not equal to the Name of a Parliament being scarce the eighth part of that Convention and not much above Forty in all and those the reproach of that Assembly For befides those that were violently excluded others that did abhor the Conditions of sitting there withdrew themselves to their own homes And many of those who formerly deluded by their pretensions to Religion Justice and Liberty had hitherto been of the Faction yet now awakened by those clamorous Crime forsook their bloody Confederacy Yet did not this contemptible Number of which in most Votes there were Twenty Dissenters blush to assume the Authority of managing the weightiest Affairs of the English Empire to alter and change the Government to expose His Majesty to a violent Murther and to overthrow the Ancient Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom For being wholly devoted to the service of the Army they communicated counsels with them and whatsoever was resolved at the Council of War passed into a Law by the Votes of this Infamous Remnant of the House of Commons who now served the Souldiers in hopes of part of the Spoil and a precarious Greatness which being acquired by so much Wickedness could not be lasting In order therefore to the Army's design they revive those Votes of No Addresses to the King which had at first but surreptitiously and by base practices passed and had been afterwards Repealed by a full House Those Votes of a Treaty with the King and of the Satisfactoriness of His Concessions with scorn they rased out of the Journal-Book And then proceeded to Vote 1. That the People under God are the Original of all Just Power 2. That the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament being Chosen by and Representing the People have the Supreme Authority of this Nation 3. That whatsoever is enacted and declared for Law by the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament by which they understood themselves hath the force of a Law 4. That all the People of this Nation are concluded thereby although the Consent and Concurrence of the King and House of Peers be not had thereunto 5. That to raise Arms against the People's Representative or Parliament and to make War upon them is High Treason 6. That the King Himself took Arms against the Parliament and on that account is guilty of the blood shed throughout the Civil War and that He ought to expiate the crime with His own blood Those that were less affected with the common Fears and Miseries could not temper their mirth and scorn at such ridiculous Usurpers that thought to adjust their Crimes by their own Votes that in one breath would adorn the People with the Spoils of Monarchy and in the next rob the People to invest themselves And it is said that even Cromwell who intended to ruine our Liberty was ashamed and scorned their so ready Slavery and afterwards did swear at the Table of an Independent Lord that he knew them to be Rascals and he would so serve them Others of more melancholy Complexions considering the baseness of these servile Tyrants and the humours of their barbarous Masters the Souldiers all whose inhumanities they were to establish by a Law and that Power gotten by Wickedness cannot be used with the Modesty that is fit for Just Magistrates justly feared that as under the King they had enjoyed the height of Liberty so under these men they were to be overwhelmed in the depth of Slavery and that these Votes which overturned the very Foundation of our Laws could not be designed but for some horrid Impiety and our lasting Bondage which came so to pass For in their next Consultations they Constitute a Tribunal to Sentence their Sovereign which afterwards they used as a Shambles for the most Loyal and Gallantest of the Nobless and People of the most abject Subjects and to procure a Reverence to the Vilest of men they give it the specious name of The High Court of Justice For which they appoint One hundred and fifty Judges that the Number might seem to represent the whole Multitude of the most violent and heady of all the Faction To whom they give a Power of Citing Hearing Judging and Punishing CHARLES STVART King of England To make up this Number they had named six Peers of the Upper House and the twelve Judges of the Land But the greatest part were Officers of the Army who having confederated against His Majesty and publickly required His Blood could not without a contempt to the light of Reason be appointed His Judges and Members of the Lower House who were most violent against Monarchy and indeed all Government wherein themselves had no share The rest were Persons pick'd out of the City of London and Suburbs thereof who they imagined would be most obsequious to their Lusts Those that surveyed the List and knew the Men deemed them most unfit for a Trust of Justice and proper Instruments for any wicked undertaking for of these Judges one or two were Coblers others Brewers one a Goldsmith and many of them Mechanicks Such among them as were descended of Ancient Families were men of so mean worth that they were only like the Statues of their Ancestors had nothing but their Names to make them known unto the World Some of them were Spend-thrifts Bankrupts such as could be neither safe nor free unless the Kingdom were in Bondage and most notorious Adulterers whose every Member was infamous with its proper Vice Vain and Atheistical in their Discourse Cowardly and Base in Spirit Bloody and Cruel in their Counsels and those Parts that cannot honestly be named were most dishonest One of them was accused of a Rape Another had published a Book of Blasphemies against the Trinity of the Deity Some of them could not hope to get impunity for their Oppressions of the Country and Expilations of the publick Treasure but by their Minstry to this Murther Others could not promise themselves an advancement of their abject or declining Fortune but by this Iniquity Yet all these by the Faction were inrolled in the Register of Saints though fitter to stand as Malefactors at the Bar thaâ— to sit upon Seats of Judgment And notwithstanding their diligent search for such a Number of men who would not blush at nor fear any guilt some of those whom they had named in abhorrency of the Impiety refused to sit and some that did yet met there in hopes of disturbing their Counsels All this while the House of Peers were not Consulted and it was commonly supposed that most of them terrified with those Preparations against the King the only defence of the Nobless against the Popular Envie would absent themselves from that House except four or five that were the Darlings of the Faction and they deemed the Names and Compliance of those few were enough to give credit and Authority to their bloody Act. But in them they were disappointed also for some of the Peers did constantly meet and on that day wherein the Bill for Tryal
his nature changed by the Reproaches of his Accusers answers with so brave a Presence of Spirit such firm Reasons and so clear an Eloquence that he whom the mercenary Tongues of their Lawyers had rendred as a Monster of men could not be found guilty of Treason either in the particulars or the whole So that his Enemies were filled with madness that their Charge of Crimes appeared no other than a Libel of Slanders and the dis-interessed Hearers were besides the pleasure they received to find so great Endowments polluted with no hainous Crimes sensible of the unhappiness of those who are Ministers of State among a Factious people where their prosperous Counsels are not rewarded and unsuccessful though prudent are severely accused when they err every one condemns them and their wise Advices few praise for those that are benefited envy and such as are disappointed hate those that gave them And such seemed the Fate of this Excellent Counsellour whom nothing else but his great Parts his Master's Love and Trust had exposed to this Danger The Faction being obstructed this way by the Earl's Innocency and Abilities from taking away his Life moved the House to proceed by a Bill of Attainder to the making a Law after the Fact whereby they Vote him guilty of High Treason yet add a Caution that it should not be drawn into a Precedent seeking to secure themselves from a return of that Injustice upon themselves which they acted on him intending to prosecute what they falsly charged him with the Alteration of Government Which yet passed not without a long debate and contention for many that had none but honest hopes disdained to administer to the Interest of the Faction in the blood of so much Innocent Gallantry and those that were prudent saw how such an Example opened the avenues to ruine of the best Persons when once exposed to publick hatred Therefore they earnestly disswaded such a proceed And fifty nine of the most eminent openly dissented when it came to the Vote whose Names were afterwards posted and marked for the fury of the Rabble that for the future they might not oppose the designs of the Factious unless they desired to be torn in pieces In two days the Lower House past the Bill so swift were the Demagogues to shed blood but the Lords House was a little more deliberative the King having amongst them declared His sense of the Earl's Innocency of whose slow Resolves the Faction being impatient there came a seditious rabble of about 5 or 6000 of the dregs of the people armed with Staves and Cudgels and other Instruments of Outrage instigated by the more unquiet Members both of the House of Commons and City to the Parliament doors clamouring Justice Justice and the next day to raise their Fury there was a report spred among them of some endeavours to prepare an Escape for the Lieutenant of Ireland therefore with more fierceness they raised their clamors some objecting Treason to him others their Decay of Trade and each one either as he was instructed for some of the House of Commons would be among them to direct their Fury and to give some order to their Tumult that it might appear more terrible or the sense of his own necessities and lusts led him urged his different motives for Justice and at last heated by their own motion and noise they guard the Doors of the House of Peers offer insolencies to the Lords especially the Bishops as they went in and threaten them if their Votes disagree from their clamors And when they had thus made an assault on the Liberty of the Parliament which yet was pretended to be so Sacred they afterward set upon the neighbouring Abby-Church where forcing open the doors they brake down the Organs spoiled all the Vestments and Ornaments of the Worship from thence they fly to Court and disturb the Peace of it with their undecent and barbarous clamours and at last were raised to that impudency as to upbraid the King who from a Scaffold perswaded them as they passed by to a modest care of their own private affairs with an unfitness to reign When some Justices of the Peace according to the Law endeavoured to suppress those Tumults by imprisoning the most forward and bold Leaders they themselves were imprisoned by the Command of the Commons upon pretext of an injury offered to the Liberties of the Subject of which one was as they then dictated That every one might safely petition the Parliament yet when the Kentish men came to Petition for something contrary to the gust of the Faction they caused the City Gates to be shut upon them and when other Counties were meditating Addresses for Peace by threatnings they deterred them from such honest undertakings And when some prudent Persons minded the Demagogues how dishonourable it was for the Parliament not to suppress such Mutinies they replyed that their friends ought rather to be thanked and caressed By these and other Arts having wholly overthrown the freedom of that Council and many withdrawing themselves from such Outrages when scarce the third part of the Peers were present the Faction of that House likewise passed the Bill the Dissenters being out-voted only by seven Voices Yet all this could not prevail upon the King though the Tumults were still high without and within He was daily solicited by the Lords of His Palace who now looked upon the Earl as the Herd doth on an hurt Deer and they hoped his Blood would be the Lustration of the Court to leave the Earl as a Sacrifice to the Vulgar Rage Nor did the King any ways yield till the Judges who were now obsequious to the pleasures of the Parliament declared He might do it by Law and the Earl by his own Letters devoted himself as a Victim for the publick Peace and His Majesties Safety and then overcome with Importunities on all hands and being abused by bad dealing of the Judges as Himself complained to the Bishops whom he consulted in that Case and the Bishop of London who was one of them answered That if the King in Conscience found him not guilty He ought not to pass the Bill but for matter of Law what was Treason he referred Him to the Judges who according to their Oath ought to carry themselves indifferently betwixt Him and His Subjects The other four Bishops that were then consulted Durham Lincoln Carlisle and the Arch-Bishop of Armagh were not so free as the Bishop of London was and therefore the King observed a special blessing of God upon him He at last with much reluctancy signed a Commission to some Lords to pass that Bill of Attainder and another for Continuation of the Parliament during the pleasure of the Two Houses The passing of these two Bills as some thought wounded the King's Greatness more than any thing he ever did The first because it cut off a most exquisite Instrument of Empire and a most faithful Servant and none did more make use
of the Lords where the Popish Lords and Bishops had the greatest Power and there it stuck whose names they desired to know and in this they were so earnest that they would not willingly withdraw whilest it was debated and then they had leave to depart with this Answer That the House of Commons had already endeavoured Relief from the Lords in their Requests and shall so continue till Redress be obtained Such Petitions as these were likewise from the several Classes of the inferiour Tradesmen about London as Porters Watermen and the like and that nothing of testifying an universal Importunity might be left unattempted Women were perswaded to present Petitions to the same effect While the Faction thus boasted in the success of their Arts Good men grieved to see these daily Infamies of the supreme Council of the Nation all whose Secrets were published to the lowest and weakest part of the People and they who clamoured it as a breach of their Priviledge that the King took notice of their Debates now made them the Subjects of Discourse in every Shop and all the corners of the Street where the good and bad were equally censured and the Honour and Life of every Senator exposed to the Verdict of the Rabble No Magistrate did dare to do his Office and all things tended to a manifest Confusion So that many sober Persons did leave the Kingdom as unsafe where Factions were more powerful than the Laws And Just Persons chose rather to hear than to see the Miseries and Reproaches of their Country On the other side to make the King more plyable they tempt Him by danger in His most beloved Part the Queen concerning whom they caused a Rumour that they did intend to impeach Her of High Treason This Rumour made the deeper Impression because they had raised most prodigious Slanden which are the first Marks for destruction of Princes on Her and when they had removed all other Counsellors from the King She was famed to be the Rock upon which all hopes of Peace and Safety were split That She comanded no less His Counsel than Affections and that His Weakness was so great as not to consent to or enterprize any thing which She did not first approve That She had perverted Him to Her Religion and formed designs of overthrowing the Protestant Profession These and many other of a portentuous falshood were scattered among the Vulgar who are alwayes most prone to believe the Worst of Great Persons and the uncontrolled Licence of reporting such Calumnies is conceived the first Dawning of Liberty But the Parliament taking notice of the Report sent somne of their House to purge themselves from it as an unjust Scandal cast upon them To which the Queen midly answers That there was a general Report thereof but She never saw any Articles in writing and having no certain Author for either She gave little credit thereto nor will She believe they would lay any Aspersion upon Her who hath been very unapt to misconstrue the Actions of any One person and much more the Proceedings of Parliament and shall at all times wish an Happy Vnderstanding between the King and His People But the King knowing how usual it was for the Faction by Tumults and other Practices to transport the Parliament from their just Intentions in other things and that they might do so in this resolved to send Her into Holland under colour of accompanying their Eldest Daughter newly married to the Prince of Orange but in truth to secure Her so that by the fears of Her danger who was so dear unto Him He might not be forced to any thing contray to His Honour and Conscience and that Her Affections and Relation to Him might not betray Her Life to the Malice of His Enemies With Her He also sent all the Jewels of the Crown that they might not be the spoils of the Faction but the means of the support of Her Dignity in foreign parts if His Necessities afterwards should not permit Him to provide for Her otherwise Which yet She did not so employ but reserved them for a supply of Ammunition and Arms when His Adversaries had forced Him to a necessary Defence It was said that the Faction knew of this conveyance and might have prevented it but that they thought it for their greater advantage that this Treasure should be so managed that the King in confidence of that assistance might take up Arms to which they were resolved at last to drive Him For they thought their Cause would be better in War than Peace because their present Deliberations were in the sense of the Law actual Rebellions and a longer time would discover those Impostures by which they had deluded the People who would soon leave them as many now did begin to repent of their Madness to the Vengeance which was due to their practices unless they were more firmly united by a communion of guilt in an open assaulting their Lawful Prince The King hastens the security of the Queen and accompanies Her as far as Dover there to take his farewel of Her a business almost as irksome as death to be separated from a Wife of so great Affections and eminent Endowments and that which made it the more bitter was that the same cause which forced Her Separation from Him set Her at a greater distance from His Religion the only thing wherein their Souls were not united even the Barbarity of His Enemies who professed it yet were so irreconcileable to Vertue that they hated Her for Her Example of Love and Loyalty to Him While He was committing Her to the mercy of the Winds and waves that She might escape the Cruelty of more unquiet and faithless men they prosecute Him with their distasteful Addresses and at Canterbury present Him with a Bill for taking away Bishops Votes in Parliament Which having been cast out of the House of Peers several times before ought not by the Course and Order of Parliament to have been admitted again the same Session But the Faction had now used their accustomed Engine a Tumult and it was then passed by the Lords and brought hither together with some obscure Threats that if it were not signed the Queen should not be suffered to depart By such impious Violences did they make way for that which they call'd Reformation This His Majesty signs though after it made a part of His penitential Confessions to God in hopes that that Bill being once consented to the Fury of the Faction which with so great Violence pursued an absolute Destruction of the Ecclesiastical Government would be abated as having advanced so far in their design to weaken the King's Power in that House by the loss of so many Voices which would have been always on that side where Equity and Conscience did most appear But He soon found the Demagogues had not so much Ingenuity as to be compounded with and they made this but a step to the over throw of that which He designed
and was drawn from His peaceful Contemplations and Prospect of Heaven to behold and converse with men set on Fire of Hell These to tempt Him to a Confidence in their integrity that they might the more easily to His disgrace ruine Him and murder Him by His own Concessions if He would be deluded by them highly pretend to a Compassionate Sense of His Sufferings and complain of the Parliaments Barbarous Imprisoning Him in His own Palaces wondering they had no more Reverence for Majesty and to beget a belief of this they profess which they would have to be conceived with them was more sacred than any Oaths that they will never part with their Arms till they have made His way to His Throne and rendred the Condition of His Party more tolerable Besides these Promises and Compassions they permit Him the Ministry of His Chaplains in the Worship of God which it is said He took with so great a Joy that He almost believed Himself free and safe it being His most heavy burthen while He was the Parliaments Captive the Commerce of Letters with the Queen the Visits of His own Party and the Service of His Courtiers some of whom they also admitted to their Council of War mould Propositions which they will urge in His behalf and alter them to the King's Gust and at His Advice In their publick Remonstrances against the Covetousness Ambition Injustice Cruelty and Selfmindedness of the Parliament they do sometimes obliquely sometimes plainly profess that the King Queen and the Royal Family must be restored to all their Rights or else no hope of a solid Peace but then they would intermix such Conditions as argued they sought Reserves for a perfidious escape For Cromwell did among his Confidents boast of his fine Arts and that by these Indulgences was intended nothing but His Destruction By all these Impostures they prevailed nothing upon the Hopes or Fears of the King nor did He commit any thing unworthy His former Fortune and the Greatness of His Integrity and Wisdom or which any of the Disagreeing Factions could use to His reproach But they found another kind of Success upon the Parliament for they sacrificed to the Commands of their Stipendiaries eleven Members of the House of Commons and seven of the Peers causing them to forbear sitting among them because they had been accused by the Army in a very frivolous Charge All men wondering at the inequality of those mens Spirits who had so furiously rejected the Articles of their lawful Sovereign against five or six of their Body and yet did now so tamely yield to the slight Cavils and dislike of their Mercenaries above thrice that Number They therefore concluded that neither Religion Justice or the Love of Liberty which are always uniform but unworthy Interests and corrupt Souls which vary with fears and hopes had been the Principles and first Movers of their attempts Besides this they were so prone to Slavery that they had gone on to Vote all the lusts of the Army had not a Tumult their Arts being now turned upon their own heads from London stopp'd them in their violent speed and kept the Speaker in his Chair till they had voted more generously that it was neither for their Honour nor Interest to satisfie the demands of the Souldiers and that the King should come to London to treat These contrary desires of the divided Faction which had joyntly oppressed their Sovereign shewed that Ill men will more easily conspire together in War than consent in Peace and that Combinations in Crimes will conclude in Jealousies each Party thinking the advantages of the other too great and that Power is never thought faithfull which is accounted excessive Therefore both prepare for War With the 140 Members that sate in Parliament were joyned the City and the cashiered Souldiers and Officers that had served in their pay With the Army were the Speakers of both Houses who had fled to them with about fifty of their Members that projected the Change of Government being either for an Oligarchy or Democracie yet left some of the same judgment behind to betray and disturb the Counsels at London To these did adhere the Neighbouring Counties who were cajoled by the splendid Promises of the Army of Restoring the King which they much boasted Dissolving the Parliament and Establishing Peace and Government and they more wilingly credited these because they had conceived an hatred of the Parliament and City both for beginning the War and now obstructing Peace The Army intitle their attempts for King and People Their Adversaries for bringing the King to His Parliament The Commanders were greedy of that War which promised an easie Victory and made the poor Souldiers hope for the Plunder of the City For the advantage was clear on the Army's side which consisted of veterane Souldiers united among themselves by a long Converse and known Commanders but the force of the other was made up of a tumultuary Multitude gathered under new Leaders and so had no mutual confidence their meetings were full of doubts and fears none could determine in private nor in publick Consult because they dared not trust one another and it was observed that those who were most treacherous talk'd most boldly against the Enemy Therefore in the very beginnings the Parliament and City desert their Enterprise Treat with and open their Gates to the Army who march in Triumph through London bringing the Speakers and their Fellow-Travellers to their Chairs seize upon the Tower dismantle the Fortifications pull down all the Chains and Posts of the City send the Lord Mayor and the Chief Citizens to the Tower and reduce all the Power of the Nation in Obedience to the Commanders For Fairfax is made General of all the Forces both in England and Ireland and Rainsbrough a Leveller and a violent Head of the Democraticks High Admiral The impeached Presbyterians fled beyond Sea others of that Sect drooping complyed with the Fortune of the Conquerours and that which greived good Men most was a Publick Thanksgiving which is not to be observed but for the happy endeavours of a Nation in their vertuous and glorious undertakings for Liberty and Safety but now was prophaned for our Slavery and Misery to God was appointed for the Army and they were entertained now at a Feast whom before the City would have forced from their Walls While these things were in Motion the King consults Heaven for Direction and his Party modestly abstain from either side thought both to be abhorred and knew that Party would be the worst which should overcome The Army having now the greatest strengths of the Nation the Parliament and City at their obedience make no mention of their former promises to the King only the Adjutators were fierce for breaking that Parliament and calling another as they call'd it more equal Representative But both their Synagogue and the Council of War being now delivered from fear of the Presbyterians began to contrive the destruction
