to be written or printed any thing in the derogation or depraving of the said Book or any thing therein contain'd or any part thereof shall lose and forfeit for every such offence such a sum of Money as shall at the time of his Conviction be thought fit to be imposed upon him by those before whom he shall have his Tryal provided that it be not less than five pounds nor exceeding the sum of fifty pounds I could also tell you how they turn'd out the learned and loyal Clergy and put into their places a company of Rebellious Schismatical Tub-thumpers such people being most advantagious for their turns and how they Order'd that if any of the Loyal Clergy endeavour'd to get their own again they should with all their friends and assisters be Imprisoned whereby many of them were forced to beg for their livings And many such like actions as these might be shewn whereby their malice appear'd visibly against the Episcopal Party and against the Toleration of any thing but their Rebellious Covenant and Schismatical Presbytery One of them tells us that This very Toleration hath been the principal cause of all our late Innovations Dislocations and Conflagrations And That no Orthodox sincere Christian can or dare cordially Ingage or bid God speed to the proceedings of Supream Power so long as they intend to allow a General Toleration of Errors and false Opinions How many Petitions were there yearly put up in behalf of the Covenant and that nothing should be allow'd but according to that League endeavouring what in them lay to raze out the very thoughts of Episcopacy And yet these men are now angry that they have not publick allowance for their sins If the Episcopal Clergy desire that they may have priviledge of Conscience according to the Laws of the Land Baxter blesseth himself and wonders they can have the confidence to ask such a favour and tells them that this denyal is so farr from being a Persecution that it is rather done for their greatest honour and accommodation For if you of the Episcopal Clergy should have liberty it would be the greatest blow that ever was given to your Government and the reason is because You would have a small Clergy and none of the best and the People in most Parishes that are most ignorant drunken profane unruly For the cause of their love to Episcopacy is because it was a shadow if not a shelter to the profane heretofore so that a Prelatical Church would in the common account be near kin to an Alehouse or Tavern to say no worse where some honest men may be and yet it is taken for the note of an honest sober man to be as little in them as may be 'T was the fashion of Andreas Ordogna that famous Painter of Florence to paint all his Enemies in Hell And what less malice Baxter and his Associates have against the Episcopal Clergy may in part be seen by their actions and railing and what reason they have now besides their Impudence to expect and demand a
accident though false will force the poor souls to a blessing of themselves from such people against whom God hath such an enmity Thus at the beginning of the Warres John Vicars afrighted many of the weaker sort from having any agreement with the Kings party by fobbing into their heads strange stories of Gods wrath against Cavaliers And thus they now set themselves awork again by abusing the vulgar with such fopperies What strange judgments do they threaten to these Nations if Episcopacy and Common-prayer book be not taken away And what sad Revolutions do they denounce if they be not remov'd To which purpose Mr. Ed. Bagshaw one now well known amongst the Brethren hath lately put forth a Sermon enough to make a whole Country distracted And to carry on this great work the dropping Anabaptist and Millenary make a great noise in which Throng H. Jessey holding up his ridiculous Pamphlet The Lords loud Call to England which is seconded by another forging zealot under the title of Mirabilis Annus both which are as free from truth as Tom. Scot from chastity here you may be as long finding a true story as Diogenes an honest man in Athens In both which books to my own knowledge and eye-sight are some most abominable lies and forgeries that were but St. Quintin now alive to pull them by their Noses those parts would soon fall off and leave the Sectaries mark'd for lyers Not unlike one Harris a Gold-smith who in the straits of Magellan going to blow his Nose instead of the snot threw the nose into the fire so violent was the cold and so Antony Knivet drew his benumm'd