Prince rather afraid than asham'd to employ him in the greatest Affairs of State which he first discover'd in the House of Commons was very happily brought into Court where through several Stages of eminent Trusts and Council he arriv'd at the highest Command our Crown hath to dispose of that in Ireland which he manag'd and improv'd in so prodigious a manner as all Men of Sense and Business were astonish'd in their Acknowledgments thereof And this sufficiently appear'd at his Tryal for though 't is true there were several Articles of a very high Nature brought against him yet none prov'd And herein Ludlow discovers his Commonwealth Ingenuity to tell us he was accus'd of Governing Ireland in an Arbitrary Manner of retaining the Revenue of the Crown without giving an Account of promoting and encouraging the Romish Religion c. p. 14. whereunto though English and Irish Puritans and Papists his open Enemies and false Friends were encourag'd to give Evidence they could make nothing of it nor of that High Charge which our Author mentioning more than once would have instar omnium how he advis'd the King That since the Parliament had deny'd him such Supplies as he demanded he was at Liberty to raise them by such means as he thought fit and that he had an Irish Army should assist him to that end All which had but one single Witness to prove it Sir H. Vane who hesitated very much and though at last would have had the Irish Army imploy'd in England all Circumstances speak otherwise the very Council sitting upon the Scotch Affairs and every Member thereof averring the contrary the Earl of Northumberland more especially that he had heard the Earl of Strafford often say that that Power was to be us'd Candide et Caste and that the Kingdom could not be Happy but by a good Agreement between the King and his People in Parliament So that after a great deal of Art and Eloquence by the best parted bad Men Westminster-Hall ever sent into the House of Commons with Father Pym c. this Great Person so clearly bafled all their Allegations and Evidences as they were forc'd to turn the Tables pursue another Method and Vote him guilty by Bill of Attainder which not only precluded all further Arguments according to the Regular Course of Iustice but made themselves Accusers Parties and Iudges throughout the whole Procedure both as to Matter of Fact and Law an odd and unusual Course for they say it had been discontinu'd from Henry VIII's Time whose grough Humour too often made use of this when he could not otherwise gain his Point that is his Will But when laid in his Cold Tomb that Men might freely speak their Minds next the Barbarous Treatment of his Queens this is the foulest Blot upon his Memory And as he then made his Parliament the Properties in this ungrateful ay and unjust Procedure so the Parliament here were as hot and violent in forcing it upon the King and that with so great Precipitancy as the Bill was read thrice in one Day and consequently pass'd with an earnest Request when carried up to the Lords of the like quick Dispatch But they were more Deliberate as well upon his as their own Account which made the Commons fall to their then a la mode Course of Rabble and Tumults 5 or 6000 whereof assembled at Westminster crying for Justice and Execution with many other intollerable Insolencies as shall be by and by related upon which Account many of the Lords dar'd not to appear at the House and of those few that did being 45 it was carried but by 7 Votes 19 giving their not Content to the 26 that gave their Content to the passing this Fatal Bill And this brought the King into that inextricable Perplexity being to use his own incomparable Words perswaded by those that wish'd him well to choose rather what seemed safe than just preferring the outward Peace of my Kingdom with Men before that inward exactness of Conscience before God and this made a continu'd Remorse in his Soul for ever after incessantly complaining of that bad exchange to wound a Man 's own Conscience thereby to salve State-Sores to calm the Storms of popular Discontents by stirring up a Tempest in a Man 's own Bosom whereas in all likelyhood I could never have suffer'd with my People greater Calamities yet with greater Comfort had I vindicated Strafford's Innocency and not gratify'd some Mens unthankful importuning so cruel a Favour In fine the whole Chapter is so great in its self as we find nothing so sincerely to express the true Remorse of a Penitent Soul since David pen'd the 51 Psalm and withall gives so high and just a Character of this great Man as no People which us'd them both so Barbarously ought ever to be bless'd with such a Prince or Minister Yet one thing I must further observe from his Majesty how that after-Act vacating the Authority of the Precedent for future Imitation sufficiently tells the World that some Remorse touched even his most implacable Enemies as knowing he had very hard Measure and such as they would be very loth should be repeated to themselves The return likewise that virulent Faction made to his Majesty when he had oblig'd them with so much Regret to himself is worth taking Notice which was only this hath he given us Strafford then he can deny us nothing And accordingly at the same time this cursed Bill was past there past another to make that cursed Parliament perpetual whereupon I find this Remark that as the one was for the Earl's present Execution so the other prov'd in the Event for the Kings One thing more and I have done when the Nation came to its Wits again in the Year 60 An Act was pass'd for reversing the Attainder of this great Worthy wherein are enumerated the several unjust and irregular Practiecs for obtaining that Bill as well from Lords as King together with the Illegality and untruth of the Charge it self 'T is pity there had not been a Clause likewise that whosoever should dare to Libel and belye his but more especially his Master 's Sacred Memory or indeed any others who unjustly Suffer'd in that just Cause should forfeit their Ears at last if not have their Breath stop'd at Tyburn what a company of Spill-Paper Rascals would this have freed the Press or the World of But since 't is thought fit to permit them we must be Content with discovering thereby their sordid Temper and base Principles and accordingly discriminate them from such vertuous Understanding Souls as will not be afraid of any euil Tidings but have the Righteous in everlasting Remembrance Arch-Bishop Laud shall be here likewise consider'd for tho they did not take away his Life till about three Years after yet was he forc'd to Linger it out all that time in an unjust Confinement kept on purpose as one would think to serve another turn with the Scots For as they would
of Queen Elizabeth who though she indulg'd Liberty of Speech to her Members yet if any dar'd to open or so much as quetch against her Prerogative or fall upon any Debates which did not properly come within their Sphere she never spar'd to express the height of her Resentment whereof take this single Instance One Morris a Member of Parliament and Chancellor of the Dutchy offer'd a Bill ready drawn for Retrenching the Ecclesiastical Courts into much narrower Bounds with several such like Alterations wherewith his busy Head was pregnant Of this the Queen having present Notice sends for Coke then Speaker of the House of Commons afterwards Lord Chief Iustice and a violent Beautifeu in these three Parliaments of King Charles by whom she order'd this Message to the House viz. That it was wholly in her Power to Call to Determine to Assent or Dissent to any thing done in Parliament that the calling of this was only that the Majesty of God might be the more Religiously observ'd by compelling with some sharpe Laws such as neglect that Service and that the Safety of her Majesty's Person and the Realm might be provided for that it was not meant they should meddle with Matters of State or Causes Ecclesiastical that she wondered any should attempt a thing so contrary to her Commandment and that she was highly offended at it And finally that it was her pleasure no Bill touching any Matters of State or for Reformation of Matters Ecclesiastical should be there Exhibited On the delivery of which Morris is said to have been seiz'd on in the House by a Sergeant at Arms however seiz'd upon he was and committed Prisoner kept for some Years in Tutbury Castle discharg'd from his Office in the Dutchy and disabled from any Practice in his Prosession as a Common Lawyer What would Ludlow have done had he been a Member in those happy Times Here at home either Tutbury or Tyburn would have been his Fate and if got abroad 't is a question whether Swisserland it self could have secur'd him from the long Arm of that great Virago CHAP. IV. Not any just Ground for Complaint of Grievances NEither had they better Authority for the several Grievances they made such a Noise about hunting after them with all the Earnestness imaginable receiving none so kindly as those who brought them Information of fresh Game though generally it proved a Brake-bush instead of a Hare That Disparity printed in Sir Henry Wotton's Remains between the Elizabeth's time and the Duke of Buckingham was sometime after discovered to be the first Essay of a Younger but much abler Pen the Person who writ it making as great a Figure during all the Troubles of Charles the I. and II. as any whatsoever and upon the Restauration was advanc'd according to his great Merits and Sufferings This Ingenious little Piece to make good the Disparity undertaken observes how great an Advantage the Earl had from the Temper of the Age and easy Good Natur'd disposition all People were then in 'T was saith he an ingenious uninquisitive Time when all the Passions and Affections of the People were lapp'd up in such an innocent and humble Obedience that there was never the least Contestations nor Capitulations with the Queen nor though she frequently consulted with her Subjects any further Reasons urg'd of her Actions than her own Will When there were any Grievances they but Reverendly convey'd them to her Notice and left the Time and Order of the rest to her Princely Discretion Once they were more importunate and formal in pursuing the Complaints of the Purveyors for Provision which without doubt was a crying and an heavy Oppression The Queen sent them Word they all thought themselves wise enough to reform the Misdemeanors of their own Families and whisht they had so good an Opinion of her as to trust her with her Servants too I do not find that the Secretary who delivered this Message received any Reproach or Check or that they proceeded any further in the Inquisition On the other side that of the Duke of Buckingham's Favour with King Iames and Charles the I. He tells us was a busy querulous froward Time so much degenerated from the Purity of the former that the People under pretences of Reformation with some Petulant Discourses of Liberty which their great Impostors scattered amongst them like false Glasses to multiply their Fears began Abditos Principis Sensus quid occultius parat exquirere extended their enquiries even to the Chamber and private Actions of the King himself forgetting that Truth of the Poet Nusquam libertas gratior extat quam sub Rege pio 'T was strange to see how Men afflicted themselves to find out Calamities and Mischiefs whilst they borrowed the Name of some great Persons to scandalize the State they lived in A general disorder throughout the whole Body of the Commonwealth nay the Vital Parts perishing the Laws violated by the Judges Religion prophan'd by the Prelates Heresies crept into the Church and countenanced All which they themselves must rectify without being beholden to the King or consulting the Clergy And give me leave to add proving there was any Truth in those Allegations they made such a Noise about Thus far that Great Man who hints likewise at the most probable Causes which might produce that Frenzy this World of ours was then got into As 1 st The heat of young Heads who are ever more forward to reform others than themselves 2 dly The Disappointments some of longer standings met with in reference to their own Advancement But more especially in the 3 d. place The Revolution of Time which had made them unconcern'd in the Loyal Fears that govern'd sixty Years since and the Nation too happy in that Spirit and Condition Unless more sensible of it and thankful for it From which stupid Humour it was that such as cry'd Fire most with the same Breath blew the Coals and would never give over till they had set all in a Flame One of these Grievous Cries was Tunnage and Poundage about which we have already mention'd his Majesty's just Resentments but withall his too great Condescention in hopes to give them Satisfaction So far beneath our self to use his own Words As we are confident never any of our Predecessors did the like nor was the like ever required or expected from them Notwithstanding which they continued their Proceedings and as the King goes on We endured long with much patience both these and sundry other strange and exorbitant Incroachments and Usurpations such as were never before attempted in that House Roger Coke is also very hot upon this Scent and gives a History thereof out of his Grandfather's Institutes so far as to serve his turn yet withall is forc'd to own that they had been continued to all the Kings and Queens since Edward the 4 th so that passing an Act was only Matter of Form for if Prescription long continued Custom be Common Law
his Glory therein is too gross a conception for any considering man to entertain who according to the perfection of the Divine Attributes must apprehend God to be infinite in Goodness and Mercy as well as Iustice and Power On the contrary such harsh and severe Notions of the Sacred Majesty of Heaven as if he delighted in nothing more than to Tyrannize over and Trample upon the Slaves of his Creation cannot but debase men's Spirits to the like proceedings make them in the Apostle's phrase without Natural Affection void of any thing that is Generous Great or Good and consequently Mete unto others what they falsly suppose to be the Almighty's Measures unto all Mankind To be sure it was at this time the manner of their proceedings with all true Sons of our Church whom they never let alone till Reprobated as to this life God be praised their Malice could not reach any thing which concern'd the next But setting aside these rigid Determinations which The Examination of Tilenus before the Tryers pleasantly yet withall solidly exposes under the borrowed names of Dr. Dubitan's Frybabe Irresistible c. the other Branches of that Controversy about Fate Freewill c. in all the ordnary concerns of humane life began long since amongst the Philosophers the Stoicks on the one hand the Epicureans and Libertines on the other wherein likewise most of the rest were concern'd tho' with more Temper Deliberation and Judgment It was likewise an old Humorist amongst them who first started that Notion of All things being Necessitated from the concurrence of precedent Causes much improv'd by as great an Humorist amongst us and to much worse purpose since the former understood nothing of the Reveal'd Knowledge this other design'd thereby to Subvert Christian Religion in the mean while was kept free from these Debates for several Centuries till the Manachees turn'd Stoicks and the Pelagians Libertines wherein St. Austin became ingag'd and had them taken up by his Followers tho' they spred no farther than the Melancholly Cells of Monks and Schoolmen for the next Thousand years and were rather a Diversion for the few Brisk Wits of those ignorant dull Times than look'd upon as any ways relating to the Articles of Christian Doctrine That Imposition was first brought upon the Church by the Council of Trent and however their many Innovations of that kind were declaim'd against by most Protestants yet the Synod of Dort was no less Dogmatical in Imposing their Five Articles which their humble Imitators our Lay Assembly now and our Mix'd Assembly of Clergy Lay afterwards would have enforc'd with as much Earnestness as the Being of a God or necessity of a Redeemer Give me leave farther to observe that in the calm and more deliberate Times of Q. Elizabeth when Archbishop Whitgift had Assembled a few Bishops and other Divines and fram'd those commonly call'd the Nine Articles at Lambeth of too nigh Affinity with the foremention'd points in order to Silence some Disputes at Cambridge which had gone out too far thereupon Her Majesty was so concern'd at it as had it not been for the Reverend Esteem she had of that Excellent Prelate they would have been all Attainted of a Premunire Notwithstanding she commanded him speedily to recall and suppress those Articles which was perform'd with so much Care and Diligence that a Copy of them was not to be found a long time after and this the Three Bishops in their foremention'd Letter urg'd as a precedent and with great reason but then was then and now was now when the Humour ran as much for pulling down as before to support and advance whatever tended to God's Glory or the Publick Good I must here likewise beg my Reader 's pardon if he thinks me too prolix and hope upon second thoughts it may be acknowledg'd requisite to represent what little No-things they would catch at what Sound Doctrines they would pervert and misrepresent to Defame and bring an Odium upon such persons as otherwise might pull off their Vizard and Detect the Mischiefs they had in design for all the Law and all the Reason was on the King's side which they could not otherwise stifle than by such groundless Cavils against every Faithful and Loyal Subject who had Sense and Courage to stand up for him and the Laws in Opposition to their dangerous Innovations and Seditious practices But all the Fat would be in the Fire should I pass by Sibthorpe and Manwaring whose Indiscretions all good men pitied none justify'd Although Abbot's pettishness stretch'd the former Sense further than was consistent with the Charity of a Metropolitan or Candour of a Privy Counsellor For the other nothing could be greater than what the King declared thereupon He that will preach other than he can prove let him suffer I give them no thanks to give me my due And really 't is to my Admiration considering how good a Man the King was and how Kind a Father to the Church with the Violent Heats on the other side there were only these Two ran into the contrary Extream had Time-serving been as much in fashion then as I have known it since there had been several hundreds to each of them It was likewise thought then and since that the Commons having done the King no Right as to their own Members Clem. Coke and Dr. Turner they should have been less severe against Dr. Manwaring at leastwise upon his Humble Submission and Acknowledgment have mov'd the Lords to remit the rest of his Sentence which defect the King supply'd sometime after and let them know by that Tacit Intimation how Mercy rejoyceth against Iudgment and what they may expect that do the contrary But what the Defence saith that soon after the Parliament was dissolv'd he was punished with a Fat Bishoprick is far from Truth unless he can bring seven years into that narrow compass which on other accounts passes for the Life of a Man To be sure upon his Advance to that Dignity he approv'd himself every way worthy of it Three things more especially I find he was much resolv'd upon First The Redemption of Captives Secondly The Conversion of Recusants Thirdly The Undeceiving of Seduced Sectaries Which shows him to be of a Publick as well as Loyal Spirit And one would think might attone for two or three Expressions which as they were out of his Profession so ought to have been more cautiously consider'd but I have found this their constant course all along every little slip upon the King's account shall be Aggravated to the Extreamest Degree whilst the most violent Libels against him his Ministers and Government must have so many Grains of Allowance as the Authors may be brought off with Reputation and Rewards As it happen'd afterward in the Case of Pryn Burton Bastwick Leighton Lilburne and who not That dar'd to fly in the face of Majesty and Abuse all that Adher'd to Church and Crown although to my certain information Pryn did in
thly What he Levyed was so effectually imploy'd to the Reputation and Interest of the Kingdom as they that found fault therewith must needs whilst doing it blush at their own Perverseness Especially for that 6 thly These pretended Redressers brake thorough all the Laws of God and Man and for every Pound he Levyed and so honourably expended in the Nation 's Defence and Security as impudently as unjustly extorted Thousands from the People to promote a most cursed and unnatural Rebellion Nec dum sinitur we are since come to Millions and justly deserve no better who made such a Muttering and Stir when he did not raise above Six Pence in the Pound and to so good Purposes as the Dominion of the Sea was never so well secur'd and Traffick so considerably advanc'd above what was ever known in the Nation before Had they who pretended greater Right to raise Money taken a greater or equal Care in disposing thereof to the Kingdoms and Peoples Good all must have gon well but to act like the Dog in the Manger resolve to do nothing themselves yet keep away barkat and Quarrel all others to whom it more properly belong'd was the Extremity of Baseness Mischief for Mischiefs sake And which is still worse that mischievous Humour 't is to be fear'd we shall never get quit of there being several Curs nay whole Packs of that Old Breed which continue on the Cry and are so wholly bent upon their Common-wealth Confusions as to prefer them before any thing of a Monarchy not excepting the Kingdom of Heaven whereof having but small Hopes they may think to oblige the Devil by bringing Hell upon Earth CHAP. XII Of King James's Death I Have had some little Dispute with my self whether it was requisite to take Notice of Iames's Death especially as relating to this Excellent Prince his Son but finding the Calumny impudently improv'd as well from the former Age to this as by the several Libellers now every one striving to out-do the other in this Villanous Forgery till the last hath brought it to such an Impossibility as every Child may discover and see thorough I must trouble both the Reader and my self with the Examination of this Abominable Nothing King Iames had an ill Habit of Body very unwiel'dy and full of gross Humours which improv'd the more upon him for that he was so uneasy as to the Regiment of his Health either from his Own or Physicians Observation whereupon falling into a Tertian Fever at Theobalds 't was thought by most Men amongst the rest him himself that Crasy Constitution of his would not be able to withstand its frequent Assaults and it happen'd accordingly Soon after his Death it was whisper'd about Court that the Duke had recommended something of a Cure for his Ague without the Physicians advice which doing no good must be presum'd to do hurt this coming to the Duke's Ear he concern'd himself so far as to have the Matter examin'd by the Physicians where the Lady appear'd and disclos'd that great secret of an Ague-Cure few of that Quality amongst their Country Neighbours for she was a Country an Essex Lady being without something of that kind which was only a Plaster of Methrydate with a Posset Drink of Harts-Horn and Marygold Flowers This for that time put an end to the Rumour but about two Years after in the Second Parliament it was Reviv'd again and made an Article against the Duke which they that please may Consult with his Reply and perhaps be satisfied therewith if not I shall only add further Lord Keeper Williams perform'd the last Offices of a Divine to King Iames continued with him several Days and Nights before his Death so that had he observ'd or suspected any such foul Play there is no doubt but it would have made a sufficient Noise both in Parliament and elsewhere when the Duke caus'd the Seal to be taken from him and the Author of his Life who relates the one would not have been sparing to discover the other And now to show how Artificially the Master was brought in as concern'd with what the Servant never did when the Articles were Exhibited against the Duke Sir Dudly Diggs who as Foreman manag'd the Prologue and gave a Summary of the whole Charge was reported to have said these Words That he was commanded by the House concerning the Plaister apply'd to the King that he did forbear to speak farther in regard to the King's Honour or Words to that Effect whereupon the King ordered him to be Committed and Sir Dudly Carlton Remonstrated the same to the Commons but upon his own and the Two Houses Compurgation that no such nor such like Words were spoken he was again discharg'd yet whoever Consults that Eloquent Harangue as Recorded by Rushworth will find it very scurvily tending that Way and thus for 20 Years following it was wholly laid asleep no one harbouring so groundless a Thought But when God curs'd this Nation with a Successful Rebellion whereby the Army got the King into their Clutches and so purg'd the House as consisting only of their own Properties they pass'd that Preludium to his Murder their Votes of no more Addresses wherein amongst many other Villanous Forg'd Accusations indeed whatever the Devil or Devils of Men could assist them withal this of King Iame's Death was one and 't is very remarkable what a doughty Topick they have to make it out delivered down by our as doughty Authors He Dissolv'd the Second Parliament to prevent their Enquiry into his Father's Death says Ludlow p. 2. And Roger Coke to the same purpose King Charles rather than this Charge should come to an Issue dissolv'd the Parliament The Defence to out-lye all that went before him tells you Divers Parliaments were dissolv'd upon that Account whereas there was but one more and this Business never mention'd therein In Answer to all which false and groundless Presumptions I shall only Request them to Consult their Friend Rushworth where they will find that Parliaments Dissolution did not in the least proceed from this or any other Articles Exhibited against the Duke who had given in his Reply and press'd for a Rejoynder that they would come to the Proof of their Common-Fame Charge wherein there appear'd not much forwardness The King on the other hand was in great Expectation of those Subsidies they had Voted and indeed only Voted for though that was done the 27 th of March yet had not the Bill been once read the 9 th of Iune by which delays his Majesties Designs with his Allies abroad were Frustrated and Honour expos'd for want of supplying them according to Treaty whereof giving Notice in a Letter they had so little regard as to fall to preparing a Remonstrance in reference to Tonage and Poundage and other such like unseasonable and unreasonable Cavils which the King understanding and esteeming as he had Cause to be a denyal of the promised Supply and finding that no
Army in prejudice to theirs which caus'd Commissary Wilmot who with some others was a Member of the House to tell them upon a Paper the Scots had presented to get Mony design'd for our Army that if Papers could procure Money he doubted not but the English Officers would soon do the same Neither were their Resentments less upon the King 's than their own account that after so many complyances and too great condescention they should still press forward to the overturning of all whereupon they entred into a confederacy obliging themselves by an Oath of secrecy to Petition the King and Parliament upon these Four Heads For Money for the Army not to Disband before the Scots To preserve Bishops Votes and Functions To settle the King's Revenue Which being shown to and approv'd by the King he sign'd all which appears both from Mr. Percy 's letter to the Earl of Northumberland his Brother that they resolved to act nothing which should infringe the Subjects Liberty or be prejudicial to the Laws As likewise from the foremention'd Manuscript of the Earl of Manchester which gives the same account And could Ludlow or any of his Partisans imagin there should be no Men of Courage and Resolution left in the Nation or that having Swords by their Sides they should keep their Hands in their Pockets and see Votes and Ordinances do more mischief than all the Gunpowder of a seven Years Campain and since the Parliament were resolv'd upon a War 't is Pity these Gentlemen parted with their Forces Had they come up and cut Ten or Twenty the lowdest Throats in the House it might have sav'd the effusion of a great deal more and much better Blood and preserv'd both King and Kingdom from Ruin To shew farther that the Parliament was always in danger the King continually plotting against them they never against him our Author tells us how a great number of loose debauch'd Fellows repair'd to Whitehall where a constant Table was provided and many Gentlemen of the Inns of Court tamper'd with to assist him in his Design and how briskly he took up one for speaking against the Fellows at Westminster who upon this fright desir'd leave to provide themselves a Guard and that the Militia might be at their disposing p. 21. To turn a Story or frame a Lie so as to make it serve their own turns hath been all along observ'd the peculiar Talent of our Commonwealth Men and of the whole Party Ludlow had most right to the Whetstone That the Fellow should be so impudent to charge the King with raising Tumults or threatning Force when all the World knows it was the chief Engine the Parliament had to carry on all their mischievous Enterprises and when any thing stuck with him or the Lords a Rabble of 5 or 6000 were immediately summon'd out of the City to affright and threaten all that would not comply according to their Desire and in their passage by Whitehall did the same to the King till their Insolencies grew so intolerable as he was forc'd to leave that and Parliament at once for which they had the confidence to charge him and yet would take no care he might be secure with them and this occasion'd what Ludlow relates Several Gentlemen about Town more especially at the Inns of Court were asham'd to see Majesty so scandalously affronted proffer'd their service for the security of Whitehall his Majesty and Family which was kindly accepted and some little Entertainment made for them from whence this vile Fellow rais'd his great Story And since he hath given me this just provocation it will be here very proper to give some small account of those many violences from the insults and tumults of the Rabble how necessary the Faction found them and thereupon what Encouragement they had The Bill of Attainder against the Earl of Strafford went on very slowly in the House of Lords and 't is probable but for the Menaces of the Mob had never pass'd whereof 5 or 6000 came up to Westminster fill'd the Palace-Yard posted themselves at all the Entrances to the Parliament House and stopped every Coach crying Iustice and Execution which upon a Sign given was repeated with such an hideous Noise as to create Amazement in the greatest Constancy Such Lords as they knew were averse to Humour them they threatned most severely and had the Impudence to add if they had not the Leiutenant's Life they would have the King 's whereof his Majesty complained by Message to the Lords they to the Commons and there it stuck For sometime after when they trudg'd away to cry no Bishops as Hudibras hath it and the Lords complained in a Conference with the Commons of their horrible Insolency Mr. Pim their chief Setter cry'd God forbid we should proceed to dishearten People from obtaining their just Rights and the rest of that cursed Cabal secretly whisper'd they must not discourage their Friends this being a time to make use of them which vile Abettings made them so Impudent as to threaten White-hall too and declare as they pass'd by there should be no Porters Lodg but they would come to speak to the King without Control and at their own discretion And when presently after there was another descent of the same Rout and some Opposition made upon their Attempt upon White-hall Gate till the Sheriffs of London and Middelsex with what Guard they could draw together seiz'd and committed some of them the Commons immediately posted up Mr. Hollis to the Lords complaining 't was a Violation of the Liberty of the Subject and an affront to the Parliament and so the Good Boys must be discharg'd 'T were too tedious to relate the several Insults of this kind both King and Lords were forc'd to put up the Commons underhand giving them all Encouragement imaginable and had their Setters in the City to be ready on the first Intimation whereof Dr. Cornelius Burges a Lecturing Beautifeu was chief seconded by a Lay Brother one Ven the Captain Tom of those Times the Dr. as he led up these Doughty Champions was wont to look back and cry These are my Ban-dogs I can set them on and I can take them off again by which means saith my Author four parts in five of the Lords and two parts in three of the Commons were frighted out of the House to leave the Faction absolute Masters thereof All these before unheard of Affronts to Majesty and Government our faithful Recorder of Memoirs takes no Notice of but a few honest Loyal Gentlemen asham'd to see such abominable Insults and therefore coming to defend if occasion serv'd their abused ay and threatned Prince must pass for a Plot upon the Parliament and they forsooth must have a Guard With like veracity he relates the Kingston Plot too where the Lord Digby with Colonel Lunsford in a Coach and Six and three or four Footmen attending pass'd for a Body of 500 Horse with many such like extravagant Rumors