Humane condition whose highest Greatness hath no Security A sad Spectacle even to those that were not in danger He being set the Charge against Him was read with all those reproachful terms of Tyrant Traitor and Murtherer after which He was impleaded in the name of the People of England This false Slander of the People of England was heard with Impatience and Detestation of all and stoutly attested against by the Lady Fairfax Wife of the Lord Fairfaix who by this act shewed her self worthy of her Extract from the Noble Family of the Veres for from an adjoyning Scaffold where she stood she cryed out with a loud voice but not without danger that It was a Lie not the Tenth part of the People were guilty of such a Crime but all was done by the Machinations of that Traitor Cromwell But the King after the Charge was read with a countenance full of Majesty and Gravity demands by what Authority they proceeded with Him thus contrary to the Publick Faith and what Law they had to try Him that was an absolute Sovereign Bradshaw replying that of the Parliament His Majesty shewed the detestable Falshood in pretending to what they had not and if they had it yet it could not justifie these Practices To which reply when they could not answer they force Him back to the place of His Captivity The Magnanimity of the King in this days contest with these inhumane Butchers did much satisfie the People and they were glad while they thought not of His Danger that He wanted not either Speech or Courage against so powerful Enemies that He had spoken nothing unworthy of Himself and had preserved the Fame of His Vertues even in so great Adversities For He seemed to triumph over their Fortune whose Arms He was now subject to The Parricides sought to break His Spirit by making His appearances frequent before such contemptible Judges and often exposing Him to the contempt of the armed Rabble therefore four days they torture Him with the Impudence and Reproacheâ— of their Infamous Sollicitor and President But He still refused to own their Authority which they could not prove lawful and so excellently demonstrated their abominable Impiety that He made Col. Downes one of their Court to boggle at and disturb their Proceedings They therefore at last proceeded to take away that Life which was not to be separated from Conscience and Honour and pronounced their Sentence of Death upon their Lawful and Just Sovereign Jan. 27. not suffering Him to speak after the Decree of their Villany but hurrying Him back to the place of His Restraint At His departure He was exposed to all the Insolencies and Indignities that a Phanatick and base Rabble instigated by Peters and other Instructors of Villany could invent and commit And He suffer'd many things so conformable to Christ His King as did alleviate the sense of them in Him and also instruct Him to a correspondent Patience and Charity When the barbarous Souldiers cryed out at His departure Justice Justice Execution Execution as those deceived Jews did once to their KING Crucifie Him Crucifie Him this Prince in imitation of that most Holy King pitied their blind fury and said Poor Souls for a piece of Money they would do as much for their Commanders As He passed along some in defiance spit upon His Garments and one or two as it was reported by an Officer of theirs who was one of their Court and praised it as an evidence of His Souldiers Gallantry while others were stupified with their prodigious baseness polluted His Majestick Countenance with their unclean spittle the Good King reflecting on His great Exemplar and Master wiped it off saying My Saviour suffer'd far more than this for me Into his very face they blowed their stinking Tobacco which they knew was very distasteful to Him and in the way where He was to go just at His feet they flung down pieces of their nasty pipes And as they had devested themselves of all humanity so were they impatient and furious if any one shewed Reverence or Pity to Him as He passed For no honest Spirit could be so forgetful of humane frailty as not to be troubled at such a sight to see a Great and Just King the rightful Lord of three flourishing Kingdoms now forced from His Throne and led captive through the streets Such as pull'd off their Hats or bowed to Him they beat with their Fists and Weapons and knock'd down one dead but for crying out God be merciful unto Him When they had brought Him to His Chamber even there they suffered Him not to rest but thrusting in and smoaking their filthy Tobacco they permitted Him no privacy to Prayer and Meditation Thus through variety of Tortures did the King pass this day and by His Patience wearied His Tormentors nothing unworthy His former greatness of Fortune and Mind by all these Affronts was extorted from Him though Indignities and Injuries are unusual to Princes and these were such as might have forced passion from the best-tempered meekness had it not been strengthned with assistance from Heaven In the Evening the Conspirators were acquainted by a Member of the Army of the King's desire that seeing His death was nigh it might be permitted Him to see His Children and to receive the Sacrament and that Doctor Juxon then Lord Bishop of London now Arch-Bishop of Canterbury might be admitted to pray with Him in His private Chamber The first they did not scruple at the Children in their power being but two the Lady Elizabeth and the Duke of Glocester and they very young The second they did not readily grant Some would have had Peters to undertake that employment for which the Bishop was sent for But he declined it with some Scoffs as knowing that the King hated the Offices of such an unhallowed Buffoon So that at last they permitted the Bishops access to the King to whom his eminent Integrity had made him dear For with so wonderful a prudence and uprightness he had managed the envious Office of the Treasury that that accusing age especially of Church-men found not matter for any impeachment nor ground for the least reproach The next day being Sunday the King was removed to S. James's where the Bishop of London read Divine Service and preached before Him in private on these words In the day when God shall judge the secrets of all men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel While the King and the Bishop at this time and also at other times were performing the Divine Service the rude Souldiers often rushed in and disturbed their Offices with vulgar and base Scoffs vain and frivolous Questions The Commanders likewise and other impertinent Anabaptists did interrupt His Meditations who came to tempt and try Him and provoke Him to some unnecessary disputations But He maintained His own Cause with so irrefragable Arguments that He put some to silence the petulancy of others He neglected and with a modest contempt dissembled
wherein He acquitted Himself with a Bravery equal to His Dignity And on the Sunday following attending his Father to the Sermon at St Paul's Cross and to the Service in the Quire He shewed as much humble Devotion there as he had manifested Princely Gallantry in his Justs admired and applauded by the People for His accomplishments in the Arts both of War and Peace That he could behave Himself humbly towards his God and bravely towards His Enemy pleased with the hardiness of His Body and ravished with His more generous Mind that the pleasures of the Court had not softned one to sloth nor the supreamest Fortune debauched the other to Impiety Anno 1622. Confident in these and other evidences of a wise conduct the King without acquainting his Council sends the Prince into Spain there to contract a Marriage with the Infanta and as a part of the Portion to recover the Palatinate which His Sisters Husband had lost and was by the Emperour canteld to the Duke of Bavaria and the King of Spain And herein He was to combae all the Artists of State in that Court the practices of tha Church and put an issue to that Treaty wherein the Lord Digby though much conversant in the Intrigues of that Council had been long cajoled To that place He was to pass Incognito accompanied only with the Marquess of Buckingham Mr. Endymion Porter and Mr. Francis Cottington through France where to satisfie His Curioâ—â—râ— and shew Himself to Love He attempted and enjoyed a view of the Court at Paris and there received the first Impression of that Excellent Princess who was by Heaven destined to His chast embraces Satisfied with that sight no lesser enjoyments of any pleasure in that great Kingdom nor Vanity of Youth which is hardly curbed when it is allyed to power could tempt His stay or a discovery of His Greatness but with a speed answerable to an active body and mind He out-stripped the French Posts which were sent to stop Him although that King had intelligence of His being within his Dominions immediately after their departure from the Louvre The certain news of His safe arrival at Madrid drew after Him from hene a Princely Train and raised the Censures of the World upon the King As being too forgetful of the Inhospitality of Princes to each other who when either Design Tempests or Necessity have driven their Rivals in Majesty upon their Coasts without a Caution they let them not part without some tribute to their Interest and a fresh example of this was in the King 's own Mother who seeking refuge in England with her Sister Queen Elizabeth from a Storm at home did lose both her Liberty and Life This none daring to mind the King of his Jester Archee made him sensible by telling him He came to change Caps with him Why said the King Because replied Archee Thou hast sent the Prince into Spain from whence He is never like to return But said the King what wilt thou say when thou seest Him come back again Marry says the Jester I will take off the Fools Cap which I now put upon thy Head for sending Him tither and put it on the King of Spain 's for letting Him return This so awakened the King's apprehension of the Prince's danger that it drove him into an exceeding Melancholy from which he was never free till he was assured of the Prince's return to his own Dominions which was his Fleet in the Sea and that was not long after For notwithstanding the contrasts of his two prime Ministers there Buckingham and Bristol which were sufficient to amaze an ordinary prudence and disturb the counsels of so young a beginning in the Mysteries of Empire and the Arts of experienced Conclaves the impetuous attempts of the Spanish Clergy either for a Change of His Religion or a Toleration of theirs the Spleen of Olivares whom Buckingham had exsaperated He so dexterously managed the Treaty of Marriage that all the Articles and Circumstances were solemnly sworn to by both Kings By a Civil Letter to the Pope which His Enemies Malice afterwards took as an occasion of Slander He procured a civil return with the grant of a Dispensation baffled the hopes of their Clergy by His Constancy in his own Profession and vindicated it from the odious aspersions of their Priests by causing our Liturgie to be translated into the Spanish Tongue and by His generous miene enthralled the Infanta for whom He had exposed His Liberty Yet having an insight into the practices of that Court that they would not put the Restitution of the Palatinate into the consideration of the Portion but reserve it as a Supersoetation of the Spanish Love and as an opportunity for the Infanta to reconcile the English Spirits who were heated by the late Wars into an hatred of the Spaniards and that this was but to lengthen out the Treaty till they had wholly brought the Palatinate under their power He conformed His mind to the resolves of His Father who said he would never marry his Son with a Portion of His only Sisters Tears and therefore inclined to a rupture But concealing His Purpose and dissembling His Knowledge of their Designs He consulted His own Safety and Return which his Fathers Letters commanded which he so prudently acquired that the King of Spain parted from Him with all those endearments with which departing Friends ceremoniate their Farewels having satisfied Him by a Proxie left with the Earl of Bristol to be delivered when the Dispensation was come Which as soon as He was safe on Ship-board by a private express he commanded him to keep in his hands till further Order Anno 1623. His Return to England which was in October 1623. was entertain'd with so much Joy and Thanksgiving as if He had been the happy Genius of the whole Nation and His entrance into London was as a Triumph for His Wisdom their Bonefires lengthened out the day and their Bells by uncessant ringing forbad sleep to those eyes which were refreshed with His sight Nor could the People by age or sickness he confined at home but despising the prescriptions of their Physicians went to meet Him as restored Health When He had given the King an account of His Voyage and the Spanish Counsels not to restore the Palatinate a Parliament was Summoned which was so zealous of the Honour of the Prince that both Houses Voted an Address to his Majesty that he would no longer Treat but begin a War with Spain and desiring the Prince's Mediation who was always ready to gratifie the Nation therein to His Father they assured Him they would stand by Him with their Lives and Fortunes but yet when the War with the Crown descended unto him they shamefully deserted Him in the beginning of His Reign When neither a Wise nor Peace was any longer to be expected from Spain both were sought for from France by a Marriage with Henrietta Maria the youngest Daughter of Henry the IV.
The Love of whom the Prince had received by the Eye and She of Him by the Ear. For having formerly received impressions from the Relations of His Gallantry when She was told of His passing through Paris She answered as it is reported That if he went to Spain for a Wife He might have had one nearer hand and saved Himself a great part of the labour Anno 1625. In the midst of these Preparations for War and Love King James died at Theobalds Sunday March 27. Anno 1625. and Prince CHARLES was immediately proclaimed at the Court-Gate King of Great Britain France and Ireland and so throughout all the Three Kingdoms with infinite Rejoycings The People expecting all the benefits of the happiest Government under Him whose private and youthful part of Life had been so spent that it had nothing in it to be excused and where the eager inquisitors for matter of Reproach met with no satisfaction An Argument of a solid Virtue that could hold out against all the Vices of Youth that are rendred more impetuous by Flatteries and Plenty which are continually resident in great Courts For had any debauchery polluted His earlier days it had been published by those who in scarcity of just Accusations did invent unimaginable Calumnies Nor could it have been hid for in a great Fortune nothing is concealed but Curiosity opens the Closets and Bed-chambers especially of Princes and discovers their closest retirements exposing all their actions to Fame and Censure Nor did the King deceive their hopes they being the happiest People under the Sun while He was undisturbed in the administration of Justice His first publick Act was the Celebrating His Fathers Funeral wherea He Himself was Chief Mourner contrary to the Practice of His Royal Predecessors and not conformable to the Ceremonies of State Either preferring Piety to an unnatural Grandeur or urged by some secret Decree of Providence that in all the ruines of His Family He should drink the greatest draught of Tears or His Spirit presaging the Troubles of the Throne He would hallow the Ascent to it by a pious act of Grief When He had pay'd that debt to His deceased Father He next provided for posterity and therefore hastened the coming over of his dearest Consort whom the Duke of Chevereux had in His Name espoused at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris and He receiving Her at Dover the next day after Trinity-Sunday at Canterbury began His Conjugal Embraces A Lady of most excellent Endowments who assumed to Her self nothing in His Good Fortune but the Joy and in His Evil bore an equal share for She reverenced Him not His Greatness Thus having dispatched the affairs of His Family He applies Himself to those of His Kingdoms which too much Felicity had made unmanageable by a moderate Government And He seemed not so much to ascend a Throne as enter upon a Theatre to wrestle with all the difficulties of a corrupted State whose long Peace had softned almost all the Nobless into Court pleasures and made the Commons insolent by a great plenty The Rites and Discipline of Religion had been blotted out by a long and uninterrupted Prosperity and Factions crept from the Church into the Senate which were made use of by those that endeavoured the alteration of Go\vernment and the Resolves of that Council were the dictates of some heady Demagogues who fed the Vulgar with hopes of Novelty under the name of Liberty so that the King could not endure their Vices nor they His Vertues whence came all the Obstructions to His Designs for Glory and the Publick Good The Treasury had been exhausted to satiate the unquiet and greedy Scots and the People were taught not to supply it unless they were bribed with the blood of some Minister of State or some more advantages fo Licentiousness Each of these single would have ennobled the Care of an Ordinary Prudence to have weathered out but when all these conspired with the traiterous Projects of men of unbounded and unlawful hopes they took from Him His Peace and that which the World calls Happiness but yet they made Him Great and affording Exercises for His most excellent Abilities rendred Him Glorious The different states of these Difficulties when like Clouds they were gathering together and when they descended in showres of Blood divide the King's Reign into two parts The first could not be esteemed days of Peace but an Immunity from Civil War The other was when He was concluded by that Fatal Necessity either to part with his Dignity and expose His Subjects to the injuries of numerous Tyrants or else to exceed the calmer temper of His peaceful Soul and make use of those necessary Arms whereby He might hope to divert if possible the Ruine of Church and State which he saw in projection In the first Part He had no Wars at home but what was in the Houses of Parliament which though their first Institution designed for the production of just Counsels and assistances of Government yet through the just Indignation of Heaven and the practices of some unquiet and seditious persons became the wombs wherein were first conceived and formed those monstrous Confusions which destroyed their own Liberty caused our Miseries and the King's Afflictions His first Parliament began June 18. At the opening of which the King acquainted them with the necessity of Supplies for the War with Spain which they importunately had through His Mediation engaged His Father in and made it as hereditary to him as the Crown His Eloquence gave powerful Reasons for speedy and large summs of Money did also audit to them the several disbursements relating both to the Army and Navy that He might remove all Jealousies of Misimployment and give them notice how well He understood the Office He had newly entred upon and how to be a faithful Steward of the Publick Treasure But the Projectors of the alteration of Government brought into Debate two Petitions one for Religion the other for Grievances formed in King James's time which delayed the Succours and increased the Necessities which at last they answered but with two Subsidies too poor a stock o furnish an Army with yet was kindly accepted in expectation of more at the next Session For the Infection seizing upon London the Parliament was adjourned till August when they were to meet at Oxford and at that time He passed such Acts as were presented to Him At the next Session He gave a complying and satisfactory answer to all their Petitions and expected a Retribution in larger Subsidies towards the Spanish War But instead of these there were high and furious debates of Grievances consultations to form and publish Remonstrances Accusations of the Duke of Buckingham Which the King esteeming as reproaches of His Government and assaults upon Monarchy dissolves that Assembly hoping to find one of a less cholerick complexion after His Coronation This inauspicious Meeting drew after it another Mischief the Miscarriage of the Designs upon Spain
For the supplies of Money being scanty and slow the Fleet could not go out till October 8. an unseasonable time in the British Seas and their first contest was with Winds and Tempests which destroying some scattered all the Ships When they met a more dangerous storm fell among the Soldiers and Seamen where small Pay caused less Discipline and a contempt of their General the Lord Wimbleton rendred th attempt upon Cades vain and fruitless This was followed by a Contagion to which some conceive discontented minds make the bodies of men more obnoxious in the Navy which forced it home more empty of Men and less of Reputation The Infection decreasing at London the King performed the Solemnities of His Coronation February 2. with some alterations from those of His Predecessors for in the Civil He omitted the usual Parade of Riding from the Tower through the City to White-Hall to save the Expences that Pomp required for more noble undertakings In the Spiritual there was restored a Clause in the Prayers which had been pretermitted since Henry VI. and was this Let Him obtain favour for this People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the Waters Zacharias in the Temple give Him Peter 's Key of Discipline Paul 's Doctrine Which though more agreeing to the Principles of Protestantism which acknowledgeth the Power of Princes in their Churches and was therefore omitted in the times of Popery yet was quarreled at by the Factious party who take advantages of Calumny and Sedition from good as well as bad circumstances and condemned as a new invention of Bishop Laud and made use of to defame both the King and him After this He began a second Parliament February 2. wherein the Commons voted Him Four Subsidies but the Demagogues intended them as the price of the Duke of Buckingham's blood whom Mr. Cooke and Dr. Turner with so much bitterness inveighed agianst as passing the modesty of their former dissimulation they taxed the King's Government Sir Dudley Digges Sir John Elliot and others carried up Articles against him to the Lord's House in which to make the Faction more sport the Duke and the Earl of Bristol did mutually impeach each other By these contrasts the Parliament were so highly heated that the Faction though it fit time to put a Remonstrance in the forge which according to their manner was to be a publick Invective against the Government But the King having notice of it dissolves the Parliament June 18. Anno 1626. and the Bill for the Subsidies never passed This misunderstanding at home produced another War abroad For the King of France taking advantage of these our Domestick embroilments begins a War upon us and seiseth upon the English Merchant Ships in the River of Bourdeaux His pretence was because the King had sent back all the French Servants of the Queen whose insolencies had been intolerable But the world saw the vanity of this pretext in the Example of Lewis himself who had in the like manner dimitted the Spanish attendants of his own Queen and that truly the unhappy Counsels in Parliament had exposed this Just Prince to foreign injuries Which He magnanimously endeavoured to revenge and to recover the goods of His abused Subjects and therefore sent the Fleet designed for Justice upon Spain to seek it first in France But the want of Money made the Preparations slow and therefore the Navy putting out late in the year was by Storms forced to desist the enterprize So that what was the effect only of the malice of His Enemies was imputed by some to a secret Decree of Heaven which obstructed His just undertakings for Glory Anno 1627. The next year the King quickened by he Petitions of the Rochellers who now sued for His Protection as well as by the Justice of His own Cause more early prosecuted His Counsels and sent the Duke of Buckingham to attach the Isle of Rhee which though alarmed to a greater strength by the last year's vain attempt yet had now submitted to the English Valour had not the Duke managed that War more with the Gayeties of a Courtier than the Arts of a Souldier And when it wa wisdom to forsake those attempts which former neglects had made impossible being too greedy of Honour and to avoid the imputation of fear in a safe retreat he loaded his overthrow with a new Ignominy and an heavier loss of men the common fate of those Who seek for glory in the parcels lose it in the gross Which was contrary to the temper of his Master who was so tender of humane blood 〈◊〉 therefore He raised no Wars but found them◠and thought it an opprobrious bargain to purchase the fruitless Laurels or the empty name of Honour with the lives of men but where the Publick Safety required the hazzard and loss of some particulars This Expedition beging so unhappy and the Miseries of Rochel making them importunate for the King's Assistance His Compassionate Soul was desirous to emove their Dangers but was restrained by that necessitous condition the Faction had concluded Him under To free Himself from which but He might deliver the oppressed He doth pawn His own Lands for 100000 pounds to the City and borrows 30000 pounds more of the East-India Company but this was yet too narrow a Foundation to support the charges of the Fleet and no way so natural to get adequate supplies as by a Parliament which He therefore summons to meet March 17. intending to use all Methods of Complacency to unite the Subjects Affections to Himself Which in the beginning proved successful for the modesty of the Subjects strove with the Piety of the King and both Interests contended to oblige that they might be obliged The Parliament granted the King Anno 1628. five Subsidies and He freely granted their Petition of Right the greatest Condescension that ever any King made wherein He seemed to submit the Royal Scepter to the Popular Fasces and to have given Satisfaction even to Supererogation These auspicious beginnings though full of Joy both to Prince and People were matter of envy to the Faction and therefore to form new Discontents and Jealousies the Demagogues perswaded the Houses that the King 's Grant of their Petition extended beyond their own Hopes and the Limits themselves had set and what he had expresly mentioned and cautioned even to the taking away His Right to Tonnage and Poundage Besides this they were again hammering a Remonstrance to reproach Him and His Ministers of male-administration Which Ingratitude He being not able to endure on June 26. adjourns the Parliament till Octob. 20. and afterward by Proclamation till Jan. 20. following In the interim the King hastens to send succours to Rochel and though the General the Duke of Buckingham was at Portsmouth Assassinated by Felton armed as he professed with the publick hatred yet the Preparations were not slackned the King by His personal industry doing more to the necessary furnishing of the Fleet in ten or twelve