toes off with his frozen stockens But I hope Jessey and the rest of his Sectarian Associates will have no more influence upon the people than He Knolls and others of his Club had over the old blind woman neer Algate in London who by their anointing with oil thought to restore her to sight But alas these Dreamers can do no miracles unlesse like the two Priests of Orleance by deceipt and cunning But of these things I could pay them in their own coin if I thought it worth the while I could tell them of a great Lord a mortall enemy to Bishops and Cathedrals who March 1640. told some other Lords I hope one of us shall live to see no one stone left upon another of that Building meaning St. Pauls And after going to storm Lichfield-Close being all compleatly armed was in March 1643. shot in the left eye by a Gent. that was both dumb and deaf and which is also observeable he was thus slain upon St. Ceddes day who is the Patron of that Cathedral I could also tell them of Col. Hambdens being slain in that very place where he first took up Arms against the King I could also tell them of Mr. Tho. Hoyle Alderman of York and a Parliament man who hang'd himself in his own House at Westminster upon the same day and hour twelve-month that the King was murdered I could also tell them the rumours of Essex's death the storys of Pyms eating-disease and how the Lord Gray welterd in his own blood I could tell them of Mr. Hall of St. Needs in Huntingtonshire who hang'd himself of Sr. Tho. Martin of Cambridg-shire who said that he had rather wash his hands in the blood of the young King of Scots then in the Deer then slain and the same day brake his skull and shoulders of which he died I could tell them of one adventuring to climb up to pull down Cheap-side Cross slipt his hold and falling with his ribbs upon the Iron pikes wounded himself to death I could tell of another that endeavouring to tear down the Organs at Worcester fell down upon the Pavement broke his bones and dyed I could tell of another who had his hand shiver'd to pieces by the breaking and splitting of his gun as he endeavour'd to shoot at the similitude of Christ over All-souls Coll. gate in Oxford and of another who thinking to do the same at Martin Colledge had one of his eies blown out and the other little better I could tell the Anabaptists of one Anne Martin and another woman who got their deaths by the new mode of dipping And I could tell the Quaker how Lieutenant Thomas lately poyson'd himself and of a woman of his Tribe endeavouring to do miracles fell presently mad And as for the Presbyterians I could tell them a story of a great Preacher of their Faction viz. Mr. Barker of Pitchley in Northamptonshire and was by them held a godly man who was publickly hang'd for incest and murder who defil'd his Niece and had the child murdred which he had by her And let them consider the temperature of Dr. Cheynell But 't is a mark upon all this Fraternity to be hot-headed which doth make good the Description of a Puritan made long since by Dr. Butler of Cambridge viz. A Puritan is a Protestant frayd out of his witts I shall say nothing of Mary Gadbury a great Follower of Mr. Sedgwick and Mr. Case then of Goodwin and Jessey nor what pretty pranks she plaid to prove her self to be the Virgin Mary nor of Mr. Woodward Minister and his Wife great actors in that story yet it will not be amisse if I tell you one Covenanting passage On the same day that Mr. Joseph Caryll preach'd to exhort the people to the taking of the Covenant This following Bill was given to him to be read and praid for One that through much passion oftentimes grievously offends the Majesty of God by cursing and swearing And that since his late TAKING THE COVENANT desires the Prayers of this Congregation that his Offence may be pardoned and that he may be enabled to overcome that temptation from hence forwards Let Mr. Caryl make what interpretation he pleaseth the Reader must have as much power to judge as he Should I be as impertinent as these men I could give them story for story as long as they would and yet it may be scarce a true judgment of either side though highly fancyed so to be by the people Like the Country fellow who thought that the Astronomer taking the height of something with his Jacobs staffe had shot down the starre which by chance then fell as we usually say Tom Coryat tells a story of a fellow that mending a Clock in Venice and being very busie about the Bell at the same time one of the great men of Brasse that us'd to strike the Quarters of the hours with his great brazen hammer gave him such a violent blow that he knock'd him dead on the place should I tell the Brethren that this man was a Roman Catholick they would cry out a great judgment of God upon a Member of Anti-christ But 't is ridiculous to make every accident a judgment and 't is unchristian to question that God doth not sometimes manifestly revenge himself and cause