also told Sir Iohn Hotham and his Son were condemn'd to lose their Heads for they could make Treason in reference to themselves at pleasure though the King was not to be heard upon the justest Accusation yet this is certain had not they acted that Treason against the King there could have been no occasion for the Parliaments pretences Sir Alexander Carew was also beheaded for endeavouring to betray Plimouth whereupon I must relate this passage that Worthy Brave Gentleman Sir Bevill Greenvil was Knight of the Shire for Cornwal with this Sir Alexander and upon the Earl of Strafford's Business came to him with this request I pray Sir Alexander let it not be said the Representatives of our County had any thing to do in the Blood of this Great Man Whereto he reply'd with much earnestness I will vote for the Bill though sure my Head were to be Cut off on the same Block which accordingly fell out Could the Fanaticks meet with any thing like such Instances of Divine Vengeance on the other side what a Noise would they make what an Annus Mirabilis should we be plagu'd withal In this following Year 44. Ludlow scarce finds occasion to make one Invective against his Majesty the Misfortune or as he would have it Mismanagement of their own Affairs took up all the Gall he had to vent tho' very well stor'd therewith For now I perceive the Independent Common-wealth Party both in House and Army began to pique at Essex indeed all the Nobility in Command and most of the Presbyterians as Linsy-woolsy Brothers which did their Business by halfs His greatest Disgust is that Essex and Waller divided their Army yet owns that Waller had the more Forces when routed at Cropredy-Bridge and the King's Forces were very prevalent in the West so that the Design was lay'd well enough only the foremention'd Rout gave the King an Opportunity of following Essex to his total Defeat in Cornwal where his Majesty was put upon another most destructive Halt in lying down before Plymouth and not marching up to London by which Delay the two shatter'd Armies had time to recruit and the Foot which the King had seiz'd in Cornwal being discharg'd upon Condition never to take Armes against him more were absolv'd by Calamy and the other Presbyterian Iesuits and so took up Arms again which Ludlow commends for an Heroick Act and fought like perjur'd Villains who knew they ought to be hang'd if taken But the greatest Prejudice to his Majesty's Affairs this Year was Rupert's rash Conduct and consequent Defeat at Marston Moor which lost most of the North and gave part of the Rebel Army leisure to return and obstruct his Majesty's further Progress in the West The two Armies meeting a second time about Newberry where the King reliev'd Denington Castle and proffer'd Battel But the Rebel Generals disagreeing amongst themselves it was not accepted whereupon he March'd to Oxford and they dispersing their Army to London His Majesty upon both his Successes at Cropredy Bridge and in Cornwal sent Overtures of Peace to the Men at Westminster which were coldly receiv'd yet being further press'd by him from Oxford they could not but comply to have a Treaty at Uxbridge but to little Purpose for though the King's Commissioners consented to many Particulars and Alterations of great Importance the others would not abate one tittle but insisted peremtorily upon the Parliaments first Propositions which were an Absolute Dissolution of all Old Establishments indeed the whole Frame of Government both Ecclesiastical and Civil So that all Ludlow's Flourish upon this Occasion is false and mention'd only to express his continu'd Spite at the Church as if the Treaty came to nothing upon that sole Account that the Proposition concerning Episcopacy was rejected p. 150. whereas they were as positive in reference to the Militia Ireland and whatever else came under Debate It had likewise been a great Omission in such a foul-mouth'd Fellow as himself to have pass'd by what that Lecturing Beautifeu Love preach'd in the Town whilst the Treaty was on Foot although every Word he saith of the Matter is as false as what the other preach'd for first he was not Chaplain attending the Parliament's Commissioners for when the King's Commissioners complained of his Treasonable Insolence they answer'd he was not of their Train neither in the Second Place is it probable the Preachment was before the Commissioners for it was a Lecture on the Market-Day and they had something else to attend Nor Thirdly were the Words spoken as he relates that the King was a Man of Blood c. they were not come to that height of Impudence till the Independents were Trump and the King in their Hands and therefore as it was related when complain'd of the Words run thus That the Commissioners came with Hearts full of Blood and there was as great distance between this Treaty and Peace as Heaven and Hell I shall only add further that when Ludlow and his Complices had murther'd the King and assum'd the Power they cut off Love's Head though upon another Account yet not without the just Reflections of many as a retaliating Vengeance for his Seditions and Bloody Disposition with so much Untruth and Impudence vented here We are come now to that unhappy Year 45. wherein Ludlow according to his no Divinity would have Iudgment given against the King by that Power to which both Parties had made their solemn Appeal for though indeed it put an End to the Fighting Part between King and Parliament yet thereby the Nation did but Triumph over its self and perish as Rome of Old suis ipsa viribus the two foremention'd Factions being the more at leisure to foment their Feuds and multiply those Distractions which the People now saw and were sorry for but could not prevent The first Onset the Independents gave the other Iunto was the Self-denying Ordinance which our Author handles very Tenderly yet cannot forbear to let us know By this means the Earl of Essex Manchester and Sir William Waller were laid aside the latter rather to show their Impartiality than from any distrust of him he having never discover'd to that Time any Inclination to favour the King's Cause p. 146. The Truth of it is the two former were sensible with several of their Confederates to how deplorable a Condition they had brought Affairs sed revocare gradum but to set them right heal the Wounds repair the Breaches they had made 't was as much beyond their Power as to get to Heaven Neither is it without something of malicious Satisfaction that he mentions about the same time the Parliament made Sir Thomas Fairfax General the King made Prince Rupert so of his Forces notwithstanding his late ill Success at Marston Moor p. 148. whereto I find a much honester Man adding his apparent want of Age Experience and Conduct for so great a Trust. I say this was probably mention'd with no little Satisfaction because
that Prince's Rashness and Indiscretion contributed more than any one Thing to their cursed Success at the fatal Naseby which he gives an Account of with great Insult but what he adds that it was the more astonishing because obtain'd by Men of little Experience in Affairs of that Nature and upon that Account despis'd by their Enemies is false besides several Old Soldiers there were few or none but had had the Experience of three Years War and if that will not inform any Man of Sense I would advise him to follow some more innocent Imployment Neither were they despis'd by their Enemy but look'd upon as the best Body of Men the Parliament ever had together notwithstanding which had not Prince Rupert given Cromwel the same Advantage here as before at Marston-Moor it might have prov'd the Deciding Battel to the King But what Compleated the Triumph to their unworthy mean-spirited Souls was the taking his Majesty's Cabinet with several Letters in it most of them to the Queen which they Published to their eternal Reproach and this Fellow with like Baseness revives here again The Grecians in their Wars with Philip of Macedon a Foreign Prince and most unjust Usurper upon his Neighbours having intercepted a Pacquet of his Letters of the rest indeed they made what use they could but those to his Queen they never offer'd to open but sent them back with all Respect and Tenderest regard imaginable how much those Heathen Greeks out-did our Christian Barbarians is very unhappy to reflect Yet not at all strange that Ludlow should continue the same inhumane way of Procedure 't is as Natural to him as Poyson to a Toad although he is much put to it to find any thing there which may feed that base Humor what he urgeth of the Lord Digby's Letter that the Design of making War upon the Parliament was therein discover'd to be early is absolutely false p. 154. for it was after the Tumults had forc'd the King from White-Hall the Parliament had fix'd their Guards and were securing the Militia c. and then `twas time for his Majesty to consult his Friends and look to himself But I find our Author very forward to catch at every thing which may tend in the least to make the King first Aggressor wherein his many Fetches have as ill Success as that of the Commission with Sir Phelim Oneal He adds besides the many Printed others of no less Consequence were suppress'd as I have been inform'd by some of those that were intrusted with them who since the King's return have been rewarded for it p. 156. The little Truth herein stands thus A Person imploy'd by the Parliament to uncypher those Letters found several Figures he could not compass and so was forc'd to let them stand and to save his Bacon upon the Restaration alledg'd it a design'd Omission in regard to his Majesty's Honor and Reputaution which nevertheless few or none believ'd he being then as zealous and forward in the Faction as any though to so little Purpose as he hath since run into the contrary Extream of as great Indifferency neither do I believe he had any other reward than what the General Indemnity oblig'd him with which was too much to a great many unless they had made more grateful Returns But whatever was really writ or their venemous Rancor think fit to Comment thereupon all Men of Honour and Virtue must acknowledge what his Majesty writ to Secretary Nicholas and publish'd in a Declaration upon that Account that the Papers contain nothing an honest Man or good Protestant may blush at yet would fain know that Person who would be willing the Freedom of his private Letters should be publickly seen as mine have been however so that one Clause be rightly understood I care not so the rest take their Fortune it is concerning the Mongrel Parliament The Truth is the Earl of Sussex his Factiousness at that time put me somewhat out of Patience which made me freely vent my Displeasure against those of his Party to my Wife c. This Expression I find Ludlow and his Fellow Libellers more than once carping at which yet cannot be stretch'd further than that some cross-grain'd Dispositions might be among them who having some Ferment of the Westminster Leven halted between both Parties for whom no Epithet could be more proper than that of Mongrel and with too many such the King was plagu'd Upon the whole there was no one thing expos'd the Factions more to Obloquy and Scorn than this unworthy Act all their own Party who had any regard for Modesty and good Manners were asham'd of it and such as more narrowly look'd into things observ'd there such a Royal Mixture of Good Nature and Great Iudgment as considering him in those several Respects of Husband Father Master or King it would be hard to find his Parallel Afterwards when at too much leisure in his Confinement he pen'd that Excellent Meditation of his upon this their inhumane Usage which I fancy few of them ever dar'd to read for fear Remorse and Guilt should oblige themselves to supply the Place both of Iudge and Executioner Upon these two great Victories over his Majesty's Army and Honour as this worst natur'd Fellow of the whole Rebellion would have it thought he goes on to relate the great Successes their Forces dayly met with and having mention'd as many as he could call to Mind adds by way of Insult with divers others of less Importance and therefore unnecessary to be mention'd here The Truth of it is the King was never able to weather that dismal Storm which scatter'd him so at Naseby though he himself made several Noble Efforts for having the remains of his broken Horse recruited out of several Garrisons he march'd up and down to encourage such Loyal Souls as chang'd not their Faith with his Condition which alas were too few for the Parliament having made Propositions in order to a Composition for Delinquents Estates 't is incredible what a Number flock'd in and how deservedly they were Cheated every Days new Success producing new Qualifications whereby some were to forfeit a Third Part others a Moyity of their Estates and all upon this Condition that they should cordially submit and take the National Covenant appointed by Ordinance of Parliament and therefore it was observ'd that such as stood out and yeilded not but by force upon their Garrisons obtain'd much better Terms from the Commanders and Generals than others found from those Sneaking Fellows at Westminster who indeed would be sometimes angry at it especially the Oxford Articles but the Army beginning to grow Masterless they must begin to let them have their Humor Things standing thus and his Majesty failing in the Relief of Chester and hearing the Lord Digby was defeated in his March with a Body of Horse to the Noble Montross who did Wonders in Scotland Finding likewise great Disorders amongst his Officers at Newark where his two Nephews fail'd
and Conscience the two last were not kept for he was pressed to settle Religion as they desir'd wherewith his Conscience was not satisfy'd Next his Subjects had not free access to him but Proclamations were issued out forbidding them to come to him neither was the Ceremony due to him as King suffer'd to be paid him at his entry to New-Castle And lastly his Servants were not suffer'd to wait on him And his Majesty attested Montrevil if those Conditions were not made to him who confidently affirm'd it in all their Presence and that he had the Authentick Assurances in French The Commissioners retired to think of an Answer but when they return'd they desired his Majesty would put Montrevil to it to declare what those Assurances were and who gave them but this was not done Next they said they would not treat with the King in his Presence nor admit the Interposition of any Foreign Agent between them and their Native Prince And the Commissioners of the Army resolv'd that no suspected Person should be suffer'd to wait on the King with which his Majesty was highly displeas'd and for some Days would not eat in Publick but only in his Chamber This last Passage I have from an unexceptionable Authority whose Affection to his Native Country could give Place to nothing but Truth and therefore he seems to palliate the Matter a little on their behalf that Montrevil did not declare what the Assurances were nor who gave them which yet seems not to be his Fault for that they fully resolv'd against his Presence and Interposition for the future in any such like Affairs And upon the same account he declares further on it did not appear what Grounds Montrevil had for giving the King those Assurances and must be very slight and only from single Persons not any Iunto or Iudicatory Such a secret Transaction could not be done with all the Formalities of a Solemn Treaty yet doubtless Montrevil had his Assurances from Levens with most of the other General Officers and Scotch Commissioners then before Newark which was a considerable Iunto and I humbly conceive Iudicatories have little to do in concerns of that Nature But it had been all one though never so exactly drawn up and would have been as little observ'd as the first Pacification or last promise of never drawing Sword against him more But my particular Business is to trace Ludlow who tells us The Commissioners of Parliament joyning with those who were before with the King endeavour'd to perswade him to agree to the Propositions of the Parliament but he disliking several Things in them and most of all the abolition of Episcopacy to which Interest he continu'd obstinately stedfast refused his consent upon private Encouragement from some of the Scots and English to expect more easy Terms or to be received without any at all p. 183 The Encouragement he mentions is only a Flam of his own the Scots kept too strict a Guard upon him to have any but his Enemies to converse with nay which is worse they oblig'd him to discharge all his Friends then in Arms not only here in England but Montross in Scotland and Ormond in Ireland Neither was the Abolition of Episcopacy the main Obstacle although it was hard when he alone by himself had so shamefully bafled their great Champion Henderson upon that Subject to be so violently press'd from a Truth they could so little disprove But setting aside this Fellow's Spite who would needs make this the chief obstacle the King in his brisk Answer to the whole body of their Propositions from Newcastle August 1. 46. tells them They were such as did import the greatest Alterations in Government both in Church and Kingdom yet these were positively sent for his Majesty's Concurrence without allowing the Commissioners to give Reasons for their Demands or the hearing the King's Reasons against them which occasion'd his smart Reply upon their saying They had no Power to treat that saving the Honour of the Business an honest Trumpeter might have done as much To these Propositions Ludlow tells us the Scots Commissioners especially Lord Lowdon press'd the King very earnestly to comply telling him that though they were higher in some Particulars than they could wish yet if he continu'd to reject them he must not expect to be received in Scotland whither they must return and deliver him up to the Parliament in England But whatever they or the English said made no impression c. p. 184. The Truth of it is after all the Scotch Rodomantades Lowdon's in particular how much it was against the Laws of Nature Nations and Hospitality to Deliver and betray those that had fled to any for Succour their Brethren at Westminster knew how much there was of Iudas amongst them and having reduc'd their demand of a Million to 400000 l. agreed upon the Payment of one Moyety and the Publick Faith for the other to have the King Deliver'd to them who good Man laments that his Price should be so much above his Saviours And to clear himself from the base Reflections they made upon his Steady well grounded Resolves he declares what they call Obstinacy I know God accounts honest Constancy from which Reason and Religion as well as Honour forbid me to recede For you must know the Scots whilst in their Hands not only permitted but encourag'd the most Rigid of their Kirkmen to bait him at an impudent Rate as well from the Pulpit as otherwise as positively denouncing him damn'd for refusing the Covenant as 't is to be fear'd might fall to their lot for forcing it In the next Paragraph p. 186. Ludlow Commenceth a Quarrel with all the World both at Home and abroad for upon the French Embassador's coming over to endeavour a Reconciliation between King and Parliament he tells you how it was rejected they resolving to determin it themselves without the interposition of any an infallible sign of a just Cause where no body but themselves must Iudge having experienc'd that most of the Neighbouring States especially the Monarchical were at the bottom their Enemies That they were not their Friends was certain but that they should be so little their Enemies was a great Shame that so many Crown'd Heads should stand by and see a Brother Monarch Dethron'd and Murther'd at so barbarous a rate was a Sign that which is call'd Antient Honour was at a very low Ebb and the Sacro-Sancta Mrjestas left destitute of all Appeal but to the King of Kings who for ought we know may be still making Inquisition for that Blood this Son of Belial so much thirsted after and never at rest till poured forth and therefore henceforward 't is his sole Business to enveigh against all that would not go along with him and his Crew in that horrid Perpetration first he falls upon the Parliament for their frequent Overtures of Peace made to the King though he had not a Sword left wherewith to oppose them p. 187.
Distractions and Perplexities this Excellent Prince labour'd under it could not but be some Satisfaction to see such visible Retaliations since there was not a Member of the Covenant Class but might take up Adonibezek's Acknowledgment As we have done so the Lord hath requited us The manner of Ioyce's carrying off the King hath not one Syllable of Truth as to the Circumstances thereof in Ludlow's Relation He saith Ioyce had an Order in writing to take the King out of the Hands of the Commissioners of Parliament p. 191 whereas upon the King 's demanding a sight of his Instructions that saith the impudent Fellow you shall see presently and drawing up the best part of his Party into the inner Court as near as he could to the King say'd these Sir are my Instructions whereto his Majesty Smilingly reply'd Your Instructions are in fair Characters and Legible without Spelling Neither is it true that the King would have retracted his Promise to Ioyce upon the Commissioner's Perswasion it was by his Inducement the Guards were taken off their Lodgings and when Ioyce press'd the King to go along with him no Prejudice being intended but rather his Satisfaction upon the King's saying he would not stir unless the Commissioners went with him the other reply'd that for his Part he was indifferent Neither did the King take Horse but went in a Coach with the Earls Pembrook Denbeigh and Lord Mountague who as the rest of their Fellows were very Shagreen upon this Force his Majesty being observ'd the Merryest in the Company And when Colonel Brown and Mr. Crew return'd to the Parliament is not certain to be sure they did not go from Holmby but attended the King to Hinchingbrook tho an Express was sent from the first Notice of Ioyce's Approach The whole Passage of this Force with several others very considerable from hence forward to his Majesty's Murder is most faithfully related in the Athenae Oxon. as the Author had them from Sir Thomas Herbert a constant and sometimes sole Attendant upon the King in all those his Solitudes and Sufferings In all probability it was with no little regret to our Author before he saw whether it tended that the Army paid so great a Deference to the King suffer'd his Officers to continue and publickly own'd the Design Colonel Francis Russel and others attending the King became soon converted by the Splendor of his Majesty c. p. 193. And some Pages before 177. he inveighs bitterly against Colonel Brown the Wood-monger for that having been as great a Rebel as himself indeed much more Considerable and Mischievous he no sooner came into the King's Conversation but became a Convert which Ludlow would have the effect of a low and abject Original and Education whereas there cannot be a greater Instance of a generous Temper to acknowledge his Mistakes and beg his Majesty's Pardon when there was nothing but Obloquy and Persecution from the prevailing Power which he met withal sufficiently and was as forward to return when occasion serv'd being one of the Bloodyest Butchers of the Parliament's Friends p. 178. Indeed upon the Restauration he was very forward in apprehending and condemning the Regicides and it was by an unlucky Chance this Fellow escap'd his Hands The Devils knowing themselves under Sentence of Eternal Reprobation are never better pleas'd than to have engag'd a Man so far as to lay aside all Thoughts of Pardon of Reconciliation with God and really I never met with a Person more truly Proselyted to Hell upon that and indeed all other Concerns than our Author as having not only abandoned all Thoughts of Peace and Mercy in himself but an implacable Spite against such as were any ways inclin'd thereto on the contrary wherever his Majesty met any of such ingenuous Christian Dispositions he certainly Convinc'd them of their Mistakes and brought them over to his Party There are too many Instances of this Kind and too well known to be here set down That of Mr. Vines in Dr. Perenchief's Life is very Considerable because as rigid a Presbyterian as the rest who declar'd he had been deluded into unworthy Thoughts of the King but was now convinc'd to an exceeding Reverence of him and hoped so of others c. There was one Dell an Army Chaplain counterpart to Hugh Peters and tho less a Buffoon yet as much a Rogue they jointly giving out when their Villanies were ripe that the King was but as a dead Dog This unworthy Wretch said once in my hearing that whilst in the Army it was told him the King express'd a desire to see Dell but said the Fellow I would not come at him because we found he had a cunning way of getting into Men and making them think well of him and his Cause This indeed I find from several Particulars that the Prejudices of such Ulcerous Minds kept them off upon a false Surmise that the King could Pardon and Forgive no more than they upon which String I observe Ludlow often harping especially upon his Observation of the Army's respect in this Juncture whom he seems to laugh at for not considering how easy it would be for him to break through all his Promises and Engagements upon pretence of being under a Force p. 193. 'T is true they had violated the solemnest Oaths and Tyes imaginable in putting a Force upon him whereas he good Man was so Religious to his bare Promises as in the end it cost him his Life What he further relates of Transactions between the King and Army is as we are told from a Manuscript written by Sir Iohn Barkly and left in the Hands of a Merchant at Geneva That Sir Iohn since Lord Iohn Barkly was attending upon the King at this Time is certain and we will grant 't is his Manuscript to be sure none of our Authors being of a more polite Stile pen'd like a Man of Sense and Business so that wherever brought in it looks like a piece of New Cloth to make bold with the Parable put to an Old Garment and renders his thred-bare Stuff an abominably patch'd Business From these Papers he would have us believe that the Grandees of the Army Cromwel Ireton c. were once in so good a Mood as to design the Restauration of his Majesty whose ill Conduct in not following Sir Iohn's Directions and caressing them as expected spoil'd all And this ought to be taken into Consideration because I have met some honest Gentlemen too forward in giving Credit thereto and the Commonwealth's Men run away with it as infallible notwithstanding the quite contrary appears from Ludlow's own Relation who perhaps too hath perverted several of Sir Iohn's Expressions to the King's Prejudice for there is nothing so base and false he would not be guilty of upon that Account as when he is reported to break away from them and say Well I shall see them glad e're long to accept of more equal Terms p. 203 and that p. 205. you cannot
to the Sacred Ashes of the best Man and most abused Prince that ever sat upon a Throne May not the Great God who Iudgeth right upon defect of all Earthly Powers in doing Iustice to injur'd Innocence and oppressed Virtue be hereby provok'd to Arise and Defend his own Cause Remember the Rebukes his Servants have whereby their Enemies take occasion to blaspheme his Name and slander the Footsteps of his Anointed A JUST DEFENCE OF THE Royal Martyr CHARLES I. PART I. CHAP. I. The Commonwealth Party could never agree upon any one Model OUR Author begins his Memoirs with the Ruin of his Cause the Roasting of the Rump which doubtless was a great disappointment very much to his prejudice and therefore in reference to his own dear Self we will grant he had Reason to complain That having seen our Cause betray'd and the most solemn Promises that could be made to the Asserters of it openly Violated I departed from my Native Country c. Now because this Cause of his is so much magnified throughout both his Volumes as the only Means of securing the Liberty Safety and publick Interest of the People whereas the Office of a King was Burdensom and Dangerous the House of Peers useless upon which account both ought to be Abolished and the Government settled in the way of a Common-wealth the two first Votes they made after their Execrable Parricide it will I hope be thought no improper digression to examin the Rise of this excellent Model how it came first in Power How it behav'd it self whilst so and what became of it in the end In order whereunto we must know that the Violent and Numerous Faction in that fatal long Parliament of Forty were all of one piece so long as the King was able to bear up and most implacable against all such Loyal Faithful Members as adher'd unto him some of which they turn'd out of the House and forc'd many others to withdraw as well for the security of their Persons as in Obedience to their Consciences which oblig'd them to stand by their injur'd Prince so that in Ianuary 43 the King assembled at Oxon a greater Number of Lords and Commons then sat at Westminster although the latter supply'd themselves with a sort of Cattle call'd Recruiters from such Corporations and Burroughs as were within their Quarters where they might be sure of confiding Men who would not fail to carry on the Work as they had begun But divine Vengeance designing further to scourge us with our own Rod though it gave Success to their rebellious Arms yet withal so divided them amongst themselves as they that expected most had least of the Spoil whilst the Bear and the Wolf the Presbyterian and Independent contended one cunning Fox ran off with the Prey for as soon as the Royal Cause was vanquish'd those two Iunto's fell into implacable Enmities in the House and because the Independent was smallest in Number they supply'd that Defect by the Army which had been so modell'd by Cromwell as to be all of their own Leven and undertook their Quarrel so effectually as to bring a Charge against eleven of the most leading Members on the other Side who thereupon were forc'd to absent themselves some of them for their better Security beyond the Seas But this Purge would not do there must be a stronger Dose to remove the tough Presbyterian Humour which was accordingly prescrib'd for the other Iunto finding themselves still out-voted ran away to the Army and carry'd their Speaker with them making a sad Complaint that their elder Brethren of the other Faction were obstinate and refractory and would not let them have their Wills in going thorough-stitch to the Ruin of King and Kingdom at leastwise would not let it go their own Way and therefore begg'd their Assistance in the Accomplishment of so good a Work whereupon they strait-way march'd up to Westminster fill'd both the Palace Yards with Soldiers and set double Files through the Hall up to the Doors of both Houses looking scornfully upon the Members which had sat in the Absence of their Speaker and threatned to pull them forth by the Ears if they did not give speedy Satisfaction so that at present they carried all before them However the Army or rather their Managers Cromwell and Ireton seem'd herein to mis-time their Design the whole Nation was allarm'd at these extravagant Proceedings that the King should be so barbarously confin'd the Parliament forc'd now they seem'd somewhat dispos'd to an Accommodation and all things controll'd by the Arbitrary Licentiousness of a Military Rabble even to a Vote of no more Addresses to the King Which first proceeded from their Motion without Doors to their Creatures within this made several Counties petition and then rise in Arms some who had been Commanders for the Parliament in Wales endeavoured to retrieve their Country from those Mischiefs their Mistakes had brought upon it And Scotland actually declaring against their Brethren's Abuse of the King provided an Army to invade them This made our Men of the Sword postpone for the present their State-Reformation and fall to their proper Calling Fairfax undertook such loyal Gentlemen and Parties in Kent and Essex as had engag'd to free their Country from an Army of Mamaluks and shut them up in Colchester whilst Cromwell's veterane Forces found a ready Conquest of the Welsh and the Scotch under such ill Conduct as if they came on purpose to acquaint him how easie it was for a Man of Resolution and good Management to subdue and enslave their Nation In the mean time whilst this kind of second War was on foot the whole Kingdom besides those concern'd in the foremention'd Engagements began to reflect what a miserable Condition they had brought themselves into The City petition the Parliament for a personal Treaty with the King they accordingly vote in their secluded Members repeal that of no Addresses and agree to a Treaty at the Isle of Wight which nevertheless met with so many Obstacles and Delays from the adverse Iunto as the Army had finish'd their Business before the Treaty could be brought to a Conclusion and were so incens'd thereat as they came up in a Rage to London took Quarters at and about Whitehall fell the second Time to reform the House whereof they actually seiz'd and committed 41 Members denyed Entrance to above 160 more besides about 40 or 50 who voluntarily withdrew to avoid their Violence so that the whole was now reduc'd to between 40 or 50 such profligate Wretches both as to Life and Principle that they would stick at no Villany the Bashaws their Masters thought fit to put upon them And this is the true Origin of what is commonly call'd the Rump of the long Parliament the End whereof is so much condol'd by our Author although it might as properly have been call'd the Excrement to be sure their Actions will make our Nation stink in the Nostrils of all good Men to
the End of the World We are next to enquire how this Fag End of a Parliament behav'd it self having got the Power into their Hands or rather were the Substitutes the Properties of the Army for that is their truest Character And here to let the Nation see their Business should not be done by Halves they began with these Resolves 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 supream Authority of this Nation 3. That whatsoever is enacted and declared for Law by the Commons hath the Force of a Law 4. That all the People of this Nation are included thereby although the Consent of the King and House of Peers be not had thereto 5. That to raise Arms against the People's Representatives is high Treason 6. That the King himself took Arms against the Parliament and upon that account is guilty of the Blood shed through the Civil War and that he ought to expiate the Crime with his own Blood Whose Tryal they fell to immediately and with an unparallel Impudence founded their Dominion in the Blood of the Lord 's Anointed and their Liege Sovereign whereas granting their Position of the People's Right to be true as it is abominably false there was not the tenth Part of the Commons at the making that cursed Ordinance nor would one in a thousand of the People have assented thereunto and this the Lady Fairfax told them at the Tryal from an adjoyning Scaffold Had that Tool her Husband shewn the like Courage it might have turn'd to Account but Men that have a long time habituated themselves in Mischief God seldom permits to be Instruments of any Good To be sure as this cursed Fact rendred the Rump most infamous to all Degrees thoroughout the Nation so the Grandees of the Army after they had traiterously serv'd their turn paid them as little Respect and thought they were too contemptible a Body to manage so great a Trust to which purpose the Agitators as soon as they had first purg'd the House declared it was requisite to have a more equal Representative and accordingly printed a Model which they called The Agreement of the People and so continued frequently harping upon the same String and pressing to have it taken into Consideration which forc'd them upon what our Author declares Page 313. And now the Parliament being desirous to let the People see that they design'd not to perpetuate themselves after they should be able to make a compleat Settlement of Affairs and provide for the Security of the Nation c. Resolv'd that the House would upon every Wednesday Morning turn themselves into a grand Committee to debate concerning the Manner of assembling and Power of future successive Parliaments the Number of Persons to serve for each County that the Nation might be more equally represented c. And thus they continued two or three Years and would have till Doomsday according to their own Vote since they resolv'd not to rise till a compleat Settlement of Affairs and the Nation 's Security provided for But Cromwell was resolv'd they should not stay till then yet having a different Design from all his Fellow Rebels kept them in till that was ripe in Order whereunto Ireland must be first brought into perfect Subjection And then the Scotch gave him an Opportunity of retaliating their many Outrages Invasions and such like Covenant Kindnesses which he did to purpose And having gain'd the Crowning Victory as he term'd it at Worcester thought it then a fit Time to pull off his Vizard and send that Pack of Rascals as he call'd them at a Nobleman's Table a Grazing the Account whereof as our Author gives it from the 447th Pag. forward is very pleasant and shews that though they were every one profoundly practised in those Hellish Arts of Treachery and Dissimulation yet Cromwell infinitely outdid them all They were but petty Devils in Comparison with him that true Lucifer incarnate But what our Author saith of their being supported by the Affections of the People Pag. 459 because acting for their Interest is so gross so palpable a Lye as sure he could not believe his Memoirs should be printed till every Man then living was dead Next the Restauration I never knew any thing more grateful the whole Kingdom thorough than their Dismission it was the only popular Act wherein Cromwell oblig'd all Parties and made his Usurpation more tolerable by ridding us of the most contemptible Set of Men that ever sat at the Helm of any Government But 't is the common Cant of our Commonwealth Coxcombs and 't is us'd as much by our Author as any of them to give that Handful of Fools and Knaves which adher'd to them the Title of the Godly Party and all the good People of England Well now they are gone and had six Years time to fret and bite their Nails for we may guess at their Regret by the Spite and Revenge they were guilty of when got again in play which they could never do as long as Cromwell trod the Stage but when he was carried off the Army resolv'd to revenge his tricking them upon Richard who succeeded him and could think of no better Tools to effect that Work than by setting their old Iournymen the Rump about it in order whereunto they plac'd them in the Workhouse and set them to the Business which they soon dispatch'd although they had much ado to find a Number sufficient for however our Author pretends he gave Dr. Owen a List of 160 which had sate since the Year 48 they were forc'd to send for Munson and Harry Martyn out of the Goal to make up a Quorum of 40. from which time forward to their final Expiration there can be nothing more comical in any History Romance or Play than the several Transactions Caballings and Intrigues amongst them as related all along by our Author what Iealousies and Distrusts they had of one another what Plots and Counterplots Turnings out and in Quarrels Treaties and Patchings up wherein our Author tells us what pains he took and with what Moderation he proceeded to little purpose God be prais'd One thing more especially they could never get over and that was a settled well fix'd Form of Government The Army were resolv'd upon a standing Senate of their own Body I presume to over-awe the civil Representatives The Rump on the other hand thought themselves so much their Masters as to vote the Speaker General and order that all even the most supream Officers should have no Commissions but from him whereupon what passed between Sir Arthur Haslerig and Lambert pag. 677 may be thought worth relating Lambert complain'd how that Act left them at Mercy only said Sir Arthur at the Mercy of the Parliament who are your good Friends I know not reply'd the other why they should not be at our Mercy as well as we