days than the Duke had done in so many months before But in the mean while Rochel was barricadoed to an impossibility of Relief Therefore the Earl of Lindsey who commanded the Forces after some gallant yet fruitless attempts returned to England and the Rochellers to the Obedience of the French King As Providence had removed the great Object of the Popular hate and as was pretended the chief obstruction of the Subjects Love to their King the Duke of Buckingham so the King himself labours to remove all other occasions of quarrel before the next Session He restores Archbishop Abbot who for his remisness in the Discipline of the Church had been suspended from his Office and was therefore the Darling of the Commons because in disgrace with the King so contrary are the affections of a corrupted State to those of their Governours to the administration of it again Dr. Potter the great Calvinist was made Bishop of Carlisie Mr. Mountague's Book of Appello Caesarem was called in Proclamations were issued out against Papists Sir Thomas Wentworth an active Leader of the Commons was towards the beginning of this Session as Sir John Savil had been at the end of the last called up into the Lord's House being made Viscount Wentworth and Lord President of the North. But the Honours of these Persons whose parts the King who well understood men thought worthy of his Favour and Employment seeming the rewards of Sedition and the spoils of destructive Counsels the Demagogues were more eager in the pursuit of that which these had attained unto by the like Arts. And therefore despising all the King 's obliging practices in the next Sessions they assumed a power of reforming Church and State called the Customers into question for Levying Tonnage and Poundage made now their Invectives as they formerly did against the Duke against the Lord Treasurer Weston so that it appeared that not the persons of men but the King's trust of them was the object of their Envy and His Favour though never so Vertuous marked them out for Ruine And upon these points they raised the heat to such a degree that fearing they should be dissolved ere they had time to vent their passions they began a Violence upon their own Body an example which lasted longer than their Cause and at last produced the overthrow of all their Priviledges They lockt the Doors of the House kept the Key thereof in one of their own Pockets held the Speaker by strong hand in the Chair till they had thundered out their Votes like dreadful Anathemaes against those that should Levy and which was more ranting against such as should willingly pay the Tonnage and Poundage This Force the King went with His Guard of Pensioners to remove which they hearing adjourned the House and the King in the House of Lords declaring the Injustice of those Vipers who destroyed their own Liberties dissolved the Parliament While the winds of Sedition raged thus furiously at home more gentle gales came from abroad The French King's designs upon other places required Peace from us and therefore the Signiorie of Venice by her Ambassadors was moved to procure an Accord betwixt Charles and Lewis which the King accepted And not long after Anno 1629 the Spaniard pressed with equal necessities desired Amity which was also granted The King being thus freed from his domestick Embroilments and foreign Enmities soon made the World see His Skill in the Arts of Empire and rendred Himself abroad more considerable than any of His Predecessors And He was more glorious in the eyes of the good and more satisfied in His own breast by confirming Peace with Prudence than if He had finished Wars with destroying Arms. So that His Scepter was the Caduceus to arbitrate the differences of the Potentates of Europe His Subjects likewise tasted the sweetness of a Reign which Heaven did indulge with all its favours but only that of valuing their Happiness While other Nations weltred in blood His people enjoyed a profound Peace and that Plenty which the freedom of Commerce brings along with it The Dutch and Easterlings used London as the surest Bank to preserve and increase their Trading The Spanish Bullion was here Coined which advantaged the King's Mint and encreased the Wealth of the Merchants who returned most of that Money in our native Commodities While He dispensed these Blessings to the People Heaven was liberal to Him in giving Him a Son to inherit his Dominions May 29. Anno 1630. which was so great matter of rejoycing to the People of uncorrupted minds that Heaven seemed also concerned in the Exultation kindling another Fire more than Ordinary making a Star to be seen the same day at noon From which most men presaged that that Prince should be of high Undertakings and of no common glory among Kings which hath since been confirmed by the miraculous preservation of Him and Heaven seemed to conduct Him to the Throne For this great blessing the King gave publick Thanks to the Author of it Almighty God as St. Paul's Church and God was pleased in a return to those thanks with a numerous Issue afterwards to increase this Happiness For neither Armies nor Navies are such sure props of Empire as Children are Time Fortune private Lusts or Errors may take off or change Friends But those that Nature hath united must have the same Interest especially in Royal Families in whose Prosperities sirangers may have a part but their Adversities will be sure to crush their nearest Allies Prospering thus in Peace at home a small time assisted His frugality to get such a Treasure and gave Him leasure to form such Counsels as might curb the Insolence of His Enemies abroad He confederated with other Princes to give a check to the Austrian Greatness assisting by His Treasure Arms and Counsel the King of Sweden to deliver the oppressed German States from the Imperial Oppressions And when Gustavus's fortune made him insolent and he would impose unequal Conditions upon the Paltsgrave the King's Brother-in-Law He necessitated him not withstanding his Victories to more easie Articles The next year was notorious for two Trials one of the Lord Audley Earl of Castlehaven who being accused by all the abused parts of his Family of a prodigious wickedness and unnatural uncleanness was by the King submitted to a tryal by his Peers and by them being found Guilty was Condemned and his Nobility could be no patronage for his Crimes but in the King's eyes they appeared more horrid because they polluted that Order and was afterwards executed The other was of a tryal of Combat at a Marshal's Court betwixt Donnold Lord Rey a Scotish High-lander and David Ramsey a Scottish Courtier The first accused the last to have solicited him to a Confederacy with the Marquess Hamilton who was then Commander of some Forces in assistance of the King of Sweden in which Ramsey said all Scotland was engaged but three and that their friends had gotten provision of Arms
the Dean of Edinburgh while he was performing his Office and after that was done re-inforc'd their assault upon the Bishops whom the Earls of Roxbrough and Traquaire pretended to protect who indured some affronts that their Patience might provoke a greater rage in the Multitude which a vigorous punishment had easily extinguished For they that are fierce in a croud being singled through their particular fears become obedient And that rabble that talks high against the determinations of their Prince when danger from the Laws is within their ken distrust their companions and return to subjection But it soon appeared that this was not the bare effort of a mutinous Multitude but a long-formed Conspiracy and to this Multitude whose present terrour was great yet would have been contemptible in a short space there appeared Parties to head them of several Orders Who presently digested their Partisans into several Tables and concocted this Mutiny into a formal Rebellion To prosecute which they mutually obliged themselves and the whole Nation in a Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy and whatsoever they pleased to brand with the odious names of Heresie and Superstition and to defend each other against all Persons not excepting the King To reduce this people to more peaceful practices the King sends Marquess Hamilton one who being caressed by His Majesties Favour had risen to such a degree of wealth and greatness that now he dreamed of nothing less than Empire to bring his power to perfection at least to be Monarch of Scotland to which he had some pretensions by his birth as His Commissioner Who with a species of Loyalty dissembled that pleasure which he took in the opposition of the Covenanters whose first motions were secretly directed by his counsels and those of his dependents Traquaire and Roxbrough for all his Allies were of that party contrary to the custom of that Country where all the Members of a Family espouse the part of their Head though in the utmost danger and his Mother rid armed with Pistols at her Saddle-bow for defence of the Covenant By his actings there new seeds of Discontents and War were daily sown and his oppositions so faint that he rather encreased than allayed their fury By several returns to His Majesty for new Instructions he gave time to the Rebels to consolidate their Conspiracy to call home their Exiles of Poverty that were in foreign Armies and provide Arms for open Force By his false representations of the state of things he induced the King to temporize with the too-potent Corruption of that Nation an artifice King JAMES had sometimes practised and by granting their desires to make them sensible of the evils which would flow from their own counsels Therefore the King gave Order for revoking the Liturgy the High-commission the Book of Canons and the Five Articles of Perth But the Covenanters were more insolent by these Concessions because they had gotten that by unlawful courses and unjust force which Modesty and Submission had never obtained and imputing these Grants to the King's Weakness not his Goodness they proceeded to bolder Attempts Indicted an Assembly without Him in which they abolished Episcopacy excommunicated the Bishops and all that adhered to them Afterwards they seised upon the King's Revenue surprised His Forts and Castles and at last put themselves into Arms. Provoked with these Injuries the King amasses a gallant Army in which was a very great appearance of Lords and Gentlemen and with these marches and incamps within two miles of Berwick within sight of the Enemy But their present Condition being such as could endure neither War nor Peace they endeavoured to dissipate that Army which they could not overthrow by a pretence to a Pacification For which they petition'd the King who yielded unto it out of His innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood So an Accord was made June 17. Anno 1639. and the King disbands His Army expecting the Scots should do the like according to the Articles of Agreement But they being delivered from Fear would not be restrained by Shame from breaking their Faith For no sooner had the King disbanded but they protested against the Pacification printed many false Copies of it that might represent it dishonourable to the King retained their Officers in pay changed the old Form of holding Parliaments invaded the Prerogatives of the Crown and solicited the French King for an aid of men and money This perfidious abuse of His Majesty's Clemency made those that judge of Counsels by the Issue to censure the King's Facility Some wondred how He could imagine there would be any Moderation in so corrupt a Generation of men and that they who had broken the Peace out of a desire of War should now lay aside their Arms out of a love to Quiet That there would be always the same causes to the Scots of disturbing England and opposing Government their unquiet nature and Covetousness therefore unless some strong impression made them either unable or unwilling to distract our quiet the King was to look for a speedy return of their Injuries Others attributed the Accord to the King's sense that some eminent Officers in His own Camp were polluted with Counsels not different from the Covenanters and that Hamilton His Admiral had betrayed the seasons of fighting by riding quietly in the Forth of Edinburgh and had secret Conference with His Mother the great Nurse of the Covenant on Shipboard But most referred it to the King 's innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood and to his Prudence not to defile His Glory with the overthrow which seemed probable of a contemptible Enemy where the gains of the Victory could not balance the hazards of attempting it Anno 1640. While men thus discourse of the Scots Perfidiousness the King prepares for another Army and in order thereto calls a Parliament in Ireland and another in England for assistances against the Rebels in Scotland The Irish granted Money to raise and pay 8000 men in Arms and furnish them with Ammunition Yet this Example with the King's account of the Injuries done to Him and this Nation by the Scots and his promise of for ever acquitting them of Ship-money if now they would freely assist Him prevailed nothing upon the English Parliament whom the Faction drew aside to other Counsels And when the King sent Sir Henry Vane to re-mind them of His desires and to demand Twelve Subsidies yet to accept of Six he industriously as was collected from His own and His Sons following practices insisted upon the Twelve without insinuation of the lesser quantity His Majesty would be contented with which gave such an opportunity and matter for seditious Harangues that the House was so exasperated as that they were about to Remonstrate against the War with Scotland To prevent this ominous effect of the falseness of His Servant the King was forced to dissolve the Parliament May 5. yet continued the Convocation which granted Him 4 s. in the pound for all their Ecclesiastical
Promotions But the Laity that in the House had not time to declame against His Majesties Proceedings did it without doors for being dispersed to their homes they filled all places with suspicious Rumours and high Discontents and in Southwark there was an open Mutiny began which was not pacified without much danger and the Execution of the principal Leaders The King thus betrayed defamed and deserted by those who should have considered that in His Honour their Safety was embarqued though He had no less cause to fear secret Conspiracies at Home which were more dangerous because obscure than the Scots publick Hostility yet vigorously prosecuted His undertaking and raised a sufficient Army but could not do it with equal speed to His Enemies who had soon re-united their dispersed Forces and incouraged by the Faction with whom they held intelligence in England contented not themselves to stand upon the defence but invaded us and advanced so far before all the King's Army could be gathered together that they gave a defeat to a Party of it ere the Rear could be brought up by the Earl of Strafford who was appointed General or the King could come to encourage them with His Presence He was no sooner arrived at His Army but there followed Him from some English Lords a Petition conformable to the Scotch Remonstrance which they called the Intentions of the Army So that His Majesty might justly fear some attempts in the South while He was thus defending Himself from the Northern injuries The King answered the Petitioners That before their Petition came He had resolved to summon all the Peers to consult what would be most for the Safety of the Nation and His own Honour Who accordingly met Sept. 24. Where it was determined that a Parliament should be called to meet Nov. 3. and in the mean time a cessation should be made with the Scots with whom some Commissioners from the Parliament should Treat Novemb. 3. Began that fatal Parliament which was so transported by the Arts of some unquiet persons that they dishonoured the name and hopes of a Parliament ingulfed the Nation in a Sea of Blood ruined the King and betrayed all their own Priviledges and the People's Liberty into the power of a Phanatick and perfidious Army And although His Majesty could not hope to find them moderate yet He endeavoured to make them so telling them at their meeting that He was resolved to put Himself freely upon the Affections of His English Subjects that He would satisfie all their just Grievances and not leave to malice it self a shadow to doubt of His desire to make this a glorious and flourishing Kingdom He commended to their care the chasing out of the Rebels the Provisions of His own Army and the Relief of the oppressed Northern Counties But the Malignity of some few and the Ignorance of more employed that Assembly in other matters First in purging their House of all such as they conceived would not comply with their destructive enterprises and for such men they either sound some fault with their Elections or made them Criminals in some publick Grievance though others of a deeper guilt they kept among them that their Offences might make them obnoxious to their power and obsequious to their commands Then with composed Harangues they declaimed upon the publick Grievances and reckoned up casual Misfortunes amongst designed Abuses of Government every way raising up Contumelies against the present Power and that which was fullest of Detraction and Envy was applauded as most pregnant with Liberty Thus pretending several Injuries had been done to the People they raised the Multitude to hopes of an unimaginable Liberty and a discontent with the present Government After this they set free all the Martyrs of Sedition that for their malignant Libels had been imprisoned and three of them were conducted through London with such a company of people adorned with Rosemary and Bays as it seemed a Triumph over Justice and those Tribunals that sentenced them Then they fell upon all the chief Ministers of State they impeached the Earl of Strafford Lord Lieutenant of Ireland after him the Archbishop of Canterbury the Lord Finch Keeper of the Great Seal the Judges that according to their Oath had determined Ship-money legal and others some of which fled those that were found were clapt in Prison so that the King was soon despoiled of those that were able or faithful to give Him Counsel and others terrified in their Ministery to Him While the Factious thus led the House their Partisans without by their Instructions formed Petitions against the Government in Church and State to which they seduced the ignorant Rabble in the City and several Counties to subscribe and in a tumultuous manner to present them to their Patriots Who being animated by the success of their Arts fell to draw up a Bill for Triennial Parliaments wherein the Power of calling that great Council of the Nation was upon refusal of the King and the neglect of others devolved upon Constables Which profanation of Majesty though the King disswaded them from yet they persisted in and He passed it Anno 1641. After five Months time for so long a space they took to rake up Matter and Witnesses to justifie their accusation and to give leisure to the Court for Overtures of gainful Offices to the great Sticklers against him which not appearing the Earl of Strafford is brought to his Trial in Westminster-Hall before the Lords as his Judges the King Queen and Prince sitting behind a Curtain in an adjoining Gallery and round about the Court stood the Commons His Accusers and Witnesses were English Scotch and Irish and indeed so brave a Person could not be ruined but by the pretended hatred of the whole Empire The English were such as envied his Vertues and greatness in the King's Favour The Scotch because they knew his Prudence able to counter-work their Frauds discover their impudent Cheats and his wise management to overthrow their Force The Irish hatred arose from his just and necessary Severity in his Government whereby he had reduced them from so great a Barbarousness that was impatient of Peace to a Civility that was fertile of Plenty and by Artifices Husbandry and Commerce had rendred that tumultuary Nation so rich that they were now able to repay to the English Treasury those great Debts which their former Troubles and Commotions had contracted Although those of this Nation were Papists and sworn Enemies both of the English name and State and were even then practising and meditating their Rebellion which they hoped more easie when so wise a Governour was removed and so prone enough of themselves to the Crime yet were they much caressed by the Faction that these in the name of the whole Kingdom should press the Earl with envy to the Grave His Charge consisted of Twenty eight Articles that their number might cover their want of Evidence To all which the Lieutenant whose Patience was not overcome nor