upon the wicked CHAP. VI. Some short Observations upon their Covenant AN understanding Gentleman assures us that A league amongst Subjects giveth law to a King breaks all bonds of Soveraignty and invites a people to seek for a New Maister And this dear-bought experience hath prov'd true to both Nations yet were the events of these Agreements more mischievous they would be courted by the seditious thinking such pieces of Perjury to be the best works of their Holy-days Since the reformation this mode of swearing against Authority hath been commonly practis'd in Scotland In their first Covenant 3 Decemb 1557. An Earl of Argile was the first subscriber and chief promoter and how active an Earl of Argile hath been in our days about such wickednesse need not here be related but I hope as the other was the first so this shall be the last Yet in this way hath the English been as faulty as the worst of them though I believe at first drol'd in by their Neighbours For when at the beginning of the Warres the English Commissioners went from the Parliament into Scotland to desire their assistance against the King and having addres'd themselvs to the Scotch Assembly delivering them a letter subscribed by some Presbyterian Ministers in which they complaind that their blood was shed like water upon the grouud for defence of the Protestant Religion they receiv'd a negative answer The Assembly telling them amongst other things That you cannot say you fight for the Reform'd Religion since you have not begun to reform your Church ye had thriven better if you had don as we did Begun at the Church and thereafter striven to have gotten the civil sanction to what ye had don in the Church A few days after Sir W. Ermin Mr. Hamden and the rest of the Commissioners were invited by some of their friends to make a new Address to the Assembly which they did the second time desiring a gracious Answer Upon this request the Assembly propounded to them this Will ye join in Covenant with us to reform Doctrine and Discipline conform to this of Scotland and ye shall have a better Answer Sir W. Ermin and the rest answered that they had not that in their Instructions but thank'd the Assembly and said they would represent it to the Parliament of England The Assembly replyd that there would be much time loosed ere they could go to the Parliament for their resolutions and thereafter to return to Scotland to draw up a Solemn League and COVENANT The danger was great and they were not able to resist the King But we shall draw up the Covenant here and send up with you some Noble men Gentlemen and Ministers that shall see it subscrib'd which accordingly was don only two or three words altered Thus was this spurious Wretch illegally begotten and brought forth by unlawful Parents by the Scots worship'd and ador'd as the only Idol fit to bless their undertakings and by their Brothers in mischief the English Long Parliament embraced who peremptorily enjoyn all people to swear Allegiance to it as their only supream Law and authentick Shibuleth to distinguish Treason from Loyalty Though what authority they had to impose such an Oath being against the Command both of King and Law must be left for Mr. Prynne to discover in some Terra incognita since we have no such custome amongst us Yet for all this Mr. Simeon Ash had the confidence in the Pulpit to wonder that any man should think that the Covenant was made here only to bring in the Scots when the Presbyterian Parliament and party was low in England Having thus seen the Birth of this Monster it might quickly be desected and the poison and mischief lodg'd in it might evidently be manifested to the whole world but that it hath formerly been don by more able pens However it cannot but seem strange to any that these men should swear to extirpate the Government of the Church by Archbishops Bishops c. which have been confirmd by 32 Acts of Parliament And they could never yet tell who made them Rulers over Israel and gave them power to such actions quite contrary to Magna Charta the laws of the Land and