well affected to Monarchy in general as well as the Memory of those two Princes are yet prone to suspect they might have some Inclinations that way and for their Satisfaction more especially it is I give them and my self this Trouble To shew therefore how little Ground there was or is for this Suspicion King Iames call'd Parliaments as often as any Prince ever did and courted them as much perhaps more than was requisite considering the Temper they were of And so did his Son at first as Ludlow owns 'T is true he call'd some in the first Years of his Reign But then makes this malicious Reflection The People soon perceiv'd he did it rather to empty their Purses than redress their Grievances The Truth of it is there was such a Spirit of Innovation and Faction got abroad such groundless Suspicions and Distrusts every where not only whisper'd but openly proclaim'd throughout the Nation as 't is equally unaccountable how Men should have the Confidence to forge such gross Untruths and the People suffer themselves to be so absurdly impos'd upon Altho as to this latter nothing can seem incredible to such as observ'd what a Fright the whole Nation was abus'd into the other Day as if between two and three thousand Irish for that was their utmost Number could fire all their Habitations and cut all their Throats Yet by such Artifices as these altogether as groundless and improbable the People were kept up in a continual Ferment so foolishly prejudic'd and so freakishly peevish as no Reason could be heard nor Truth prevail upon them whereunto both the foremention'd Kings were too forward to appeal and too condescending in giving an Account of themselves and Actions by frequent Proclamations Declarations c. considering they had to do with the most petulant malicious Generation ever any Age or Climate produc'd As to the present Charge of affecting Arbitrary Power I cannot but remark in the first place the different Method these two Kings are suppos'd to propound in order to bring about the same King Iames by Fraud King Charles by Force As to the former whatever King-Craft he pretended to every discerning Eye hath all along discovered him to be the most open easie Prince this Nation ever had studied nothing but his People's Peace and therein his own Quiet the Enjoyment of himself Such a bold I may say desperate Undertaking must have a Prince that is active daring and resolute of a subtile Head and hollow Heart understanding all the Arts of Dissimulation and Wheadle so as to fool the People out of their Mony and therewith maintain an Army to support his Usurpation with many such like bad Qualities as opposite to Iames's Temper and Genius as one Pole to the other For to speak freely he laboured under the contrary Extream wanted Courage to exert his just Rights stoop'd Majesty too low would expostulate and reason where he ought to have commanded which blind Side the Faction in his several Parliaments once finding out grew wresty thereupon would neither lead nor drive but their own Pace and Way What I remark in the second Place is the Inducement our Author assigns of King Charles's attempting the same by Violence the nearer View of a Despotick Power in his Iourny to France and Spain What will not a Republican's Rebel Spite catch hold of His Iourny was not in but thorough France which he consummated in ten or twelve Days and riding Post had great Opportunities of being taken with Glittering Shews and Imaginary Pleasures c. And his Business in Spain was of another Nature and took up so much Time as he had little Leisure to make Observations and less Reason to be enamour'd with any thing there observ'd to be sure upon Enquiry he could not but find that the several Courts or Councils there have as great a Restraint upon the Crown as our Parliaments have here though they are a sober wise Nation and seldom or never found to extend their Privileges beyond Right and Reason I shall not reflect upon the Prudence and Policy of that Design only observe it was hard for a young Amorous Prince to attend the tedious Delays of old Statesmen wherewith having been so long kept in Suspence this Adventure was thought the only Expedient for a final Issue Desperate enough which notwithstanding he manag'd so dexterously as to weather all Difficulties and come off with Honour and Safety contrary to the Expectation of the whole World I cannot forbear to mention the Account Rushworth gives of his Deportment there The Prince for his part had gain'd an universal Love and was reported by all to be a truly noble discreet well deserving Prince His grave Comportment suited with the very Genius of that Nation and he carryed it from the first to the last with the greatest Affability Gravity Constancy and at his Farewel with unparallell'd Bounty Yet this excellent Prince we murder'd and forc'd his Sons to travel for Security of their Lives and if during that Royal Exile they depended chiefly upon Papists for their Subsistence and observ'd how a Neighbour Prince weathering the like Storm from his three Estates as their Father met with for all Rebellions do not prosper as in England took the Government solely into his own Hand I say if upon these Obligations and Observations they return'd home less affected to the Protestant Religion and our Old Establishments of civil Government than could be wish'd Who can we blame but our selves Upon the Prince's Return home and making a Report to his Father what slippery Statesmen the Spaniards were especially as to his Sister 's Concerns King Iames at the earnest Request of the Parliament brake off that Match who engaging him in a War for Recovery of the Palatinate promis'd all the Assistance could be desired which was soon after by his Father's Death devolv'd upon King Charles and a Parliament thereupon summon'd de novo whom he bespake with all Affection and Tenderness imaginable acquainting them how The Eyes of all Europe were upon that his first Attempt and what a Blemish it would be to sustain a Foyl Hereupon a Supply was voted which serv'd the present turn and that was all For in the next Session which was at Oxon that unquiet Spirit which had been so troublesome most part of his Father's Reign began to let him see what little Hope there was of better Terms from them Immediately those old Cavils of Grievances evil Counsellers and what not were brought upon the Carpet and of these the first insisted upon was the Increase of Recusants the Growth of Popery which was presented in a Petition shewing the principal Causes of their Increase and properest Remedies to suppress them whereunto his Majesty gave an Answer so full and satisfactory that all undesigning Members were abundantly satisfied therewith and resolv'd to acquiesce therein and fell immediately upon a Supply which the adverse Party unable to oppose seemingly comply'd likewise but with a Back Blow
would undertake the Fleet might be much better manag'd both as to Conduct and Charge and thereupon fell most rudely upon the Duke not sparing his Majesty in some By-reflections who perceiving their Heats to rise every Day higher than other and that no Supply was to be had unless he yielded to their unreasonable Cavils which no body could foresee how far they would extend or where end He sent a Commission to some of the House of Lords and dissolv'd them That he was not without great Regret forc'd upon this 't is easie to imagine considering the Posture of his Affairs and that Want of timely Supply detain'd his Fleet from going out till it should have been return'd into Harbor And indeed the Delays he met with where there was least Reason to expect them had they considered the Honor and Interest of the Kingdom not to say of the King tho they pretended much to both was the chief if not sole Cause of several Miscarriages which according to the Genius of that Age were otherwise very well design'd However giving some strict Orders about Recusants and whatever else there was any Shadow of an Exception against as likewise hoping on the other side those fiery Spirits might be somewhat cool'd and brought to a sober Consideration of their own and the Nation 's Reputation Another Parliament was call'd within the same Year which prov'd no Changlings beginning where they left off with Miscarriages Misgovernment Misimployment in short they would have all amiss whereas there was nothing so but themselves Neither could his Majesty's Letter to the Speaker have any Influence upon them tho' most passionately representing his pressing Occasions and how unfit it was to depend any longer upon Uncertainties whereby the whole Weight of the Affairs of Christendom was like to break in upon us on the suddain to the Dishonor and Shame of the Nation assuring them moreover that having satisfied his reasonable Demands he would continue them together at this Time as long as the Season will permit and call them shortly again to apply fit and seasonable Remedies to such just Grievances as they shall present unto him in a dutiful and mannerly way without throwing an ill Odor upon our present Government or upon the Government of our late blessed Father and if there be yet who desire to find fault we shall think him the wisest Reprehender of Errors past who without reflecting backward can give us Counsel how to settle the present Estate of things and provide for the future Safety and Honour of the Kingdom This was very much to the purpose but withal too home and true to meet with that Reception it ought to have had Neither had the Lords better Success in a Message they sent desiring them to take into Consideration the Safety of the Kingdom receiving this grough Answer That they desire to have a good Understanding with their Lordships and will be ever careful of the Safety and Defence of the Kingdom and maintain their own Privileges as is fitting And having sent this they immediately fell upon the Duke of Buckingham in order whereunto we find one Turner a Doctor of Phisick and Member of the House made the Factions Tool or rather Log to break the Ice by starting six Quaeres against the Duke grounded only upon common Fame and this produc'd another Quaere indeed a very requisite one Whether an Accusation upon common Fame be a Parliamentary Way And thereupon it was resolv'd That common Fame is a good way of proceeding for this House from whence alone that great Body of Articles was usher'd up to the Lords with as much Pomp and Rhetorick as give them their Due that House ever was or will be Masters of Yet no more than requisite to supply the Place of Argument for whoever considers impartially the Duke's Answer will find it so clear and apposite to every Particular alledg'd so consistent with the Reason of Things and Series of Affairs there mention'd as'tis more than probable their Impeachment was design'd only as a Ducquoy to get him into the Tower and then instead of proving their Articles would have proceeded by Bill of Attainder and voted it accumulative Treason as we know it was afterwards most barbarously done in the Earl of Strafford's Case In the mean while commend me to any Man or Body of Men who can have the Confidence to declaim against Arbitrary Power and yet proceed upon common Fame which was ever thought hard and therefore discontinued both in Civil and Canon Law where for some time it took place especially in an Age where Calumny and Slander were so scandalously rise as no honest Man could escape the devouring Words of their false Tongues Methinks such a Proceedure as this has some Affinity with that old Land Story of the Cook serving his Dog who said he would not hang him only give him an ill Name and thereupon threw him into the Street and cry'd a Mad Dog which made all the Rabble of two as well as four legg'd Curs fall upon and worry him to Death Yet how far this way of Prosecution might have been brought into Practice had these Gentlemen continued Rex no one can tell to be sure in the next Parliament when Neal Bishop of Winton and Laud of London were inveigh'd against by Sir Iohn Eliot and others an honest Gentleman stood up and said Now we have nam'd these Persons let us think of some Causes why we did it whereunto Sir Edward Coke reply'd Have we not nam'd my Lord of Buckingham without shewing Cause and may we not be as bold with them Common Fame would do the Business thoroughly But to return to the Duke they thought it enough to shew their Teeth for surely if they could have bit they would not have postpon'd the making good their Articles against him when he press'd them so earnestly thereto which notwithstanding they did as well as the King's Supply and fell to hammering a new Remonstrance which his Majesty having notice of anticipated by their Dissolution We shall have Occasion hereafter to observe what pass'd between this and the next Parliament which was March 17 th 1627. when his Majesty at their first assembling plainly told them That if his present calling them together did not answer the Quality of his Occasions they did not their Duties and he must rest content in the Conscience of doing his and take other Courses for which God had impower'd him to save that which the Folly of particular Men might hazzard to lose Hereupon they fell into long and tedious Debates whether a Supply or Grievances should first take place At length the former had the Preference out of Complement though last consummated for that Vote was no sooner pass'd but the People's Liberty must immediately be consider'd which produc'd the so much celebrated Petition of Right wherein the King humour'd them to every Punctilio though nothing but a Spirit of Opposition could have excepted against his first
for the People and make the best Tenures why not for the Prince Nay 't is farther apparent that in most of those Reigns there were several Alterations and Additions too as Circumstances of Trade varied or Reason of State required Queen Elizabeth more especially took her Liberty therein at pleasure without Regret or Complaint from Merchant or Member particularly the Venetians having Tax'd a Charge upon our English Cloath She to be even with them rais'd that upon Corinth's which continued all her Life without dispute and when a Pragmatical Fellow stood it out with King Iames it was adjudg'd due by the Barons of the Exchequer But the debate here was perfect Spite and Contradiction otherwise no Man of Sense of Honour would have made a Breach between Prince and People in refusing to confirm what his Predecessors had enjoy'd some hundred Years before Especially considering the Charge and Care the King was then at above any of his Ancestors in reference to Naval Preparations whereto the Customs were all along assign'd I have seen an Account of the Navy Royal as it stood in Queen Elizabeth's Time presented by Sir Walter Rawleigh to Prince Henry consisting of Twenty four Sail the best of which did not reach one of our Fourth or Fifth Rates as now built 'T is true he tells him it might be advanc'd to what Number she pleas'd by pressing Merchants Ships of equal or greater Force And so it continued without any considerable Improvement all Iames's Time till the Earl of Nottingham Lord Admiral overgrown with Age importun'd the King for a Discharge as he own'd both to Lords and Commons wherein he was comply'd with and succeeded by the Duke of Buckingham who apply'd himself thereto with so much Diligence and Circumspection as at the same time his neglect was so severely complain'd of in the House of Commons we had an Hundred Sail in one Fleet gon against the Spaniard with another Squadron join'd the Dutch to block up Dunkirk and a third to guard the Channel which was likewise continually improv'd so far as the King's Purse could reach under the many Exigenties he then lay and would the Parliament have perform'd their Parts might have then clear'd the Ocean of all Opposition whatsoever which they were so far from as to make an attempt of withdrawing the Customs the only support he had to this great Defence and Undertaking Yet notwithstanding their perverse Disposition 't is a Question whether we had not the Ballance upon our Neighbours more then than now and as able to maintain the Sovereignty of the Seas Though it shall be acknowledg'd our Strength at present may be five perhaps ten times greater with a proportionable Charge and Opposition too which is worst of all In the mean while we may from hence perceive what a creditable Evidence Common-fame is for as the Clamour then ran which our several Sets of Pamphletteers and Libellers would have us still believe one would have imagin'd we had not been able to fight a Fleet of Dutch Fisher-Busses or that our Admiral knew or car'd whether there had been two such places as Chatham or Portsmouth such strong Prejudices can Men of ill design Fool the People into Neither was the Conduct of other Affairs so much to be run down as their Pettishness did Suggest when amongst other things they would enquire how the Reputation and Interest of our Nation came to decline so much from what it was in Ages past which if they had considered the Man's Caution they would have omitted for their own Reputation sake Say not thou what is the Cause that the former Days were better than these For thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this And I am confident every ordinary Reader will judge there was more Malice than Wisdom in the Matter before us when told their Charge was chiefly Level'd at those Storms which Dissipated our Fleets both upon the Spanish and Flemish Coasts On the contrary could there be a more Sober or Christian Answer than what the King reply'd That 't was God's Pleasure to send stormy Weather and his Will must be done Though 't is confess'd they might have gon out at a more Seasonable time of the Year had they furnish'd him with a seasonable Supply but it became now their usual Practice to charge him with their own Defects Yet notwithstanding that and the Miscarriage at the Isle of Rhe where nevertheless a great deal of English Bravery was shewn so little were they degenerated from their Ancestors the French were so much Allarm'd at our entring into a War and Assisting the Rochellers as they proffer'd the Duke of Rohan and the Protestant Party any Terms to join with them against the English and it was their ill Conduct and Positiveness not to excuse something of Treachery amongst them which made the first Attempts for their Relief miscarry as shall be made appear in due Time and Place as likewise how glad the French were of a Peace on Honourable Terms on our Side tho they knew too well the Perverseness of our great Senate But to look back upon former Times even those so happy Days of Queen Elizabeth they were not attended with constant Success the great Sir Francis Drake did not always answer Expectation in his Returns out of the West-Indies and as great a Sea Captain as he was Frozen to Death in Search of the North-East-Passage with several such like Instances which might be given as to those Affairs So likewise for Land-Service Leicester's Conduct in the Low Countries was neither to his Mistresses nor their Satisfaction and that popular Favourite Essex miscarried most Scandalously in his Second Expedition against Spain and how fatal his Irish Management was is known to all At some of these indeed the Queen was concern'd but had any of her Parliaments meddled therewith they would have soon discovered how much she had of Henry the VIII's Spirit Neither ought it to seem strange if after that continued Peace God and King Iames had so long bless'd us withall we should be somewhat at a Loss entring afresh into War since that we have gain'd more Experience and paid sufficiently for our Learning both in Blood and Treasure and which is worse still cannot give over when we would And whilst we are upon this Head of Grievances there is a Commission to several Lords of the Privy Counsel must by no means be past by For though it was only in general Terms To enter into Consultation of all the best and speediest Ways and Means ye can for raising of Monys for the most important Occasion aforesaid which without extreamest hazard to us our Dominions and People and to our Friends and Allies can admit of no long delay c. Yet Rushworth and from him Roger Coke and from them both the Defence c. will have it to raise Monys by way of Excise in which Sense likewise this present Parliament would have it go and made a Bussle accordingly sending
Sir Edward Coke to Harangue the Lords upon the same Subject whose first and chief Exception was that 't was ordered after their Summons a sufficient Proof there could be no ill Design by it although it might likewise be considered that the Parliament was not so free to grant the King Supplies as he to Summons them and further yet that there were several Projects propounded to the King which he would never rashly close with but refer to the Consideration of his Counsel no mean Instance of his Prudence and Goodness too above what we deserv'd to recommend such as their Wisdoms and best Iudgments should find to be most convenient in a Case of this inevitable Necessity For those be the express Words in the Commission And hereto agrees what the Lord Keeper reported to the House of Lords That their Lordships had reason to be satisfied with what was truly and rightly told them by the Lords of the Council that this Commission was no more but a Warrant of Advice which his Majesty knew to be agreeable to the Time and the manifold Occasions then in Hand but now having a Supply from the Loves of his People he esteems the Commission useless and therefore though he knows no Cause why any Iealousies should have risen thereby yet at their Desires he is content it be cancelled and hath commanded me c. Yet I know this Reply will not pass tho upon his Majesty's Royal Word unless we can take off that potent Allegation of 30000 l. remitted over to Sir William Balfour and Dalbeir in Holland to raise a Thousand German Horse to enforce the Payment of this Excise and aw the Parliament soon to be Assembled as most of the Libellers expresly declare That such a Sum was remitted to raise Horse is certainly true but to be imploy'd here at home to the Ends aformention'd as certainly false to the making good whereof I must observe that the Low-Countries were at that time not only the School but Shop of War which furnish'd all the rest of Europe even the Spaniards themselves for a good Market with Arms Ammunition and whatever else was requisite to that Bloody Trade Neither was any thing more usual in Queen Elizabeth's Time than to take such English Forces as had been exercis'd and flesh'd in their Service when upon any great Expedition against Spain or elsewhere and supply them with new rais'd Men to maintain their Garrisons According to this Method the Lord Wimbleton was supply'd about two Years before in his Expedition against Spain And these 1000 Horse were doubtless design'd upon some Enterprise in defence of Rochel or otherwise to Annoy the French which upon new Councils and perhaps a Prospect of Peace for about that time it began to be secretly Agitated was laid aside To be sure had his Majesty design'd any thing of force upon this Nation he made choice of very improper Instruments in those two Commanders who notwithstanding their great Obligations to the King when the War brake out in 41. took Imployments under the Parliament because they had most Mony I presume and did them cursed Service The Defence saith Dalbeir was a Papist to reflect upon the King doubtless without considering what he did afterwards for his Parliament of 40. He was a German and had serv'd under Count Mansfield so that 't was more likely he was Lutheran or Calvinist But of what concern is that Man's Religion who Acts without a Principle of Gratitude or Common Honesty And therefore to attend the Fate of this unworthy Person a little farther when he had wrought Iourny-Work for the Parliament as long as the War lasted he was laid aside which regretting as a Souldier of Fortune ought to do engag'd upon the King's Account with the Duke of Bucks Lord Holland c. in that Design at Kingston which miscarrying they were persued to St. Neots in Huntingtonshire where some escap'd some were taken but Dalbeir was cut in pieces by his Brethren the Parliamentarians because he had been of their Side If Balfour did not come to the same End 't was pity for he was a true Covenanting Scot betray'd the King in the great Trust of the Tower committed to him and from thenceforward sided with the Parliament I had not been so Prolix in my Account of these two Men but to shew that had there been any such Design as an Excise and these German Horse to enforce the same 't is impossible but the two chief Commanders must have been privy thereto and would have consequently divulg'd it to their Patrons the Parliament indearing themselves more thereby than all their other Bloody Services I must beg leave to make this one Observation farther That it had been altogether as impossible for one Thousand Horse to enforce a General Excise as double the Number of the foremention'd Irish to Massacre the whole Nation Yet they had a more impertinent Maggot in 41 that there were Forces kept in Grots and Caves under Ground that should in the Night break out into the City and cut all their Throats And what was more prodigious and though ridiculous yet saith my Author had not a few Believers in London That there were Designs by Gun-Powder to blow up the Thames and choak them with the Water in their Beds May it not be here a necessary Quere Whether the Invention or Credulity be more Astonishing CHAP. V. No reason to complain of Favourites and evil Counsellors FAvourites and evil Counsellors were another of their Common-place Complaints with how little Reason or Truth is next to be made appear The Lord Bacon in his Essay of Friendship observes as a strange thing The high rate great Kings and Monarchs have set thereon and that not only the Weak and Passionate but the Wisest and most Politick that ever Reign'd whereof he gives several Instances To be sure at this time most Courts in Christendom had particular Favourites who notwithstanding the great Figure they made were really Participes Curarum as the foremention'd Lord judiciously terms them Drudges of State Screens of popular Odium and Discontent as in most if not in all Places they were made to find And hereunto amongst the rest King Iames seem'd very much dispos'd as appear'd by one or two in Scotland And in process of time his Inclination continued the same Bend here whereof one Car a Scotchman his Page was the first Instance who having a comely well built Outside the King hop'd he might be as well furnish'd within and accordingly took much pains in the Improvement of his Mind directed him in his Studies and all other things requisite to the Accomplishments of such a Person as he wish'd and hop'd he might prove All which is an extraordinary Instance of a good Master and a good Nature too And yet to make him appear a better Prince when he found all he had done was in vain that this new Creature of his was a Blockhead Insolent Ill-natur'd wretchedly Penurious and intollerably
Covetous he withdrew his Favour by degrees as any Wise Man would have done unwilling to expose himself for an ill-plac'd Affection But when the Business of Overbury was discovered he detested it with the utmost Indignation of a good Christian a just Prince and ordered a Prosecution according to the Baseness of the Fact though after several Partisans had suffered the importunity of Relations and Country-Men first got a Repreive and at length a Pardon for him and his Eve the Temptress though it was many Years before the last was obtained and not many Months before the King's Death which 't is pity he did at all considering the solemn Protestations he had made that all concern'd in that Matter should suffer but what will not Importunity do especially coming from his own Country-Men This Court-Meteor being thus sunk down and disappearing the English Nobility about the King began to reflect upon the ill Influences it had and what worse its longer aboad in that Horison might have produc'd Hereupon they thought it their concern to take more care for the future and not suffer a second Foreign Page of as little Wit Good Nature or Manners to be Topt upon or rather over them in order whereunto they resolv'd to manage Matters so as an English Man might be Topt upon the King about which they had several Consults and several young Gentlemen of the Privy Chamber and other Places in their Eye but amongst all the rest George Villyers both for Person and Parts seem'd most promising him therefore having fix'd upon such Court intrigues were carry'd on as the King made choice of the Person they design'd And this is the true Origin of that great Man's Rise whatever impertinent Relations Roger Coke makes of his Mother decking him up and setting of him in the King's Eye when Ignoramus was Acted at Cambridge with many other as groundless and false Conjectures To be sure he no sooner appear'd upon the Publick Stage of Business and Address but the Expectation of all concern'd in his Advancement was not only answer'd but exceeded neither could they any where have made a better Choice among the Nobility there were scarce any to be found who would undertake such a Fatigue of Business or had Parts to go thorough with it and though there were some in a lower Sphere of more Reading and greater Experience yet few that equall'd him in Strength of Natural Parts dayly improv'd by consulting the most Knowing and Judicious in all the several Affairs which came before him whereby he brought things to a better Issue than could be expected from the most cry'd up Wisdom accompanied with a self-sufficient peremptoriness So that whatever Odiums he lay under as no Man ever lay under greater and indeed who could bear up against Common-Fame and a House of Commons yet more impartial Iudgments which consider'd things as they really were became surpris'd at so young a Man's falling to Business with so great Application his judicious Choice of fit Persons to every concern he engag'd them in and as Honourable Rewards upon their well Performance I have already mention'd his manage and improvement of the Navy as likewise how express his Replies were to their several Articles without any thing of a Rejoynder on the other side tho' he provok'd them thereto for 't is absolutely false that the King dissolv'd the Parliament on that Account as shall hereafter appear Neither was there more of Truth in that other Charge his inriching himself by the Crown which of all Imputations saith the Disparity was the most unskilful and worst laid some few of those Lands Engross'd by Somerset before were assign'd him by his first Master and that was all Yet Roger Coke opens most violently upon this Account and with an odd kind of Arithmetick will consider what he received by his many great Places without taking notice it was all Expended in the same Service To be sure one of our Historians saith he died 60000 l. in Debt and whoever Audited his Estate then considering he married an Heir General of the House of Rutland who was a very great Fortune will find that Sir Edward Coke and several of that Robe since have left greater Revenues than this Duke did of his own Acquiring The foremention'd Roger Coke tells another idle Story which I shall mention here tho it reflects chiefly upon the Good King which was that Spiteful Fellow 's greatest Satisfaction viz. How he design'd first a Sumptuous Funeral for this Duke his Favourite from which the Lord Treasurer Weston put him off by saying a Monument would be more lasting and less cost And when the King afterwards press'd for the Monument the Wary Treasurer diverted him from that by representing how ill it would hear in the World should the Duke's be Erected before there was one for his Father This Faithful Roger relates as a great Secret which he had from a Learned Gentleman well acquainted with the Transactions of those Times whereas it was a Common-fame Story every where whispered by the Faction and so secret that Mr. Hamond Le Strange was impos'd upon to put it into his History and is reply'd to be Sir William Saunderson for that mistake who must know better being all that time the Duke's Domestick and assures us he was Sumptuously intomb'd at Westminster which his Executors paid for and it cost not the King a Penny nor the stately Monument Erected over his Grave This Passage tho somewhat out of Course I could not but here insert as an exact Specimen of Fanatick Sincerity what Secrets they Detect and Truths relate Well now we have done with Favorites for Buckingham being fatally cut off the King made no one Person his Confident but equally consulted the Ablest and best Principled Men he could find thoroughout the Kingdom who were equally Maligned and Persecuted to Death by a Virulent Party because they studied the peace and welfare of the Nation were for every thing to run in its proper Channel the Laws duly Administred to the People and the King's Occasions Honourably supply'd without Suggesting Fears and Hunting after Grievances the Mormo's of disaffected and designing Spirits For sometime in King Iame's Reign there was a cursed Distinction started of a Court and Country Party which kept the House divided most implacably in that and this following Reign of Charles the I. for I shall descend no further and several honest well-meaning Gentlemen like so many Barnabas's were led away by the Dissimulation of such as promoted it whereas in all well-settled Times the King was look'd upon as the Common Father of the Country and had constantly a select Number of Understanding Men knowing the World and well practis'd in Business to sit in Council and assist him in keeping things Right or bringing them so when wrong But then Enacting of Laws Raising of Mony and several other Ardua Regni are to be consulted of and consented to in Parliament where the foremention'd Privy