of this to pollute His Honour than those who had even forced Him to it like those malignant and damned Spirits who upbraid unhappy Souls with those Crimes and ruines to which they themselves have tempted and betrayed them But the heaviest Censor was Himself for He never left bewailing His Compliance or rather Connivence with this Murder till the issue of His Blood dried up those of His Tears By the other Bill He had as some censured renounced His Crown and granted it to those men who at present exercised so Arbitrary a Power that they wanted nothing but length of time to be reputed Kings and this they now had gotten But the more Speculative concluded it an act of especial Prudence for the King made that an evidence of His sincere intention to oblige His People and overcome the Malice of His Enemies with Benefits which the Faction would have usurped and by the boldness of the attempt ingaged the People to them as the only Patrons of their Liberty And they were furnished with an Example for it by their Confederates in Scotland who indicted an Assembly without the King's leave and continued it against His pleasure and as all imitations of Crimes exceed their first pattern it was conceived these men whose furies were more unjust and so would be more fierce intended to improve that Precedent to the extremest guilt The Bill was no sooner signed but they hastened the Execution and so much the more eagerly because the King desired in a most passionate Letter delivered by the Prince to the Lords that that Excellent Soul which found so much Injustice on Earth might have the more time to fit it self for the Mercy of Heaven But this favour which became Christians to grant agreed not with the Religion of his Adversaries and therefore the second day after he was brought to the Scaffold on Tower-hill in his Passage thither he had a sight of the Archbishop of Canterbury whose Prayers and Blessing he with a low Obeisance begged and the most pious Prelate bestowed them with Tearss where with a greater presence of mind than he had looked his Enemies in the face did he encounter Death and submitted his neck to the stroke of the Execucutioner He was a person of a generous Spirit fitted for the noblest enterprises and the most difficult parts of Empire His Counsels were bold yet just and he had a Vigour proper for the Execution of them Of an Eloquence next to that of His Master's masculine and most excellent He was no less affectionate to the Church than to the State and not contented while living to defend the Government and Patrimony of it he commended it also to his Son when he was about to die and charged his abhorrency of Sacrilege His Enemies called the Majesty of his Miene in his Lieutenancy Pride and the undaunted execution of his Office on the contumacious the Insolency of his fortune He was censured for committing that fatal Errour of following the King to London and to the Parliament after the Pacification with the Scots at York and it was thought that if he had gone over to his charge in Ireland he might have secured both himself and that Kingdom for His Majesties Service But some attributed this Counsel to a necessity of Fate whose first stroke is at the brain of those whom it designs to ruine and brought him to feel the effects of Popular Rage which himself in former Parliaments had used against Government and to find the Experience of his own advices against the Duke of Buckingham Providence teaching us to abhor over-fine Counsels by the mischiefs they bring upon their Authors The Fall of this Great Man so terrified the other Officers of State that the Lord High Treasurer resigned his Staff to the Hands from whence he received it the Lord Cottington forsook the Mastership of the Court of Wards and the Guardian of the Prince returned Him to the King These Lords parting with their Offices like those that scatter their Treasure and Jewels in the way that they might delude the violence of their greedy pursuers But the King was left naked of their faithful Ministery and exposed to the Infusions and Informations of those who were either Complices or Mercenaries to the Faction to whom they discovered his most private Counsels When the Earl of Strafford was dead then did the Parliament begin to think of sending away the Scots who hitherto had much impoverished the Northern Counties and increased the charges of the Nation but now they were Voted to receive 300000 pound under the notion of a Brotherly Assistance but in truth designed by the Faction as a reward for their Clamours for the Earls Blood yet were they kept so long till the King had passed away more of His Prerogative in signing the Bills to take away the High-Commission and the Star Chamber After which spoils of Majesty they disband the English and the Scotch Armies August 6. and on the 10. of that Month the King follows them into Scotland to settle if it were possible that Kingdom But the King still found them as before when He satisfied their greedy appetites then would they offer Him their Lives and Fortunes but when gain or advantage appeared from His Enemies they appeared in their proper nature ungrateful changeable and perfidious whom no favours could oblige nor any thing but Ruine was to be expected by building upon their Love While the King was in Scotland labouring to settle that Nation by granting all that the Covetousness and Ambition of their Leaders pretended was for the Publick good and so aimed at no less than a Miracle by His Benefits to reduce Faith which like Life when it is once departed doth never naturally return into those perfidious breasts the Parliament adjourns and leaves a standing Committee of such as were the Leaders or the Servants of the Faction These prepared new Toils for His Majesties Return and by them was the Grand Remonstrance formed in it were reckoned for Grievances all the Complaints of men that were impatient of Laws and Government the Offences of Courtiers the unpleasing Resolves of Judges the Neglects or Rigours of the Ministers of Justice the undigested Sermons of some Preachers yea the Positions of some Divines in the Schools were all exaggerated to defame the present Government both in Church and State and to magnifie the skill of these State-Physicians that offered Prescripts for all these Distempers Besides more easily to abuse the Vulgar who reckon Misfortunes as Crimes unpleasing accidents were represented as designs of Tyranny and those things which had been reformed were yet mentioned as continued burthens From which the people were assured there could be no deliverance but by the wisdom and magnanimity of the Remonstrants To prepare the way for this the most opprobrious parts of it were first whispered among the Populacy that by this seeming suppression men impatient of Secrets might more eagerly divulge them and the danger appear greater by an
affected silence Then prodigious Calumnies which none but souls prone to any wickedness could believe of so Great a man were formed of the King and such suspicions raised of Him and His Friends as might force them to some Injuries which hitherto they forbore and by securing themselves increase the Publick fears For Slanders do rather provoke most men than amend them and the provoked think more of their safety than to adjust their actions against their malicious Slanderers And when the minds of men were made thus solicitous concerning Dangers from the King to make them more pliable and ductile there was represented to them an inevitable anger of Heaven against the present state of things both in Church and State testified by many Prodigies that were related and portentuous Presages of Ruine Certain Prophecies for a credulity to which the English Vulgar are infamous from unknown Oracles are divulged which enigmatically describe the King as a Monster and from such a Prince must proceed a change of Government Some vain persons also that gave themselves up to the Imposture of Astrology were hired to terrifie the people with the unsignificant Conjunctions of Stars and from them to foretel ruines to the better part of the World and an imminent destruction on men of the Long Robe and Alterations of States These were done to temper the minds of men by superstition for a guidance of their Ministers who being conceived to be the Ambassadours of Heaven were supposed to have it in their Commission to declare the Conditions of War and Peace and these either through the same weakness capable of the like terrors with the Vulgar or which is more to be abhorred corrupted as some were by the Caresses and gainful hopes that the Faction baited them with did justifie their fears and increase them by applying some obscure Prophecies in Scripture to the present Times and People compared the pretended Corruptions of our Church with the Idolatries of Israel and whatsoever was condemned in the Holy Records was parallel'd with the things they disliked here and all the Curses that God poured upon His irreconcileable and obdurate enemies were denounced against such as differ'd from them or would not joyn with the Faction To make these Harangues more efficacious the Authors of them received the Reverence of the Demagogues who despising questioning and exposing to Affronts such sober Divines as would have cured the madness of the People appropriated to such Teachers the Titles of Saints Faithful Ministers Precious men and they on the other side made a return of Epithets to their Masters of the Servants of the Most High such as were to do the Work of the Lord That by their Counsels men were to expect new Heavens and a new Earth that they were men that should prepare the Kingdom for Jesus Christ and lay the Foundations of the Empire of the Saints which was to last a Thousand years To make the Cry yet louder they permitted all Sects and Heresies a Licence of publick profession which hitherto Discipline the Care of the Common Peace and Religion had confined to secret corners and permitted the Office of Teaching to every bold and ignorant undertaker so that at last the dregs of the People usurped that Dignity and Women who had parted with the natural modesty of their Sex would not only speak but also rule in the Church All these in gratitude for their Licentiousness still perswaded to their hearers the admiration of the Authors of it and bitterly inveighted against those whom the Care both of the Souls and Fortunes of men would excite to repress them in many of their Raptures denouncing Wo and Judgment to the lawful Governours in Church and State While all these Methods of Ruine were preparing her the same anger of God the same madness of men raised up another Tempest in Ireland For the Popish Lords and Priest of Ireland who were the prime composers of the Tragedies there were incouraged by the Success of the Scots who by a prosperous Rebellion as the Historian of those Troubles writes had procured for themselves such large Privileges to an imitation which the present Jealonsies in England where mutual Contrasts would employ all their force upon one another promised to be secure And they had an happy opportunity by the Vacancy in Government through the slaughter of the Earl of Strafford with whom the Irish Lords while they prosecuted him in England had removed all those other inferiour Magistrates that were most skilful in the affairs of that Kingdom by accusing to the Faction some of them of Treason and others of an inclination to the Earl and had got preferred to their charges such as were either altogether unacquainted with the Genius of that People or favourers of the Conspiracy A strength they had also ready for those 8000 which had been listed for the Scotish Expedition were unseasonably disbanded and the King in foresight they might cause some mischief in their own Country and therefore promised 4000 of them to the King of Spain yet would not the Parliament consent to their departure because as the Irish Lords suggested it would displease the King of France and when the King promised to send as many to the French Camp that likewise was not relished The Common Souldiers of that Army being thus made useless and therefore like men of their employment most fierce when they were to be dismissed from the dangers of War were easily drawn into the Rebellion although very few of their Officers were polluted with the Crime The Irish Lords and Priests being allured by these our Vices and these several opportunities began their Rebellion Octob. 23. The Irish throughout that whole Kingdom on a sudden invading the unprovided English that were scattered among them despoiling them of their Estates Goods and many thousands of their Lives without any respect of Sex Age Kindred or Friendship and made them as so many Sacrifices to their bloody Superstition They missed but a little to have surprised Dublin But their Conspiracy being detected there and in some few other places the English name and interest was preserved in that Kingdom till they could receive Succours from hence The King had the first intelligence of it in its very beginnings in Scotland and thereupon sent Sir James Stuart to the Lords of the Privy Council in Ireland to acquaint them with His Knowledge and Instructions and to carry all that Money that His present Stores could supply Besides He moves the Parliament of Scotland as being nearest to a speedy help who decline their Aids because Ireland was dependent upon the Crown of England At the same time also He sends post to the Parliament of England who less regard it the Faction applauding their forturne that new Troubles were arisen to molest the King and that the Royal Power being thus assaulted in all three Nations there must shortly arise so many new Common-wealths Besides that it yielded fresh matter of reproach to His Majesty
to whose Counsels at first secretly they whispered and at last publickly imputed that horried Massacre Which Slanders were coloured by the Arts of the Irish Rebels who to dishearten the English from any resistance bragged that the Queen was with their Army That the King would come amongst them with Auxiliary Forces That they did but maintain His Cause against the Puritans That they had the Kings Comission for what they did shewing indeed a Patent that themselves had drawn but thereto was affixed an Old broad Seal that had been taken from an obsolete Patent out of Farnham Abby by one Plunckett in the presence of many of their Lords and Priests as was afterwards attested by the Confession of many Thatthe Scots were in confederacy with them to beget a faith of which they abstained from the lives and forturnes of those of that Nation among them On the other side to encourage the Natives of their own party they produce fictitious Letters wherein they were informed from England that the Parliament had passed an Act that all the Irish should be compelled to the Protestant Worship that for the first offence they should forfeit all their Goods for the second their Estates and for the third their Lives Besides they present them with the hopes of Liberty That the English Yorke should be shaken off that they would have a King of their own Nation and that the Goods and Estates of the English should be divided among the Natives And with these hopes of Spoil and Liberty the Irish were driven to such a Fury that they committed so many horrid and barbarous acts as scarce ever any Age or People were guilty of In the mean while nothing was done for the relief of the poor English there but only some Votes passed against the Rebels till the King returned to London which was about the end of November where He with the Queen and the Prince were magnificently feasted by the Citizens and the Chief of them afterwards by Him at Hampton Court For he never neglected any honest Arts to gain His Peoples love to which they were naturally prone enough had not His Enemies methods and impulses depraved their Genius But this much troubled the Faction who envied that Reverence to Majesty in others which was not in themselves and they endeavoured to make these loves short and unhappy for they discountenanced the prime advancers of this Honour to the King and were more eager to render Him odious For having gotten a Guard about them they likewise insinuated into the people dangerous apprehensions as the cause of that Guard and every day grew more nice and jealous of their Priviledges and Power The King's advices to more tenderness of His Prerogative or His Advertisements of the scandalous speeches that were uttered in their House they interpret as encroachments upon their Grandeur and upbraided the King for them in their Petitions to Him But their greatest effort upon Majesty was the Remonstrance after which they took all occasions to magnifie the apprehensions of those Fears which they had falsly pretended to in it This the Faction had before formed and now brought into the House of Commons where it found a strong opposition by those wise men that were tender of the publick Peace and Common Good though those who preferred their Private to the General Interest and every one that was short-sighted and iprovident for the future were so fierce for it that the Debates were continued all night till ten a clock the next morning so that many of the more aged and persons of best fortunes not accustomed to such watchings were wearied out and many others not daring to provoke the Faction in this their grand Design left the House so that at last they carried it yet but by eleven Votes Which they presented with a Petition to take away the Votes of Bishops in the House of Lords and the Ceremonies in the Church and to remove those Persons from His Trust which they could not confide in yet named none but only accused all under the name of a Malignant Popish Party Which they had no sooner delivered than they caused it to be published in Print To which the King answers in another publick Declaration but so muc to the discontent of the Demagogues to find their Methods of Ruine so fully discovered as they were in His Majesties Answer that they had recourse to their former sovereign Rememdy which sober men accounted a crime and an indignity to Government the Tumults of the Rabble Who in great numbers and much confusion came up to Westminster some crying out against Bishops others belching their fury against the Liturgy and a third party roaring that the Power of the Militia should be taken out of the King's hands To their Clamours they added rude Affronts to those Lords whom their Leaders had taught them to hate and especially to the Bishops at their going in or coming out of the House and afterwards drawing up to White-Hall they appeared so insolent as it was evident they wanted only some to begin for there were enough to prosecute an Assault upon the King in His own Palace The Bishops thus rudely excluded from their Right and Liberty of coming to the Parliament Twelve of them afterwards protest against the Proceedings of it during their so violent Exclusion Which Protestation the Commons presently accused of High Treason and caused their Commitment to the Tower where they continued them till the Bill against their Votes in the Lords House was past that they might not produce their Reasons for their Rights and against the Injustice offered unto them and then afterwards released them The King also saw it necessary to take a Guard of such Gentlemen as offered their Service for His Safety and to prevent the prophaning of Majesty by the rude fury of the People who used to make their Addresses acceptable at Westminster by offering in t heir passage some base Affronts at White-Hall But when the terrour of thâ—â—â—â—ard had reduced them to some less degree of Impudency they then instructed by their Heads laboured to make it more unsafe to the King by seeking to raise the Rage and Jealousie of the whole City against Him For at midnight there were cries out in the Street that all People should arise to their defence for the King with His Papists were coming to fire the City and cut their throats in their beds Than which though nothing was more false yet it found the effects of truth and the People by such Alarms being terrified from sleep the impressions of those nightly fears lay long upon their Spirits in the day and filled them almost with Madness The King therefore not alwaies to incourage these Violences with Patience but at last by a course of Justice to take off those whom He had found to be the Authors of these destructive Counsels the grand Movers of these Seditious practices and which was more the Inviters of a Foreign Force the Scotch Army into this
their false Fears they command strict Watches to be kept in all suspected places Beacons to be new set up the Sea marks to be watched and the Navy to be new rigged and fitted for the Sea New Plots were also discovered and Strange and unheard-of Counsels to murder the most Eminent Patriots are brought to light A Taylor in a ditch hears some desperate Cavaliers contriving the Death of Mr. Pym. A Plaister also taken from a Plague-sore was sent into the House to the same person that the Infection first seising on a Member of the quickest senses might thence more impetuously diffuse it self upon all the most Grave Senators Such like Plots as these and whatsoever could be devised were published to make the Vulgar think those demands of the Faction seem modest their dangers being so great which were very unjust And lest the King should at His coming into the North make use of that Magazine at Hull which at His own Charges He had provided for the Scotch Expedition for His own defence the Faction to secure that and the Town for their future purposes send down Sir John Hotham without any Order or Commission from either House of Parliament to seise on them This Man of a fury and impudence equal to their Commands when the King petitioned by the Gentlemen of Yorkshire to employ those Arms and that Ammunition for the Safety and Peace of that County where some of the Factious Members of Parliament had begun to form the like Seditions with those of London would have entred Hull Anno 1642. April 23. insolently shut the Gates upon Him and would not permit Him though with but twenty Attendants for He offered to leave the Guard of Noblemen and Gentlemen which followed Him without The King thereupon proclaims him Traytor and by Letters complains of the Indignity and requires Satisfaction But the Faction rendred the Act so glorious that the House of Commons by their Votes approved what he had done without their Command and clamored that the King had done them an injury in proclaiming so innocent a Member Traytor Ordered the Earl of Warwick to whom they had committed the Command of the Navy to land some men out of the Ships at Hull and to transport the Magazine there from thence to London An Order of Assistance was also given to several of their Confidents as a Committee of both Houses to reside at Hull and the Counties of York and Lincoln were commanded to execute their commands Besides they sent a Commission to Hotham to prosecute the Insolencies he had begun and kindle that War which took fire on the whole Nation and in a short space consumed him and his Son who were executed by the Instructors of his Villany For he fell under that same Fate which attends all the Instruments of Great Crimes to be Odious and suspected by those that made use of them Therefore they gave such a power to the Lord Fairfax in York-shire as did conclude the diminution and submission of Hotham to His Commands This caused him to reflect with grief and madness upon his first ministery to the Faction which appeared every day more monstrous to his Conscience being now spoiled of that Grandeur that he hoped would have been its reward and awakened by those Desolations in the whole Kingdom which followed it and were but as the Copies of his Original Treason Therefore he thought to expiate his former guilt by surrendring the Town to Him from whom he had detained it But his practices were discovered to the Faction by One whom they had sent thither in pretence to preach the Gospel but in truth secretly to search into the intrigues of his Counsels so that he perished in his design being neither stout nor wise enough in just enterprises nor of a pertinacy sufficient for a prosperous Perfidiousness And although in his Ruine the King observed how great a draught was offered to the highest thirst of Revenge yet He did truly bewail him and indeed he was so much the more to be pitied because his cruel Masters deluded him to a silence of their black Secrets with a false hope of Life till the Ax was upon his Neck So betraying his Soul to a surprise by his Spiritual enemies as his pretended Spiritual Guides had done his Body to them The Insolency of Hotham who acted according to his Instructions and late Commission beginning acts not usual in Peace nor justifiable by Law for he issued out Warrants for the Trained Bands to march into Hull with their Arms where he forced them to leave them and nakedly return to their homes that so they might be obnoxious to his Violence and the practices of the Committee which were sent down into the North to debauch the People in their Loyalty made the King intend His own Security by a Guard which the Gentry and Commonalty of Yorkshire that were witnesses of the Injury offered to their Prince did willingly and readily make up No sooner had the King expressed His intention of such a Guard but the Faction who were watchful of all opportunities of beginning a War and ingaging those that either through Fear or Weakness had hitherto submitted to their Impostures in a more obliging guilt for now the greatest part of the Peers who were of the most Ancient Families and Noblest Fortunes and a very great number of the House of Commons Persons of just hopes and fair Estates who perceiving the designs of the Disturbers scorned any longer to be their Slaves yet not thinking it safe to provoke the fury of the Vulgar Tumults by a present opposition had withdrawn from the Parliament to follow the King and His Fortune and every day some more were still falling off took this occasion to commence our Miseries and open those Sluces of Blood which polluted the whole Kingdom For upon the first Intelligence of it they filled the House of Commons and the City with Clamors That His Majesty had now taken Arms to the overthrow of them and the Protestant Religion and that they were not any longer to think the Happiness of the Kingdom did depend upon the King or any of the Regal Branches of that Stock that it would argue no want either of Duty or Modesty if they should depose Him By these Harangues they so heated the Parliament that was now more penurious than before in persons of Honour and Conscience to such a degree of Fury that unmindful how they themselves for eight months before upon impossible Fears and improbable Jealousies had taken a Guard they Resolved upon the Question that the King by taking to himself such a Guard did intend to levy War against the Parliament With an equal fury they issue out Commissions into all parts of the Kingdom and appoint certain days for all the Trained Bands to be put into a posture of War sending down some of their Members to see to the execution of these Commands and to seise on the Magazines in the several Counties To all