the Kings express command The first two are known to any one who hath heard any thing of the laws of the land and the latter is as true Yet because I have heard some deny and others question its truth I shall give you his Majesties own Proclamation against it 1643. By the KING His Majesties Proclamation forbidding the Tendering or taking of a late Covenant called a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation c. WHEREAS there is a Printed paper intituled a Solemn League and Covenant for Reformation and Defence of Religin The honour and happinesse of the King and the peace and safety of the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland pretended to be Ordered by the Commons in Parliament on the twenty first day of September last to be Printed and published Which Covenant though it seems to make specious expressions of Piety and Religion is in Truth nothing else but a Traiterous and Seditious Combination against us and against the Established Religion and Laws of this Kingdome in pursuance of a Traiterous Design and endeavour to bring in Forraign Force to invade this Kingdome We do therefore straightly Charge and Command all Our Loving Subjects of what Degree of Quality soever Upon their Allegiance That they presume not to take the said Seditious and Traiterous Covenant And We do likewise hereby Forbid and Inhibit all Our Subjects to Impose Administer or Tender the said Covenant as they and every one of them will answer to the Contrary at their Utmost and Extremest Perils Given at our Court at Oxford this Ninth day of October in the Nineteenth year of our Raign GOD SAVE THE KING Than this what could be more plain and authentick yet a furious Presbyterian is pleas'd to tearm this action of the King Satanical slander and abuse a most impious and audacious Paper Atheistical boldness Impious and Platonical pleasure c. Besides the unlawfulness of its making and Imposition the qualities and conditions of the Brat were so impious that an honest man could never take it for several reasons amongst many other take these two or three 1. § They swear to extirpate Popery without respect of persons In which they might be ask'd What they would do with the Queen If they forced her Religion 't was Treason If they did not they are perjur'd 2. § This Oath makes them to be but Conditional Subjects swearing to preserve the Rights and Priviledges of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom before the King or his Authority few of the takers understanding any of these things by which means they swore they knew not what And that this Oath obligeth them to be but conditional Subjects is plain they swearing To preserve and defend the Kings Majesties Person and Authority
In the preservation and defence of the true Religion and Liberties of the Kingdoms In which cases too themselves will be Judges so that the meaning is this as hath been proved before by several examples If the King will not obey the Covenant they are sworn not to obey nor defend the King 3. § By this Oath they commit absolute High Treason by nulling several Acts of Parliament made for the Preservation of the King and his friends For here they swear to bring to Publick Tryal to receive Condign Punishment the Kings best Subjects and Friends under the notion of Malignants whom they thus describe Evil Instruments by hindering the Reformation of Religion Dividing the King from his People or one of the Kingdoms from another or making any Faction or Parties amongst the People contrary to this League and Covenant And that justice may be done upon the wilful Opposers thereof By this they quite overthrow all Government making Loyalty Treason and Rebellion the only sign of a good Subject And how severe they stick to this murthering Article you shall see by one passage In the year 1646. the Parliament remaining Conquerours many of the Loyal Party thought it fit to compound for their Estates better to have something than nothing Amongst those in the County of Chester who were put to this hardship were Mr. Richard Brereton of Ashley Mr. John Wilson and others This highly perplext the Committee then at Chester who therefore wrote several Letters to the Youths at Goldsmiths-Hall desiring them never to take such friends to the King into Composition and one of their great sticklers at Chester Mr. S. C. thus delivers the Opinion of himself and his friends about this business The Gentlemen here conceive they are bound in Conscience and by their late National Covenant