Council were generally Members in one House or other and as well able to acquaint them with the true State and Interest of the whole Nation as any particular Member of that private Burrough he Represented and were credited accordingly which produc'd an exact Concord and Harmony between every Part of the Constitution On the contrary when the Members divide and jar one with another when all the King advise with must be suspected for Enemies to the Publick tho no such thing can be prov'd and he upbraided for consulting or imploying them and that by such as affect their Places or design to abridge his just Power what an Ocean of Mischiefs must this toss us in What but a Shipwrack can be expected at last As indeed it happen'd 'T is a pretty Remark and Simile of Sir W. T. who tells us he had observ'd All set Quarrels with the Age and pretences to Reform it by their own Models to end commonly like the pains of a Man in a little Boat who tuggs at a Rope that is fast to a Ship it looks as if he resolv'd to draw the Ship to him but the Truth and his meaning is to draw himself to the Ship where he gets in when he can and does like the rest of the Crew when he is there But this would not do in King Charle's Time there was not Room enough to hold all that pull'd to come in at leastwise Provision to support them when there For however Ludlow upbraids the poor King with the Profuseness of his Court the standing Revenue of the Crown was about 400000 l. per Annum too little by far to supply his great and urgent Occasions Would they have given him Mony plentifully some new Places might have been made or other Ways and Means found to gratify their Kindness but as they knew the King's Honor and Integrity would not Stoop to such indirect Courses so 't is probable 't was considered on the other side this would put them upon a worse extream instead of giving nothing they must give more than all Nevertheless some were taken in Sir Thomas Wentworth Mr. Noy and a while after Sir Dudly Diggs who had their several Posts assign'd them and behav'd themselves with great Honor and Resolution there which so incenc'd the rest as they became more implacable than ever plotted all Ways imaginable to seize upon the Vessel which at length having obtain'd they first threw the King and his whole Crew overboard and then sunk it All which the Good Man was advis'd of long before for in the heat of their Prosecution against the Duke there was a Letter put into his Hands ab Ignoto whereof Mr. Rushworth gives only a sneaking Abridgment like a partial Somewhat as he is for the whole deserv'd to have been Transmitted as well as any one thing in all his Volumes however 't is at large in the Cabala giving him an Account of their several Parties and dangerous Designs that King Iames had given too much way to their popular Speeches and Parliamentary Harangues which since the time of Henry the VI. were never suffer'd as being the certain Symptoms of subsequent Rebellions Civil Wars and Dethroning of our Kings Amongst others he tells him the Lawyers in general fomented these Heats for that as Sir Edward Coke could not but often express our Kings have upholden the Power of their Prerogatives and the Rights of the Clergy whereby their comings in have been abated And therefore the Lawyers are fit ever in Parliaments to second any Complaints against both Church and King and all his Servants with their Cases Antiquities Records Statutes Presidents and Stories But they cannot or will not call to Mind that never any Noble Man in Favour with his Sovereign was question'd in Parliament except by the King's leave in Case of Treason or unless it were in the Nonage and Tumultuous Times of Richard II. Henry VI. or Edward the VI. which happen'd both to the Destruction of King and Kingdom And that not to exceed our own and Fathers memories in King Henry VIII's Time Wolsie's exorbitant Power and Pride and Cromwell's Contempt of the Nobility and Laws were not yet permitted to be discus'd in Parliament though they were most odious and grievous to all the Kingdom And that Leicester's undeserved Favour and Faults Hatton's Insufficiency and Rawleigh's Insolence far exceeded what yet hath been tho most falsly objected against the Duke Yet no Lawyer durst abet nor any else begin any Invectives against them in Parliament This is clear Matter of Fact an impartial Account both of the Distemper and its true Original Cause I wish he could as easily have prescribed the Cure but it was now too late to remove what was so deeply rooted and become habitual King Iames might easily have prevented its rising to so high a Crisis had he observ'd that one Maxim of the Precedent Reign kept up his Prerogative and those other Arcana Imperij which were his Peculiar with as much Majesty and Resolution as Queen Elizabeth did who found this Pragmatical Spirit at work in her Time But so observ'd and kept it down as had the same Course been continued no Danger could have accrew'd thereby To ascribe any thing of Divinity to Princes above other Mortals will I am sure at this time of Day be censured for a gross piece of Pedantry yet really there are several Inducements would go a great way to perswade that this happy Queen was so far inspir'd as to see further into the Thoughts and Designs of Men than any or all about her especially that these busy Reformers affected a Parity in the State as well as Church design'd not only the Mytre but the Crown to be under their Check and Control which made her on all Occasions exert so briskly in defence of her Prerogative and other just Rights Insomuch as Roger Coke owns there were three things she was impatient of having debated in Parliament The Succession of the Crown after her Death Her Marriage and attempting any Alterations in the Church from its Establishment in the first Year of her Reign For the last of these I have had occasion already to mention how Morris burnt his Fingers by meddling therewith and the Iournal gives the like Account about the former how one Wentworth and some others were sent to the Tower for concerning themselves with the Succession but whereas Roger Coke saith they were soon discharg'd is one of his own Maggots and a shameful perhaps willful Blunder since the Iournal would have inform'd him that the House becoming humble Sutors to her Majesty for the release of such Members as were under restraint It was answered by the Privy-Counsellors then Members of the House That her Majesty had committed them for Causes best known to her self and that to press her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose Good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an Account for what she did of her
Royal Authority that the Causes for which they were restrain'd might be high and Dangerous that her Majesty lik'd not such Questions neither did it become the House to deal in such Matters Upon which saith my Author the House desisted from interposing any farther in their behalf but left them wholly to the Queen by whom Wentworth was continued Prisoner some Years after 'T is probable indeed the others viz. Bromly Welch Stephens might be discharg'd sooner Thus did this Wise Princess hold the Reins of Government with so streight a Hand as whenever she found it biting the Bit and attempting to take head a suddain Check put a stop to the design'd Curreere Whereas King Iames was no sooner mounted but he left them strangely Loose and in effect gave them up his first Parliament where Roger Coke tells us the Commons in their Apology to him took notice of the Queen's Restraining their Debates as to several Matters and pray'd it might be no precedent for the future but that their Debates in Parliament might be free which the King however charg'd by the foremention'd Roger with Rehoboam's Stiffness so far comply'd with or was negligent in as that designing Faction got ground upon him every Day to his own and all his Ministers great Uneasiness with his Son's and Kingdoms ruin And this the foremention'd Letter too prophetically foretold that prevailing in one thing would but encourage them to attempt another till they had pull'd out all the Feathers of his Royalty and from impeaching his Ministers call him to an account for any thing he undertakes which doth not prosperously succeed For thus at last he himself was the Evil Counsellor and charg'd with all those Villanies and Mischiefs these Sons of Violence had brought upon the Nation CHAP. VI. Innovations in Religion never design'd BUt our pretended Patriots could not thoroughly have express'd their care unless they had made it the concern of God as well as the King for which Reason Religion must be taken in and every thing call'd an Innovation which tended to support the Church or conduc'd in any respect to Decency and Order in the Externals of Divine Worship And this Clamor of Redressing Religious Grievances altho by degrees it threw all open and brought in upon us an universal Deluge of Licentiousness Prophaneness Enthusiasm Atheism and what not yet the Factions are so impudent as to continue the Charge and with that false Mother care not how the Church be torn or cut in pieces so they may have their spiteful Wills Thus Ludlow will have it that the Clergy's influence upon the King was alwaies greater than could consist with the peace and happiness of England p. 2 d. whereas it was never happier than then and nothing but a regular Establishment in the Church could continue it so as the King knew very well which made him so earnest to Support it and the other Party knew it too which made them so earnest to pull it down Roger Coke likewise inveighs as much against the Arminian Bishops and Clergy of this King's Reign as his Grandfather when Attorny General did against Sir Walter Rawleigh Who is said by Osborn and the Tryal speaks as much to have Bawl'd him out of his Life And so in the same Manner the little Pamphletteers like Country Curs bark for Company Ye take too much upon you was that General and grand Charge Corah and his Accomplices brought against Moses and Aaron the Prince of the People and Priest of God And notwithstanding the Almighty's Vengeance so signally appear'd in that Quarrel as to send them all quick into Hell yet the Terror thereof hath not been able to affright such Children of Disobedience from Repeating their Provocations The Gates of Hell are continually Opening upon the Church and though never able to prevail against the whole may have sometimes Permission to chastise a part and do whatever else God in his Secret purposes hath resolv'd upon to which Unsearchable Will alone it must be referr'd That the Anointed of the Lord the great Defender of our Faith who best understood and best practis'd the Christian Religion of any Prince since the Prince of Peace was taken in their Nets and as the other Crucified so this by such like wicked Hands most barbarously slain And if the same Sovereign Disposer in this his great Displeasure proceeds farther to remove our Candlestick declare he hath no pleasure in us neither will accept an offering at our Hands we must notwithstanding acknowledge he is Righteous in all his Ways and Holy in all his Works For unto very nigh these Circumstances the many Sub and Super-Reformers have reduc'd what under the Auspicious care of its Royal Defender was the Glory of the whole Earth That therefore it may be known there was such a thing as the Church of England and as I said in a most flourishing Condition till these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 many Physitians or Quacks rather would be shewing their Skill I shall take leave to make a Retrospect and represent upon what bottom she was first fix'd at the Reformation what false Brethren they were who interrupted and disturb'd this Establishment and likewise by what Arts and Degrees they engag'd I may say bewitch'd the People to assist them in such Confusions as were at length brought upon her Though the Reformation of our English Church was founded and carried on upon those infallible Truths the Primitive Times and Antient Fathers had practis'd from Scripture without any regard to Foreign Proceedings or if any rather Luther and Melancthon than Calvin and Beza had the Preference yet the two latter would be frequently putting their Sickle into our Harvest and partly by Corresponding but more especially by conversing with several Exiles both Clergy and Lay retired into those Parts during Queen Mary's Persecution gain'd too many Admirers who returning home upon Queen Elizabeth's coming to the Crown cry'd up the Geneva Model as the very Pattern which the Lord had shown from that Mount and according to which the whole Reformation must be carried on or no Blessing from him would attend it It would be here too tedious to relate what Arts they us'd and what Interests they made in Country City and Court As they began to think of setting up their darling Discipline and that in so insolent a manner as to declare That if the Government would not assist therein they must do it whether the Queen and State will or no insinuating how many Thousands their Party consisted of and threatned if not comply'd with such Courses as should make all their Hearts to ake Queen Elizabeth had too great a Value for her own well weighed Estalishments to have them Superseded by every Factious Caprice and thereupon resolv'd firmly against them And nothing but that steady Resolution of hers could preserve both Church and State from being even then ruin'd For these pretended Children of Light had so much of this World were so wise in their
be all exclaim'd against for Innovations and a Moulding of her to a nearer compliance with the See of Rome as Ludlow suggests which I shall farther take notice of in the next Paragraph and for the present only mention what Archbishop Laud told a Friend of mine when in the Tower That he endeavoured the Repair of an Old House but it had been so much neglected and run to ruin as to fall about his Ears in the Attempt However for the former part of King Iames's Reign things went smoothly on in an easy careless course without any considerable rub or disturbance the first Grumblings of Discontent arose from the Spanish Match which the King had set his Heart upon and People as much against the truth of it is our Crown had generally Married there or in France but as there had been no Occasion for such an Alliance since the Reformation so the different Perswasions now on foot as to Religion made it very difficult to accomodate that Matter The English Papists were extreamly Zealous therein beyond the bounds of Common Discretion which made the rest of the Nation suspect there could come no good from what they were so forward to promote and herein the Puritan would be sure to Lead the Van who clamour'd and made a noise as if the Pope had been as nigh our Gates as Hannibal was sometime those of Rome and ran down all as that way dispos'd who would not be as Mad and violent as themselves believe Impossibilities or fly in the face of Royal Authority And about this time it was they began that popular charge of Innovations which had the same Malicious effect upon all Orthodox Eminent Divines as that of Grievances upon Ministers of State the proof whereof must likewise depend upon Common-fame or which is worse a Common Appellation of their own fixing as to some particular School or rather Philosophical points most innocent and harmless in themselves yet so manag'd by a well-contriv'd spight as the People became possest that an Arminian was as dangerous as a Papist and as nigh an Affinity between them as there prov'd afterwards to be between Puritan and Rebel Upon this account one Mr. Mountague was first had Coram Nobis in K. Iames's last Parliament as Learned a Man and Solid a Divine as our or perhaps any other Church had but having severely Gagg'd the Predestinarian Brotherhood and conduc'd very much to the bringing K. Iames off from those Rigours they could find no better way to be reveng'd than by setting their Party in the House of Commons about his Ears which Roger Coke after so long a time revives with a fresh prosecution not considering how much both the Temper and Opinions of Men are since alter'd that the heats about those points have been very much cool'd or diverted so that he might have as well inveigh'd that Ruffs and Farthingals were not still worn for they and Calvenism went out of Fashion together none at this time of Day but a few of the more Hare-brain'd Dissenters can dream of being Engin'd up to Heaven by a Chain of Predestination whereof the Elect are so well Secur'd as the grossest Crimes cannot deprive them However their proceedings then were with something of deference to the Church remitting the whole matter to the Archbishop whom they knew more than enough prejudic'd for the Puritan and their Reprobation Doctrine and perhaps were assur'd aforehand that he resolv'd upon an Admonition which was accordingly done But then the King was his Ordinary to whom with the Convocation an Appeal lay and there the Derniere Resort rested and thither he Address'd himself in a fresh piece called Appello Caesarem which made fresh work in K. Charles's first Parliament the second Session whereof being remov'd to Oxon by reason of the Sickness in London the Commons sat in the Divinity Schools and their Speaker in or nigh the Professor's Chair whereby whether they thought themselver inspir'd or were rather possest as my Author would have it I shall not concern my self to be sure from that time forward we never find them without a Committee for Religion and no such Committee but would undertake to determine the deepest Controversies and Reform whatever they were pleas'd to call Abuses till by degrees they fell upon the Divines Sequestring and Imprisoning them by whole Centuries and so having expos'd and trampled under-foot the Doctrine Discipline and Governours of the Church they introduc'd the most Extravagant Licentiousness that ever was known in any part of the World call'd Christian. These indeed were Innovations to purpose But who introduc'd them And what would Queen Elizabeth have said thereto Mr. Rushworth gives us at large the Articles Professor Pym Exhibited against Richard Mountague Clerk which upon some search he could not find Answered as indeed What wise Man would reply to the Ipse Dixit of so many hundreds Or what Influence could a Reply have when the Conclusion was resolv'd upon without any Consideration of the Premisses However the Letter he mentions before which upon this Occasion Three Bishops writ to the Duke gives a true State of the whole matter and Iudiciously distinguish between such Opinions as are expresly the resolv'd Doctrines of the Church and such as are fit only for the Schools and left at liberty for Learned Men to abound in their own Sense so they keep themselves peaceable and distract not the Church This Letter Mr. Rushworth might have given at large as well as the Articles but for a bad reason best known to himself omitted it nevertheless we have it in the Cabala to be sure the few foremention'd words carry great Soundness and Judgment in them and must be acknowledg'd the only expedient could be fix'd upon either to Silence the Controversy or let them Brawl it out in its proper place 'T is a pleasant conceit of Mr. Osborn who tells his Son The Clergy have work enough cut out till Doomesday to resolve which is least sutable to the Divine Essence to have bound the hands of Men or left them at liberty yet hereby a constraint must needs be put upon us or our Maker Now this Gordian Knot which all our Clergy never could nor ever will be able to Untie our many Alexanders in the House resolve to Cut asunder by one Simple Vote yet this Weapon of theirs however very Keen had but a thin Edge and was turn'd before it got thorough so that it remains still indissoluble whether we drive or whether we are driven as I find the Question stated by one of our Comoedians so well that few of the Schools come up to it An unseen hand may determine our freest Actions and the deepest laid designs move Retrogade when we think the quite contrary But that the Almighty Sovereign the Author and Disposer of All things should Damn Men before he makes them Create many Millions of Beings with design to Reprobate them into Eternal Misery and found one main part of
the Sequel acknowledge that when he lost his Ears they might in Law and Iustice have taken away his life In the mean while what a Vexation must it be to a Good and Wise King that when he had call'd a Parliament to Assist him according to the National Constitution in a War undertaken by their inducement they diverted themselves in debating such School Points as belong'd properly to our Universities Exercise as afterwards they fell upon some Innocent Ceremonies which had been all along practis'd in the Catholick Church and enjoyn'd by ours ever since the Reformation Dangerous Innovations these Was ever so great a Cry made about so little Wooll CHAP. VII No Design of Introducing Popery THE Growth of Popery and Countenance shown to Papists was another pestilent Allegation and did never the less Mischief tho' false and groundless for First it is not true that the little Favour now shown them was solely upon account of the Matches in Treaty with Spain and France nor Secondly had it been Unusual with Q. Elizabeth to discharge Priests after some short time of Confinement For those violent Bigots were as numerous and busy in her Reign Compass'd Sea and Land to gain Proselytes and prevail'd upon too many weak and unstable Minds to become so However 't was a known Maxim of hers That no Man's Conscience should be forc'd or punished unless it did overflow into Overt and express Acts and become matter of Faction in which Causes the Sovereign Prince ought to punish the Practice though coloured with the pretence of Conscience and Religion A larger account whereof may be seen in that Eminent Letter of Secretary Walsingham to Monsieur Critoy and what distinction there was ever made between such as were Papists in Conscience and those in Faction and Singularity who set their Wits continually a-work to disturb the Publick Peace and undermine the Government Besides there was at this time and had been several years before most violent Oppositions and Quarrels between the Regulars and Seculars here in England more especially the Iesuits whom the foremention'd Secretary calls Seditious Priests of a New Erection whereas many of the former had taken the Oath of Allegiance and some written to Iustify it desiring only to live according to the Rites of the Roman Church without any regard to the Court that so magnify'd Idol of the Popes Universal Supremacy and All-disposing Usurpation Now by fomenting these Differences and shewing some kindness to the more Moderate Party Archbishop Bancroft more especially however branded by the Faction for a Papist and some other Ministers of State got so clear an insight into all their Iesuitical Intriegues as to out-do them at their own Weapon and render their many designs Abortive And his Successor Abbot herein was forc'd to take the same Measures 't is pity he did not so in every thing else for when in Charles's second Parliament some busy Overdoes gave Information to the House and upon search discovered that there were several Priests in the Prison call'd the Clink who liv'd with great Ease and Liberty had the Free Exercise of their Religion with Altars Pictures and other Trinkets the fore-mention'd Archbishop writ to the Attorney General on their behalf and told him Upon more curious enquiry that Information would be found to come Originally from the Iesuits for they do nothing but put Tricks upon those poor Men who do live more miserable lives than if they were in the Inquisition By taking the Oath of Allegiance and writing in defence of it they have so displeas'd the Pope that if by any cunning they could catch them they are sure to be burnt or strangled for it and once there was a Plot to have taken Preston as he passed the Thames and to have Ship'd him into a bigger Vessel and so have transported him to Flanders there to have made a Martyr of him In respect of these things K. James always gave his protection to Preston and Warrington as may be easily shew'd Canon is an old man well affected to the Cause but medleth not with any Factions or Seditions c. So vast a difference there is between taking things at a general View upon the first rebound of vulgar report and enquiring more narrowly into the secret Transactions the Reasons of State upon which the Wellfare of all Governments and consequently of every private Individual depends And since we are upon Reason of State that will come in here upon a more unhappy consideration as to this Affair the Protestant Interest especially in France was at a much lower Ebb than formerly they had engag'd we are not here to resolve how justly in those several pretences the Princes of the Blood set up and so upheld a mutual Interest whereas now the former being worn out or reconcil'd it was an Impar Congressus on the Hugonot's side to maintain by the Sword those Concessions it had formerly procur'd them or otherwise prevent those many Artifices both the Court of France and Rome were daily improving to their Ruin insomuch as the then K. Lewis XIII was known publickly to declare That as his two Predecessors Henry III. Fear'd them Henry IV. Lov'd them so he did neither And though the Spanist Match made the Cry yet upon this consideration more especially it was that in Iames's time upon mature deliberation in Council the Execution of some Penal Statutes which had already pass'd in Sentence upon several Popish Recusants was suspended for that the Protestants in France Germany and elsewhere lay under very bad Circumstances and had no other Intercessor for their Liberty c. but the King of England who was importun'd on the other side to show the like favour to those of the Romish Persuasion in his Dominions Nay some English Iesuits at Paris printed a Book representing how hardly their party were us'd here instigating that King to the utmost Severity by way of Retaliation so that had they and the Parliament been comply'd with what a havock would have been made all Europe over of Papists here and Protestants every where alse There is a Letter in the Cabala from Lord Keeper Williams to the Viscount Anan a Scotch Peer I presume upon this Subject which fully clears the King and justifies the proceedure by true Reason of State The Malice of the Faction gave out indeed that the Favour look'd forward and amounted even to a Tolleration which the Keeper styles a dull but withall a Devilish Misconstruction Yet the same prejudices were not only continu'd but improv'd against K. Charles by reason he Married a Daughter of France who was not wanting saith Ludlow on her part to press him upon all occasions to pursue the design of enlarging his Power not omitting to solicite him also to mould the Church of England to a nearer compliance with the See of Rome Pag. 2. For the former as he had no such design before so 't is as little probable she should press him now or
De Propaganda Fide would take care enough should be insisted upon but that any such thing was comply'd with or hearken'd to as there is nothing extant to make it appear which would have been highly acceptable and most pestilently advantageous to the Faction's Calumnies so matter of Fact speaks quite the contrary For as soon as they came to be capable of Instruction their Education was wholly at the King's Direction and perform'd with extraordinary Care Piety and Judgment And whatever Clamours or Conjectures may be made to the contrary I have been inform'd by very judicious Observers that the Queen was very Passive therein and carried her self with a great deal of Deference to what the King Ordered If any of them Warp'd afterwards it was upon our compelling them into Exile and for that as I said before our selves must bear the Blame to force Princes abroad can never turn to Account for this Nation That other Libel too King Charles no Saint c. makes a mighty Pudder about the Match and gives us the precise Sums allowed to the several Ecclesiasticks of her Train amounting so high in the Total as I fancy it is nigh as much as the King could allow for the Expence of her whole Court which indeed ought to be somewhat Splendid in respect to both her Qualities Daughter of France and Queen of England yet was it withall very Regular and confin'd to such a Proportion as the King 's great Exigencies and small Revenue would admit He owns likewise upon the insolent Deportment of her French Domesticks the King dismist them a sufficient Argument she had not that Ascendent over him these Foul-mouth'd Blockheads prate of But that they return'd again to their former Post is absolutely false her Retinue for the future were mostly English and of that Communion too Neither from that time forward for the French did some ill Offices of that kind was there ever known a more agreeable Understanding between King and Queen or indeed any other Man and Wife than them two all the Obligations of Conjugal Love Respect and Duty so inviolably observ'd on either side as they were an Example to many and a Reproach to others in the Court and ought to have been so to the whole Kingdom thorough The Exposing his intercepted Letters shall be hereafter consider'd as the Unworthiest Act the basest Men could be guilty of One thing farther I shall propound to these Negative Make-bates who so violently oppos'd his Matching either with Spain or France Where would they have had him Match'd 'T was high time as to his Age and more highly requisite in that he was the only Male of the Royal Line that he should be dispos'd of somewhere and to what purpose was it for People to cry a Protestant Princess had been better when they could find none such agreeable to his Quality nor that mutual intercourse which such Alliances generally produce For tho' 't is true Kingdoms never Marry and we find a War broke out soon after and partly hereupon yet it might be also the sooner Accommodated upon the same account To be sure if there be few private Families of any Degree but have some Consideration of this Nature when they dispose of their Children we must allow the same to Crown'd Heads both in respect to one another and their several Neighbour Potentates who are never without Caballing Interests and other Intriegues of State Neither could that liberty of the Romish Rites indulg'd her and those of that persuasion in her Family have been any ways prejudicial had they who made such a Noise so violently complain'd against it jointly concur'd in the Confinement thereof to its proper Bounds or Modestly Address'd his Majesty whenever exceeded but the Froppishness of that Crooked Generation was for perverting every thing that Good Man did to the utmost extremity as he complains in the Declaration when his third Parliament was Dissolv'd Seu bene seu male facta premunt with Mischievous Men once Ill-Affected whatsoever seem'd Amiss is ever Remembred but good Endeavours never Regarded So likewise for the Nobility and Gentry of that Persuasion if they had any favour more than usual it was not so much from the Queen's Sollicitation tho' that was commonly objected as for that they frankly proffer'd to Advance Money towards the King's Necessities and thereby exasperated the Parliament as well in crossing their Designs as upbraiding their Refractory Humour although 't was rather their Iealousy than any real Effects the Loyal Gentlemen found of Kindness 'T is true there was a Commission issued out and Commissioners appointed to Treat with them about Arrears of Forfeitures and an Advance upon the same account for some years to come but 't is false what Rushworth saith That in pursuance of this Commission the Recusants did make their Composition upon very easy Terms as was afterwards complain'd of in Parliament for this Project never took effect Sir Iohn Savile to whom the Management thereof was chiefly entrusted thought it more Advantageous and therefore Advisable to Collect the Arrears of Thirds due to the King by Law which they the more willingly paid in Consideration of the Exigencies he then lay under and being generally as well bred and Understanding Gentlemen as most in the Kingdom must not be blam'd if they had some prospect of Advantage as well as Duty Yet whatever respect the King shew'd their Persons we see it would not excuse their Purses nor procure any Countenance to their Perswasions for whenever the Management of any young Heirs in such Families came under his hands either as Wards or otherwise there was effectual care taken of their Education amongst which that every way most Eminent the late Duke of Ormond was one But Popery was the Main Spoak in that Wheel of Revolution these pretended Government Menders were so bent to bring about and therefore tho' they made many a Faint yet would never close effectually with the King in suppression thereof Thus when both Houses Petition'd the King against Recusants propounding a provisional Law that their Children might be brought up in our Religion his Majesty most readily comply'd therewith and earnestly recommended the preparation of a fitting Law to that effect which notwithstanding the Debate fell asleep and was never after reassum'd And after the first heat as little Notice was taken of that Letter found amongst the Clerkenwell Iesuits whereby nevertheless it appear'd they equally studied the King's Ruine with the Naetions Confusions as Secretary Cook inform'd them from him and withall how the French Ambassador told his Master at home what he had wrought here last Parliament namely Divisions between King and People and he was rewarded for it A full discovery whose Tools they were whose Game they play'd which nevertheless they continued on so that one would think there was a design to accept the Iesuits Challenge and venture all upon a Trial of Skill whether were the best Artists in Mischief the