these their violent and unjust attempts the King first opposes the Law in several Declarations manifests the Power of Arms to be the Ancient and undoubted Right of the Crown by many Proclamations charges all Men under the Crime and Penalties of Treason to forbear the Execution of those Ordinances which were published to Licence their Rebellion and Answers with a wonderfull Diligence and Eloquence all the fictitious Pretensions of the Parliament to that Power in their several Remonstrances But though the King had in the judgment of all understanding and uninteressed persons the Juster Cause and the more powerful Pen yet the Faction's Haste which is most efficacious in Civil Discords the Slanders they had raised of Him and impressed in the minds of the People the terrours of that Arbitrary Power which the House of Commons had a long while exercised in the vexatious prosecution of all such as did oppose their imperious Resolves for they would by their Messengers send for the Great Earls and Prime Barons of the Kingdom as Rogues and Felons and weary them and others with a tedious and chargeable Attendance oppress them with heavy and unproportionable Censures and restrain them by Illegal Imprisonments and the hopes of licence and spoil in the ruine of Church and State had so preoccupated the Minds of the inferiour Multitude that neither Law nor Religion could have the least consideration in their practices and those Persons whom His Majesty appointed as Commissioners of Array in few places found that Obedience which was due to the just Commands of a Gracious Prince who vainly expected that Reverence to Justice in others which Himself gave After the experience of their Power in these their Successes at Land and having gotten the whole Navy at Sea being made Masters of the most and greatest Strengths of the Kingdom they then thought it might be safe for them to publish the aims and ends of their most destructive designs which if sooner manifested when the King by His Message of 20. of January from Windsor Castle advised them to prescribe the limits of their Priviledges give full Boundaries to His own Power and propose what was in their judgements proper to make the People happy and most religiously promised an equal tenderness of theirs and the Peoples Rights as of His own and what was for the Publick Good should not be obstructed for His Particular emolument they had justly drawn upon themselves all that popular hatred which they endeavoured to fling upon the King and had been buried under those ruines which they projected for the Grave of Majesty But then the Faction confided not so much in their own force nor were the Vulgar then so blinded with fury as to chuse their own Destruction and therefore to that Message of Peace nothing was returned but Complaints That by such Advisoes their Counsels were disturbed that it was contrary to their unbounded Privileges to be minded of what was necessary But now they were furnished with a Power equal to their Ambition they thought it expedient to confirm their newly-gotten Empire with some pretensions to Peace but with a great deal of Caution that the affectation of it might not disappoint them of their hopes which were all built upon War and Confusion Therefore they formed the Conditions such as the King could not in Honour or Conscience grant them nor expect Peace by them Or if He did they should be instated in such a Grandeur that they might reap for themselves all the reproachful Honours and unlawful gains of an Arbitrary Power the thing they aimed at and leave the King overwhelmed with shame and contempt for their miscarriages in Government These Conditions were digested into Nineteeen Propositions which when presented to the King He saw by an assent to them He should be concluded to have deposed Himself and be but as an helpless and idle Spectator of the Miserie 's such Tyrants would bring upon the People whom God had committed to His Trust Therefore He gave them that denial which they really desired and expected and adjusts His refusal in a Declaration wherein He sets forth the Injustice of each Proposition His Answer He sent by the Marquess of Hertford and Earl of South-hampton Persons of great Integrity and Prudence with Instructions to Treat in the House of Peers upon more equal Conditions But it behoved the Faction not to let the Kingdom see any way to Peace therefore denying any admittance to those Lords before ever the King's Answer could publickly discover who were the obstructours of the Peoples quiet they Ordered a Collection to be made of Money and Plate to maintain Horse Horse-men and Arms for the ensuing War The specious Pretences for which were the Safety of the King's Person and the taking Him out of the hands of Evil Counsellors the Defence of the Priviledges of Parliament the Preservation of the Protestant Religion and the maintenance of the Ancient Laws of the Land Such inviting causes as these inflamed the Minds of the Multitude and filled them with more airy hopes of Victory than the noise of Drums and Trumpets But that which was most powerful were the Sermons of such who being displeased with the present Ecclesiastical Government were promised the richest Benefices and a partage of the Revenues which belonged to Bishops Deans and Chapiters These from their Pulpits proclaimed War in the Name of Christ the Prince of Peace and whatsoever was contributed to the spilling of the blood of the Wicked was to build up the Throne of the meekest lamb and besides the satisfaction they were to expect from the Publick Faith which the Parliament promised there was a larger Interest to be doubled upon them in the Kingdom of Saints that was now approaching Deluded by these Artifices and Impostures People of all Conditions and all Sexes some carried by a secret Instinct others hurried by some furious Zeal and a last sort led by Covetousness cast into this Holy Treasury the Banck for Blood all the Ornaments of their Family all their Silver Vessels even to their Spoons with the Pledges of their first Love their Marriage-rings and the younger Females spared not their Thimbles and Bodkins the obliging Gifts of their Inamorato's from being a part of the Price of Blood But while these Preparations were made at London the King at York Declares against the Scandal that He intended to Levy War against the Parliament calling God to witness how far His desires and thoughts were from it and also those many Lords who were witnesses of His Counsels and Actions do publish to the World by a Writing subscribed with all their Names to the number of Forty and odd that they saw not any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget the belief of any such Design and were fully perswaded that He had no such intention But all was in vain for the Faction chose that the People should be rather guilty of committing Rebellion than only of favouring the Contrivers
of it and decreed to try whether by a prosperous Success they could change their Crimes to Vertue Therefore they hastened all they could to raise Horse and Foot to form an Army equal to their Usurpation which was not difficult for them to do for they being Masters of London whose Multitudes desirous of Novelty were easily amassed for any enterprise especially when the entring into this Warfare might make the Servant freer than his Master for such was the Licence was indulged to those Youths that would serve the Cause 20000 were sooner gathered than the King could get 500. The City also could afford them more Ordnance than the King could promise to Himself common Muskets and to pay their Souldiers besides the vast summs that were gathered for Ireland which though they by their own Act had decreed should not be used for any other enterprise yet now dispence with their Faith and imploy it to make England as miserable as that Island and the Contributions of the deluded souls for this War they seised also upon the Revenues of the King Queen Prince and Bishops and plunder the Houses of those Lords and Gentlemen whom they suspected to be Favourers of the King's Cause And in contemplation of these advantages they promised their credulous party an undoubted Victory and to lead Majesty Captive in Triumph through London within a Month by the Conduct of the Earl of Essex whom they appointed General Thus did they drive that Just and Gracious Prince to seek His Safety by necessary Arms since nothing worse could befal Him after a stout though unhappy Resistance than He was to hope for in a tame Submission to their Violence Therefore though He perfectly abhorred those Sins which are the Consequences of War yet He wanted not Courage to attempt at Victory notwithstanding it seemed almost impossible against so well-appointed an Enemy Therefore with an incredible diligence moving from place to place from York to Nottingham from thence to Shrewsbury and the Confines of Wales by discovering those Abilities with which His Soul was richly fraught unto His deluded Subjects He appeared not only worthy of their Reverence but of their Lives and Fortunes for His Defence and in all places incouraging the Good with His Commendations exciting the Fearful by His Example dissembling the Imperfections of His Friends but always praising their Vertues He so prevailed upon those who were not men of many Times nor by a former Guilt debauch'd to Inhumanity that He had quickly contracted an Army greater than His Enemies expected and which was every day increased by those Lords and Gentlemen who refused to be polluted any longer with the practices of the Faction by sitting among them and being Persons of large Fortunes had raised their Friends and Tenants to succour that Majesty that now laboured under an Eclipse Most men being moved with Pity and Shame to see their Prince whose former Reign had made them wanton in Plenty to be driven from His own Palaces and concluded under a want of Bread to be necessitated to implore their aid for the preservation of His and their Rights So that notwithstanding all the Impostures of the Faction and the Corruptions of the Age there were many great Examples of Loyalty and Vertue Many Noble Persons did almost impoverish themselves to supply the King with Men and Money Some Private men made their way through numerous dangers to joyn with and fight under his Colours Many great Ladies and Vertuous Matrons parted with the Ornaments of their Sex to relieve His wants and some bravely defended their Houses in His Cause when their Lords were otherwhere seeking Honour in his Service Both the Universities freely devoted their Plate to succour their Prince the Supreme Patron and Incourager of all Learning and the Queen pawned Her Jewels to provide Necessaries for the Safety of Her Husband Which Duty of Hers though it deserved the Honour of all Ages was branded by the Demagogues with the imputation of Treason This sudden and unexpected growth of the Strength of the King after so many years of Slanders and such industrious Plots to make Him odious and Contemptible raised the admiration of all men and the fears of that credulous Party who had given up their Faith to the Faction when they represented the King guilty of so much Folly and Vice and some corrupted Citizens had represented Him as a Prodigy of both in a Scene at Guild-Hall in London an Art used by Jesuites to impress more deeply a Calumny that they could not imagine any person of Prudence or Conscience would appear in His Service and they expected every day when deserted by all as a Monster He should in Chains deliver Himself up to the Commands of the Parliament Some attributed this strange increase in power to the natural Affection of the English to their Lawful Soveraign from whom though the Arts and Impulses of Seditious Demagogues may a while estrange and divorce their minds yet their Genius will irresistibly at last force them to their first Love and therefore they urged the saying of that Observing States-man that if the Crown of England were placed but on an Hedge-stake he would be on that side where the Crown was Others referred it to the full evidence of the wickedness of His Adversaries for their Counsels were now discovered and their Ends manifest not to maintain the Common Liberty which was equally hateful to them as Tyranny when it was not in their hands but to acquire a Grandeur and Power that might secure and administer to their Lusts and it was now every where published what Mr. Hambden Answered to one who inquired What they did expect from the King he replyed That He should commit Himself and all that is His to our Care Others ascribed it to the fears of ruine to those numerous Families and Myriads of people which the change of Government designed by the Parliament must necessarily effect But this though it argued that Cause exceeding bad by which so great a part of a Community is utterly destroyed without any absolute necessity for preserving the whole yet made but an inconsiderable Addition to the King whose greatest Power was built upon Persons of the Noblest Extract and the fairest Estates in England of which they could not easily suspect to be devested without an absolute overthrow of all the Laws of Right and Wrong which nevertheless was to be feared by their invasions on the King's most undoubted Rights For when Majesty it self is assaulted there can be no security for private Fortunes and those that decline upon design from the paths of Equity will never rest till they come to the Extremity of Injustice as these afterwards did Besides those that imputed the speedy amassing of these Forces to the Equity of the King's Cause His most Powerful Eloquence Indefatigable Industry and most Obliging Converse there were another sort that suspending their Judgements till all the Scenes of War were passed resolved all into the Providence of
God Who though He were pleased to single Him out of all the Kings of the Earth as the fittest Champion to wrestle with Adversity and to make Him glorious by Sufferings which being well born truly prove men Great yet would He furnish Him almost by a Miracle likewise with such Advantages in the conduct of which His Prudence and Magnanimity might evidence that He did deserve Prosperity and by clearing up even this way His eminent Vertues warn the following Ages from a Credulity to unquiet Persons since the best of Princes was thus infamously slandered From all these concurring Causes each one in their Way and Order did the King's strength so far increase as that He won many Battels and was not far from Conquest in the Whole War had not God seen fit to afflict this sinful Nation with Numerous and most Impious Tyrants and make us feel that no Oppressions are so unsupportable as those which are imposed by such as have made the highest Pretensions to Liberty of which we had bitter experience after the War was finished that was now begun For there had been some slight Conflicts e're this in the several Counties betwixt the Commissioners of Array and the Militia with various Successes which require just Volumes and compleat Histories to relate and cannot be comprehended in the short View of the King's Life where it is only intended to speak of those Battels in which the King in Person gave sufficient evidence of His Wisdom and Valour The first of which was at Edge-Hill on Octob. 23. For the King had no sooner gotten a considerable Force though not equal to those of His Enemies but He marched towards London and in His way thither met with Essex's Army that were come from thence to take Him The King having viewed their Army by a Prospective-glass from the top of that Hill and being asked afterwards by His Officers what He meant to do To give them battel said He with a present Courage it is the first time I ever saw the Rebels in a body God and good mens Prayers to Him assist the Justice of My Cause and immediately prepared for the Fight which was acted with such a fury that near 6000 according to the common Account but some say a far less number were slain upon the place Night concluded this Battel which had comprehended the whole War had not the King 's prevailing Horse preferr'd the Spoils to Victory and left the Enemy some advantage to dispute for her But the King had all the fairest marks of her favour For though He had lost His General yet He kept the Field possessed the dead Bodies opened His way toward London and in the sight of some part of the Army of Essex who accounted it a Victory that He was not totally routed and killed took Banbury and entred Triumphantly into Oxford which He had designed for His Winter-quarters with 150 Colours taken in fight And having assured that place He advances towards London whither Essex had gotten before Him and disposed his baffled Regiments within ten miles of the City yet the King fell upon two Regiments of them at Brainford took 500 Prisoners and sunk their Ordnance From thence intending to draw nearer London He had intelligence that the City had poured forth all their Auxiliaries to re-inforce Essex's Troops to which being unwilling to oppose His Souldiers wearied with their March nor thinking it safe to force an Enemy to fight upon Necessity which inspires a more than Ordinary Fury He retreats to Oxford having taught His Enemies that He was not easily to be Overcome For in the management of this Battel He did not only undeceive the abused world of those Slanders which His Enemies had polluted Him with but He exceeded that Opinion His own Party had of His Abilities And though He parted from London altogether unexperienced in Martial affairs yet at Edge-Hill He appeared a most Excellent Commander His Valour was also equal to His Prudence and He could as well endure Labours as despise Dangers And by a communication of toils encouraged His Souldiers to keep the Field all the night when they saw He refused the refreshments of a Bed for He sought no other Shelter from the injuries of the Air than His own Coach These Vertues and this Success made such an impression on the Parliament that though they took all courses to hide the Infamy of their worsted Army yet in more humble Expressions than formerly they Petitioned the King for a Treaty of Peace which His Majesty very earnestly embraced But the Faction who were frighted with these Tendencies to an Accommodation cause some of the City to Petition against it and to make profer of their Lives and Fortunes for the prosecution of the War Encouraged by this they form their Propositions like the Commands of Conquerours and so streighten the Power and Time of their Commissioners that the Treaty at Oxford became fruitless which there had taken up all the King's employment this Winter though abroad His Forces were busie in several Parts of the Nation not without honour Anno 1643. At the opening of the Spring the Queen comes back to England bringing with Her some considerable Supplies of Men Money and Ammunition and Her coming was entertained with such a Series of Successes that the King that Summer was Master of the North and West except some few Garrisons Which so dismayed the Parliament that very many of them were preparing to quit the Kingdom and had the King followed His own Counsels to march immediately towards London and not been fatally over-born at a Council of War which it is said His Enemies at London did assure their Party would so be first to attempt Gloucester He had in the jugment of all discerning men then finished the War with Glory But here He lay so long till Essex had gotten a Recruit from London and came time enough to relieve the Town though in his return the King necessitated him to fight worsted him near Newbery and so bravely followed him the next day that He forced the Parliaments Horse which were left in the Reer to seek their safety by making their way over a great part of their Foot yet lost on His side much Noble Blood as the Earls of Carnarvan and Sunderland and Viscount Falkland This last was lamented by all being equally dexterous at the Pen and Sword had won some Wreathes in those Controversies that were to be managed by Reason and was eminent in all the Generous parts of Learning above any of his Fortune and Dignity After this Encounter the King returns to Oxford to Consult with those Members of both Houses that had left the Impostures and Tumults at London to joyn with Him for the common benefit who being as to the Peers the far greater and as to the Commons an equal Number with those at Westminster they assumed the Name and Authority of Parliament and deliberated of the ways of Peace and means to prevent the
Desolations which the Faction so furiously designed who were now resolving to encrease our Miseries by Calling in the Scots to their assistance For though they pretended so highly to God's Cause as if they had the certainty of some Divine Revelation yet they would not trust Him for their Preservation notwithstanding their pretences to his Cause had furnished them with so vast a Treasure and so mighty a Strength but would invite others to the Violation of most sacred Oaths to sin against all Laws and every Rule of Justice that themselves might be secure in their Usurpations And that Perfidious Party that then ruled in Scotland hoping for as great advantages as their former Wickedness had yielded contrary to all Obligations which the King's Goodness had laid on them and their free and Voluntary Execrations as was that of Alexander Lesley who lifting up his arms and hands to Heaven wished they might rot to his body before he died if ever he should heave them up hereafter or draw his sword against so gude a King drew that People once more into Rebellion against their Prince and to make them more eager and think the Enterprise easie they first raised a report that the King was deserted by most of His Nobility The Parliament at Oxford having by a Letter moved the Earl of Essex to endeavour Peace did also declare against this Invasion of the Scots by another Letter sent to them in which also they acquaint them with the falseness of their officious Lie and shew how inconsiderable a Number of Lords were with those that invited them in The King Himself writes also to put them in mind of their several Ingagements to be Quiet But with an Insolencie fit for most perjured Souls they Commanded the Letters to be burned by the hand of the Hangman A more secret falshood He also found in the Marquess Hamilton whose Treasons now came to be more suspected For His Majesty having written to him to use all his Power and Interest to keep his Country-men at home which had not been difficult for one of his Grandeur in that unquiet Nation he by some secret Arts doth more inflame them and to cover his Perfidiousness flies from Scotland to Oxford as seeking a shelter for his Loyalty but indeed to be a Spy in the King's Counsels But his Treasons had out-stripp'd him and his Brother the Earl of Lanerick who came with him therefore they were both forbidden the Court. Lanerick not willing to tarry till a further Discovery gets out of Oxford flies to those at London and by them was imployed in the Scotch Army which made Hamilton's Treachery more evident and he was sent Prisoner to Pendennis Castle But the dishonour of that Nation was in a great measure repaired by the Gallantry and Faithfulness of the Marquess Montross who being commission'd by the King with an incredible Industry by small numbers of men won many Battels and overthrew well-formed Armies and had not the Fate of his Master which was to be betrayed by those He trusted been likewise common to him he had forced that Nation to Justice and Quiet But e're Montross could get his Commission the Scots were entred England whose coming that it might be less odious to the People who now grew cold in their zeal to the Cause and saw themselves deluded into so continued dangers the Faction make use of such frauds as should make the People either think them necessary assistances or might divert their thoughts from apprehending the Miseries they brought with them to this Nation therefore they invent new Slanders of the King and His Party That His Majesty did intend to translate Monarchy into a Tyranny that He would seise upon all their Estates who had any way opposed Him and make their persons Slaves that there was no hope of Pardon from Him who was so merciless that He would take away all their Liberties and Privileges 〈◊〉 forfeited destroy the Protestant Religion and introduce Popery which at Oxford He did practise Himself and that all men must be forced to go to Mass As for His Party they set them out to be such Monsters that the lower sort of People doubted whether the Cavaliers had the shapes of men For sad Relations were printed and published of their inhumanity and barbarous murders that they did feast upon the Flesh of Men and that they fed their Dogs and their Horses with the same Diet to make them more fierce for the blood of the Godly Party that no mans house was so poor and mean that a Cavalier would think beneath his rapine Thus they wrought upon the melancholy spirits of some by fear For those of a morose and cholerick temper they had proper divertisements they permitted to them a tumultuary Reformation to pull down the Pictures and Images of Christ the Virgin Mary and the Saints which with great Solemnity they committed to the flames that they might suffer as it were another Martyrdom All Crosses though set up for Ornament and Use in the Streets of London and other places they pulled down they invade the Churches and there deface what their Humour or Rapine would call Superstition pull down the Organs tear the Surplices and all this was suffered to please the Rabble who delight in violences and such ostentations of their fury and to make them in something or other guilty that they might despair of Pardon For others who were to be wrought upon by Religion they entertain them with Fasts publick Thanksgivings for slight Victories and solemn Spiritual meetings as they called them where whatsoever the Faction dictated was commended by the Speakers to their unwary hearers as the Oracles of Heaven and being thus wrapp'd up in those true delights which accompany the Worship of God they were securely swallowed by them as Poison when it is offered in a Sacramental Chalice To please their Ministers whom hitherto they had used as their Properties and Instruments of their Arts Presbytery is set up that they also might have an Imaginary Empire but it was not intended they should exercise it For the pretensions of that to a Divine Right did so terrifie them who were resolved against all Government that was not subject unto or dependent on theirs that they presently raised all the other Sects Independents Erastians who for the most part were Lawyers that could not endure to hear of any Thunderbolts of Excommunication but what was heated in their own forges Anabaptists Seekers and Atheists of which there were many sprung up who seeing how Religion was abused to carnal and unjust Ends began first to despise that and afterwards to deny God to write and declaim against this new Politie as the most severe and absolute Tyranny under the Sun and the tenth Persecution But this seeming modesty of admitting a Church-Government served their ends for the present till they could acquire a greater strength in confidence of which they might slight the Terrours of the Law and the Anathema's of the Church