to do their duty in their place to bring Delinquents to condign punishment Here they will have no mercy but stick close to their wicked Principles And this Oath must receive no Interpretation For if we endeavour but to mitigate it then some strange curse or other will tumble upon the Nation as Crofton not long since affirm'd His Sacred Majesty and the Kingdom must submit to the plain and literal sense thereof though it seem as sower Grapes unless we will by Gods wrath set our own and childrens Teeth on edge 4. § The Covenant if it were in force would be the cause and maintainer of Rebellion for ever for in it they also swear to assist and defend all those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and pursuing thereof by which means they oblige themselves to all acts of hostility in its behalf though the King and Parliament as is now done should find reason for its nullity and 't is well known how oft they deny'd and defied their King upon this score O the Obedience and Charity of a Covenanter who like the wicked Jews combine together by Oath to kill those more holy than themselves needs must the malice of these men be so violent that they may be excus'd from saying the Lords-Prayer the very clause of forgiving their Enemies being enough to fright them into Dispair I wish I could say Repentance but that is a thing their zealous fury will not give them so much as leave to think on all of them hurryed on with that bloody rage as to cry out with that Levite in the Poet Blood Blood Blood destroy O Lord The Covenant-Breaker with a two-edg'd Sword Yet this Imp of wickedness the Brethren will not cast off The London-Ministers professing all the power on Earth cannot absolve them from it And Zach. Crofton keeps a great deal of clutter publickly affirming that it doth not only bind those who took it but those also who did not and that the Obligation of this Oath is for ever binding from Generation to Generation And in another of his flaunting Pamphlets he assureth the Reader That he doth and cannot but do it now contest for and assert the Solemn League and Covenant in that Religious part which must be promoted with out-most Zeal by all who wish well to the King and Kingdom though the Devil and his Instruments do endeavour to damp deaden and divert the discharge of duty And then afterwards tells them that Gods wrath will fall upon the King and Kingdom if Episcopacy be not extirpated and the Covenant observed to its literal sense and plain meaning And as they would thus continue it in fury so did they begin it as I have shew'd you before however I shall afford you one other piece of Canting confidence Mr. Andrew Cant the Father for the Son is now as bad in one of his Sermons at Glasgow told the Scots concerning their Covenant That he was sent to them with a Commission from Christ to bid them subscribe the Covenant which was Christ's contract and that he himself was come a Wooer to them for the Bridegroom and call'd upon them to come to be hand-fasted by subscribing that Contract And told them plainly That he would not depart the Town till he got the names of all who should refuse to subscribe that Contract of whom he promis'd to complain to his Master i. e. Christ As for the Obligation of the Covenant they themselves are sometimes forced to deny it unless they will make it a particular exception against all General Rules When the Scots in 1639. were a little troubled that Episcopacy was not absolutely abjured in their former Oaths which many thought binding to them The Covenanters thinking to take away that rub that all men might with more freeness embrace their Covenant declare publickly to the World that the swearer is neither obliged to the meaning of the prescriber of the Oath nor his own meaning but as the Authority shall afterwards interpret it and then by this Heathenish rule what will become of the binding force of the Covenant at this time Which is void also in the opinion of a great Presbyterian under the name of Theophilus Timorcus who thus shews himself Suppose that upon mature deliberation the Ministers that subscribed and took the Oath of Canonical Obedience find that it was an unlawful Oath or Subscription They are in such case only obliged to be humbled for their rash subscription and taking of that Oath and their second Oath against them will hold valid Now if they think this a sufficient salvo I shall only insert these four words Holy League and Covenant instead of the fore-mentioned four words Oath of Canonical Obedience and think the Absolution sufficient according to their own Argument Mr. Crofton tells us that the Oath which the King taketh at his Coronation for the defence of Bishops is of small validity because limited to the Laws of the Land But will this subordinate it to the Covenant Or will he make a little scribble-scrabble of a few perjured Rebels to be the Law of the Land If the