only to lose all his Offices and Estate but his Life which last at the Queen's Intercession was spared though he Died soon after as thought of Grief and Sorrow Can any thing on this side Hell be more base and spiteful than such a procedure as this Who can give Credit to whatever he Relates or Collects Upon discovery of so vile a Studium Partium which seems brought in on purpose to Contradict or Detract from what had been immediately before Recorded in the Lincoln's high and just Elogium of K. Iames more especially those last Words to his Son in order to his future Marriage whom he advis'd To Marry like himself and Marry where he would But if he did Marry the Daughter of that King he should Marry her Person but not her Religion CHAP. VIII Of the Lent Ships Rochel and the French War THe Iealousies between the French King and Hugonots were so great on either side that all their Accords seem'd rather as a Cessation to take Breath till a convenient opportunity might serve for a fresh Breach than any real design of a lasting Peace King Iames frequently labour'd herein and did many good Offices for the Protestant Interest and King Charles whilst the Match was in Agitation by his Ministers there patch'd up a Treaty between them that thereby the French might be at more leisure to divert the Spaniard then our Enemy both in Italy and the Mediterranean In order whereunto they agreed with us for the Loan of Seven Ships on Man of War and six Merchants as they had with the Dutch for twenty which joyning their Fleet there might block up Genoa and all other ways annoy them as occasion should serve But whilst this Design was carried on and the Army march'd towards Italy Sobiez the most considerable Chief of the Hugonots next his Brother the Duke of Rohan alledging a certain Fortress was not demolish'd according to Agreement got together some small Ships Seiz'd upon the Isles Rhee and Oleron with what Vessels they found there and so set up for a Piratical War having Rochel and those Isles or their Retreat This made the French Court alter their Measures ordering their Land-Army back upon these New Revolters and Memorancy the French Admiral having got together what Ships they could of their own after a great deal of Wheadle and many Protestations had ours consign'd him the Dutch making no demur nay as some say had by a New Treaty agreed thereunto with all which he went directly against Sobiez and disabled him for ever appearing at Sea again recovering both Isles and Ships but a few which got under Rochel And in the same manner they prosecuted their Attacks at Land so vigorously as though it cost them longer time yet in the end they carried all for which the Rochellers and other Hugonots could justly blame none so much as themselves not only in that they broke the Treaty as soon as made but afterwards when our King appear'd in their Defence they refus'd to comply with such Resolutions as in the Judgment of Sobiez and their other best Officers were most proper thereunto However this Misemployment of our Ships was highly resented by his Majesty and many severe Expostulations arose thereupon that our Ships should be diverted from their intended expedition against Spain which was solely design'd and promis'd whereto the French King reply'd That he had no Enemies then but the Spaniard and his intent no other witness the like Contract with the Dutch Ships but his Rebellious Subjects the Rochellers starting this necessity upon him he was enforc'd to suppress the dangerous Consequence with the advantage of those Ships against Rebellion which he conceives and he hoped all Christian Princes conclude such Subjects the greatest Enemies to all Sovereignty With this and the return of our Ships fully satisfied for their Hire these Heats for the present were allay'd though with other Discontents and Provocations the next year they broke out into an open War Which Ludlow with his Common-wealth Charity tells us The King engag'd in not upon the account of those of the Reformed Religion as was pretended but grounded upon personal Discontents to gratify the Revenge and Lust of his Favourite Pag. 3. There is nothing more advantageous in any Relation whether true or false than in hanging things well together Malum ex qualibet particulari a Lye is quite spoil'd if taken triping in any one particular and 't is the most Judicious part of the best Historians to have a clear Consistency in whatever account they give with an easy Transition from one matter to another Let us then according to this Rule examine the Judgment Candour and Integrity of this great Dictator He tells us in the precedent Paragraph of several Steps he would have the King set in order to the Establishing an Arbitrary Power which we have already taken notice of more especially the Committing of several Members as he saith For complaining of the Grievances of the Nation as others for their Riotous Deportment in the House Locking up the Door holding the Speaker in the Chair till they had pass'd what Votes they thought fit with many such like Heats upon an intimation of their Dissolution Now what we are here to take notice of is his Transition from this Relation to the next The King having thus assum'd this extraordinary Power resolv'd to make a War with France whereas the French War was begun before that Parliament was call'd and in a fair prospect of being ended when those Gentlemen were so unhappily committed He had likewise intimated in the precedent Page that the French Match was in order to their Assistance as to an Arbitrary Power which his next Breath Blasts with a War and when there was so much done towards the Relief of Rochel and such Regret in the King that he could not be Assisted to do more with several other just Resentments for which the War was entred upon that he should assign it to the Revenge and Lust of a Favourite to say no more is like the Man his good Nature and Loyal Principles and agreeable to the Party for whose Satisfaction he writ it who will Swallow any thing that tends to Defame the Monarchy though it hangs together like a Rope of Sand. But to come to the War the King had too just Grounds to engage therein tho' too mean a Fund to go through therewith and the one in all probability had not been given but that they saw how unlikely it was he should ever be supply'd as to the other The not suffering Count Mansfield's Army to land in France and joyning with them according to promise was the Ruin thereof and highly prejudicial to the Protestant Interest in Germany And which was worse gave occasion to the Male-Contents here at home to complain of Mismanagement and the No-Fruits of their Subsidies given to recover the Palatinate when it all proceeded from the little Faith and less Honour of our Allies And there was
their Backs at Sea and thereupon agreed very readily to a Peace which set all things in Statu Quo with this Advantage on our side that they became more Complaisant and Obliging in their outward carriage did not think fit to look Big and Insult upon every private Disgust tho' their underhand Practices were much to be Suspected as hath been already Observ'd This is a true and impartial Account how far our King was engag'd in the preservation of those Unhappy People in Rochel how sincerely he undertook it and how they themselves more especially rendred his most likely Attempts Abortive We are next to observe with how much Villany and Falshood all those his Good Deeds are Evil spoke of and perverted by the whole Fraternity of Libellers Ludlow confounds the Story so abominably as to tell it without Head or Tail or rather with that witty Fellow 's pretended Monster sets the Head and Tail Transversim for so he makes Sir Iohn Pennington's and the other Six Ships to be lent the French after the Duke of Bucks had been at the Isle of Rhee whereas it was two years before and they had been return'd home above a year I must beg the Reader 's pardon to trouble him with the whole Hodge Podge of this Leud Uncouth Story The Rochellers who once before upon Encouragement from England had endeavoured to defend their Just Rights against the Encroachments of the French King till being deserted by the King of England they were necessitated to accept terms from their King very disadvantageous to their Affairs were again by frequent Importunities and fair Promises prevailed with tho' very unwillingly to assist the English with Provisions and such other things as they wanted in their Expedition against the Isle of Rhee from whence our Forces being repuls'd the French King sent his Army against the Protestants at Rochel whose Provisions being before exhausted by the English they apply'd to the King of England for Succours according to his promise Who as if he intended to Assist them effectually caus'd a certain number of Ships to be fitted out under the Conduct of Sir Iohn Pennington but private Differences being soon after compos'd Sir Iohn receiv'd a Letter from the King Sign'd Charles Rex which was afterwards found by the Parliament amongst his Papers requiring him to dispose of those Ships as he should afterwards be directed by the French King and if any should refuse to Obey those Orders he should Sink or Fire them the King's Command was put in Execution accordingly and by the help of those Ships the French became Masters of the Sea and thereby enabled to raise a Work compos'd of Earth Stones and Piles with which they shut up the Mouth of the Harbour and so prevented them from any Relief that way Being straitned from all Sides they were forc'd to yield to the Pleasure of their King and that strong Town of Rochel wherein the Security of the Protestants of France chiefly consisted by this horrible Treachery was delivered up to the Papists c. Pag. 3 4 5. To reduce this Chaos into any thing of Order or Consistency requires more than Mortal Power Nay the fabulous Poets would have thought it beyond that of their Deities there being no Pre-existent Matter to work upon most of what he saith is not was never so in being as to be done or thought upon I would gladly know when that once before was that the English encourag'd the Rochellers to defend their Just Rights First No honest Man can tell what just Rights they had It was a kind of Forty One business their Original Revolt and prosper'd accordingly in the end Though Secondly in Reason of State Queen Elizabeth assisted them considerably Especially Henry IV. so long as he continued Protestant And King Iames frequently interceeded compos'd the Breaches themselves had made but never encourag'd them in any so that they could not be necessitated to accept disadvantageous Terms upon the English deserting who never engag'd nor joyn'd with them Altho' his jumbling all this together in one Sentence may some way or other no Man can tell how relate to the Duke's Expedition when at the Isle of Rhee whither they compell'd him to Retreat and I cannot find any considerable quantity of Provisions they supply'd him with to be sure he was forc'd home for want thereof not any repulse of the French for had his Supplies come as design'd he had kept his Ground and carried on the Enterprize in hand From this incoherent Relation he proceeds to that Abominable Forgery of our Seven Ships enabling the French to be Masters of the Sea and Block up Rochel What did the Twenty from the Dutch those true Common-Wealth Protestants Did not they according to their number contribute Two Thirds more than we The Truth of it is neither we nor they were ever before Rochel all that was done the little while they had our Ships was to clear the Seas of Sobiez's Piracies at which time most of the French Fleet was abroad in the Streights part against the Spaniard the rest with the Duke of Nevers against the Turks the Algerines whereas being now return'd into these Seas though not strong enough to engage our Fleet yet keeping within their Fastnesses and Shallows they so block'd up the Town as we could not but at our great Peril approach them which nevertheless was attempted and that bravely too but without Success However this rendred not the Care and Kindness of our King the less whatever this base Fellow would hold the World in hand And having been thus tedious in prosecuting the Malicious Vagaries of our Out-Law'd Regicide I shall relate thereto for a Reply to whatever the rest have Suggested As that the King caus'd the Rochellers to Revolt in order to his Assistance and then Deserted them as Roger Coke impudently affirms whereas their Revolt was begun two years before he thought of War and ended tho' not to Satisfaction before he would make a Peace And the Defence upon whose Sleeve that other Libeller if he be another Pins his Faith relates the Addresses on the Hugonot's side and the Promises on the King 's whose Exigencies made his Delays seem tedious though they saw he could not help it which that base Fellow aggravates with the Spite and Ignorance of a Fanatick And then not able to deny that a Royal Fleet was set out well worth so long a stay would have the World believe it was on purpose to carry over the Lord Mountague who should betray them to the French whereas to be sure there was no such Lord went and in all probability no such Person although there was one Mr. Walter Mountague younger Son to the old Earl of Manchester who about seven years after left our Church and became a busy Body in Romish Intrigues and might be at this time peeping up in the Queen's Court but that he was sent at leastwise upon any such unworthy design is as true as the
Earl of Lindsey never attempted to break their Diques open the Passage and put in Relief All which this vile Wretch affirms in one Breath tho' every Historian even to their Authentick Rushworth positively affirm it The continued course of impudent Untruths wherewith these Weeders nay Forgers of History have so long wearied my Patience makes me at last resolve upon this I hope innocent Revenge whenever for the time to come I meet any Person relating a most improbable Malicious Falshood from me he shall not have that common Opprobrium of a Lyer but of a Fanatick Common-wealth Historian CHAP. IX Of the Palatinate Bohemia and that Queen AND here before I leave the Defence by which term I all along mean that Libel which Undertakes to Justify the Parliament of Forty and all their Adherents there is one Stretch must be taken Notice of which as Physicians term it is a Nostrum of his Own never urg'd by any of his Brother Libellers viz. That the Eight Ships for so he will have it tho' really but Seven lent the French were Equipp'd with the Subsidies given for the Relief of his distressed Protestant Sister the Electress Palatine and the poor oppressed Protestants in the Palatinate Pag. 3. 'T is in a Parenthesis and so might have been left out as likewise for another Reason because not true which nevertheless must not pass here lest it should set aside the whole Pamphlet But I would gladly know what Subsidies he relates to those granted King Iames were more than expended upon raising the 10000 Men for Count Mansfield and those of Charles's first Parliament were only Voted not Rais'd when the Ships Lent which to clear the Matter the French Equipp'd at their own Expence and paid moreover for the use of Hull and Rigging 'T is Odd in the mean while to observe what a Compass these Fellows will fetch to gain one Point of Calumny which too after all they fail to Make. But because Roger Coke likewise Throws a great deal of Dirt upon the Memory of these two Kings Iames and Charles the First in Reference to that Unhappy Enterprize and thereby that Unhappy Family I shall here take care to wipe it off in making it appear they both did what possibly could be done to Retrieve so desperate an Affair Mr. Coke very desirous to make the Prince Elector a good Title to the Kingdom of Bohemia rambles into Hungary Poland and whither not And runs into more Mistakes than he pretends to Correct and quarrels at his Friend Rushworth whom he never fails to follow but when in the Right To be sure he stumbles at the very Threshold in saying before Ferdinand Brother to Charles the Fifth That Kingdom was Elective whereas Uratislaus their first King was made so from Duke by the Emperour Henry the Fourth who always after had a right of Nomination but his Power in those troublesome Times throughout Germany being very Precarious and his Avocations elsewhere not Suffering him to attend the Transactions of so many several Districts the People or States oftentimes assum'd that Power to themselves where notwithstanding they generally had regard to the Royal Family though not immediate Successor some other more prevalent with the Mob and their Leaders carried his own Business by promising to carry theirs better Nay to shew further that the greatest Sticklers for the People's Right had regard to the Royal Line when they chose this Unfortunate Frederick Elector Palatine a Descent was fram'd for him from Sophia Sister to Ladislaus the Second 'T is likewise a gross Mistake that the German Emperours were not Chosen till the Turks became great in Europe Charles the Fourth was chosen 1346. at which time the Turks had not set one foot there and so in the same manner his Three immediate Successors Wencislaus Sigismund and Albert when he was not come nigh nor any ways fear'd by the Western Empire though very formidable to the Eastern yet these Four are produc'd as Instances thereof At which rate he runs on without any regard to Truth or History and let them that will follow him I shall not but only observe at this very time when the Elector was made the Peoples Property there had been four Kings successively of the House of Austria Ferdinand Maximilian Rodolphus and Matthias Ferdinand the Second Adopted Son of Matthias doubting the Mob's Majority got himself Nominated without them according to the Original Institution and having both Prescription and Possession two strong Titles when those others put in their Claim it was Baffled at the Swords Point and the Kingdom hath been the quieter ever since But not to think with our Enthusiasts that Success is always an Argument of Right I shall refer it to what King Iames told Archbishop Abbot 'T was a Faction in Religion set up his Son there and God would never Prosper them And so likewise the Duke of Saxony sent Frederick word That he had often represented what Ruin was like to attend him by taking another Crown and for his own part he was bound to chastize the Rebels so that it seems he look'd upon them as such and 't is probable refus'd the Crown upon that Account for it was profer'd both him and the Duke of Lorrain which tend little to the Reputation of a Calvinist Prince that he should accept what a Lutheran and Papist whether out of Conscience Policy or both thought not fit to venture upon If this new King took that Crown in hopes of Assistance from his Father in Law here he was much mistaken for whatever Mr. Coke thinks he thought better and had asserted the Right of Crown'd Heads so far as he could upon no account give way to have them transferred upon every Mob Caprice Nay supposing a just Title I cannot imagine what Supply could been have given him Mony must have come from the Parliament who had been very backward upon other Occasions and would have been soon weary here and for Men there was no way of conveying them unless some Dutch Conjurer would have undertaken it in a Cloud through the Air no Neighbour Princes care to have such Cattle march through their Country and half a Score at least must have been treated with in Order to this Expedition most if not all of which might have served us as the French and Dutch did the Ten Thousand sent under Count Mansfield give fair Words but permit them not to come on Shore till more than half were perished on Ship-board So that to spend no more Words nor time upon Suppositions as matters really stood without Good Cause Good Courage or Good Conduct what could King Iames do more than he did treat with the House of Austria for an Accomodation of the most Rash Indiscreet ay and Unjustifyable enterprise ever any Prince engag'd in whatever the Zealous party did then or hath ever since said to defend it amongst which is Arch-Bishop Abbot's Letter so carefully recorded by Mr. Rushworth which after
all shews him more a Puritan than Politician with very little Regard for what the truly Catholick Church hath ever held in that Point Yet this is further remarkable that deciding Battle at Prague was fought on a Sunday the Twenty Third after Trinity where the Gospel holds forth Reddite Caesariquae sunt Caesaris But when King Iames saw the Palatinate invaded and that all the Spanish Protestations were Trick and Wheedle he then as averse as he was to War engaged in good Earnest to the utmost of his Abilities by supplying the Princes of the Union in Germany forwarding the King of Denmark to concern himself in that Quarrel and furnishing Count Mansfield with an Army the Miscarriage whereof he could not help and several other considerable Supplies both of Men and Mony far beyond those few Subsidies his last Parliament gave to that end and would they have been more open-fisted he might have done a great deal more but we have since seen how hisficult it is for the strongest Confederacy to bear up against the United force of one Potent Prince the Dutch slowness saith my Author was not excusable nor the Marquis of Ansback General of the Union so forward to seek or take Advantages as he might Nay another affirms That he carryed himself neither so Faithfully nor so Valiantly as he should have done being much condemn'd for suffering Spinola with his Army to pass by unfought with when he had all Advantages that could be wished for to impede his March the greatest part of the Palatinate being lost upon that neglect and by degrees the rest of the united Princes either taken off from their Engagement or ruin'd for adhering to it with too great constancy Yet still the Clamour must be continued especially amongst our Factious Mend-all's the King of Great Britain did not take care to preserve his Childrens Patrimony And for King Charles he was not much better serv'd by that great Gustavus Adolphus when he made such an Inroad into Germany whom he furnished both with Men and Mony very considerably in hopes the Palatinate might be one Acquest of his many Successes and so it was but when he came there the Right owner was so little regarded as he ravag'd and carry'd off whatever Spinola and his Forces had left the constant practice of those Necessitous Northern Princes who will take your Mony and do their own Business if they can but mind no other Obligations Neither was the King's Kindness the less for 't was mostly at his expence if that other Expedition in the Year Thirty Eight miscarry'd as they March'd through Westphalia towards the Palatinate only it had been well for him Good man if some guilty of that ill conduct had fallen upon the Place and never come to be guilty of the same with other Mistakes or something worse here All which I have mention'd and could a great deal more to Obviate that false and malicious Slander of Roger Coke who saith They that is the Prince Elector King of Bohemia if you will have him so his Queen and Family were more relieved by the Dutch States Prince of Orange with some Bishops and Noblemen of England than both the King's Father and Son For whether Relief relates to those Publick Transactions abroad or the Subsistence of the Queen and her Court at the Hague 't is in both Senses a gross untruth the Dutch States were always concern'd in their Confederacies as a considerable branch of the Union but I never heard they contributed any thing to their Subsistence till all help from England was gone The benefit rather accrew'd to their people from the continu'd expence of such a Court Retinue and Resort for the Princes of Orange indeed they were all Nobly kind to the Queen and pay'd her a profound Deference there being three of them successively in the Supreme Command during her Residence at the Hague Neither will I detract any thing from what the Nobility here did both Spiritual and Temporal yet still the King 's did more than all these in every respect whatsoever whether there was a setled Allowance during the few Years of her Fathers Life after dispossest of the Palatinate I cannot Resolve but am sureher Good Brother as she ever term'd him gave the utmost Expressions of a Tender and Indear'd Affection in that he not only was continually making Presents to her and her Children took great care of them and Advanc'd whomsoever they recommended or belong'd to them but allow'd moreover eight Thousand Pound per Annum for her Table which was punctually return'd every Month out of the Exchequer at the same time Mony was carry'd thence for like purpose to Whitehall which when the Rebel Parliament had seiz'd all the Crown Revenue was continued during the Presbyterian Iunto's Usurpation the more readily because most of the English in her Family were of that Leven who when the Cash fail'd as basely deserted her and sought Employment from her Brothers Murtherers And I presume upon her being thus destitute of Supply from hence it was that the States General allow'd her One Thousand Guilders per Mensem which sounds big in the Number but reduc'd to our Account amounts not fully to a Hundred Pound Sterling Her Son likewise about that time was restor'd to the Lower Palatinate and therein her Ioynture who promis'd fair but perform'd little To be sure there was one Noble Man of ours the late Earl of Craven though for most part of that time his plentiful Estate here was Sequestred contributed more to her and her whole Family's Subsistence than both the foremention'd with all the World beside and that not out of any Sinister unworthy respect as some idle People would have it thought but a pure Principle of Honour and Religion a Munificent Charitable Soul CHAP. XI Of the Book of Sports BUt the loudest Cry and that wherein all the several Packs however of different Mouths and Games joyn'd together in Hunting down was against the Book of Sports as they must have it Termed which is to be consider'd here tho' not set out till some Years after because Ludlow according to his no Method and Chronology brings it in immediately after the Surrender of Rochel and that with several spiteful and false Prefacings About this time saith he the most profitable Preferments in the English Church were given to those of the Clergy who were most forward to promote the Imposition of New Ceremonies and Superstitions p. 5. Never was there more care taken in preferring the Clergy according to their several deserts and qualifications than by this excellent Prince nor a greater Set of worthy deserving Men but the promoting New Ceremonies and Superstitions was one of their Old Common-place Calumnies upon his Pious care in consulting some other Bishops and taking their Assistance towards keeping up Decency and Order in the Externals of God's publick Worship the then Arch-Bishop being so Remiss and Negligent therein What he adds of an Oath being
honest Man and Loyal Subject He goes on Arbitrary Courts were erected it had been well to have mention'd one that was so all this King's Reign which since he is gon I desire his Admirers to give me Satisfaction on his behalf or otherwise him no more credit than he deserves The like Challenge I make as to the Power of those other being enlarg'd such were the High Commission Court the Star-Chamber the Court of Honour the Court of Wards the Court of Requests c. There was a mighty Clamor indeed against some of these Courts not so much for any real default in them as that they were thought too great a support to the Prerogative and Church without considering how the whole Frame of Government was so closely joyn'd and fix'd together therewith as a Dissolution in such essential Parts would reduce all the rest to Rubbish and Confusion And accordingly it fell out at those Breaches then made the several Herds of Schismaticks Libertines Atheists c. found so free an Entrance so uncontrolable a Ravage as 't is hard now to tell either where or what we are To shew in one Instance how little Ground there was for all that Noise and Fury even against the High Commission which lay under the greatest Odium Archbishop Laud caus'd the Acts of that Court to be search'd which can deceive no Man and found There had been fewer Suspensions Deprivations and other Punishments by Three during the Seven Years of his Time than in any Seven Years of his Predecessor Abbot who was notwithstanding in great Esteem with the House of Commons whilst this other was cry'd out upon for Sharpness and Severity whereupon the Good Man makes this sad but just Complaint So safe a thing it is for a Man to embark himself in a Potent Faction and so hard for any other Man be he never so intire to withstand its Violence And therefore we may presume it was not the Quantity but the Quality of the Persons proceeded against which thus highly exasperated them To have such Instruments such Engines of Sedition as Leighton and Lilbourn Pryn Burton Bastwick c. confin'd from doing farther Mischief was to stifle the whole design Rebellion could never so much as take Roote if those Seeds-men were kept from planting the Crop Yet we will suppose there might be some less justifiable Proceedings some perhaps too harsh and severe Decrees must every Corruption or Abuse destroy the being of a Court cannot the Numbers and Trickings of our Attornys be redress'd and yet some of the Honester continu'd to follow Business Or must that Honourable Profession of the Law be laid aside because the present Tendency of Practise seems more to regard their own Support than the Peoples ease and speedy Relief Such another Set of Thorough Reformers would much endanger the shutting up of Westminster-Hall And indeed that they were going about Ludlow tells you what a quick Dispatch they had brought things to in Ireland and they were not without the like Attempts several Times here Which had it been put into the Hands of Wise and Honest Men to check and regulate what was amiss we might have said Amen to but such Root and Branch Fellows were intolerable and as they had already destroy'd the Church so were bidding fair at those Laws and Properties our Author so falsely chargeth upon the Clergy I have somewhere read that a negligent Latin Transcriber of that Parable where the Woman swept her House to find the lost Groat writ Evertit for Everrit very applicable to all our violent Undertakers who are for throwing the House out at the Windows and all Government out of the Kingdom But the Total Abolition of these Courts was not till our Grandees of 40. entred their Province and play'd Rex to purpose which is the last Preliminary Charge our Author makes for next he falls at large upon the Scotch Rebellion and so on to that in England and according to his Brutish Courage in other Undertakings is the most impudent Push he hath hitherto ventur'd at And that our Liberties might be extirpated at once and we become Tenants at Will to the King that rare Invention of Ship-Money was found out by Finch c. 'T is one thing to write a Libel another an History where what is said or done on each side ought impartially to be related and had not the former been here chiefly design'd we must have been told the King studied nothing more than the Honour of the Nation and Interest of his People wherein not being seconded by his Parliaments as they ought he was forc'd to enquire what other Legal Courses his Predecessors had taken when under like Exigencies with himself and herein the Learned Selden gave no little Light by a Book about that Time written called Mare Clausum But the Person of the greatest Authority and Abilities too to resolve any thing of Antient Customs was Attorny General Noy not Finch as Ludlow blunders who all along in the House of Commons pass'd for an Oracle whatever he declar'd to be Law was no farther disputed amongst them and can it be imagin'd he should recede so far from the Character ever given him of an indefatigable Search and morose Sincerity as to Trifle at last impose upon the King and Kingdom in so weighty a Concern without being able to make out and justify it in every Point which 't is affirm'd he did by several Presidents in some of which it appear'd That the Ship Tax had been Levyed by such Kings as in the same Year had Subsidies granted from their Parliaments for other Occasions The King therefore having so good an Authority for a Matter which in it self appeared highly reasonable must have violated all the Rules of Discretion as well as Policy in not closing therewith nay could not have answered the Discharge of that Trust reposed in him either to God or Good Men For 1 st His Coasts were not only infested with Pickeroons Turks and Dunkirk Pirates to the great Damage of Traffick But his Dominon in the Narrow Seas actually usurp'd by the Holland Fishers and the Right it self in good earnest disputed by the Learned Grotius in a Tract called Mare Liberum these were craving Occasions and Concernments not of Honour only but Safety and Interest 2 dly He had found his Parliaments so Resty and Peevish as there was no prospect of a Supply that otherwise best way without exposing himself and all his most faithful Adherents 3 dly It supposes a mighty Defect in any Government that when some inferior Parts will not act with any thing of Sense of Temper the Supreme Sovereign Power should not take the next best Way to secure it self and all other Concerns thereof 4 thly As the Learned in the Law who are the best and perhaps only competent Iudges in such Cases approv'd thereof So when question'd the Harangues made against them savour'd more of Passion and Spite than Argument and solid Reason 5
Admonition could move no Reasons or Perswasions prevail when the Time was so far spent that they had put an impossibility upon themselves to perform their Promise whereof they esteemed all Gracious Messages to them to be but Interruptions His Majesty upon mature Advisement dissolv'd them This is the Account the King himself gives in his Declaration of their unkind Dealing and his too just Provocation for that Act otherways would they have comply'd with him in those his urgent Necessities there should have been no Obstruction upon the Duke's Account they might have gon on with their Articles and been certainly Baffled as to that of King Iames's Death and perhaps most of the rest But I must not break off here without my promis'd Remark upon the Defence who by adding another most Impossible Story renders that aforemention'd yet more Improbable There are few will believe because he brings none That for many Reasons it was concluded King Charles had no small share in that abominable Act of Poysoning his own Father King James I. But to add and that Good Man Prince Henry his Son is such a Stretch as nothing but one by a Halter can keep pace with and they deserve to go together That Prince Henry was thought to have something of foul Play Sir W's Libel does insinuate but no Man of Sense or History ever believed a Syllable thereof and that Answer Intituled Aulicus Coquinariae clearly makes appear it was right down Libel that is absolutely false and as there was no ground to place it where Sir A's Baseness design'd so for this unthinking Blockhead to transfer it upon that poor innocent Child his Brother let the most prejudic'd Fanatick judge when told that at Henry's Death this his younger Brother was not Twelve Years Old having been all along of a weak unhealthy Constitution liv'd a Studious retir'd Life with very little Conversation but that of Books and Tutors which was indeed of great Advantage to his future Accomplishments but kept him then from making any Figure at Court or entring upon any Intrigue there which the most Active Princes of that Age have seldom been known to engage in much less to carry on such an Unnatural Enterprize Yet doubtless this is as true as the other and whoever for the Time to come relate either may the same Fate attend them as did Horace's Planus a Lying Cheat not to be believ'd when they speak Truth tho their Lives depend thereupon Nulla fides damnis verisque doloribus adsit Roger Coke hath another the prettyest Maggotty Reason to prove King Iames could not dye a Natural Death because all the five James 's his Predecessors in Scotland were carryed off otherwise I will not concern my self with what was done in Scotland but dare be the Courts Compurgator for all of that Family which have dy'd since it came into England although none have gon off without some such ill-natur'd and ill-grounded Suggestion I wish I could say as much for the Parliament or rather a Rump of it which out-did whatever hath been done in Scotland or any where else upon the Face of the whole Earth And further to provoke Divine Vengeance we have got a Generation of Villains which at this Hour dare to justify it and no Notice taken thereof Nay these eager Blood-hounds are so delighted with that sort of Game as when they cannot come at it themselves will needs have it done by others for so it was confidently mutter'd of the last which went off by Death and if God curse us with continuing this Set of Men will pass for an Authentick Story 50 or 60 Years hence it was enough at present to found it in a Whisper especially since the Physicians and amongst them Dr. L a great Confident of theirs declar'd that upon inspecting the Brain there was so clear Evidence of an Apoplexy as 't was impossible to think of any other Cause However there is nothing Extraordinary in all this besides the grosseness of the Fiction there are few Historians relate the Death of Princes without something of a real or imaginary Force But to bury them alive by Supposititious Births is altogether Modern an Advance of this present Age with how much Interest or Honour the next may Judge CHAP. XIII His Government before the Rebellion THese be the most tho' not all for all it is impossible to Enumerate and therefore let it be all the most considerable Exceptions false Clamors and frontless Cavils wherewith the wide-mouth'd Factions blackned the King and Trumpetted up Rebellion into which dismal and bloody Scene before we enter Let us take a general View of his Government during the Twelve Years Interstitium or if you will Interregnum of Parliaments for they were never quiet till Supream and then least of all where we shall find this true Father of his Country so tenderly Provident for a crooked and perverse Generation Nurtur'd them up in so much Peace and Plenty such a continued Affluence of all Things requisite to Humane Welfare as never any Nation enjoy'd a greater and very few have equall'd them therein That he Hated or had any Prejudice against Parliaments is so far from being True as if there were any Mistake it appear'd rather at First on the other Side he Caress'd them a little too much To be sure it was by his Inducement the Duke of Bucks made that Narrative relating to the Spanish Match and Treaty to both Houses of Parliament in Iames's Last whereto as occasion serv'd he gave his Attestation which so pleas'd their Popular aspiring Humour as the Duke was then the Whitest Boy and his Master the Hopefullest Prince in the World And he doubtless intended to have gon on in that Sincere plain-dealing Way represented Things as they really were and expected they should have met him half Way in all reasonable Returns But his more Experienc'd Father understood better told them both how short-liv'd such Caresses would be as they should find too soon Which immediately upon his coming to the Crown most Prophetically fell out in his first Parliament where making a small Complement of Two Subsidies they return'd to their Old Vomit Evil Counsellors Grievances and the like must be the only Subject of Debate after which they made so strict a Search as such another Set of Busy Men according to the Latin Adage would for a Knot in a Bulrush yet hereupon the Breach so gradually widned Three several Parliaments as to part at last in a final Separation Whereunto after all is say'd never Prince had greater or juster Provocation Nevertheless I cannot find in his Proclamation set out upon the last Dissolution or any where else that it was declared Criminal for the People to speak any more of Parliaments as Ludlow with his usual Impudence affirms p. 2. The King as I say'd finding the Factions so prevalent in all Elections as it was impossible to get a Parliament would either hearken to Reason or Act with Temper