eager Fight which being varied with different successes in the several divisions each party draw off by degrees and neither found cause to boast of a Victory The King being returned to Oxford the Parliament wearied with the Complaints of the oppressed Nation who now grew impatient under the Distractions take into Consideration His Majesty's two Messages for Peace and send Propositions for it in the name of the two Parliaments of England and Scotland united by Solemn League and Covenant Which though they seemed the desires of minds that intended nothing less than the common Tranquillity yet the King neglects them not but hoping that in a Treaty Commissioners might argue them into Reason offers it which with much difficulty the Houses are drawn to accept but yet would have it at Vxbridge a place but about fifteen miles distant from London and above twice that distance from Oxford And accordingly Commissioners from both Parties met on Jan. 30. While the King was providing for the Treaty and forming Instructions for His Ministers the Faction found the Parliament other work by new designs and to habituate the People to an abhorrency of Peace fed them with blood The two Hotham's first were to be the Sport of the Multitude and that the Father might have more than a single death he was drawn back in his journey to the Scaffold Decemb. 31. that his Son might be executed before him as he was Jan. 1. when after he had expressed his fury to those Masters whom they had served to their ruines his Head was chopt off And on Jan. 2. the Father is brought to the place that was defiled with his Son's blood and had his own added to it These were not much lamented by any for the memory that they first kindled the Flame of the Nation kept every eye dry The People thus fed with courser blood a cleaner Sacrifice was afterwards presented Willam Laud Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of all England He had indured Imprisonment four years and passed through a Tryal of many months in which he had acquitted himself with such a confidence as became the Innocency and Constancy of a Christian Bishop and Confessor but yet must fall to please the Scots and those merciless men who imputed God's anger in the difficulties of Success against their Prince to the continuance of this Prelate's Life therefore he was Voted Guilty of High Treason by the House of Commons and was condemned in the House of Peers though they have no power over the life of the meanest Subject without the concurrence of the King when there were but Seven Lords present Some Writers who since have been convinced of their mis-information have named amongst those Seven Lords the Lord Bruce Earl of Elgin but his Lordship upon the first notice of this report did to several Persons of Quality and Honour he conversed with and since hath affirmed to me that he was not then present and that his heart could never consent to the shedding of the blood of that Excellent Prelate and all those not consenting to the Murder to be drawn hanged and quartered And this was the first Example of murdering Men by Votes of killing by an Order of Parliament when there is no Law It was moved they say by some that he might be shipp'd over to New-England to die by the Contempt and Malice of those People But this seemed too great an Honour because it would make his end as his life was much like that of the Primitive Bishops who for their Piety were banished to Barbarous Coasts or condemned to the Mines Or else it would be like an Athenian Ostracism and confess him too great and good to live among us Therefore this motion was rejected yet the Lords upon his Petition to the distaste of some Commons changed the manner of that vile Execution to that more generous of being beheaded To the Scaffold he was brought Jan. 10. after he had endured some affronts in his Antichamber in the Tower by some Sons of Schism and Sedition who unseasonably that morning he was preparing himself to appear before the great Bishop of our Souls would have him give some satisfaction to the Godly for so they called themselves for his Persecutions which he called Discipline To whom he Answered That he was now shortly to give account of all his Actions at an higher and more equal Tribunal and desired he might not be disturbed in his Preparations for it When he came to the Scene of his death he appeared with that chearfulness and serenity in his face as a good Conscience doth beautifie the owners with and it was so conspicuous that his Enemies who were ashamed to see his Innocency pourtraied in his Countenance did report he had drunk some Spirits to force his nature from a paleness He preached his own Funeral Sermon on that Text Hebr. 12.2 and concluding his life with Prayer submitted himself to the stroke of the Ax. He was a Person of so great Abilities which are the Designations of Nature to Dignity and Command that they raised him from low beginnings to the highest Office the Protestant Profession acknowledges in the Church And he was equal to it His Learning appear'd eminent in his Book against Fisher and his Piety illustrious in his Diary although published by One that was thirsty of his blood and polluted with many malicious Comments and false Surmises to make him odious He was of so Publick a Spirit that both the Church and State have lasting Monuments of the Vertuous use of his Princes favour at his Admittance into which he dedicated all the future Emoluments of it to the Glory of God and the Good of Men by a Projection of many noble Works most of which he accomplished and had finished the rest had not the Fate of the Nation checked the current of his Designs and cut off the Course of his Life He was not contented by himself only to serve his Generation for so he might have appeared more greedy of Fame than desirous of the Universal Benefit but he endeavoured to render all others as heroick if they aimed at a Capacity for his Friendship for I have heard it from his Enemies no great man was admitted to a confidence and respect with him unless he made his address by some Act that was for the Common Good or for the Ornament and Glory of the Protestant Faith Learned men had not a better Friend nor Learning it self a greater Advancer he searched all the Libraries of Asia and from several parts of the World purchased all the Ornaments and Helps of Literature he could that the English Church might have if possible by his Care as many Advantages for Knowledge as almost all Europe did contribute to the Grandeur of that of Rome The outward Splendour of the Clergy was not more his Care than their Honour by a grave and pious Conversation he would put them into a power of doing more good but was severe against their
and that it was not for the Honour of a Parliament to seem to yield to any thing by fear or compulsion Besides these devices many fictitious Letters were composed false Rumours divulged and witnesses suborned to make men suspect that many dangerous Plots and portentous Designs were disguised in these Overtures of Accord Therefore the Commissioners of Parliament were instructed to offer no Expedient for an Accommodation nor hearken to such as were tendred to them in the Name of the King His Majesty seeing and bewailing his Condition that He must still have to do with those that were Enemies to Peace prepares Himself for the War at the approaching Spring and although this Winter was infamous with many losses either through the neglects or perfidiousness of some Officers yet before the season for taking the field was come His Counsels and Diligence had repaired those damages Anno 1645. In April He sends the Prince to perfect the Western Association and raise such Forces as the necessities of the Crown which was His Inheritance did require with Him is sent as Moderator of His Youth and prime Counsellour Sir Edward Hide now Lord High Chancellour of England whose Faithfulness had endeared him to His Majesty who also judged his Abilities equal to the Charge in which He continued with the same Faith through all the Difficulties and Persecutions of his Master till it pleased God to bring the Prince back to the Throne of His Fathers and him to the Chief Ministery of State After their departure the King draws out His Army to relieve His Northem Counties and Garrisons But being on His march and having stormed and taken Leicester in His way He was called back to secure Oxford which the Parliament Army threatned with a Siege But Fairfax having gotten a Letter of the Lord Goring's whom a Parliament Spy had cajoled to trust him with the delivery of it to His Majesty wherein he had desired Him to forbear ingaging with the Enemy till he could be joyned with Him he leaves Oxford and made directly towards the King that was now come back as far as Daventrey with a purpose to fight Him before that addition of strength and at a place near Naseby in Northampton-shire both Armies met on Saturday June 14. Cromwell having then also brought some fresh Horse to Fairfax whose absence from the Army at that time the King was assured by some who intended to betray Him should be effected Nevertheless the King would not decline the Battel and had the better at first but His vanquishing Horse following the chase of their Enemies too far a fatal errour that had been twice before committed left the Foot open to the other wing who pressing hotly upon them put them to an open rout and so became Masters of His Canon Camp and Carriage and among these of His Majesties Cabinet in which they found many of His Letters most of them written to the Queen which not contented with their Victory over His Forces they Print as a Trophee over His Fame that by proposing His secret Thoughts designed only for the breast of His Wife to the debauched multitude and they looking on them through the Prejudices which the Slanders of the Faction had already formed in their minds the Popular hatred might be increased But the publication of them found a contrary effect every one that was not barbarous abhorred that Inhumanity among Christians which Generous Heathens scorned to be guilty of and the Letters did discover that the King was not as He was hitherto characterized but that He had all the Abilities and Affections as well as all the Rights that were fit for Majesty and which is not usual He grew greater in Honour by this Defeat though He never after recovered any considerable power For the Fate of this Battel had an inauspicious influence upon all His remaining Forces and every day His losses were repeated But though Fortune had left the King yet had not His Valour therefore gathering up the scattered remains of His broken Army He marches up and down to encourage those whose Faith changed not with His Condition At last attempting to relieve Chester though He was beset behind and before and His Horse wearied in such tedious and restless Marches yet at first He beat Poyntz off that followed but being charged by Fresh Souldiers from the Leaguer and a greater Number He was forced to retreat and leave some of His gallant Followers dead upon the place After this He draws towards the North-East and commands the Lord Digby with the Horse that were left to march for Scotland and there to joyn with Montross who with an inconsiderable company of men had got Victories there so prodigious that they looked like Miracles But this Lord was surprised before he could get out of Yorkshire for His Horse having taken 700 of the Enemies Foot were so wanton with their Success that they were easily mastered by another Party and he himself was compelled to fly into Ireland These several Overthrows brought another mischief along with it for the King's Commanders and Officers broke their own Peace and Agreement which is the only Comfort and Relief of the Oppressed and which makes them considerable though they are despoiled of arms by imputing as it useth to be in unhappy counsels the criminous part of their misfortunes to one another But many gallant Persons whom Loyalty and Religion had drawn to His Service endured the utmost hazards before they delivered the Holds He had committed to their trust and by that means employing the Enemies Arms gave the King time who was at last returned to Oxford to provide for His Safety Hither every day sad Messages of Ruines from every part of the Nation came which though they seemed like the falling pieces of the dissolved world yet they found His Spirit erect and undaunted For He was equal in all the Offices of His Life tenacious of Truth and Equity and not moveable from them by Fears a Contemner of worldly Glory and desirous of Empire for no other reason but because He saw these Kingdoms must be ruined when He relinquished the care of them But that which most troubled Him were the Importunities of His own disconsolate Party to seek for Conditions of Peace which He saw was in vain to expect would be such as were fit to accept for His former experience assured Him that these men would follow the Counsels of their Fortune and be more Insolent now than ever And for Himself He was resolved not to sacrifice His Conscience to Safety nor his Honour to Life This He often told those that thus pressed Him and did profess in His Letter to Prince Rupert who likewise moved Him to the same that He would yield to no more now than what He had offered at Uxbridge though He confessed it were as great a Miracle His Enemies should hearken to so much Reason as that He should he restored within a Month to the same Condition He was
in immediately before the Battel at Naseby But yet to satisfie every One how tender He was of the Common Safety He sent several Messages to the Parliament for a Treaty and offers to come Himself to London if He may have security for Himself and Attendants All which were either not regarded or answered with Reproaches And because the people began to murmur at so great an earnestness of the Faction to continue the Wounds of the Nation open and bleeding since there were many Forts yet held out for the King by Gallant Persons besides the Lord Hopton had an Army yet unbroken and Ormond and Montross had considerable Interests in Ireland and Scotland all which might be perswaded in a Treaty to part with those Arms which could not be taken from them without much blood and it was the common belief that these men sought for Victory not Peace and Liberty which was now tendred therefore to raise suspicions in the Vulgar it is suggested that the Cavaliers who came to Compound would take the advantage of the King's Presence if He were permitted to be there and kindle a new flame and War in the City And that it might be thought they had real grounds for these fears the Disarmed Compounders were commanded to depart above twenty miles from London and to injealous the people more all the transactions of the King in the Irish Pacification were published and amplified with the malicious Slanders and Comments of the implacable and conscious Demagogues that so the terrors of the Vulgar being augmented they might be frighted into a longer patience The King finding these men irreconcileable to Peace and that they had declared against His Coming though without a Caution tryes the Leaders of the English Army but they proved no less pertinacious and were now approaching to besiege Oxford Providence not leaving any more Choice but only shewing Him a way for a present Escape He goes in a Disguise which when Necessity cloathes Royal Persons with seems like an Ominous Cloud before the Setting of the Sun to the Scotish Camp that was now before Newark where the Ambassadour of the King of France who was then in the Leaguer had before covenanted for His Majestie 's Safety and Protection and the Scotish Officers had engaged to secure both Him and as many of His Party as should seek for Shelter with them and to stand to Him with their Lives and Fortunes Anno 1646. The King being come thither May 4. made a great alteration in affairs Newark was surrendred by the King's Command and Sir Thomas Glemham having gallantly defended Oxford till the Besiegers offered honourable Conditions delivered up that also But the greatest Change of Counsels were at London where when it was related among whom the King had sought a Sanctuary various and different Discourses were raised Some wondred that His Majesty had sought a Refuge there where the Storm began and how He could apprehend to find Relief from those that were not only the Authors of His Troubles but now the great Advancers of His Overthrow And they conceived no Promises or Oaths can be a sufficient Caution from those People that have been often Perfidious Others judged that in those necessities wherein the King was concluded it was as dangerous not to trust as to be deceived no Counsel could be better than to try whether a Confidence in them would make them faithful and whether they would then be honest when they had the Critical Opportunity to testifie to the world that they intended not what they did but what they said That they fought not against Him but for Him But a last sort bewailed both the greatness of the King's Dangers that should make Him seek for Safety in a tempestuous Sea and false bottom as also the debaucheries of the English Genius which was now so corrupted that their Prince was driven to seek an Asylum from their injuries among a people that were infamous and polluted with the Blood of many Kings While others discoursed thus of the King's journey the Parliament heated by the Independents fiercely declared against the Scots who were removing the King to Newcastle and used several methods to make them odious and drive them home For they kept back their Pay that they might exact Free-Quarter from the Country then they did extenuate their Services derogate from their famed Valour upbraid them as Mercenaries threaten to force them out by the Sword All which while the English Presbyterians though they wish'd well to their Brethren yet lest they should seem to indulge the Insolencies of a strange Nation did not dare to plead in their defence But the Scots themselves for a time did justifie their Reception and Preservation of His Majesty by the Laws of Nature Nations and Hospitality which forbid the delivery and betraying of those that have fled to any for Succour The Democratick Faction urged that it was not lawful for the Scots their Hirelings and in their Dominion to receive the King into their Camp without the leave of their Masters and keep Him without their Consent These Debates were used to raise the King's price Which when the Scots were almost assured of to make their ware more valuable they solicite the King in hopes of their Defence to command Montross to depart from his noble Undertakings in Scotland where he had almost recovered the Overthrow Roxbrough and Traquaire had betrayed him unto and was become formidable again as also the Loyal Marquess of Ormond to desist from his gallant Oppositions both of the Irish Rebels and English Forces Which when the King had done being not willing those Gallant Persons should longer Hazard their brave Lives and after both these Excellent Leaders had more in anger than fear partâ—â— with their unhappy Arms that they might have a colour of betraying Him whom the General Assembly of Scotland which useth to hatch all the Seditions to the heat and strength of a seeming Authority had forbid to be brought into His Native and Ancient Kingdom as He affectionately call'd it they tender Him the Covenant pretending without that Chain upon Him they did not dare to lead Him into Scotland This His Majesty refused not if they would first loose those Scruples of Church-Government which lay upon His Conscience Therefore to untie those Knots Master Henderson that was then the Oracle of the Kirk and the great Apostle of the Solemn Covenant was employed to converse with Him But the Greatness of the King's Parts and the Goodness of His Cause made all his attempts void for the Papers being published every one yielded the Victory to His Majesty and unfortunate for he returned home and not long after died as some reported of a Grief contracted from the sense of his Injuries to a Prince whom he had found so Excellent While these things were acting at Newcastle the bargain was stroke at London and for 200000 l. His Majesty stripp'd of those Arms He had when He came among them was delivered up
as it were to be scourged and crucified to some Commissioners from the Parliament But to Honest their Perfidiousness they add this Caution That there should be no attenpt made upon the King's Person but being entertained at one of His own Palaces He should there be treated with upon Propositions from both Nations which should speedily be sent to Him But the Parliament never thought of sending any Propositions till He came under the Power of the Army who had malicious Designs upon His Person The Commissioners receiving Him convey Him to His own House at Holmeby This was a very curious and stately Building yet was not therefore chosen because it might be a Majestick Prison but because it was within Ken of Naseby which was infamous with His Overthrow that so the Neighbourhood to 〈◊〉 might more afflict His grieved Spirit To this unpleasingness of the Place they added other discomforts by making the restraint so strict that they suffered none to come near Him that by owning His Cause were assured of their Welcome yea even His Chaplain which most troubled Him were debarred from their Ministery But God supplyed this Want by more plentiful Assistances of His Holy Spirit and made Him like the Ancient Patriarchs both a King and a Priest at least for Himself and here He sacrificed Praise◠even to that God that hid himself and composed those most Divine Meditations and Soliloquies that are in His Book spending that time in Converse with Heaven which He was not suffered to employ with Men in whom He delighted While the King's Soul was thus winged above the walls of His Prison and the Fortune of His Enemies they that had put an end to the War yet could not find the way to Peace for their Souls were unequal to the Victory and could not temper their Success the two Sects falling to dissension and turning all their Arts and Arms one against another The Presbyterians had the richer and more splendid followers but the Independents the most fierce subtle and most strongly principled to Confusion the first was Powerful in the Parliament but the latter in the Army After they had a long time practised on one another the very same Methods they had acted against the King and such as favoured Him in the Parliament of which there were always some Number among them the Independents still gained upon their Opposites making the Presbyterians odious by Libels composed to render their Government Ridiculous and Tyrannical by putting them upon all the most envious Employments as Reforming the Universities and Sequestring Ministers that refused to take the Covenant Not contented thus to deal with their elder Brethren by spoiling them of their Honour they proceeded to strip them of the reliques of their armed Power surprising them in Parliament with a Vote to disband all the Souldiers that were not in Fairfax's Army then the General turns out those Commanders of Garrisons that were any way inclined to them Besides this they either corrupted with Gifts or frighted some of the most busie yet obnoxious Presbyterians either wholly to come over to them or be their Instruments in disturbing and revealing the Counsels of that Party which was done under the Scheme of Moderation and reconciling the Godly one to another Anno 1647. The Presbyterians at last awakened with the daily wounds of their Power and the dishonour of their Party began now to be more afraid of their Stipendiaries than they were of their Soveraign for they found that they lost all that by the Victory which they sought by the War therefore to break the confidence of the Independents and make themselves free they Vote in the Parliament where they had most Voices That to ease the Commonwealth of the Charges in maintaining the Army 12000 of the Souldiers should be sent over to Ireland and all the rest to be disbanded except 6000 Horse 2000 Dragoons and 6000 Foot who should be disposed in different and distant places in the Nation to prevent any Rising The Commanders and Independents soon discovered the Artifice that it was not to ease the Nation but weaken them therefore they employ the Inferiour Officers being persons that by dissimulation and impudence having accustomed themselves to much speaking did at last imagine their Vices were Gifts of the Holy Ghost and so were fit to disquiet the minds of men to possess the common Souldiers with a fear of Disbanding without their Arrears or else to be sent into that unquiet Island to perish with hunger and cold and the surprises of a treacherous Enemy This presently set the Army to Mutiny which while it was in the Beginnings the Commanders make semblance of Indignation at it seem very busie to compose it and Cromwell to make the Parliament secure calls God to witness that he was assured the Army would at their first Command cast their Arms at their Feet and again solemnly swears that he had rather himself with his whole Family should be consumed than that the Army should break out into Sedition Yet in the mean time he and his Creatures in the Army administer new fuel to the flames of it and when they had raised their Fury to such heat that it was at last concocted to a perfect defection from all obedience to the Parliament they lay aside their disguises and post from London to the Head Quarters where the Synagogue of Agitators was seated and 〈◊〉 whom was committed the management of this Conspiracy This Conventicle was made up of two of the most unquiet and factious i◠every Regiment of Foot and each Troop of Horse their business was to consult th◠Interests of the whole Army and when they had moulded their Pretences and Arts to their grand Design to instruct the ruder part of 〈◊〉 in their Clamours and Injuries and to corrupt all the Garrisons by Emissaries to the same enterprises At last they extended their Cares to the whole British Empire and dictate what their pleasures are concerning England and Ireland Which was in both Kingdoms to establish the Power and Liberty of the People for they openly professed an inten◠for Democracie And because about an hundred Officers in the Army would not be forward in the Sedition they were by this Committee of Adjutators and the secret intimations of the Commanders cashiered Thus the Counsels of both Parties being directed to overthrow their contrary each thought the Person and Presence of the King would be no vain advantage to their Designs for they would Honest their actions with a care of Him therefore the Presbyterians had it in Consultation to Order Col. Greves who had the Command of the Guard about the King at Holmeby to remove His Majesty to London the Intelligence of which coming to the Army by the treachery of a certain Lord they immediately send a Body of Horse to prevent them and to force Him into their own Quarters Thus was that Religious Prince made once more the mock of Fortune and the sport of the Factions