Britan. ad Lectorem Jo. Loccen Hist Suec p. 12. Vicar ' s. Chron. Part. 1. p. 212. The Noble Cavalier caracterised p. 5 6. Relig. of the Hypocrit Presb. p. 20 21 22. Mat. 10. 23. Case of Conscience concerning flying in Times of Trouble 1643. pag. 7. Id. p. 9. Id. p. 15. 28. June 1643. Pag. 70. Elench Mot. p. 120. 30. Aug. 1643. Pag. 39. Pag. 24. Pag. 64. Epist Dedicat. 27. Sept. 1643. Pag. 23. Pag. 27. 25. Octob. 1643. Pag. 20. 29. Jan. 1644 5. Chr. Love's Englands distemper pag 7. pag. 26. Would not the Presbyterians think much if one should now retort but a good purse can raise envy upon any man that dare speak truth It may be Mr. R. L'estrange can think it pag. 32. pag. 37. * With what face then can the Presbyterians expect mercy favour till the blood of Lucas Lisle Bouchier Yeomans Arch. Laud E. of Strafford E. Montross Mar. of Huntley Hathill Gordon Spotswood and many other persons of quality by them murdered be avenged pag. 42. pag. 5 6 23. pag. 17. 25 June 1645 pag. 11. pag. 20. pag. 25. pag. 40 The Earl of Montrosse and his loyal party pag. 44. pag. 64. 65. 26 July 1648. * pag. 11 13 16. 24. 28. †pag. 12. 25 Octob. 1648 * pag. 29 30. 33 34 35 36. †pag. 39 40. 48. p. 43. 50. 26 Decemb. 1648. pag. 14. c. 46. Titus Livius de Frunlonisis life of King Henry the V. M. S. in the Bodl. library pag. 61 62. Bayly's Worcesters Apothegms 15. p. 21. The Parlour where the Marquesse lay was a soft and loose ground wherein you might sink up to the Ancles The top of the house was tharcht with ill-thresht straw and the corn that was left in the straw wherewith the house was thatcht grew and was then all as green as grafse Alonso de Villegas flos sanctorum 20. August Bailys Review pap 83. 29 Novemb. 1648. pag. 26. ch 20. v. 42. c. 22. v. 31. Is not this well applyed Yet was it Order'd that Col. Wilson do give him thanks from the Presbyterian Commons State-divinity pag. 17. 24. Sept. 1656. pag. 23. * ☜ †☜ Vindication of the London-Ministers p. 6 7. 1648. Holy Common-wealth Thes 136. 137. 145 146 147. 149. 374 375. Preface pag. 15 14. * Note that when as abovesaid he affirm'd that the species of the Government was not to be alter'd but another King to be chosen that his special friend Rich. Cromwell was Protector But when he now writes this for the sole Government of Parliaments the Rump was then restored and Triumphant †T is worth knowing whether he means not Royalists and Episcopal men by those who have forfeited their liberties by Wickednesse pag. 455. Monumentum regale p. 16 17. The Bounds and Bonds p. 45. His Letter pag. 19. A Satyre The Puritan and the Papist pag. 6. Bounds and Bonds p. 20. Second fair warning p. 12. in Epist Monument Regalc p. 25. Facet Bebel lib. 3. p. 184. Interest of Engl. Sect. 14. Animad upou the Bishop of Worcester's Letter p. 10. Holy-Com p. 486. Id. p. 477. Bishop of Worcester's Letter pag. 7. Bishop of Worcester's Letter pag. 8. Scrin Sacr. p. 123. Bas Dor. l. 2. Howel's Germ Dyet p. 37. Tasso Cant. 2. P. Dan. Hist de Barbarie p. 308 309 310 111. Z. Crofton's Fastning of St. Peter's Fetters p. 67. Id. 118. Berith Anti-Baal p. 42. K. large Declarat p. 171. Yet they would allow none to be but what would be for their Covenanting humours as is visible in their own Stories however they were certain to have the Assembly on their side and then would they Protest against all that agreed not with them Id. pag. 181. Calvin in Amos 7. 13. p. 282. 2. Paper at Newcast Sermon 28. May 1645. p. 12. 16. Epist Large Declar. pag 280. Preface to Knox's Hist g. 3. h. Praesat de jure Regni ap Scotos Declar. of Reasons for no more Address pag. 12. 2. Paper at Newcastle Political Catechism 1643. p. 12 Canterburies Doom p. 290 291 302 303. Large Declar. pag. 245. K. Large Decl. pag. 349. * By this word they signifie all Civill Power The King as well as the Three Estates Good Doctrine for the Puritans when uppermost but at this time nothing more distructive to them Id. p. 298. Pag. 300. Pag. 301. * The Bishops and others who protested against and declined this jugled-up Assembly In which Act there is not one word that intimates as these Covenanters would in this place but rather in behalf of the Privy Councellors p. 310. Large Declar. p. 284. Salust Germ. pag. 231. Martin's Chron. p. 422. Mr. Hall's Funebr Flor. pag. 25. Large Declar. p. 379 380. Jo. de Laet. Hispan p. 90. Mr. Heylin's Geogr. Lithgow's Travels p. 505. Platina p. 178. Genebrard Chron. Anno 1073. Ovid. Met. l. 2. See Morney's Hist of Papacy pag. 336. Declarat for Non-Address p. 37. 