to say King Iames was very angry with Laud upon that account whereas there was no one thing he was more desirous to see accomplish'd but the Parliament Palatinate and Spanish match with some other uneasinesses to his declining Age made the prosecution thereof to be laid aside the remaining part of his Reign 5. King Charles likewise had the same uneasiness upon him the first four years of his Reign which having weather'd as well as Circumstances would admit fell to prosecute his Fathers pious intentions of a Liturgy in Scotland and therefore 't is abominably false like himself and Party in Roger Coke to say Laud had not been two months Archbishop but he advised the King to make a Reformation in the Church of Scotland whereas the Prelates of that Kingdom had been at work upon it seral years before 't is probable ever since Iames's incouragement at the Assembly of Perth This is certain 1629 four years before Laud's advance to Canterbury he was visited by a Scotch Bishop and told him it was his Majest'ys Pleasure that he should receive Instructions from some Bishops in Scotland concering a Liturgy for that Church c. Laud reply'd if his Majesty would have a Liturgy it were best to have the English but the Scotch Prelates were of a contrary opinion that their Countrymen would be better satisfied with one drawn up by their own Clergy and that resolution after some debates pro and con prevailing His Majesty commanded Laud to give them his best assistance who thereupon set himself seriously to the work having the King's Warrant for all he did And herein appears his Majesty's great Judgment in the choice as well as the Prudence of the Bishop's in procuring his assistance who as he was a most profound Divine so without doubt the exactest Ritualist these or any other Protestant Church ever had And this likewise resolves friend Roger's doubly Detection of the King 's telling Marquiss Hamilton the Archbishop was the only Englishman he entrusted with the Ecclesiastical Affairs of Scotland I wish there had been no other Brotherly assistance between the two Nations than that of these good Prelates the Covenant was carryed on in another manner 6. 'T is likewise abominably false that the High Commission was erected by his procurement or in his time although to render things the more invidious it is generally reported so by all the spiteful Crew whereas would they have consulted a Brother Libeller he could have given them better information the Libel is term'd Altare Damascenum Printed 1623 who tells us Ad Anglicani Tribunalis exemplar formatum est aliud in Scotia Anno 1616 c. whether then Establish'd or only reviv'd by King Iames I will not dispute but that such a Court there was all their Histories agree so that 't is a gross mistake in Roger Coke and no man of common sense would be guilty of it to say in this year 1635 there was a great contrivance between Arch-Bishop Laud and the Bishops in Scotland how to erect an High Commission Court by the Kings Authority There are few men so bold and dareing as though they have no Regard for truth yet nevertheless will keep a Reserve upon Reputation who fears not to do ill yet fears the name c. and realy it will be hard to find so many impudent brazenfac'd Falsehoods and Forgeries pack'd together upon any one subject whatsoever as my several pretended Authors have against this excellent Prince and his Ministers had they kept themselves to the Politicks the duty of every Historian they might have found too much matter for spiteful Wits to Carp at want of Resolution in prosecuting what was prudently design'd too much kindness to such as did not deserve it and consequently too much confidence in trusting and imploying them although as to what we are now discoursing of the Liturgy there was no defect of this kind especially on the English side for Archbishop Laud writ to his Brother of St. Andrew's that whether the English or any other was resolv'd upon they should proceed circumspectly because his Majesty had no intendment to do any thing but what was according to Honour and Iustice and the Laws of that Kingdom all which doubtless there was great regrad to the only question is as to the unseasonableness of the enterprise whether such as were continually upon the Spot might not have better discovered the temper of the People what strong prejudices they were possest withal with the several Interests and Humor 's then on foot as likewise seen further into the double dealing of such Great ones who flatter'd his Majesty in his pious intentions yet at the same time under-hand fomented the Religious Rebellion and when time serv'd headed them I thought my self oblig'd to give this brief account of Church Affairs in Scotland together with the Rise and Progress of that Liturgy the Causa Patens of their Rebellion and a very laudable one doubtless that it might the more clearly appear how basely partial false and malicious Ludlow is as to whatever he relates on that Subject for after his constant introduction of what great design 's were in hand for advancing Prerogative and Popery he adds Before any further progress should be made therein here it was thought expedient that the pulse of Scotland should be felt and they perswaded or compell'd to the like conformity To this end a form of Publick Prayer was sent to Scotland more nearly approaching the Roman Office than that us'd in England p. 6 7. To Prerogative and Popery we have already spoken which is only brought in here by way of flourish and aggravation as the main end to which all the rest were to be subservient whereas that being false what a crazy Structure are these fellows like to raise That it must certainly fall is infallible the mischief of it is 't will fall about other mens ears besides their own The charge now on foot is that they design'd to perswade or compell Uniformity a dangerous design this if it were so at the first Establishment of our Church by Queen Elizabeth and her Parliament for there we find the Liturgy was reviv'd according to that of Ed. the VI. with Articles Constitutions and Canons ay and a High-Commission erected de Novo with an Act of Uniformity too to compel such as would not be perswaded and under these excellent Constitutions our Church and State continued for more than fourscore years the Glory and Envy of the Good and Bad all Christendom thorough But then our dear Neighbours the Scots giving a helping-hand to their weak Brethren here did not design to relieve but alter this compulsion instead of Liturgy and Canons would have the Covenant and Directory the little finger whereof is heavier not only than the Loins but whole Body of our Church However they could only succeed negatively pull down what had been Establish'd the Nation were grown too much Libertines to admit of any restraint
much less exchange a Service which was perfect Freedom for the more than Egyption Bondage of Scotch Impositions by which means we continued nigh twenty years in a perfect state of Anarchy both Temporal and Spiritual every one doing what seem'd Right in his own Eyes and had some affinity with what that Judicious Historian observ'd of the Romans when under the like circumstances It was better to live where nothing than where all things were Lawful To be sure the sense and dismal sufferings which accrew'd thereby made us resolve upon our Old Establishments to have our Kings as at first and our Church as at the beginning which the Parliament likewise thought fit to confirm by another Act of Uniformity but what with that perverseness of spirit inseparable to such Children of Disobedience and the kind assistance of their good Friends the Papists all Ecclesiastical Discipline hath passed for a mighty Grievance ever since neither can there be a greater invasion upon the Subject's Librety than to perswade or compell men to Heaven against their Wills and thus by Tolerating all Religions we are in a very forward tendency to have none nay I cannot but further observe our Politicks seem to be at as low an Ebb as our Piety and it may be shortly look'd upon as an entrenchment upon the Liberty of a Free People to perswade or compell Commutative Iustice and Moral Honesty That the Form of Publick Prayer sent to Scotland more nearly approach'd the Roman Office than that of England is another instance of our Author's integrity whereas the most considerable difference between them was an alteration of such passages in ours as the Puritan Party had all along cavill'd at for Example the name of Priest so odious to that captious Brotherhood was changed to that of Presbyter no fewer than sixty Chapters or thereabouts taken out of the Apocrypha were reduced to two and those two to be read only on the Feast of All Staints the New Translation Authoriz'd by King Iames being us'd in the Psalms Epistles Gospels Hymns and Sentences instead of the Old Translation so much complained of in their Books and Conferences these were the most considerable Alterations besides somewhat in the Communion Office according to the first Liturgy of Edward VI's so far from Popery as it expresly declares against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation only retains one or two Rites which the Primitive Church did practise before that usurpation had got any footing in the World and therefore I admire to find in another Volume of Memoirs That the Alterations made from the English rendred it more invidious and less satisfactory but as the humour then went and ever will among that infatuated people had an Angel from Heaven brought one down and by express command of Iesus Christ enjoyn'd an Establishment the Covenant nevertheless would have had the preference Nay farther to corroborate the Violence of their prejudices they had got one Abernethy who from a Iesuit Priest turned a zealous Presbyterian to forge a Story that the Liturgy had been sent to Rome and revis'd by some Cardinals there which he had from Seignior Con who shew'd it to himself Upon this Report the Marquess Hamilton then Commissioner wrote to Con returned from Rome to London who protested he never so much as heard of a Liturgy till he came last to England and had never seen that Abernethy but once at Rome and finding him Light-headed never again took notice of him yet saith my Author who shall be nameless The story had a ready belief and welcome hearing tho' the Lightness and Weakness of the man became afterwards so visible that small account was made either of him or his story yet at this time it took wonderfully And this is the foundation of what the Defence or his fellow Pamphleteer relates of that worthy Dominican Convert Gage who might agree with the Iesuit when both about to turn Presbyterians and joyn together in some forgery which might merit their reception although their Orders are irreconcilable and will believe one another no more than an honest man of sense and understanding will believe either of them In the mean while that any Office in a Vulgar Tongue should be sent to Rome for Approbation is so inconsistent with the Policy and Cunning of that Church as none but Fanaticks and Fools could swallow and 't is said when told the Pope he laugh'd heartily at it To be sure they would not admit their Missall upon such terms especially we giving them so fair an opportunity of bringing it in upon their own To give one instance further how Artificially they Ape'd the Iesuit in all Tricks of Imposture they got a Covenanting Sister troubled either with Fits of the Mother or the Devil who in such disorderly Convulsions would foam out Raptures in defiance of the Bishop's service Book and Canons with the bitterest invectives against all such as opposed the Covenanting Iesus which their Juggling Preachers so dexterously improved as to make it a ratification from Heaven of whatever Villanies they had impos'd upon the People He goes on to tell us that the reading of the New service Book at Edenburgh was first interrupted by a poor Woman but withal so well seconded by the generallity as they who Officiated hardly escaped with their Lives This produced divers meetings of many of the Nobility Clergy and Gentry who entred into an agreement or covenant to root out Episcopacy Heresie and Superstition A very justifiable undertaking this I hope they made the Goodwife Chairwoman of the Assembly when they debated these weighty points she had as much right to do it as they besides that of Precedency and perhaps understood them as well to be sure never any Mob Convention whether of the Great Vulgar or the small presum'd to determine what is Heresie prescribe modes of Worship or rules of Discipline till Iohn Calvin's Popular Ordinences came abroad in the World which too hath been wretchedly improv'd by his admirers to the scandal of all true Religion and the Disturbance of whatever Civil Government it gets into 'T is a known Fable that when the Lyon prohibited all Horned Beasts the Fox would not come nigh the Den for fear his Ears should be brought under that Denomination if these Infallible Assertors of their own Wills shall think fit to term sound Doctrine Heresie Episcopacy a Rag of Satan and the most Innocent Decencies Superstition who dare withstand or contradict them as all Orthodox Divines the whole Kingdom thorough then found to their utter ruin and something of the like Inhumane treatment hath been lately on foot amongst them can the Pope be more Imposing or Inquisition more cruel At the same rate he continues The Clergy of England who had been the chief Advisers and Promoters of this violence prevailed with the King to cause all such as should persist in their Opposition after a certain time to be proclaimed Traytors p. 7. Still the Clergy do all which puts me
irritated as to Dissolve them whereat they were so far from being concerned as to stand in defiance thereof and indeed it seem'd to put them into their proper Post now it was right down opposition Treason all over and having none to curb them could the more confidently proceed to condemn all the Assemblies had been for 40 years before as prelimited and not Free Episcopacy to be sure must be declar'd unlawful with the like fate to the Service-Book Canons High-Commission and Articles of Perth They appointed the Covenant to be taken by all under Excommunication and then proceeded to the Process of the Bishop's notwithstanding their Declinator wherein being both Iudges and Parties they could not fail to carry all according to their Arbitrary Factious Wills Thus with three or four peremptory Votes they totally Abolished so far as power without Right can go whatever the Wisdom Prudence and Piety of Two Kings with all the sensible good men of the Nation had been for Fifty or Threescore years Establishing From this motly Assembly Ludlow proceeds and tells us That being inform'd the King was preparing an Army to compell them to obedience they agreed upon the raising some Forces to defend themselves And could they expect otherwise after such an ungrateful aswell as undutifull procedure yet notwithstanding they were always afore-hand with the King conscious of what they deserv'd provided accordingly Levy'd Forces impos'd Taxes block'd up his Majesty's Castles rais'd Fortifications c. whilst with specious pretences and Protestations they kept him in suspence though at last he could not but see into and thorough such Villanous Hypocrisies and betake himself to the Ratio Ultima Regum for which however Ludlow would have it a Bellum Episcopale the Clergy's War he had the greatest provocation upon the Civil the Temporal account that ever any Prince met withall indeed they were both intermixed and both superlatively Base take some of them as followeth 1. He could not endure that the Usurpations of an Ecclesiastical Assembly should abolish Acts of Parliament which strikes at the Foundation of Monarchy and indeed all other Government 2. To secure the three Estates of Parliament that one of them might not be destroy'd without his and the Parliaments consent 3. To punish such as have impos'd Taxes raised Forts Levied men and Arms c. all which by the Laws of the Kingdom are Acts of High Treason and Rebellion 4. To repress the Insolent Protestations of his Subjects against himself his Council Iudges Laws the constant practise of the Covenanters 5. To punish the ringleaders of Rebellion who have abused his Subjects by imposing upon them a Covenant and mutual Bond of Defence against his Majesties Person and without his consent contrary to the Laws of the Kingdom 6. To punish such as under the name of Tables or a Committee of the General Assembly shall presume to sit without his consent to order Affairs of Church and State refusing when questioned the Authority of his Majesty Council or Iudges and appealing to a General Assembly Blasphemously calling it Christ's own immediate Council and claiming a Sovereign Independency from King Council Iudges and Parliament These are some of the Reasons his Majesty himself gives for that unwilling War these furious Zealots forc'd him upon That the Clergy of England were not wanting to promote the New-Levies as Ludlow saith is true but That they were the principal Authors and Fomentors of the Troubles is absolutely False as likewise That what the Nobility and Gentry did was rather out of complement than affection to the design there was a party indeed whom the Scotch had Bit and made as Mad as themselves but all men of sound Prinples and sober judgments foresaw that the neighbour Kingdom being on Fire if good care were not taken to quench it ours might shortly catch the Flame and both be consumed together contributed with all the alacrity and satisfaction imaginable neither had there ever appear'd upon those Borders a braver Army or more resolutely bent to beat the Scotch into better manners whatever Arts were us'd to affright and intimidate them for those of that Nation in his own Family did him more mischief than the whole Covenanters Army by betraying his Counsels misrepresenting their strength and more especially letting him know how averse his Majesty was to come to the extremity otherwise his Army wanted neither power nor will at one single blow to have decided that dispute which afterward cost so many and to very little purpose 't is said that when the old Arch-bishop of St. Andrews who knew his Country-men aswell perhaps better than most others came to take his leave of his King at his setting forward to the North desired leave to give his Majesty three Advertisments before his going First that he would suffer none of the Scotch Nation to remain in his Army assuring him that they would never fight against their Country-men but rather hazard the whole by their Tergiversation The Second was That he should make a Catalogue of all his Counsellors Officers of Household and Domestick Servants expunging every one of the Scotch Nation beginning with the Bishop himself by which means he could not be accused of Partiality when a person who had served him and his Father above Sixty Years so Faithfully appear'd in the Front A third was that be must not think to win upon them by condescentions the sweetness of his disposition or Acts of Grace but resolve to reduce them to their duty by such ways of Power as God had put into his hands Thus far that wise experienced Person and his Majesty not following such wholesome advice I take to be the Origin of all his following Troubles and Ruine for the Scotch taking him now to be in good earnest and knowing how ill provided they were to make opposition having not above 3000 compleat Arms amongst them whatever flourishes those false Lowns their Countrymen made both in Court and Camp thought it requisite to divert that approaching danger they had so justly drawn upon themselves and hereupon addressed themselves to the Earl of Essex whom the King had sent before from York to take possession of Berwick to him they complained of some of their own Countrymen who had provoked the King against them protesting still their own Innocency Loyalty to the King and Affection to the English requesting him to procure a Pacification by any means whatsoever which should be thought expedient on both sides the like Address they made to the Earl of Arundel General c. Earl of Holland Lieftenant General of the Horse in whom they had a more than ordinary confidence as knowing how well that whole Family was affected to their Covenant cause and therefore not only justified themselves in their former proceedings but requested his assistance to promote their desires in a Petition tendred to his Majesty's hands By these and such-like sly Addresses his Majesty's good nature was too easily wrought upon to comply and
agree to a Pacification which being once signed he fell immediately to the Execution of every Article on his side forthwith disbanding a brave Army Govern'd by Colonels and other Officers of approved Valour and Experience mingled with the choicest of the English Gentry who stood as much upon his Honour as upon their own and were not a little concerned that having with great charge engaged themselves in this Expedition they should be suddenly dismiss'd not only without the Honour they aim'd at but without any acknowledgement of their Love and Loyalty Whereas had he retired only to a farther distance he had done as much as the Capitulation required and in all reasonable probability secur'd himself from the further stratagems of that Perfidious People and crush'd those practices at home which afterwards undermin'd his Peace and distroyed his Glories On the other-side the Ink was scarce dry which had written and sign'd the Articles of Accommodation before the Scotch had broken them almost in every particular for the Covenanters not only entred a Protestation against the Declaration agreed to but kept most of their Forces on foot in several Bodies and all their Officers in pay The Fortification of Leith was not demolish'd Their meetings Treatings and Consultations upon matters of State Ecclesiastical and Civil were continued contrary to all Law and Acts of Parliament Subscriptions to their Assembly at Glasco were enforc'd upon all the King's Subjects contrary to his Proclamation whilst all such persons as took Arms for the King are branded with the aspersion of Incendiaries and Traytors to God and their Country So likewise when their Assembly came to sit at Edinburgh they acted with more heats and Arbitrary insults than at Glasco and the Parliament which followed them stroke at all the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown were resolved to casheer one of the Three and that formerly the first Estate of the Kingdom together with that of the Lords of the Articles A constitution of above 300 years standing and many other such intolerable insolencies and indignities as were never before put upon Crown'd heads and none but Covenanters could have done it now more especially considering those unparalelled condescentions which the King with too great kindness and confidence in his own Countrymen so distructively yeilded to What Ludlow adds further besides the falseness of the relation is so impudent a piece of villany as one would think he desir'd to out do if possible those his Dear Brethren he is so forward to Excuse in order whereunto by a pretty turn of Commonwealth artifice he transferrs one of the basest of those many Tricks the Covenanters so perfidiously put upon his Majesty and lays it at his Door the Story as he makes it stands thus Upon his the Kings return to London under colour that many false Copies of the said Articles were publish'd and dispers'd by the Scotts to the great dishonour of the King the said Agreement was disown'd and ordered to be burnt by the hands of the Hangman p. 8. Now the design of this is to insinuate especially amongst those of the Factious who not only believe but put their trust in Lyes that they were the really true Articles burnt under colour of being False as likewise that the King intended thereby to disown the Agreement whereas the Articles of Pacification were not any ways concern'd herein as the Title which the Scotts gave that Pamphlet expresly declare viz. Some conditions of his Majesties Treaty with the Subjects of Scotland before the Nobility of England are here set down for a remembrance This paper consisted of Eight points pretended to be drawn out of Notes taken upon several Discourses with the King about the manner of his Declaration and was dispersed not only in Scotland but England to confirm their own Party and draw off more from their Loyalty and Allegiance One of these were put into the Earl of Pembrooke's hands who delivered it to the K. and upon a full Examination of the matter before the Council the English Lords who were privy to the whole transaction being present it was judged very highly scandalous to his Majesty's Person Honour and Government full of Gross mistakes perverting His Majesty's Declaration and of pernicious consequence to the Peace of the Kingdom for which the Proclamation was published All which several of the Lords Commissioners at the Treaty of Pacification particularly the Earl of Holland too much their friend then afterwards avowed at Berwick to the faces of those Scotch Lords who were believed the divulgers the Lords of the Council of Scotland being there likewise present upon the full consideration of which premises the whole Board unanimously petitioned his Majesty that this false and scandalous Paper might be publickly burnt by the Hangman And here I appeal to any Reader who hath not totally abdicated all integrity whether these two relations are not as irreconcileable as Light and Darkness as likewise whether any but one of that infernal brood could so vilainously transfer an express matter of fact which when detected the Covenanters themselves blushed at for when the King charged their Commissioners at London with so base a forgery Lowdon and the rest of them reply'd They had no Instructions to answer for that and those at home had better have said nothing than make so lame an excuse as that verbal grants made by the King might be supposed to contract the signed Articles Nay those grants too were of their own forging or perverting Ludlow having thus expressed his base endeavours to bring them off here 't is much he did not go forward and give his helping hand in justifying that Letter several of the Covenant Grandees did send to the King of France the Original whereof coming to his Majesty's own hands subscribed amongst others by Lowdon then Commissioner at London he was committed to the Tower which made the whole Covenanting pack open lowder than ever both as to a general justification of the thing considering they were threatned to be punished for their Rebellion and for Lowdon in particular he ought to have been return'd they said and uncloathed of his Commission ere his Majesty could question him as if the Law of Nations which indeed secures the Ministers of Foreign Princes and requires an appeal to their own Masters upon any affront or other misdemeanor should oblige a Sovereign Prince not to question and commit his own Subjects upon fresh discovery of more palpable Treasons though in Commission from his fellow Rebels yet nothing would satisfie them but setting him at perfect liberty and so sent home to be try'd in a legal way by the ordinary Iudicatures of the Land where the King might expect just such an Issue as of a Thief at the Old Baily from the Award of a Iury out of Newgate however in this also his Majesty humor'd their Insolencies and discharg'd Lowdon not without some private assurance of Secret Service which was perform'd vpse Covenanter But this was
the last Act of compliance his Majesty conceded to for now his eyes were thoroughly opened oh that they had been sooner and clearly discover'd how they were resolved not only upon the lessening of his Prerogative but to over-rule and absolutely destroy every branch of his Sovereign Power whereto things were not ripe at first till having by the cunning of their Protestations Treaties and Pacification imposed upon his Clemency and got time to strengthen themselves at home and improve their interest herein England they now resolv'd not to let slip so fair an opportunity but without farther hesitation fall directly to work and give his Majesty a full conviction that as the Satyrist afterward exprest it 't was neither Gold nor Grace but steel must tame the stubborn Scot and that this only remedy was not made use of when the King had so advantageous an opportunity I find passionately complain'd of by that great Clergy-man Ludlow is so inveterately piquant against His Majesty saith he would not beleeve though often told the Northern Commotions had their root in England and were carryed on by a powerful Faction in both Nations till after much intercourse and mediation cast away he was betray'd by his own Agents and when the second volume of his Troubles comes forth which hath been some years printed off we shall find something like a Detection of those unhappy times for I am told it contains a great intercourse of Letters about the Liturgy and other Scotch Affairs and then these our Scriblers these Retailers of Libels if possible will be more contemptible amongst all men of truth and goodness than they are at present although now it must be own'd how justly they all deserve that Character which Roger Cook fixeth upon the Scotch Covenanters in general of an insolent faithless railing sort of men And here Ludlow begins to triumph at the King's disappointments telling as how he hoped a Parliament would espouse his quarrel and furnish him with money for carrying on his disign but they fell upon Greivances c. and so were disolved p. 9. Truly the King had just reason to expect the Parliament should have joyned with him in a due resentment of those many insolencies that violent people put upon him particularly the Letter they were sending to the King of France and assisted him in reducing them to their due Allegiance and some were very prone to think had not the King been betray'd by his own Minister his Secretary things might have been carried with much more temper than before or to be sure in that which followed for it consisted of many worthy Gentlemen and doubtless must be somewhat the better that never a Ludlow was there nor Father nor Son and had there been none of the Vanes so related all things might have gone well but old Sir Henry demanding twelve Subsidies for the Kings present Exigencies stood so peremptorily thereupon without falling down to six as ordered a cursed piece of Treachery in that unworthy man as afterward appear'd from the rest of his and his Sons actions the House fell into so violent a heat as they could never after be brought to temper again but on the contrary were resolv'd the morning of their Dissolution to Vote against the War with Scotland which forc'd an unwilling precipitation thereof and this had been as well for Ludlow's turn as to say it was because they first fell upon Grievances whereas both Houses had superseded them to a Supply and the King in return promised to acquit his claim of Shipmoney but when men have habituated themselves to untruths it may be a curse upon them not to relate what is right though it would better serve the turn and salve their Reputation The Parliament thus standing out we are told how the Earl of Strafford and the rest of his Council advis'd the King to make use of other means for a supply as appear'd by the Minutes of the Secretary of State taken at the Cabal and produc'd at the Tryal of the said Earl the Sum of whose Advice as Ludlow relates shall be considered hereafter and justify'd in the mean while we may observe how just that Secretary Sir H. V. was to his Oath of Secrecy as a Privy Councellor and faithful to his Prince who advanc'd him altho' the discovery tended only to his own Shame and eternal Infamy of himself and Son All the imaginable ways us'd to raise Supplys as Ludlow most invidiously reckons them up were no more than what several Kings and Queens have done before upon like Exigencies yet his then Majesty found great difficulties therein by reason of those strange prejudices and prepossessions wherewith the Scotch Leven had sowred too many of all Qualities and Degrees And hence it was the Covenanters got the start of his Majesty's Army and were come to Newcastle before that was strong enough to oppose them For whatever Ludlow relates of a considerable Party of English and Scotch encountring and that the former contrary to their wonted custom retired in disorder not without Shame and some Loss And then makes his reflection Of such force and consequence is a belief and full perswasion of the Iustice of an undertaking tho' managed by an Enemy in other respects inconsiderable p. 10. How inconsiderable the Enemy were in this Rencounter will appear from this that there was the whole Scotch Army above 20000 against 3000 Foot and 1500 Horse for no more did that little Body of English there consist of who notwithstanding the Common Soldiers were new rais'd men kept their Posts till the Sconces were beaten down by the Canon and when thereupon the Foot retired in some disorder the Horse brought up the Rear with great Gallantry and Resolution against the whole Scottish force till opprest with number and environed round they submitted to the Destiny of the day some Officers being slain and others taken Prisoners and as there is no doubt but these worthy Gentlemen had a full perswasion of the Iustice of their Undertaking so had our Author had the least regard to the Iustice of an Historian he must have ascrib'd the last to the disproportion of force neither can he take it ill if I assume the same liberty and upon much juster grounds affirm That this first attempt was the last good success they ever met with in all their other Enterprises they were shamefully bafled as when they came to assist their Brother Rebels in 44 that Body of theirs quitted the Field the first of any for being placed in the Rear took that opportunity of getting away though not running fast enough were miserably trodden down by their own Parties And afterwards when Duke Hamilton came with a much more plausible pretence Their Rout in Cheshire was most notorious without the least shew either of Courage or Conduct and so likewise when the English were Aggressors from the first Action at Dunbar to the total Subjection of the whole Nation which then I believe Ludlow may