both of the King and Monarchy As for the King whom they had now brought to Hampton-Court some that had before contrived His Death and to murder Him while He was in the Scotch Camp so at once to satifie their own Revenge and Load their Enemies with the Infamy of the Murder yet could not then perform it were now fierce for a speedy and secret Assassinantion by Pistol or Poison Others would have Him tryed and condemned by their Council of War But the Chiefs thought fit to proceed more artificially in their Crime and when they should get more Authority destroy Him by a Parliamentary way of Justice To bring this about they must proceed to make Him more odious that the People might be patient while they kill Him and undo them To proceed therefore to their Impiety Cromwell and his Creatures stickle fiercely in the House of Commons and cause the Parliament to send not Conditions of Peace to be treated on but Propositions like Commands that admitted no dispute which if the King had yielded unto He had despoiled Himself of Majesty and been thought guilty of so much want of Spirit as would conclude an unfitness for Empire besides such a voluntary Diminution would have been equally unsafe as unglorious And if He did not then He was to be esteemed the only Obstacle of the Universal Peace And lest the King should put them to more tedious Arts by signing them they themselves to divert Him privately procure more soft Articles and professed to be sorry the Presbyterian Sowreness and Rigour did yet leaven the House which made these Propositions so unpleasant The King could not but perceive the practices of the Army yet being resolved that no Dangers whatsoever should make Him satisfie those unreasonable Demands of the Parliament which granted would have been the heaviest oppression on His Subjects and the greatest injury to His Posterity He could possibly be guilty of For to good Princes the Safety of their People and their own Memory which is built upon the Happiness of Posterity through their Counsels are more pretious than Life and Power and although Providence and the Malice of His Enemies had obstructed His way to Glory by Victories and Success yet He would trace it in the unenvied and unquestionable paths of Constancy and Justice Therefore to make His denial of them advantageous to Himself by a seeming confidence in the Army's profers thereby to oblige if it were possible those that had no sense either of Faith or Honour or at least to injealous those two Rivals for His Power and commit them the King absolutely rejects the Parliaments Propositions and requires the Demands of the Army as more equal and fit for a Personal Treaty and that the Army also should nominate Commissioners Cromwell and His Complices seemed to be joyful for this Answer of His Majesty which had preferred them before their Competitors to the Honour of Justice and Moderation in the Eyes of the People but yet secretly did they exasperate the minds of the more short-sighted Commons against the King for this Affront And to the King they profess a shame and trouble upon their Spirits for so they loved to speak that they could not now perform their Promises sometimes they excused themselves by a Reverence to the Parliament at other times by the fierceness of the Adjutators and when by these excuses they had coloured their delays to some length they began to interpret their sayings otherwise than the King apprehended them to forget what they had assured Him of and at last openly to refuse any performance To all these Perfidies they add other Frauds to beget a fear in Him of the Adjutators and the Levellers who they informed Him meditated His Murder professed they could not for the present moderate their bloody and impetuous Consultations but when they should recover the lost Discipline of their Army then they might easily and speedily satisfie their engagements to Him To give credit to their words the Fury of the Adjutators was blown to a more conspicuous Flame their Papers were published for a change of Government call'd The Case of the Army and The Agreement of the People the animations of Peters and another of the same Diabolical spirit saying His Majesty was but a dead Dog were divulged and all were communicated to some Attendants about the King with an Advice from the Chiefs of the Army to escape for His Life for they were unwilling He should be killed while they helplesly look'd on The fury and threatnings of men of such destructive and bloody Principles who accounted all things lawful that they could do that Providence administring Opportunity did invite and license their impieties and who imputed all their lusts that had no colour from Justice to the Perswasions of the Holy Spirit were not to be despised nor was the King to abandon His Life if He could without sin preserve it to a longer waiting upon God Therefore with three of His most trusted Attendants in the dark tempestuous and ominous night of Novem. 11. He leaves Hampton Court some say uncertain where to seek safety others that He intended to take Ship but being disappointed in His Expectation He was at last fatally led into the Power and when He could not escape committed Himself to the Loyalty and Honour of Col. Hammond a Confident of Cromwell's who had been but a little before made Governour of the Isle of Wight for this very purpose and was by him conveyed to Carisbrook Castle the very Pit His Enemies had designed for Him For it was discoursed in the Army above a fortnight before that the King e're long would be in the Isle of Wight and the very night He departed from Hampton-Court the Centinals were withdrawn from their usual Posts on purpose to facilitate His flight The all-wise God not permitting Him to fly from those greater Trials and more Glorious Acts of Patience He had designed for Him Being here in this false Harbour He minds that business which lay most on His Heart the Settlement of the Nation He sends Concessions to the Parliament more benign and easie than they could desire or hope together with His Reasons why He could not assent to their Demands and earnestly solicites them to pity the Languishing Kingdom and come to a Personal Treaty with Him on His Concessions and the Army's Demands But the Conspirators to cut off all hopes of a Treaty take this Occasion to send four Preliminary Articles which if He would pass as Acts they would treat of the rest These were so unjust that the Scotch Commissioners in the Name of their Kingdom declare against them in publick Writings and following the Messengers of Parliament to the Isle of Wight do in the presence of His Majesty protest against them as contrary to the Religion the Crown and Accords of both Kingdoms The King according to His wonted Wisdom and Greatneses of Mind presently returns them an Answer to shew the Injustice of having Him
grant the chief things before the Treaty which should be the Subject of it and to give them such an Arbitrary Power to the ruine of all the People This Answer He delivered sealed to their Messengers who desired that they might hear it read and that they might be dealt with as Commissioners not as bare Carriers a greater trust than which their Masters had not commited unto them and promise upon their Honour that it should not be any prejudice to Him But His Majesty had no sooner read it than they finding it not to the Gust of those that sent them notwithstanding the Faith they had given cause their Just Soveraign to be kept close Prisoner force away His Chaplains Dr. Shelden now Lord Bishop of London and Dr. Hammond both which He highly valued for their Integrity Wisdom Piety and Learning and His other Servants even those whom the Parliament had placed formerly about Him and in whom His Goodness had wrought both an Affection and Admiration of Him and permit none about Him but such as they hoped would be a Watch upon Him and whose barbarous Souls might trample on His Fortune Besides they set strict Guard at His Doors and Windows lest any Letters might come to Him or be sent from Him The like reception His Letter found with the Parliament For Cromwell and His Officers were resolved to go on with their Design and having so long used the Adjutators as served to frighten the King into the Toils they had set they soon quiet them which was not difficult being a Company of hot-headed fellows that could only talk not form a Counsel or a Party to endure a Storm by executing some of their most pertinacious Leaders and being free of that care applyed their practices wholly to the Destruction of His Majesty To this purpose they mould the Four Votes for No Addresses to the King but before they bring them into Publick they send into their several Counties about forty or fifty of the principal Members who they thought would oppose them to raise Money for the Souldiers Nevertheless the first of those Votes was contested against so strongly that the Debates lasted from ten of the Clock in the Morning till seven in the Evening and though they thus wearied the more Honest Party yet could it not pass till the Conspirators had engaged that no worse thing should be done to the King The remaining Votes were dispatched in half an hours time when those of the more sober Principles were gone forth to refresh them selves and the Conspirators still kept theâ— Seats The House of Peers were not so hastâ— in them as the Commons had been and theâ— Debates vexed the Conspirators with Delay till those who were sent by the Army to thaâ— the Lower House for their Consent to theâ— Desires of the Souldiers did also threaten thâ—â— Upper for their long Deliberations soâ—â— new Terrors were also added for they quartered two of their Regiments at White-Hâ—â— under colour of guarding the Parliament but in truth to work upon the Lords whiâ—â— had its effect for many that had the moâ—â— Honourable thoughts in this business forsoâ—â— the Parliament and then three or four which often was the fullest Number about thoâ— times in that House joyn with the Common in their Votes for no Addresses This prodigious Perfidiousness in Parliament and Army both which had so frequently declared and ingaged themselves by Oaths anâ— Promises to preserve the King in His Jâ—â— Rights fill'd all men with amazement and indignation to see how little they valued theâ— Faith who pretended so high to Religion therefore each of them were put to satisfâ— the Common Fame Cromwell to some would have cover'd this Impiety with another thâ—â— as He was praying for a blessing from God 〈◊〉 his undertakings to restore the King to his pristine Majesty his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth that he could not speak one word more which he took as a return of Prayer and that God had rejected Him from being King To others he did impudently assert That it was lawful to circumvent a wicked man with deceit and frauds The Conspirators in the Parliament strove to honest their Proceedings by a Declaration and assign in it for Causes of their Perjuries all the Calumnies that had been raised against the King by His most professed Enemies or from those uncertain Rumours which themselves had invented adding and repeating others which had even in the Parliament House been condemned as Forgeries yet now were used as necessary Veils for a more execrable Falshood Which infamous Libel they cause to be sent to all the Parishes of the Kingdom to be divulged supposing that none did dare to refute their black and most malicious Slanders or that none could publickly do it because they set strict Watches upon all the Printing-Presses They likewise Commanded the Curates to read it in their several Churches and commend it to the People And that these might the more readily observe their Orders they at the same time strictly enjoyn the payment of Tithes and Vote that the Dean and Chapiter's Lands which they had designed for profane Uses and never intended they should be for the Emolument of Church-men should be set apart for Augmentations for their Preachers pretending a fervent zeal for the propagation of the Gospel when they did most dishonour it By their Agents and the Anabaptists with other Hereticks and Schismaticks they solicite the unacquainted Rabble to sign to Gratulatory Addresses to approve what they had already done and petition for a speedy progress is the Ruine of His Majesty But all these their cursed Projects failed for several Answers to their Defamations were published One writ by the King Himself another by * A full Answer Sir Edward Hyde and a third by * The Regal Apology Dr. Bates 〈◊〉 which proved the Monstrous Falshoods of their Paper and that the Faction were guilty of what they imputed to the King and this with such evidence that none of their most mercenary Writers or the moâ—â— foul-mouthed Conspirators did dare or hope with Success to reply unto The Curates coldly if at all observed their Orders and there came so few Petitions and those signed by such contemptible and lewd Persons as they rather loaded the Faction with more hatred than gave them any credit While generally in every place none of the People could contain their fury against these Impostors but publickly cursed them and their Infamous Adherents For their Miserie 's made them sensible of the want of that Prince whose gentle and just Rule had brought them to such an inebriating Prosperity that they had forgot the Minister of their Happiness But now they found Government when it was out of His hand like Moses's Rod cast on the ground transformed to a Serpent and that those who pretended to free them from Tyranny had deluded them into the most insufferable Slavery wherein they were either totally despoiled of all things that
render our Being comfortable or they were not secure in the use of them Religion the Ornament of the present and the Pledge of a future Life was so dishonoured by Schisms and Heresies fomented to weaken the People by Divisions to a tameness under their Oppressors by Fasts for the most impious Designs and Thanksgivings for prosperous Crimes that some men concluded it to be nothing else but the Invention of Tyrants and the Disguise of Villains and therefore did forsake it and turn Atheists Others that did still find the Inward Consolations of it yet feared openly to profess it lest they should be taken for those that pretended a Love to God that they might more securely destroy men Liberty also was now but an empty name for all the Common Prisons were too narrow to receive even those that did not dare to break the Laws so that the Houses of Noble-men were converted to Gaols for those that were unfortunate in honest enterprises where they were to languish with want and sickness and not be called to know their Offence oâ— their Accusers because they had not guild enough for a publick Condemnation Some were put a Ship-board in the midst of Summer there to contract Diseases Others were sold Slaves to foreign Plantations Many to escape such nasty Confinements or an ignominious Torture fled from their Native Soiâ— either to the Neighbouring Countries where they were the Evidences of the Infamy and Barbarousness of our Nation or seeking for Shelter in the Isles and Desarts of America polluted those Rocks and Seas with English Blood Propriety was no longer hedged up by Law but whom the Violence of the Souldier did not impoverish the frauds of Committee men would from whose Rapines none were secure that had not been as criminal as themselves and few safe that did not seek their favour and bow down to their Greatness These men taking advantage of the common evils to satisfie either their private revenge or lusts for their Proceedings were not regulated by the known Laws but the secret Instructions of their Masters in Parliament and Army or their own Pleasures were the Rules of administring Justice An honest Fame likewise was a Mark for Ruine for if any by just Arts had got the Esteem of the People and the Affections of His Neighbourhood and did not comply with their Interest first he was vexed with Slanders and Reproaches and afterwards with Sequestration especially if he were a Minister and it was their common Principle that an Honest Cavalier was the worst Enemy and a Cavalier Saint did the most hurt so that both their Vices and Vertues were equally hated Common Converse was dangerous for they had Informers in every place and Spies almost in every Family of Note Servants were corrupted to accuse their Masters and the Differences in Religion did injealous and arm the nearest Relations one against another Men out of a mutual distrust would hasten from Company to consult in private their peculiar Safety for they knew their Words were observed and their Secrets sought after Few Families but had by the Civil War some loss to bewail some mourned over their disagreeing Members in different Camps and had cause to fear which side soever prospered they must be miserable in some part These and many more Miseries were more highly embittered by the uncertainty of a Remedy For the Parliament that had the name of Government were guilty of all these Reproaches of a Community being Slaves to those whose interest it was to keep us thus miserable and if at any time they were free from the yoke of the Army the two Sects kept them so divided each Party labouring by Votes and Counsels to circumvent the other that they could not mind the Universal Benefit Besides the Power they exercised was too much to be well used for they engrossed the Legislative Authority and the Exercise of Jurisdiction So that they would make Laws according to their Interest and execute them according to their Lust this day's Vote should contradict the former day's Order and to morow we must violate what to day we solemnly swore to observe so that men knew not what to obey nor where to rest Thus all hopes of Liberty and Peace were lost in the Confinement of the King who only was found able and willing to determine our Miseries For His Principles were Uniform and His Endeavours for a Settlement constant besides His Adversities had illustrated if not calcined His Endowments For now when He had no Friends Counsellors or Secretaries His Discourses with Commissioners upon their several Addresses and His Declarations of His own Injuries the Nations Slavery the Injustice of His and their Adversaries were so excellently and prudently managed that they undeceived the greatest part and reconciled many of His bitter Enemies therefore the whole Nation now panted for a Return to the Obedience of such an inestimable Prince These Considerations caused several attempts for His Deliverance some Private and others more Publick The first was managed by those Servants whom the Parliament had placed about Him for these won by His Goodness of which they were daily witnesses twice plotted His Escape and ventured their Lives for His Liberty but failed in both designs and the last being discovered before it could be put into action One Rolfe a bloody Villain that had also endeavoured to poison Him for which though he was publickly accused yet was acquitted by that Judge whom the Conspirators had employed to hear that cause waited to kill Him as He should descend from His Chamber Anno 1648. The more publick was that of the whole Nation for inraged with their own Oppressions and the Miseries of their Prince men in most Counties even of those that had adhered to the Parliament but now vexed that they had been so basely deluded draw up Petitions for a Personal Treaty with the King that the Armies Arrears being paid they should immediately be disbanded that Relief should be sent into Ireland and England quite eased of the Contribution which they could no longer bear To these Petitions there were such innumerable Subscriptions that the Officers of the Army and Parliament were mad to see their Threats of Sequestration Imprisonment and Death to make no Impression and the Promises they likewise made were slighted because discredited by their former Perjuries The first Petitioners were the Essex men who came in such Numbers as had not been seen before as if they would force not intreat for what was necessary After them those of Surrey whom by the command of the Officers and Parliament-men the Souldiers assault at the Parliament-Doors kill some wound more and plunder all and for this brave Exploit upon unarmed Petitioners they have the Thanks of the Commons and a Largess for their Valour that so the People might be affrighted from offering Petitions which before the very same men had declared to be the Birth-right of every English-man While men see and admire the Returns of the Divine
Justice and the reciprocal motions of the Popular heat that the very same Parliament that first stirr'd up this way of tumultuary Petitions against the King now complained that the Honour and Safety of Parliaments was indangered by Petitions But all their Tyranny upon the complaining Nation prevailed nothing but to provoke them to a higher Indignation and more frequent Petitions And when they perceived they dealt with men obstinate to their own Interests which were not to be gained but by the Publick ruine they fly from Prayers to Arms and intitle their just War For the Liberty of King and People And in several places as in Kent Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cornwall York-shire Wales and at last in Surry multitudes take Arms for this Righteous Cause The Navy also fall off and setting Rainsbrough their levelling Admiral on Shore seventeen Ships deliver themselves up to the Prince of Wales The Scots likewise by an Order of their own Parliament send into England to recover the Liberty and Majesty of the King an Army under Hamilton But all was in vain God had decreed other Triumphs for His Majesty and to translate Him to another Kingdom For the English being but tumultuarily raised having no train of Artillery or Ammunition considerable were soon supprest by a veterane Army provided with all necessaries The Scots either through weakness or wickedness of their Commanders who made so disorderly a march that their Van and Rear were forty miles asunder were easily worsted by Cromwell who surprised their main Body and Hamilton was taken Prisoner Cromwell follows the scattered Parties into Scotland where they were likewise assaulted by Argyle a domestick Enemy and forced to submit those Arms the Parliament had put into their hands to the Faction of that false Earl who calls another Parliament from which all were excluded that in the former Voted for the King's Delivery and all the Orders of that Convention made void Cromwell had the Publick Thanks and the private Faith of Argyle to endeavour as opportunity permitted the extirpation of Monarchy out of Scotland The Navy also deserts the Prince being corrupted by the Earl of Warwick who was appointed for this Service and when he had ingloriously bought off their Faith to their lawful Prince himself was ignominiously cashiered by the Conspirators These great disappointments and overthrws of just Enterprises men variously attributed to different Causes Some to the Perfidiousness others to the Weakness of those that managed them as also to the Treachery of some Presbyterians who in hatred to the Army first incouraged and then in Jealousie of the Royallists basely deserted them For the Rabbies of the Kirk cursed Hamilton in the beginning of his Enterprise Another sort thought them unhappy because the greatest part of the Undertakers were such that formerly had either fought against the King or else had betrayed Him and God would not now bless their unexpiated Arms. And some to the Fate of the Kingdom which God had decreed to give over to numerous and impious Tyrants because of their unthankfulness and impatience under so Incomparable a Prince But while these things were managed by the Army that were now at a distance and Cromwell's Terrors were greater in Scotland than here the less guilty Parliament-men seriously considering how impatient the People who in London and other places had gotten innumerable Subscriptions to a Petition for a Personal Treaty now were of those Injuries that were done to their Sovereign how hateful themselves grew because they had betrayed and inslaved their own Privileges together with the Liberties of the Subject to an insatiable and Phanatick Army and how an evident Ruine attended even their Conquests of Him whom it was unlawful to assault did at last though too late contrary to the clamours of their Factious and Democratick Members Repeal those Votes which they had formerly made of No more Addresses to the King This being passed in both Houses they afterwards with a strong Consent Vote a Treaty with the King in Honour Freedom and Safety The Factious Party in the Parliament found themselves too few and weak to oppose this impetuous tendency of the Two Houses and whole Kingdom to Peace But yet they endeavoured to frustrate the labours of their more since Members and to baffle the People's just desires of it by imposing many unequal Conditions and obstructive restrictions For they procured that the Treaty should be in the Isle of Wight and not at London that it should be by Commissioners and not immediately with the two Houses as was Petitioned The Propositions that were sent to be Treated were the same which had before been offered to the King at Hampton-Court and were then rejected by Him and also condemned by the Army it self as too unjust The Commissioners were so streightned in Power that it was not lawful for them to soften any one of the Conditions of Peace not to alter the Preface or change the Order of the Propositions nor to debate a Subsequent till the Precedent were agreed on They could conclude nothing they were only to propose the Demands urge Reasons for the Royal Assent receive the King's Answer and refer all in writing to the Parliament whose slow Resolves and the delays of sending were supposed would consume that narrow measure of time which was appointed to debate so many and so different things for they were limited to forty days The Commissioners they sent were Five of the Lord's House and Twelve of the Commoners and with them some of their Presbyterian Ministers who were to press importunately for their Church Government to elude the King's Arguments for Episcopacy and only to impose not to dispute their own With all these upon so many several and different Propositions some relating to the Law of the Land others to Reason of State and some to the practice of the Apostolical Primitive Churches the King was to deal without publick assistance For though He was permitted the Ministery of some Officers of State Counsellours and Divines yet were they but of private advice and to stand behind the Curtain He only Himself was to speak in the Debate and singly to manage matters of Policy with their most exercised Statists and the points of Divinity with their best-studied Divines The Vulgar to whom the Arts of these men were not so obvious were much pleased with the Name of a Treaty and now hoped to exchange their Servitude under so many importunate Tyrants for the moderate and easie Government of one Lawful King Others that had a clearer insight and observed with what difficulties it was burthened hoped for no benefit from it Because that if His Majesty should not Consent as they believed He would not then He would be the object of the popular impatience And if He should Consent He that now was thought to be most injuriously dealt with would then be conceived not to deserve the Pity even of His Friends nor could He gain any other thing by His Concessions than to be