1647. In his Speech to the King at New-Castle August 1646. It seems Lowdoun and they agreed very well together in their Counsells and Designes this speech being spoak a quarter of a year before the English and Scotch made such agreement at New-Castle it may be his Lordship could also then tell of the 300000. pound 13 Jan. 1645 6 13 May. 1646. 15 May. Remonstrance February 1644 5 Humble Representation of the Commissioners of the Gen. Assembly to the Honourable Estates of Parliament 1648. 28 April pag. 6 Pag. 12. Here 's a plain confession from the Scots themselves who best knew the meaning of the Covenant that this League bindes its Takers only to a conditional subjection of which they themselves must be judges too Pag. 13. Pag. 21 22. And is nothing for the glory of God but Presbytery Nothing good but the Covenant And must no body be judge of these things but themselves Well their meaning must be To their self-ended Interests Review p. 39. Justification of Mr. Tho. Chaloners Speech 1646 pag. 12 13. Declaration 1649. p. 3. Their Declarat against Montross 1650 Their Declarat against Montross 2 Jan. 1650. See the Answer of the Parl. of Engl. to the Kings Declar. 1650. pag. 18. All the world knoweth the villany of this way of canting The Heathen call'd stocks and stones true Religion as here you have mischief murther and perjury call'd Gods Interest Vid. Bounds Bonds pag. 55. 1650. Another Instance that the Covenant binds only to Conditional Obedience Quia clavis Sancti Petri non amplius valet valeat gladius Sancti Pauli Jo. Baleus l. 7. Speed's Chron. Rich. 1. sect 58. Large Declar. pag. 244. * Quaerebam claves Monasterii quibus inventis jam rectus incedo clavibus pro libito utor Ph. Lonicer Theat Hist p. 539. vid. Oth. Meland Joco-seria Sect. 254. p. 272 273. Le Tombeau de la Melancholie pag. 171. 23. Apr. 1649. Bee-hive of the Rom. Church sol 23. * Ant. Panormit a Parallela Alfonsina l. 2. c 9.
and this also the Protestation and Covenant bound them to keep But how these were observed and that by the Parliament itself every Member therein having taken the two Oaths is not unknown And if these allow'd them to fight against the King or at least to kill him I shall lament my Baptism and put no more trust in my Creed When the Rump had perjured themselves by beheading their King they frame an Engagement obliging all to take it or else to have no benefit of an English-man the words of which were these I do declare and promise that I will be true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now established without a King or House of Lords This was taken by all the Officers and Souldiers of the Armies who return'd their Subscriptions in Parchment-Rolles to make the work more sure and lasting and besides them many others took it But the Army kept not long to this their Solemn Engagement for they not only rooted out the Rump but alter'd the Government again to a single Person by making Oliver Cromwell Protector whose Council by Order of his Parliament was to swear Fidelity and Allegiance to him and every Member of Parliament both then and for the future did and was to swear Failty to him thus I A. B. Do in the presence and by the Name of God Almighty promise and swear That I will be true and faithful to the Lord Protector of the Common-wealth of England Scotland and Ireland and the Dominios and Territories thereunto belonging as Chief Magistrate thereof and shall not contrive design or attempt any thing against the Person or lawful Authority of the Lord Protector This Oath in behalf of Protectorship and a single Person lasted not long for the Army having overthrown Richard and again restored the Rump another Oath was ordered to be taken in these words You shall swear That you will be true faithful and constant to this Common-wealth without a single Person Kingship or House of Lords And after all this as if one Oath signified nothing some of them took a new-found-out Oath of Abjuration against Kingship though poor Souls only to their own shame and confusion And this was the pretty invention of the hot-headed Knight