attribute to a Belief and full Perswasion of the Iustice of the Undertaking whereas I cry Careat successibus opto Nevertheless it shall be acknowledged that this little Success turn'd infinitely to their advantage for having got possession of Newcastle where the King had a Magazine they extended their Quarters as far as Durham with a corner of Yorkshire after miserably harassing all places where they came those four Counties of Northumberland Cumberland Westmorland and Durham with the forementioned corner of Yorkshire far from the largest or richest in England were Sess'd at a Contribution of 850 l. per Diem which I fancy was more than Cromwell could make of their whole Kingdom when he by the Just Judgment of Heaven had brought them into the same circumstances nay which is more made an absolute Conquest And this I presume is the foundation of Ludlow's blunder which hath something of approach to truth but he abhors to come close up to it that upon the King 's calling his great Council at York they advis'd a Cessation of Arms and to Summon a Parliament which to the great trouble of the Clergy and other Incendiaries for they must be flung at he promis'd to do assuring the Scots of the payment of twenty thousand pounds a month to maintain their Army till the pleasure of the Parliament should be known p. 11. How careful is this Good man of the Parliaments pleasure and free of the Kings condescention whereas impartially speaking they had carv'd themselves the forementioned Contribution and moreover seiz'd the total of all Estates belonging to Papists Prelates Incendiaries c. in brief of all the Loyal honest Gentlemen throughout that District of their new Usurpation Afterwards indeed when the Treaty was at Rippon the English Commissioners requir'd their demands as to the Subsistence of their Army whereto they modestly return'd answer 40000 l. per. mensem should content them for the present and for their losses they would afterward give a particular estimate This so much alarm'd the Commissioners and other Lords when the demand was sent to the King at York that one noble Peer made a motion to Fortifie that City and imploy that 40000 l. to maintain his Majesty's Army rather than an Enemy's hereupon the Scotch came down to 30000 l. which they own'd to be less than the 850 l. per. diem considering they had the time past the benefit of Custome a Provision of Coals and Proportion of Forage In the end it was agreed That with a Provision of Coals and Forage they should be satisfy'd and take no more than the 850 l. per diem of the four forementioned Counties under which abominable slavery those poor people continued a whole twelvemonth for the King having by unwearied importunity been forc'd upon a Parliament and remitted the whole management of these their Dear Brethrens concerns to them they so dextrously improv'd the advantage as to keep them here at the Nations expence till they had got the same unreasonable concessions from him as the others had done made him Sacrifice his Friends debase his Prerogative and by Enacting an indissoluable Session gave them an opportunity of playing the like game without any thing more of their assistance Now then 't was thought high time to dismiss them but the greatest matter was to bring that about turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur c. they paid themselves at coming in but we must pay even for that again before they would set one step back and withall at so unreasonable arate according to their demands as all the Gold in England tho' never more plenty would not make a Bridge to carry them over Tweed To give a short Specimen there being several Demands agreed to by Treaty at Rippon wherein the Scotch were to have satisfaction the Sixth was That they desire from the Iustice and kindness of England Reparation concerning the losses which the Kingdom of Scotland hath sustain'd and the vast charges they have been put unto by reason of the late troubles According to which Article they were required now upon departure to bring in a full Account of their Charges which they enlarged to the full Sum of Five hundred and Fourteen thousand One hundred and Twenty Eight pound nine shillings c. abating the odd pence out of kindness whereto was added for what losses their Nation the Nobility and Gentry had sustain'd Two hundred and Twenty One thousand pounds and the neglect of their Fortunes Two hundred and twenty thousand pounds besides the 850 l. per. diem exhausted from the Northern Counties with other the most inexpressible Insolencies and Exactions ever any people groan'd under A surprising Sum but cunning Chapmen know that a high demand at first will oblige any Purchaser for shame to bid somewhat like a Gentleman and accordingly it happened here the whole matter being adjusted for that lusty Sum of 300000 l. part whereof was paid down and the rest secur'd by the Publick Faith of the two Houses and more punctually discharged than any here borrowed upon that Credit If any be farther Inquisitive as to the Total of the whole Expence I find a Report made in the House of Lords that amounted to one Million one hundred Thousand pounds the most chargeable remedy this Nation to that day was ever acquainted with and prov'd much worse than any Disease we then labour'd under besides that itch of Rebellion we from them contracted which hath cost a hundred times more than they carry'd off and for ought I see may be doubled before we attain a perfect cure Well now they are gone and the King followed them which Ludlow tells us the Parliament endeavour'd to disswade him from or at least to defer to a fitter opportunity he refused to hearken to them under pretence that the Affairs of that Kingdom necessarily required his presence but in truth his great business was to leave no means unattempted to take off that Nation from their Adherence to the parliament of England p. 17. 'T is probable he might hope so to be sure the Parliament feared it and had reason so to do if it had been possible to oblige such a Generation of men for he gratified them in every demand confirm'd all their Rebellious Innovations into Legal Constitutions advanc'd the leading Covenanters into the highest Places of Honour and Profit amongst whom their General Lesly was made an Earl whereupon with Hands lift up to Heaven he wished they might rot if ever he acted more against so gude a King Yet this very man within two years after led a Scotch Army to the Parliaments assistance and by the reputation of their name and number rather than any considerable Action gave such a diversion to that gude Kings Forces as nothing conduced more to his ruin And when no longer able to keep the Field he betook himself to those his Native Subjects for Protection How barbarously they use and how basely they sold him need not be here
of the Irish Rebels arrived in England filling all places with the sad complaints of their Cruelties whereupon the Parliament earnestly press'd the King to proclaim them Rebels but could not obtain it to be done till many weeks and then but forty of those Proclamations were Printed and not above half of them Published which was the more observ'd and resented by reason of the different treatment the Scotch had met with who no sooner appear'd in a much better cause but they were forthwith declared Rebels in every Parish Church within the Kingdom p. 19. A very plausible story but for want of one thing and that is Truth whereof it hath not the least Syllable For first the Parliament never press'd the King for a Proclamation Secondly the Fourty Proclamations printed were not for this Kingdom but Ireland So that Thirdly there could be no ground of resentment upon the Scotch account but by such pick-thank fellows as Ludlow and his Party In short the matter of Fact stands exactly thus The Parliament as they were very inquisitive to catch at every thing which might give them an advantage against the Court having underhand information that a Warrant was sent to the Printer for the foremention'd Proclamations to be forthwith provided open'd very loud upon it Why so few Why no sooner c. The Printer was summon'd the Warrant produc'd and a mighty bustle made as generally the cry is greatest where the least Wool In the midst of which heats the Secretary of State gave this account of the matter that the Proclamations were printed at the Request of the Lords Iustices and Privy-Council in Ireland who desir'd to have twenty sign'd by his Majesty's own hand and no more who nevertheless order'd forty and sent them accordingly I do not remember the cause was given to the Parliament why so sign'd But 't is probable to invalidate that forg'd Commission whereto they had fix'd the Kings Broad-Seal granted to a private person upon a Title of Land Otherwise there had been Proclamations several from the first day the Rebellion broke out in Ireland the only place where requisite But why not in England as well as against the Scotch as our Author insinuates whereto I reply First the Scotch had seiz'd upon at leastwise assum'd the Administration of the whole Civil Power so that no Proclamation could come out against them there Secondly they had too many abettors in England who encourag'd them to begin and were resolv'd to follow the first opportunity So that thirdly the Proclamation must come from hence or not at all and was equally requisite against both What he adds farther of the Scotch being the much better Cause is only the private opinion of a fellow Rebel they were both so bad as upon an impartial scanning it would puzzle their Infernal Patron to tell which was worst Having had the confidence to averr two such impudent falshoods as aforementioned 't is strange how he comes to mince the matter so much as to the third and tell us the Rebels in Ireland pretended a Commission from the K. for what they did and his Abstract the Defence gives indeed a Copy therefore but withal goes no farther than that it was said to be given by the King to his Catholick Subjects in Ireland p. 14. Whereas there was no one Slander more confidently thrown abroad than that and continued longer nay I have met with several Fanaticks within these few years who still take it for an undoubted truth and what they have so long entertain'd nothing but the final Iudgment can make them renounce Once for all therefore to silence this Infamous Calumny we must know the Commonalty of the Native Irish having liv'd a long time in Peace and Amity with the English were not without some Reverence to that Government and so could not in plain and direct terms be easily led into an avowed Rebellion against their King whereupon their leaders Phelim Oneil c. were forced to perswade them that they took up Arms for the King and the Defence of his Lawful Prerogative against the Puritanical Parliament in England who had invaded it in many parts and that what they did was by his Majesty's Approbation and Authority And to gain the greater Credit to that Fiction they produc'd a Commission whereto the Broad-Seal taken from a private grant was affix'd as aforesaid which made it no difficult matter to perswade rude and unexperienced people to believe it real all which in a short time was clearly detected as well by several Irish Rebels taken Prisoners as English Protestants who escap'd their fury particularly Dr. Maxwell a Reverend Scotch Divine against which Nation they were not so Savagely cruel as the English in his Examination and Deposition upon Oath at Dublin which was sent too into England declar'd That he whilst their Prisoner expostulated with them for abusing the King in so gross a manner To whom they reply'd That in all Wars Rumors and Lyes serv'd many times to as good purpose as Arms and that they wou'd not disclaim any advantage But to silence for ever that horrid Scandal of his Majesty's Commission we have an unexceptionable Evidence and Proof which will not only clear him but render our Author Ludlow were there nothing else against him a much worse Man than the bloody'st Wretch in the whole Irish Rebellion In the Year 52 our English Regicides having very nigh compleated their Conquest Erected what they termed an High-Court of Iustice in Ireland to hear and determine all Murthers and Massacres of any Protestant English or other Person or Persons whatsoever within that Nation where amongst many others the Iustice and Mercy of Heaven had reserv'd Sir Phelim Oneil to receive his deserved Doom at whose Arraignment Sentence and Execution another Reverend Divine one Dr. Ker since Dean of Ardagh by God's great good Providence was present and makes a full Deposition thereof As where the Court was kept what Iudges sat what Witnesses sworn the many Murthers and Robberies prov'd c. After which he comes to this material Evidence as to the present matter That one of the Iudges whose name he had forgot Examined Sir Phelim about a Commission he should have had from Charles Stewart as the Iudge thought fit to term late King for levying the said War he was charg'd with Sir Phelim made Answer he never had any such Commission whereupon it was prov'd in Court by the Testimony of one Ioseph Traverse and others that Sir Phelim had such a Commission and did in the beginning of the Rebellion shew the same unto the said Ioseph and several others then in Court. Upon which Sir Phelim confess'd that when he surpriz'd the Castle of Charlemont and the Lord Caulfield that he ordered one Mr. Harrison a Witness there and another Gentleman to cut off the Kings Broad-Seal from a Patent of the said Lords they then found in Charlemont and affixt it to a Commission Sir Phelim had ordered to
be drawn up And Mr. Harrison did in the face of the Court confess that by Phelim's order he stitch'd the Silk Cord or Label of the Seal with Silk of the colour of the said Label and so fix'd the said Label and Seal to the Commission whereupon Sir Edward Bolton and Judge Donelan urging Sir Phelim why he would so deceive the people he answered that no man could blame him to use all means whatsoever which might promote the Cause he had so far engag'd in 'T is farther depos'd by the said Dr. that on the second day of his Tryal some of the Iudges told him that if he could produce any material proof that he had such a Commission from Charles Stewart to declare and prove it before Sentence should pass upon him and he should be restor'd to his Estate and Liberty But Sir Phelim Answered that he could prove no such thing Nevertheless they gave him time to consider of it till the next day which was the third and last day of his Tryal upon which day Sir Phelim being brought into the Court and urg'd again he declar'd he never could prove any such thing as a Commission from the King And added there were several Outrages committed by Officers and others his aiders and abettors in the management of that War contrary to his intentions and which now press'd his Conscience very much and that he could not in Conscience add to them the unjust Calumny of the King though he had been frequently solicited thereunto by fair promises and great rewards while in Prison And proceeding further in this discourse he was stopt and had Sentence of Death pronounced against him The Dr. farther declares that he was present and very near Sir Phelim when he was upon the Ladder at his Execution and that one Marshall Peake and another Marshall before Sir Phelim was cast came riding towards the Place in great haste and called aloud Stop a little and having passed through the throng of Spectators and Guards one of them whisper'd a pretty while with Sir Phelim whereto he answer'd in the hearing of several hundreds of People of whom my self was one I thank the Lieutenant General for his intended mercy but I declare Good People before God and his Holy Angels and all of you that hear me that I never had any Commission from the King for what I have done in Levying or Prosecution of this War and do heartily beg your Prayers all good Catholicks and Christians that God may be merciful unto me and forgive me my Sins More of his Speech I could not hear which continued not long the Guards beating off those that stood near the Place of Execution Thus far this worthy Gentleman who ought I know may be yet alive for the Deposition was made in 81. And the party declared himself upon all occasions ready to justify it and had it been then thought such Books as Ludlow's Memoirs should have ever dared to peep forth much less be publickly sold there would have been more care taken to anticipate those antiquated Cavils they have now the impudence to revive Upon which account it was that I declar'd Ludlow a worse Man than Sir Phelim the Bloodiest Wretch in that whole Pack because first 't is demonstratively clear he was the Person who sent the Marshall to Sir Phelim upon the Ladder ready to be thrown off with proffer of Mercy if he would fix the Commission on the King there being no other Lieutenant General then in Ireland but himself and therefore highly probable in the Second place that 't was by his inducement the Iudges were so earnest upon the same account and Thirdly that the fair promises and great Rewards in Prison were shot out of the same Bow and levell'd by the same General 's rancorous spite at the Martyr's Reputation But then having so full a Conviction as neither Liberty nor Life could prevail upon the Unfortunate Man to add that to the too many other Guilts already upon his Conscience for Ludlow to continue the Calumny and as far as his Credit will pass leaves it upon Record to Posterity is such an Argument of an Impenitent Heart and Reprobate Mind as I look upon Sir Phelim's condition to be much more Iustifiable He lay under a sad remorse for the Innocent Blood spilt with several other Acts of Injustice and Cruelty begged God's Pardon and Good Mens Prayers whereas our Lieutenant General seem'd to die as he liv'd By those Remains his Admirers have curs'd the World withall may be presum'd to leave it with like Regret as the Apostate Angels did their Regions of Bliss amongst whom without the least breach of Charity I cannot but suppose him Belching out his Blasphemies against God as he did here on Earth against his Anointed Yet 't is to be fear'd these concessions of his Majesty turn'd no less to his own prejudice for the Parliament having rais'd the Crisis to its full heighth and resolving very immethodically as well as unjustly to open the vein of War imploy'd both the Men and Money rais'd for Ireland against the King nay the very Benevolence begg'd for the relief of those poor distress'd Protestants was borrowed to pay their Soldiers and a Question whether ever repaid though the Kings Soldiers having seiz'd upon some Provisions sent by the Parliament towards Chester as but design'd for Ireland they were presently upon complaint restor'd Ludlow continues That the King acquainted the Parliament that when an Army was rais'd he would go in Person to reduce them p. 19. which they would not consent to for other reasons than what he assigns tho' that of putting him at the head of an Army might be one he would certainly have put a speedy end to the War which had spoil'd all their Villainous designs at home and therefore they would not so much as trust any of those Officers which had serv'd him in the two Scotch Expeditions though known the best in the Kingdom The Scotch on the other side were caress'd to the highest degree and had whatever money or other terms they demanded though to serve the Ulster Plantation of their own Countrymen several strong-holds Towns and Castles were put into their hands with unusual Circumstances of Power even to an Independency upon the Lord Lieutenant and whole English Government and when his Majesty did but desire them to reconsider their own Proposition and reflect how much it might trench upon the English Interest they furiously voted that whosoever advis'd his Majesty to that delay was an Enemy to the Kingdom and a Promoter of the Rebellion in Ireland Whatever Ludlow farther urges how the Parliament neglected no opportunity to carry on that necessary Work and besides the Forces of Scotland dispatch'd several Regiments from England thither who were bless'd with wonderfull success against the Rebels p. 20. 'T is true some Regiments were sent and brave men they were and great things they did but not so many as design'd or requisite and so little
care taken of them as 't is beyond expression to relate how miserably they suffered for want of Victuals Stores Clothes Pay indeed whatever was requisite to their subsistence as Men or accommodation as Soldiers The Parliament being so wholly intent upon their English Rebellion could spare no time nor charge to prosecute that just War upon which scandalous neglect all Parties concerned more especially the Commanders and Soldiers earnestly begg'd leave of the King that they might be remov'd and engag'd against any Enemy whatsoever but Hunger And this amongst other inducements was the chief of that Cessation Ludlow inveighs so bitterly against p. 65. as likewise that the Earl of Leicester staid so long and did not go at last for he was always hastned by the K. and every thing restor'd more than he had occasion for or was really design'd thither But he meeting with many complaints from thence and observing how difficult it was to get a Supply by his Solicitation here and how much worse when gone thither upon that account did not stir What Ludlow further saith as to the Cessation that the King agreed to it contrary to his Engagement with both Houses not to treat with the Rebels unless they concurred p. 65. is of no validity that agreement was before the English were in actual Rebellion and his Majesty thought such compliance might prevent it but falling out otherwise 't is a pretty Supposition that when a Prince hath two Nations in Rebellion he must ask the one whether he shall treat with the other 'T is also absolutely false that this Cessation in Ireland induced the Parliament to treat with their Friends in Scotland to march to their assistance into England 't was the Prospect thereof induced the King to the Cessation which he was always advised of that notwithstanding the Condescentions he had yielded to and Protestations made by them they design'd only to take breath and would be ready at the first clinking of the English Money and if they had pretended no more there might have been something said as they were men of Fortune by way of Apology that having not repented their Rebellion the Lucre thereof might oblige their continuance but to continue the making Religion their property to Rebel against their King for imposing the English Liturgy or somewhat like it and now invade his Kingdom to impose their cursed Covenant is such a procedure as none but their own Country can give an instance of At Uxbridge Treaty the Irish concern was one main head wherein the Parliament as indeed in all other matters were so refractory and haughty as to exclude the King from being any ways concerned either in the management of War or Peace he must not so much as nominate his Deputy or one single Officer which therefore coming to an end without effect his Majesty had all the reason in the world to press that Cessation into a Peace wherein the Duke of Ormond and several of his Friends there were imploy'd as likewise Commissioners from them treating at Oxon but what with the Nuncio's Insolence and Bigottry of the Ecclesiasticks all came to nothing whereas would that Priest-ridden Nation have understood their own Interest and acted for their safety they might have expiated somewhat for their former bloodshed whereof many of their own Party were very much asham'd obtain'd a reasonable Liberty of Conscience with other immunities and prevented that utter desolation they were afterwards so justly brought into On the contrary they shuffled at such an idle rate play'd the Bogtrotters in Politicks too imposing upon every necessity they saw his Majesty really or likely to be under and so shuffled off and on till they lost him and in him themselves to a most deplorable condition as bloody Savages as they were And if there yet wants a farther confirmation of this our Martyr's Integrity and Detestation as to the premisses take this farther account Dr. Nalson in the Preface to his Collections mentions a Letter still to be seen in the Paper Office intercepted by a Party of the Parliament Army very much a propo it was from the Lord Digby by the Kings order to the Irish Catholicks as they must be termed or no treating with them wherein he lets them know how prejudicial their standing off had been to his Affairs and most prophetically foretells that Destruction the prosperous Rebels here wou'd bring home to their own doors Declaring withal that were the condition of his Affairs much more desperate than it is he would never redeem them by any concessions of so much wrong to his Honour and Conscience and yet his Affairs were now at a very low Ebb this being written soon after the Fatal blow at Naseby The Dr. relates farther that he found this Letter had been before the Committee which perus'd such as might most expose the King by being Printed and Indors'd with Rushworth's own hand that faithful Collector of whatever tends to Treason and Mischief Quere as to the Printing this Letter and a little after needless to be Printed 'T is much they did not order it to the Fire since 't is an irrefragable Testimony of the most unbyassed Sincerity any but the King of Kings could propound to walk by and this will stifle the last Effort of our Author 's rancorous spite in reference to the Irish Affairs who tells us the Earl of Glamorgan was impowred by private Instructions to promise the Liberty of the Romish Religion with diverse other advantages to the Irish Rebels c. P. 163. the Earl of Glamorgan was a zealous Romanist and had put himself very forward to be tampering in that Affair but still the Marquiss of Ormond was Supream in that Government and finding him to exceed his Commission confined him as Guilty of High-Treason and whatever he writ to his Lady had not all things gone to confusion would never have been able to justifie his proceedings nor Ludlow that vile suggestion that the Officers and Soldiers in Dublin obliged the Marquess of Ormond to treat with the Parliament Commissioners for putting that City into their hands P. 164. I know not what flam stories Sir Francis Willoughby might think to gratify Ludlow withall when he was Paramount in Ireland but cannot believe it was in his power to deliver that Castle without the Marquess's consent To be sure the whole matter was adjusted between the King and him some time before things came to the Extremity for we find in Doctor Burlace this intimation of his Majesty's pleasure That if it were possible for the Marquess to keep Dublin and the other Garrisons under the same intire Obedience to his Majesty they were then in it would be acceptable to his Majesty But if there were or should be a necessity of giving them up to any other Power he should rather put them into the hands of the English than the Irish which was accordingly done An Evidence even to Demonstration that though the King treated with the Irish and might
pessima If Parliaments should at any time be misguided by the Practice of a malignant Party nothing can be so dangerous because the highest Remedy being corrupted there is no sure Redress left And their knowing this and acting so vigorously to prevent those Miseries designed thereby was the Causa latens that their Blood was so much thirsted after and when spilt sadly accomplish'd what the Poet declar'd in one of their Elegies The State in Strafford dy'd the Church in Laud. For they being gone all the rest of the Kings Ministers thought it time to beg a Discharge and provide for themselves since the most unspotted Integrity could not be Proof against the Stat pro ratione of an Ordinance much less a Bill of Attainder Dr. Nalson in his Collections gives us a piece of a Manuscript left by the late Earl of Manchester the sometimes fatal Kimbolton which tells us what tricks and juglings were used amongst them to excuse such as had been exclaim'd against as most Obnoxious by resigning their Places to some leading Men of the Faction as Cottington Master of the Wards to Say and Seal c. So likewise for Monopolies which Ludlow tells us they declar'd against and expell'd the Authors out of the House p. 11. they were generally transferr'd by Bill to more deserving on their side as the Letter Office to the Earl of Warwik for three Lives and Sir Henry Mildmay was continu'd in the House though a notorious Promoter of the Monopoly of Gold and Silver Thread as also Mr. Laurence Whitaker and other Commissioners in Matters of like Nature or worse for to incourage those already come amongst them and bring in others they laid down this Politick Maxim That what disservice any one had done formerly his present Actions bringing Benefit to their Common-wealth he ought not now to be question'd He goes on to tell you how they proceeded to take away the Star-chamber High-commission Court Court of Honour with some others p. 13. The former of these was the antientest Court in England but being a support of the Prerogative must down and the other because of the Church I have already mention'd how much better it had been to have corrected the Abuses and for the present shall only observe that had they been ten times greater than they were it was no redress to take them away and substitute an ordinance of the House in room thereof yet that it was come to at so impudent an Arbitrary rate as no King of England or indeed in Europe ever assumed half that Power he that is most exclaim'd at now upon that account doth nothing like it the Grand Seignior was the only precedent they could propound As to the High Commission I shall only add that Mr. Hobbs in a little Pamphlet he writ since the Restauration of Heresy endeavours to vindicate his Leviathan from that Charge by Reason the High Commission at the restless Clamours of the Presbyterians was then abolish'd the only Court wherein such Points could be consider'd he did not think of a Convocation neither is it much thought of by others but doubtless all the Heresies Factions Schisms which have so miserably torn both Church and State arose from the suppressing that Court For that other the Court of Honour Gentlemen formerly had as much regard for their Bearing as any other property and would be as much concern'd if invaded but going about to Dethrone the sole Fountain of Honour their King 't was their Curse rather than Choice to lay all things in Common the Lord and Lacquey Gentleman and Groom upon the same Level which soon after they found more experimentally true than ever was expected and might have justly taken up the Prophet's Lamentation Servants have got the Dominion over us and there is none to deliver us out of their Hand What I most condole is that we lost the Thing as well as the Court true Honor fell to so low an Ebb as it hath very seldom stowd since should I say as much of Truth Iustice and Common Honesty 't were easier to inveigh against than disprove me Upon a summary View of these through-paic'd Reformers whole Proceedings who our Author tells us were resolv'd to correct the Abuses introduc'd the preoedent Years I cannot but reflect upon a Simile which occur'd the other Day in a Republican Pamphlet to the best of my Memory one of those about A Standing Army where that Truth could not pass without the Alloy of several Falshoods in reference to this and some other Reigns however the Metaphor is very proper comparing Government to a Watch or any such like piece of Clock-work where a disorder in any one Wheel obstructs the regular Course if not the whole Motion But then what can we say when not only several Wheels are taken out but the Spring it 's self is set aside every conceited Commonwealth Man and Clumsy-fisted Clown having liberty to tamper with and thumb it at Pleasure yet this impartially speaking hath been our Condition most an end ever since These rude Artists fell to work For what Hudebrass saith of Religion is altogether as true of Government One would think it was intended For nothing else butto be mended Were it not for shame of the Quibble I would add they design'd perhaps to make a Pendulum of it by which means it hath hung tottering ever since What he next entertains us withal is a Protestation agreed upon by the Lords and Commons to maintain the Power and Priviledges of Parliaments the Right and Liberty of the People c. p. 13. taking no notice of the precedent part to Defend the Protestant Religion express'd in the Doctrine of the Church of England c. and according to the Duty of Allegiance Maintain and Defend his Majesty's Royal Person Honour and Estate all which Ludlow omits and it was very ingenuously done for he knew it never intended In the mean while they acted above board as to the Discipline of the Church whereof they took no notice designing forthwith to set it aside for this Protestation was but a Prologue to the Scotch Covenant notwithstanding several Good Men both Clergy and Lay were driven by the Strength of that Popular Current to Subscribe it at a most unthinking rate What comes next is one of the best improv'd Lies in the whole Libel of a treacherous Design set on foot not without the King's Participation as appear'd under the King 's own Hand to bring up the English Army and by Force to Dissolve the Parliament the Plunder of London being promis'd to the Officers and Soldiers as a reward for that Service this was confess'd by the Lord Goring Mr. Percy and others The Scots Army was also try'd c. p. 15. This is his Story Let us now see Truth The chief Officers in the English Army were a Set of Worthy Loyal Gentlemen both of Sense and Honour and consequently could not but take notice how partial the Commons were to the Scots