ruined with more Dishonour So that considering both the inviolable Integrity of His Majesty and the implacable Malice of His Enemies they despaired of any happy Issue But beyond the Faith of these men and the Hopes of the other the King 's incredible Prudence had found Temperaments for their most harsh Propositions And by a present Judgment and commanding Eloquence diâ— so urge His own and refell their Arguments that He forced an Admiration of Himself and which was a Testimony of the Divine Assistance drew many of the unwilling Commissioners to His own Opinion though their Commission and the danger of their Lives necessitated them contrary to the dictates of their own Consciences to prolong the Debates with a wonderful Lenity proved their Demands unjust yet granted what was not directly against His Honour and Conscience Thus devesting Himself of His own Rights He demonstrated that He had those Affections which might justly style Him the Father of His Country For He indeavoured by His own Losses to repair the damages of His People Yet the King saw by the Obstinacy of the most Powerful of those He Treated with that they intended nothing less than Peace nor any thing more than His Destruction which that it might be adequate to their Malice they would have it accompanied with the damnation of His Soul as He Himself in bitterness complained to One of His Servants pressing Him to do those things which they themselves acknowledged sinful as the Alienation of Church-Lands Although His Majesty was thus sensible of their insatiable thirst for His Blood yet because He had passed His Royal Word not to stir out of that Island He did not hearken to the same Servant who perswaded Him to provide for His Safety by flight which He assured Him was not difficult and in administring to which He offered to hazard his own blood But the King always thought His Life beneath the Honour of Faithfulness and would not give His Enemies that advantage over His Fame which their unjust Arms and Frauds had gotten upon His Person chusing rather to endure whatsoever Providence had allotted for Him than by any approach to Infamy seek to protract those days which He now began to be weary of For that life is no longer desirable to Just Princes which their People either cannot or will not preserve And He thought it more Eligible to die by the Wickedness of Others than to live by His own While the Treaty thus proceeded the Army under the Command of the Lord Fairfax and Ireton this last was Bold Subtle Perfidious and Active in all Designs so that his Soul being congenial with that of Cromwell had been the cause of an Alliance betwixt them for he had Married one of Cromwell's Daughters and therefore was left to hover about the General as an evil Genius that he might do nothing contrary to their Impious Design drew towards London and quartered within half a days march from the City that if their Interest did require they might the more suddenly oppress those who were less favourable to their Enterprises The Officers did at first publickly profess a great Modesty as that they would quietly submit to the Orders of the Parliament that they did prefer the Common Peace to their own private Advantages and should be glad to be dismissed from the toyls of War yet in private practised an universal Confusion for mingling Counsels with their Factious Party in the Two Houses they set up again the Meetings of their Adjutators framed among themselves Petitions against the Treaty and to require that all Delinquents without difference wherein they included the Person of the King might be brought to Tryal and by their Emissaris abroad drew some inconsiderable and ignominious persons by representing large spoils in the subversion of Monarchy and imaginary advantages by the change of Government to subscribe to them When they thought these practices had produced their desired effect and they had infected most of the Souldiers in the several Garrisons and that more Parties of their Army were gathered to their Quarters about London Ireton under pretext of a Contrast betwixt him and Fairfax withdraws himself privately to Windsor Castle where being met by some of his Complices in the Parliament they joyntly frame a Declaration in an imperious and affected Style Wherein in the name of the Army he maliciously declaims against all Peace with the King and His Restitution to the Government afterwards he impiously demands that he may be dealt with as the Grand and Capital Delinquent with these he mingles some things to terrifie the Parliament some to please the Souldiers and others to raise hopes of Novelty in the Rabble This being prepared and the Treaty now drawing towards an End which those of the Faction had prolonged and disturbed that the Army might have more time to gather together and the Commanders having a perfect Intelligence how all things in the Isle of Wight and in the Parliament did strongly tend to an Accommodation they thought it now seasonable to begin their intended Crime Therefore they speedily call a Council of War at which met the Colonels and other inferiour Officers all men of Mercenary Souls Seditious Covetous and so accustomed to Dissimulation that they seemed to be composed by nature to frame and colour Impostures They began their Meeting with Prayers and Fasting pretending to inquire and seek the Will of God concerning the Wickedness they had predetermined to act This is the constant practice of such who would most securely abuse the Patience of the People while they commit the most horrid Crimes For not being able to honest their Iniquities by any colour of Reason or any Command of the known Will of God they pretend to a guidance by Revelation and Returns of Prayer This Imposture they had hitherto successfully used and the credulous Rabble of the common Souldiers were drawn to a perswasion that God did counsel all the Designs of these armed Saints Thus having prefaced their Villany Ireton produces his Remonstrance which being read among them was received by the Souldiers who through a pleasure in blood and hopes of Spoil are used to praise every thing of their Chiefs whether good or bad that tends to disturbance and continuance of War with as great an Applause as if it had been an Oracle from Heaven and to make it the more terrible they styled it the Remonstrance of the Army and order it to be presented to the Parliament in the name of the Army and People of England When this Remonstrance was published the minds of men were variously affected Some wondred that persons of so abject a Condition should dare to endeavour the alteration of an Ancient Government an attempt so far above their fortune and to design against the Person of their Sovereign who by the Splendour of his former Majesty and by a continued Descent from so many Royal Progenitors had derived aâ— that challenges the Reverence of the People And they thought the
act so full of a manifest Wickedness that the Contrivers could not really intend the Execution but only used it as a Mormo to frighten the King and Parliament to hearken to their Pretensions of a lesser guilt Others considering their former Crimes and Injuries both to King and People and their damnable blasphemies of the Almighty God did truly judge that their preceding Iniquities had now habituated and temper'd them for the extremest mischiefs and that having proceeded thus far they would think their Safety consisted in an accumulation of their Sins Only they admired that these men would discredit their ancient Arts of pretending to God's Direction in which they could not so easily by every Vulgar judgment be deprehended by boasting of the Concurrence of the People which was too evident a Cheat for not one in a thousand through the whole Nation but did abominate their practices But others more Speculative knew it was the accustomed Method of the Subverters of a lawfull Magistracy and Invaders of a Tyranny first to seek the favour of the Rabble by high pretences of Liberty and Justice and then to boast of it as though they had it and were entrusted by the People to recover what they presented to their hopes and desires and that these men following the same practices would be the greatest Oppressors of those whom they pretended to vindicate The Parliament though hitherto they had been very obsequious to the Army yet the Members now meeting in greater Numbers than usually and preferring the utmost hazards to a Compliance with this Remonstrance laid it aside and fell to debate the King's Concessions which then lay before them This free and stout Carriage of theirs was much resented by the Souldiers who stormed at the contempt of those whose Grandeur depended upon their Arms. And lest they should miscarry in their Chief Design and lose the Sacrifice to their Ambition they immediately sent a Party of their Army into the Isle of Wight to secure the King these laying hold upon Him with a most Insolent Rudeness not permitting the delay of a Breakfast forced Him from the Island into Hurst Castle an unwholesome and sordid place The other part of their Army they cause to march towards London with all the imaginable signs of terrour as if they went to sack and plunder an Enemies Town When they had entred they were quartered in those Houses of the King and Nobility which were nearest the Parliament-House hoping by the greatness and nearness of the danger so to affright those Members who were not so wicked as to comply with them that they should voluntarily withdraw and hiding themselves leave the possession to their own scanty Party For then the Violence would seem less and give more Authority to their unjust Decrees But the honest Members were more in love with Justice and therefore not terrified with the Menaces and Clamours of the Souldiers but as inspired with some unaccustomed Courage at this time and thinking themselves guarded by the Priviledges of Parliament with a greater boldness than usually they did upon designs they appear in the House Where the Commoners re-assuming the confideration of the King's Concessions continued that Debate till past Midnight the Factious Party and the Creatures of the Army still raising new Doubts and Scruples multiplying Cavils and by tedious harangues wasting the time that the more Just Party which consisted most of Gentlemen of Fortunes not accustomed to such Watchings and Fastings might be wearied out and leave them to their own Resolves and also that they might give time to the whole Army to march into the City that Night Among the rest Sir Henry Vane who was born to disquiet the world and to be a firebrand of Communities yet still carrying his designs of Confusion under a feigned meekness and simplicity of the Gospel This Man in the Isle of Wight had perswaded the King not to be prodigal in His Concessions that He had already yielded more than was fit for them to ask or Him to grant and undertook to make it evident to the whole world yet now did most fiercely and perfidiously inveigh against the Concessions as designed by the King under the species of Peace to ruine the Parliament and Common-wealth Yet at last notwithstanding those Terrours without and Troubles within the House came to this Resolve that The Kings Concessions were a sufficient ground for Peace Which was carried by Two Hundred Voices and there were scarce Sixty Dissenters The next day the same Resolve was passed by the Lords in the very same terms not one dissenting Who immediately adjourned for a week to wait whether this fury of the Army would spend it self after so generous an opposition And the House of Commons sent some of their own Members to acquaint the Lord Fairfax and his Officers of this their Vote This free and publick detestation of the Crime that was designed did extremely enrage the Projectors of it and the Democratick Party in the House mingled Threatnings with their Advices For One of the Chiefs of the Faction could not forbear to assure them that If they continued in this their Resolve they should never after have Liberty of meeting there again Which accordingly was executed for the next day they were to meet there the Colonels had placed a guard of two Regiments of Foot and one of Horse upon the House of Commons who strictly keeping all the Avenues thereto that none might enter without their Licence laid hold upon Forty Members that were Persons of the most known Integrity and highest Resolution they denied admission to One hundred and fifty more and suffered none to enter of whose servile compliance they were not well assured Some that had escaped their observation and got into the House by tickets as from Friends or Servants they invite forth whom being once without doors they violently force away while they in vain pleaded the Privileges of Parliament The imprisoned Members they vex and torture with great Indignities exposing them to the mockeries and insolencies of the Common Souldiers although there were among them many that had before Commanded Armies Brigades and Regiments in the Parliament's cause against the King and others that had been most importunate assertors of their first injustice to their Prince Those that beheld these vicissitudes wondred and acknowledged the just Judgment of God that had thus visibly and properly punished the Injustice of these men against their Lawful Sovereign by the ministry of their own more vile and mercenary Souldiers and did thus upbraid them with the falseness of their Principles by which they acted against the King the very same now serving to honest this violence that was committed on them for both equally pretended to a Necessity of Reformation and Self-preservation Others were inquisitive for the faith of these men who taking up Arms for the Sacred Privileges of Parliament had now left nothing but the Walls of that House For the Number that would serve them was
of the King was carried up to that House there were Seventeen then present a greater Number than usual who all Unanimously even the Democratick Lords not dissenting did reject the Bill as Dangerous and Illegal This so highly provoked the Fury of the Faction that they meditated a severe revenge and for the present blotted out those Peers whose Names they had before put into their Ordinance to make their Court more splendid After this they did also rase out the names of the Judges of the Land for they being privately Consulted concerning these Proceedings against the King although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hertfordshire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Army's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with Thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Polity wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hope raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Hardâ—â—â— Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetâ—â—ted their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely prosecuted those that endeavoured it In confidence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these Publick Abhorrencies and detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they Enaâ—â—ed their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment A Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecuter of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's Cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same Metal John Cooke A needy man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a tedious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhor These were their Chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steele another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clerks and Cryer were so obscure that the world had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the Publick Preparations â—â— private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter oâ— their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensigns of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared reconfirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Societâ—â— it is reported upon the King 's offering â—â— give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council â—â— theirs did decree to use their whole Intereâ—â— and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second Debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traitor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgment of Considering men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined
for He never sed to Luxury but Health His Temperance His strong Constitution required large Meals but His Vertue took care they should not be gluttonous for He delighted not in Sawces or Artifices to please the Palate and raise the Lust but all was sincere and solid and therefore He never was subject to a Surfeit He always mingled Water with His Wine which He never drank pure but when He eat Venison and He was so nice in observing the bounds of Sobriety that most times Himself would measure and mingle both together He did usually at every Meal drink one Glass of Beer another of Wine and a third of Water and seldom drank between His Meals These though Ordinary Vertues were yet eminent in Him since they could not be corrupted by the Power nor the Flatteries of Fortune And they are therefore mentioned to gratifie Posterity for men are curious to know all even the minute Passages of Great and Vertuous Persons Being free from Incontinency and Intemperance the gulphs of Treasure and Drayners of the Largest Exchequer His Frugality He had no other Vice to exhaust the Publick Stock and so necessitate Him to fill it up by Oppressions but He would by Frugality make His Revenue sufficient for the Majesty of the Crown and the Necessities of the State His own Nature indeed inclined Him to Magnificence but the Vices of others did instruct Him to moderate Expences For He had found the Treasury low and the Debts great in His beginnings He was assaulted with two expensive Wars from the two great Potentates of Europe and the Faction had obstructed the usual way of Supplies by Parliaments Therefore He was to find a Mine in Vertue and by sparing from Vanities make provisions for necessary and glorious Enterprises which He did effect for in that short time of Peace which He enjoyed He satisfied all the Publick Debts so furnished and increased His Navy that it was the most considerable in the whole World supported His Consederate the King of Sweden and by Money inabled him for the Victories of Germany and so fill'd His own Treasury that it was able of it self to bear the weight of the first Scotch Expedition without the Aids of the Subject who were never more able to contribute to their own safety nor ever had more reason the swellings of that Nation breaking all the Banks and Fences of their Liberty and Happiness But the King would let them see that as by His Government He had made them rich He would also keep them so by His Frugality But those whose first care was to make Him necessitous and the next odious did brand it with the name of Covetousness which was as False as malicious For He never spared when Just Designs call'd for Expences and was magnificent in Noble Undertakings as in the Repair of Paul's He was always Grateful although those men who measured their Services not by their Duties or their Merits but by their Expectations from His Fortune thought Him not Liberal He chose rather not to burthen His People by Subsidies than load particular Servants with unequal Bounties For Good Princes chuse to be loved rather for their Benefits to the Community than for those to private persons And it may be Vanity and Ostentation but not Liberality when the gifts of the Prince are not proportioned to the Common Necessity His sparings were like those of Indulgent Fathers that His Subjects as Children might have the more He never like subtle and rapacious Kings made or pretended a Necessity for Taxes but was troubled when He found it The Contributions of Parliament He esteemed not the increase of His peculiar Treasure but the Provisions for the Common Safety of which He would rather be accounted a Steward than a Lord. When Faction and Sedition so deluded the People that they could not see the preservation of the whole consisted in contributing some small part He freely parted with His own Inheritance to preserve intire to them the price of their Sweat and Labour As He had these Moral Vertues which are both the signatures of Majesty His Intellectual Abilities and the Ornaments of a Royal Spirit so He was no less compleat in the Intellectual His Understanding was as Comprehensive as His Just Power and He was Master of more sorts of Knowledge than He was of Nations How much He knew of the Mysteries and Controversies of Divinity was evident in His Discourses and Papers with Henderson and those at the Isle of Wight where He singly Disputed for Episcopacy one whole day against Fifteen Commissioners and their Four Chaplains the most experienced and subtle members of all the Opposite Party with so much Acuteness and Felicity that even His Opposers admired Him He so dexterously managed His Discourse with the Ministers that He made it evident they perswaded Him to that which they themselves judged unlawful and had condemned as Sacriledge when they pretended to satisfie the Scruples of His Conscience and to assure Him He might safely alienate the Church-Lands And the Commissioners sensible how unequal their Ministers were to discourse with Him for ever after silenced them and permitted no Disputes but by Papers At that time He exceeded the opinion of His friends about Him One of them said in astonishment that Certainly God had inspired Him Another that His Majesty was to a Wonder improved by His Privacies and Afflictions But a third that had had the Honour of a nearer Service assured them that the King was never less only He had now the opportunity of appearing in His full Magnitude In the Law of the Land He was as knowing as Himself said to the Parricides yet was no boaster of His own Parts as any Gentleman in England who did not profess the Publick Practice of it especially those Parts of it which concerned the Commerce between King and People In that Art which is peculiar to Princes Reason of State He knew as much as the most prosperous Contemporary Kings or their most exercised Ministers yet scorned to follow those Rules of it which lead from the Paths of Justice The Reserves that other Princes used in their Leagues and Contracts to colour the breaches of Faith and those inglorious and dark Intrigues of subtle Politicians He did perfectly abhor but His Letters Declarations Speeches Meditations are full of that Political Wisdom which is consistent with Christianity He had so quick an Insight into these Mysteries and so early arrived to the Knowledge of it that when He was young and had just gotten out of the Court and Power of Spain He censured the weakness of that Mysterious Council For He was no sooner on Shipboard but the first words He spake were I discovered two Errors in those great Masters of Policy One that they would use Me so Ill and another that after such Vsage they permitted Me to Depart As those former parts of Knowledge did inable Him to know Men and how to manage their different