Don Haslerigo one of Burges's Principles to abominate and hate all Bishops but to imbrace and love their Lands dearly but this fault is not only incident to them it being the main reason that there is such a skip-jack as an English Presbytery Such horrid Perjury as this and such abominable Villanies committed by our late Parliaments made them not a little guilty of the highest Sacriledge The Parliament-House where the Commons now sit being formerly St. Steven's Chappel built by King Steven The consideration of which might have moved honest men to have acted more religiously though these men only sate there to ruine both it and the Church It being a knack amongst our new Saints to pull down Churches for the Propagation of Religion an action of more malice than reason being as ridiculous as the wise-men of Gotham to put Saltfish into a Pond to multiply or to hedge in the Cookow and as simple as Maestro Nun̄o Divinity Professor in Valladolid who made a great deal of clutter to borrow Boots and Spurs because he was to ride in a Coach But of this no more only if those men be not perjured who swallowed these contradictory Oaths I shall allow my self not only irrational but bemoan my condition because not born one of the old Aegyptian Heathens whose Religion punish'd such sins with severe death CHAP. V. The wicked Sacriledge of the Parliament and Army THe Schoolmen and others make a threefold Sacriledge viz. either by taking away from or violating in a holy place a holy thing or secondly an holy thing from or in a place not holy or fanctified or lastly a thing not holy in or from a holy place And that there are some places and things holy I suppose few but those who are wickedly interested in Church-Lands will plead ignorance For though this or that originally be not really holy of it self yet the Dedication and Consecration of them by the Church to holy uses makes them holy to the Lord. For saith God devoted things that a man shall devote unto the Lord. every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. And these things once offer'd unto the Lord are not to be profaned And if any through ignorance sin against this He shall make amends for the harm that he hath done in the holy thing Belshazzar's sin was not so much for being drunk with Wine but his sacrilegious drinking out of the Vessels of the Temple Those who rob God of his Tithes and Offerings are severely curst and an express command against exchanging or alienating those things which are holy to the Lord as the Lands of his Church How highly did God punish those who regarded not his Temple every man running unto his own House and what little impression hath this made upon England where most forsook the Church drawing themselves to illegal Conventicles and such private Houses never intended for such publick duties 'T is noted as a great aggravation of King Ahaz iniquities for destroying the holy Vessels and shutting up the doors of the Temple though amongst our late rebellious Reformers such actions were esteem'd a true token of holiness Jehoash King of Judah took all the treasure and holy things out of the Temple and sent them to Hazael King of Syria for a bribe and was recompenced by being slain by his Servants But our Innocent King was murdered by those who had fed their Brethern with Monies impiously rent from Church-Lands whereby their Villanies were doubled to make them more serviceable to their cloven-footed Master who set them on work The wisest man that ever was assureth us That it is a snare to a man who devoureth that which is holy and after vows to make enquiry Out of which words a learned Writer observes That he is guilty of death who sins against God either by alienating taking away or keeping back those things which are holy or consecrated to the Lord. Ananias and Saphiras act is held by Divines as a true pattern of Sacriledge for which they suffer'd death by a special judgement of God as Achan in the old time was stoned to death St. Paul admires that any man should be so wicked as to commit Sacriledge and our late Sectaries wonder that any should stand in aw of it Our Saviours whipping the buyers and sellers and such like out of the Temple is no small sign what respect should be held to our Churches not to be turn'd into Exchanges as is well known the once famous Cathedral of St. Pauls was For Confirmation of this many heavy examples of Gods judgements against those who have either violated his Church or alienated his Messengers Lands might be drawn