in short what a prodigious Advantage the Faction made of this just and reasonable Demand what Out-cries and Revilings follow'd there upon is altogether unimaginable by such as were not Witnesses thereof so that having fix'd their Party in the City by tarrying there some Days they return'd to Westminster accompany'd with an hideous cry of Rabble-Guards both by Land and Water His Majesty seeing it was absolutely impossible to have any Justice done against these accused Persons who were so surely Intrench'd in the Rabble's Favour that they were out of the reach of Law and finding also that he was in perpetual Danger of having his Person as well as Authority expos'd to the daring Affronts of the deluded People who ran up and down in Multitudes as if they had lost their Wits as well as Loyalty resolv'd notwithstanding several Gallant faithful Gentlemen proffer'd their Service to curb any Insolencies should be Attempted on him to withdraw himself and Family Queen and Children hoping that Time having allay'd their first Fury they might be brought to Reason and Temper And whosoever reads his Majesty's Paper upon this his going to the House of Commons must own there was never Prince so grosly abus'd had his Actions so abominably perverted with a total Subversion of all Law Iustice and Reason whatsoever Hereupon his Majesty retired to Hampton-Court from thence to Windsor whither none of those entertain'd at White-Hall repair'd except his own Family as Ludlow basely Suggests And since he owns likewise the Houses though I believe 't was only the House of Commons were about to accuse the Queen of High Treason can she be blam'd to withdraw into Holland And if she carried the Iewels of the Crown with her 't was much better than to have them seiz'd upon by the Parliament as they did whatever else belong'd to the King to carry on their Rebellion against him Ludlow tells us That during his absence many Papers pass'd between him and the Parliament the chief aim of those of the latter was to perswade the King to return to London and settle the Militia in such hands as they should advise Those from the King that he could not part with the Militia esteeming it the best Jewel of the Crown nor return to London with safety to his Person p. 27. all which is true and that is much as likewise that the Declarations on both Sides prov'd ineffectual wherein notwithstanding it was observ'd that the King 's had all the force of Law Reason and Argument their 's nothing but Cant popular Wheadles and false Suggestions He goes on to tell that the King's Designs both at home and abroad being grown Ripe he express'd his Dissatisfactions more openly and withdrew to York Had he said the Parliaments Designs there had been a great deal of Truth in it for so indeed it was they under pretence of a Guard had rais'd a considerable Force setled the Militia of London and Middlesex in confiding Hands sent down several Members to do the like in most Counties throughout the Kingdom could dispose of the Mony and Men rais'd for Ireland to what purpose they please and imploy'd them most shamefully to promote their Rebellion seiz'd upon his Majesty's Revenue Fleet Forts Magazins c. even to Hull its self where Hotham deny'd him entrance in the Name of his Brethren and was well rewarded by them The King on the other Hand was left destitute of all Things but the Hearts of Loyal worthy Gentlemen whereof he found more than his Enemies ever imagin'd and were not a little surpris'd at with which Stock alone and hopes of God's Blessing upon his just Cause he lay'd aside all Thoughts of Treating with those unreasonable Men for that he evidently saw they resolv'd to seize upou the Militia by Force since they could not obtain it by Perswasion and their many fine Pretences to Loyalty and Duty had been only to gain Time for ripening their Rebellion of all which he now resolv'd to let the World know how sensible he was by Publishing his Grand Declaration from York wherein he saith very truly 't was more than Time after so many Indignities to his Person Affronts to his Kingly Office and traiterous Pamphlets against his Government to Vindicate himself from those damnable Combinations and Conspiracies contriv'd against him giving a full Account of his own sincerity as to his many and too gracious Concessions since they on the other Side perverted all to Sedition and Treason Amongst other Charges he brings one against an Impudent Fellow call'd Sir Henry Ludlow who said Publikly That the King was not worthy to be King of England that he hath no Negative Voice that he is fairly dealt with that he is not depos'd that if they did that there would be neither want of Modesty or Duty in them upon which I shall only observe that our Author could be no Bastard The King there tells them further how they Committed his great Officers for doing their Duty Rais'd an Army and chose Essex General with Commission to destroy all that adher'd to him Converted the Mony given to discharge the Kingdom 's Debts and for Relief of Ireland to carry on their Rebel-War whilst his Levying a few Gentlemen for his Guard must be Voted waging War against the Parliament Now this Declaration was too much to the Purpose for Ludlow to take Notice of or indeed any thing else which gives an impartial Relation how the Rage and Fury of those Men engag'd the whole Nation to Lanch into a Sea of Blood Neither doth he mention how the King went into Lincolnshire Nottinghamshire c. to assure the Gentry of his upright Intentions and confirm them in their Loyalty Only his going into Leicestershire must be remembred because he had a Brother there one of the first in Rebellion against his King and first taken Prisoner and better us'd than he deserv'd But tho' Ludlow takes no Notice of the King's Declaration he would be sure not to omit the 19 Propositions sent by the Parliament which 't is strange he should say were intended that they might leave no means unattempted to perswade the King to return to them p. 30. whereas he immediately adds and more truly much of the Parliaments Intentions appear'd in them and they were in effect the principal Foundation of the ensuing War for which Reason he thinks it not amiss to recite them at large it had been more Candid and Historian like to have recited the King's Answer too so full and express as they never thought of any other Reply but by Essex's Army and therefore no wonder if omitted here Amongst other things the King tells them some of their Demands are in the Style not only of Equals but Conquerors and tend so far to the Subversion of this equal well-pois'd Government as to make him from King of England a Duke of Venice and this of a Kingdom a Republick And in that which we may call another Answer those Divine Meditations
of his he declares How in all those Propositions little or nothing could be observ'd of any Laws dis-joynted which ought to be restor'd of any Right invaded of any Justice obstructed of any Compensations to be made of any impartial Reformation to be granted to all or any of which Reason Religion and true Policy or any other Humane Motives might induce him But the main Matters propounded in which is either great Novelty or Difficulty relate to what were formerly look'd upon as Factions in the State or Schisms in the Church and so punishable by the Laws though now they have the Confidence by vulgar Clamors and Assistance to demand not only Toleration of themselves in their Vanity Novelty and Confusion but also Abolition of the Laws against them and a total Extirpation of that Government whose Rights they have a mind to invade Thus solidly did his Majesty refel the little Rebel Flourishes of the Westminster Iunto and therefore no wonder they were deliver'd to the King without Success they knew before-hand he had more Honor and Conscience than to grant them otherwise would not have caus'd them to be presented and if he thought as Ludlow would perswade us he did as good terms as these might be obtain'd if reduc'd to the last Extremity he had great Reason so to do for doubtless no one breathing did then so much as dream of or imagin that execrable Act their continu'd draughts of Blood did in the end prompt them unto In which unnatural Broils of State Parricide and Domestick Fury as I shall concern my self no further than this base Fellow and his Comrades reflect upon the Memory of our Royal Martyr So I cannot but observe his Design hath been all along hitherto to manage his Lyes with so much Art and Cunning as to make the King according to the Procedure of their horrid High Court of Iustice the first Agressor and Promoter of the War The Parliament were as Innocent as an Assembly of so many Devils and desir'd only to do with him and his Kingdoms his Queeu Children and his Friends as they pleas'd which his Stubbornness refusing the Charge their Insolencies had assum'd to themselves resolv'd to force him as they really did which yet he Ludlow would have turn'd upon them What I shall first mention tho' there are several such like Hints before is p. 16. The King having laid his Designs in Ireland as will afterward appear was not without great Difficulty prevail'd upon by the Parliament to consent to the Disbanding those eight Thousand Irish Papist that had been rais'd there by the Earl of Strafford How far that Army was from being Irish Papists will appear from this that all the Irish Grandees of that Perswasion agreed with the Faction in our two Houses here to promote the Disbanding that Army which had it been kept on Foot the Rebellion could not have Succeeded there nor consequently here The next Instance I shall give is p. 22. The King 's violent Ways not succeeding he fell upon other Measures in appearance more moderate c. What violent Ways were these Why those few Inns of Court and other Gentlemen who proffer'd their Attendance to secure him from the Insolency of the Tumults which this bad Man for whom no bad Name is bad enough takes no Notice of though got up to that prodigious hight as the King could not think those and all his other Friends able to secure him at White-Hall In like manner upon his Majesty's demanding the Five Members p. 25. The Parliament-sensible of this Violation of their Priviledges and fearing they might be further intrenched upon c. a strong Violation that to demand Traytors to Iustice but 't was their Interest to oppose it otherwise they might have all follow'd For having related after their many other Usurpations how well the Parliament approv'd Sir Iohn Hotham's Conduct declaring he had done well in denying the King admittance into Hull 't is added next Paragraph p. 29. The Parliament began now to provide for the securing of all Places whereas there was not a Place of any Importance they had not secur'd before even to York it self in which by his Majesty 's too great Passiveness they had a Committee to observe and beard all his Undertakings And this brings me to the last Instance of this modest Man's Veracity p. 38. The King having set up his Standard at Nottingham the 24th of August 1642 for he tells us to a Day and 't is well he doth The Parliament thought themselves oblig'd to make some Preparations to defend themselves whereas in the Paragraph immediately precedent he declar'd how the Fire began to break out in the West what success the Earl of Bedford had there upon the Parliament Account and how the Governour of Portsmouth declaring for the King that was besieg'd and reduc'd by their Forces And for a fuller Testimony of this let us compute the time of raising these Forces Essex under pretence of a Guard to the Parliament had been levying Men all that Spring on the tenth of Iune the Order past both Houses for the Citizens to bring in their Plate to carry on the War which they did most zealously on the 9th of September Essex march'd out of London in a great deal of Pomp having all his Masters attending him 16000 strong very little more than a Fortnight after the King set up his Standard where there did not appear the fourth part of the foremention'd Number But the Parliament had got that common artifice of all bad Men to cry Whore first as the Proverb expresses it inflame the Peoples Minds with Dangers and Designs that the King intended to levy War against them whereas 't was design'd against the King who most solemnly declar'd from York how far his Desires and Thoughts were from it and had this attested by more than forty Lords then with him how they saw no t any colour of Preparations or Counsels that might reasonably beget the Belief of any such Design and were fully perswaded his Majesty had no such intention But when he understood what preparations they were making at London and indeed every where else that Hotham had deny'd him Hull and Essex was coming to take him from his Evil Counsellors then he thought himself oblig'd to make some preparations for himself that I may turn Ludlow's impudent Falshood into Truth But suppose the King had begun sooner as 't is great pity he did not exerted the just right of his Prerogative and sovereign Power against the many encroachments they daily made and unknown Priviledges they constantly assum'd all the Laws of God and Man would have born him out therein For most Men of Sense long before the Sword was drawn clearly discover'd nothing would satisfy them but a total Subversion of the whole Government An honest Gentleman expostulating with Mr. Hambden upon the King 's many Concessions what they could expect further he reply'd they expected he should commit himself and all that
was his to their care an exact Moral of what the Wolves propounded that if the Sheep would put away their Dogs they would be very careful of their Preservation and though the Proposal did not take yet the Design was carryed on and the Nation most abominably worryed the just Judgment of Heaven giving way to the cursed credulity of an infatuated People who could take none but Wolves for their Protectors As I have already declar'd to be no further concern'd in this dismal Scene of Blood and Slaughter than the Memory and Honour of our Royal Martyr is concern'd so I must further add that whatever Relations our Author makes as to any particular Battle or other considerable war-like Action is so Lame Partial and False as the Diurnals of those times which nevertheless ly'd most abominably on each side may pass for Authentick History in comparison with him But then for his own dear Self as to the Defence of Warder Castle and other little Atchievements in Willshire and elsewhere in which too generally his rashness brought him by the Lee the account he gives is so vain and fulsome trivial and tedious that 't is hard to resolve whether he makes the greater Discovery of his Pride or Folly to be sure they are both very transcendent The Vindicator of Ol. Cr. exposes him very briskly for those many impertinent Panigyricks upon himself and will have it a plain Demonstration of the Narrowness of his Soul and the Lowness of his Genius and I fancy he might have added the Insolency of his Temper To confirm what I said of a lame and partial Account of Things his Relation of that first Battle at Edge-Hill is a full Testimony where this Man of Iron owns himself at a loss from his Troop at the beginning and tells little but his own wanderings up and down to find them Yet by all means the Victory must be theirs and there was a great Defect somewhere the Fight was not renew'd next Day whereas such as were in it had enough the Day before and he intimates as much by saying that Prince Rupert taking advantage of the Disorder our own Horse had put the Foot into press'd upon them with such Fury that he put them to Flight And then adds If the time which he spent in pursuing them too far and plundering the Waggons had been employ'd in taking such Advantages as offer'd themselves in the Place where the Fight was it might have prov'd more serviceable to the carrying on the Enemies Designs p. 50. Which is very modestly express'd because to the King's prejudice otherwise he might have said had not the Prince been guilty of that gross oversight Neglect or Rashness for 't was all in one that Day had in great Probability put an end to the Dispute the Army had never return'd to their Masters at Westminster nor our Author any occasion to trouble the World with the impertinency of his Memoirs for to speak-freely yet nothing but Truth the Princes indescretions of that Kind his great Courage and little Conduct in whatsoever Battles he engag'd in conduc'd more to the discomfiture of the King 's just Cause than all the Rebel Forces or whatever other Arm of Flesh appear'd against him as may be further on observ'd However that their Advantage was not considerable appears from what he further adds that the Army return'd to London not like Men that had obtained a Victory but as if they had been beaten p. 52. which is a shrewd Circumstance that they were so and to that he joyns another every way as considerable upon the King 's advance with part of his Army to Maydenhead or there abouts for it was really Colebrook and those seven Miles were a considerable Addition to his approach the Parliament sent to him to assure him their earnest Desire to prevent the effusion of more Blood and to procure a right understanding between his Majesty and them A certain Omen they were not much transporteed with the Victory this being the first last time they began a Motion for Peace He goes on The King profess'd in his Answer to desire nothing more upon which they thought themselves secure whereas the next Day he took the Advantage of a Mist and March'd within half a Mile of Brandford before discover'd c. p. 53. and beat off what Forces were there though he tells us they made a brave Defence This coming by way of surprise he calls Treachery and all the Round-heads about Town made a loud Clamor upon the King's forfeiture of his Royal Word whereas upon enquiry all the Trick and Treachery was on their side for as they propounded no Cessation of Arms in their Petition so the King had News brought that Essex was drawing his Forces and Ordinance out of London towards him so that without seizing Brandford their Forces at Windsor Kingston and Acton might have hemm'd him in and his Army depriv'd both of Moveing or Subsisting So that after a tedious Paper Scuffle upon the Matter the Parliament were forc'd to own That they gave direction to the Earl of Essex to draw the Army out of London and that part of it was at Brandford whilst the Committee was with the King and conscious to themselves of a just exception cautiously add That they sent a Messenger to know whether his Majesty intended forbearance of Hostility but he found them in fight and could not pass Brandford So that having kept up the Ferment among their City Gulls by the foremention'd Slander which our impudent Author calls the treacherous Design of the late Expedition they again sent Propositions to Oxford being the same in effect with those delivered at York but they found no better Reception than the others had done p. 56. Neither did they expect otherwise or indeed desire considering the insolency of their Demands which the King tells them in his Answer Had he not given up all the Faculties of his Soul to an earnest endeavour of Peace and Reconciliation c. he could not but resent their heavy Charges and not suffer the Reproaches cast upon him The whole procedure of that Treaty may be seen in Whitlock's Memoirs who treats the King like a Gentleman and speaks Truth where himself was concern'd for neither of which this our Brute hath the least Regard nay seems wilfully to defy both I must not here omit what that scribling Fellow K. Ch. No Saint nor Martyr alledges That he took a most Bloody and Treacherous Advantage of the Parliament's Army near Colebrook whilst he was under Treaty at Uxbridge with them p. 4. whereas the Treaty at Uxbridge was more than Two Years after Would the present Age be content with such licentious Impudence to Characterise and expose them in the next In this Year 43 our Governor of Warder Castle before he falls upon his great Charge and weighty Atchievements there gives a cursory Relation of what pass'd in other Parts In the Spring he saith our Army was Master of the Field The
King making it his Business to be on the defensive till the Queen should arrive with an Army to his assistance p. 58. and when her Army was come with other Necssaries of War the King was in the hopefullest Condition of the whole Four Years for so long the contest was in dispute and had there not been Neglect Treachery or both amongst his Councils either of State or War he had unnestled the Rebels at London and put a final End to any further Blood-shed but what in due course of Law such Villanies deser'vd In relating how the Earl of Essex took Reading it must not be omitted that Sir Arthur Ashton a Papist was Governour therof to which I shall add that Sir Arthur had been brought up a Soldier in Foreign Wars a Person of good Experience who as soon as he found we were running into his Bloody Profession proffer'd his Service to the King more than once who as often reply'd that the Faction had brought such a Slander upon him in reference to those of his Perswasion it would much prejudice his Cause to imploy him at length he came to the King and shewed him a Letter wherein Essex profferd him a Command in the Parliament Army and told his Majesty plainly that he was a Soldier of Fortune and that if he could not be entertained on the one side he would betake himself to the other and by this Means he became Governour of Reading for the Parliament as they had several Papists in their Service so 't was nothing but a vile Interest made them reject the rest force them into the King's Quarters that they might have the benefit of their Estates and the King the Odium of their Company In the mean while I would gladly know whether a Loyal Papist be not a better Man ay and Christian too than a Rebel Protestant to be sure Ludlow and his Gang agreed with them in the most exploded and pernicious Doctrine was ever laid to their Charge and what but few of them and that very clandestinely have maintain'd viz. that of Deposing and Murdering Kings for which Reason I look upon him as a baser Man than Fryar Iacob or Ravillac and the whole set of Regicides the most abominable Assembly that ever met since the Scribes and Pharisees preferr'd Barabbas to be sure they brought upon the Reformation the greatest Reproach Hell its self could suggest and yet for ought I see not only the Reproach but the Practice is like to continue Though Essex was Master of the Field in Spring the King had the Command all Summer his Forces making so great a Progress in the West as to take Exeter Bristol and many other considerable places give a total defeat to Sir Will. Waller at Devizes and so clear'd all those Parts from any Enemy in a Body as indeed they had none at London hereupon it was debated in several Councils of War and private Cabals whether was best to march directly thither or to stay and take Glocester first the only place of any considerable Strength which remain'd to the Enemy in those Parts the general Vogue went for the March and very considerable Reasons urg'd for it both Essex's and Waller's Armies were crumbled away the City of London in Mutiny an Insurrection in Kent for the King the Lords voting a Treaty and the Commons in dismal Frights On the other side it was urg'd how ill it would look to leave such a place behind them that 't was ill situated and not well fortified or provided with Men so that a few Days would certainly make the King Master thereof long before the Enemy could get a Recruit much less March so far to relieve it Of this Perswasion was Prince Rupert and most of the Sword-men which made some suspect they fear'd the War would be done too soon and were the more confirm'd therein for that the Siege was carryed on at such a slow rate so that after a whole Month of precious time lost and Essex appearing unexpectedly with a considerable Army they were forc'd to raise the Siege I have been told a Passage much credited by honest Gentlemen in those times that a little before the King made that fatal halt a certain Peer finding Essex very pensive in the Lords Lobby ask'd him how Affairs went He reply'd very ill and they must be all ruin'd unless the King could be induc'd to lie down before Glocester which he hop'd by one Engine to bring about what or who that Engine was the World is yet to learn but that there were too many such about his Majesty appear'd in most undertakings he engag'd in Neither was the Battle upon their Retreat at Newberry so advantagiously manag'd as it might have been for the Royal Army having happily got Possession of the Town and consequently stood in their way to London should have been wholly upon the Defensive so plac'd their Artillery and lin'd the Hedges that the difficulty should have been on the Enemy's side to force their Passage which they must either have done or starv'd for to my certain information in the Village where they were oblig'd to stop two Miles West of the Town they had neither Bread nor Drink not somuch as Water it having been a dry Season the Ponds were little else than Puddle the Springs low and the few Wells so soon drain'd as several Officers did proffer a handful of Money for a Pint of clear Water so that it must be right down Grinning Honour as Hudibras terms it which put the Cavaliers upon attacquing them in their thick Hedges or otherwise coming within reach of their Cannon which let alone they must have try'd to Eat yet at this rate Things were carryed till having lost a great many Noble and Brave Gentlemen and their Ammunition almost Spent they withdrew into the Town and set the Enemy a free return more than they expected or to be sure deserv'd Our Author ends this Year with bringing in the Scots and relates how prettily Sir Henry Vane trick'd them In removing the last and greatest difficulty about some doubtful Words in the Covenant which was to be taken by both Nations concerning the Preservation of the King's Person and reducing the Doctrine and Discipline of both Churches to the Pattern of the best Reformed For which Sir H. found an expedient by adding to the first Clause In preservation of the Laws of the Land and Liberty of the Subject And to the second According to the Word of God p. 79 and by this Evasion look'd upon themselves as oblig'd by neither but left free to Murther their King and use the Covenant as it deserv'd He saith likewise that for their the Scots Encouragement the Lords and Commons sentenc'd and caus'd Execution upon William Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury their Capital Enemy Which nevertheless was not till that time Twelve-month however done it was and perhaps thought a very Christian act by such as had nothing thereof And here to put his Murthers together we are
much of their Duty and Respect and his Council at Oxford either gon to make their Peace or in such Confusion as not able to advise him the Rebel Army being just ready to Besiege that his chief Garrison he was forc'd to make a Vertue of Necessity and once more try the Sincerity of his Antient and Native Subjects the Scots CHAP. IV. Of the King in Custody of the Scots and English THE King 's being withdrawn from Oxon and not known whither gon made a mighty Disturbance amongst the Grandees at Westminster Ludlow tells us they suspected he might design to come to London to raise a Party against them publishing an Ordinance that whosoever should harbour or conceal the King's Person should be Proceeded against as a Traytor to the Common-wealth p. 176 By what Law this I beseech you The truth of it is the Expences and other Mischiefs by the War had made the City so sensible of their former Infatuations that 't was generally believ'd had the King appear'd amongst them the Rabble as well as more sensible Part of Men would have endeavour'd their utmost to set him upon his Throne but 't is easier to pull down than build up to make than retrieve Alterations as appear'd afterward when the Army so tamely rid them But in few Days they were freed from that Suspicion though not more surpris'd at his Loss than to find him in the Scotch Hands who would be sure to make the best of so good a Prise There had been no small Contrasts between them and their English Brethren before who finding the fighting Work nigh over were desirous to be quit of some of their own Forces much more of such troublesome and chargable Hirelings The Scots on the other Side as Ludlow tells us repeated their Instances for a Consideration of the Articles of Religion contained in the Covenant to give a speedy Peace to his Majesty to pay them near two hundred thousand Pounds which they pretended to be due for their Arrears and make a just Estimate of the Losses they had sustain'd by Land and Sea c. which they computed at more than the former Sum p. 174 He goes on to relate how the Parliament thought it not convenient to comply with the King's Propositions demanded an exact Account of what was due to them and requir'd that they would withdraw their Garrisons from such Places as they possest in England Some differences he saith likewise there were with the Scotch Commissioners about the King 's Concern in the Militia their intermedling with the Government of England the Education of the King's Children the disbanding the Army and an Act of Oblivion in which Matters the Parliament would not have the Scots to interpose and by degrees the Debates grew so warm as there being found in those Demands of the Scots some Expressions very much reflecting upon the Parliament the two Houses declared them to be Injurious and Scandalous and order'd them to be Burnt by the Hands of the Common Hang-Man p. 175 During these Controversies the Scotch Army continu'd in the Northern Parts upon free Quarter at an abominable rate harressing the Poor People to the utmost Extremity till after some Month's Time Matters being accommodated a little for the present upon the Advance of 30000. l. with Shooes Stockings and other Necessaries they were prevail'd upon to Besiege Newark at which Leaguer the King came to them just as Articles of Surrender were agreed upon and so the more at leisure to march off with him to Newcastle for 't is false what Ludlow affirms that the King soon after his Arrival in the Scots Quarters gave Order for the Delivery of Newark into their Hands the Articles were agreed upon before the King came thither or his Friends in the Garrison dreamt thereof however it happen'd very Opportunely for the Scots to march off with their Royal Purchase and prevent the Clamors from their Brethren at Westminster who as Ludlow tells us forthwith sent an Order to their Commissioners in the Scots Army to demand the Person of the King judging it unreasonable that the Scots being in their Pay should dispose of him otherwise than by their Order resolving further that he should be Conducted to Warwick Castle and the next Day commanded their Army to advance in Order to hinder the Conjunction of the King's Forces with the Scots p. 176 Whereof doubtless they were sore affraid 't is pity they were not hurt the Scots by that one Act might have expiated all their former Perfidy but to expect that had been to wash a Blackamore so Blessed a good was not to be thought of from those accustomed so much to the worst of Evils Rebellion and Sacriledge and therefore 't is probable it gave them some ease to hear that though Levens the Scotch General had march'd with the King to New-Castle he had by Proclamation forbidden his Forces to have any Communication with the King's Party and thereupon only order'd that the Scots should keep him for the English Parliament and so they did but must pay a round Sum of Mony before they should have him We are next to see what Entertainment the King had among the Scots who though they pretended to be much surpris'd as Ludlow tells us yet afterwards it appear'd that this Resolution had been Communicated to them before p. 116. The Truth of it is Montrevil a French Embassador or Agent in the Scotch Camp had adjusted the Matter with Levens and other General Officers who engag'd to secure him and as many of his Party as should seek for Shelter with them and to stand to him with their Lives and Fortunes Yet in that excellent Meditation his Majesty penn'd upon this Occasion 't is own'd a forc'd Push where Necessity was his Counsellor in an Adventure upon their Loyalty who first began his Troubles for which Reason he studied to fortify his Mind so as not to offer up his Soul's Liberty or make his Conscience their Captive but no less conform his Words to his inward Dictates now than if they had been as the Words of a King ought to be amongst Loyal Subjects full of Power And Good Prince he was soon put to his Tryal for though the Committee of Estates at Edingburgh upon the first Notice of his being in their Hands sent Commissioners with great Expressions of their Duty and good Intentions protesting how dear the Preservation of his Sacred Person and his just Power and Greatness should ever be to them yet their Actions immediately spake the contrary as if all were intended with the tacit Condition of a Covenant Clog and such harsh Usage as might bring or force him thereto for within few Days the King call'd both the chief Officers of the Army and the Commissioners sent out of Scotland and in presence of Monsieur de Montrevil did Expostulate That whereas he did come to their Army upon the Assurances Monsieur Montrevil had given him that he should be safe in his Person Honor
The Overtures were not frequent or if so always the same and totally destructive of all old Establishments without condescending to debate or alter any thing And for his not having a Sword left denotes our Author to be of the same Principle with that Atheist Virgil so judiciously exposes for his Dextra mihi Deus because they depended upon the Sword must it follow the King had no other Right To be sure they found it a very precarious Title for the same Sword which set them up more than once pull'd them down and after all Right took place of the several Usurping Powers and it will be never found so in the end But what makes him the more out of Humour is the Peoples expectation of the King's return to the Parliament being inform'd the Presbyterian Heads had promis'd the Scots that as soon as they had disbanded the Army they would bring him to London in Honor and Safety The People might expect and certainly did desire this but whoever observ'd the Presbyterians deportment both in Scotland and here how obstinately they adhered to their Covenant Rigours and how conscientiously positive the King was to the contrary could see little hopes of an Accord These Things he saith made the People ready to conclude that though his Designs had been wonderfully defeated his Armies beaten out of the Field and himself deliver'd into the Hands of the Parliament against whom he had made a long and Bloody War yet certainly he must be in the Right and that tho' he was guilty of the Blood of many Thousands yet was still unaccountable in a Condition to give Pardon and not in need to receive any which made them flock from all Parts to see him as he was brought from Newcastle to Holmby falling down before him bringing their Sick to be touch'd by him and courting him as only able to restore to them their Peace and Settlement This really was the Temper of the People at that time who now fully discover'd those Mists and Misrepresentations wherewith the Factions had so long amus'd them and were very earnest to have the King reestablish'd that they might be once more so in that abundance of all things they even wantonis'd in when under his sole Government 'T was likewise well known to them that a violent Party in Parliament forc'd the King to stand upon his own Defence and when to make an Invasion upon all his just Rights and Prerogatives they had open'd an Issue of Blood how incessantly did he endeavour to stop it by Messages and Overtures of Treaty and Peace which like so many deaf Adders he could never Charm them into and as at the time he is now upon there was not one in many Thousands had the impudence to charge the King with beginning the War and the Effusion of Blood thereupon so those few that did knew or believ'd the contrary amongst whom our Ludlow is chief but could not otherwise carry on that execrable Design the Devil had so thoroughly engag'd them in and this makes our Author so forward to inveigh against all the rest of his Partisans whom either Shame Guilt or Sense of their Countries Desolation had caus'd to desist or desire an Accommodation as Men of a neutral Spirit who would not Cataline like add to their former Evils the total Ruin of the Nation for that was it's then real Condition the King their Prisoner and the whole Kingdom their Slaves and that decisive Iudgment from Heaven by which alone they claim'd their Power was no other than what a Gang of High-Way Robbers may pretend to which in several Sets the just Vengeance of Heaven suffer'd to harress this proud and foolish People till in the end they were broke quite in Pieces some of them Hang'd though not enough by our Author at least unless his long and lingring Exile had brought him to something of Remorse and this I take to be the decisive Iudgment as to this Life and as to the next shall only say that if every one whose Conscience doth not accuse him were thereby justify'd final Imponitency would be an happy End Ludlow takes little Notice of the King whilst at Holmby being I presume well satisfy'd with the ill Treatment he receiv'd from the Commissioners there which could not in that Conjuncture have been more rude and insolent had he been one of them for they deny'd him his Chaplains Discharg'd all his Antient Servants and would not permit any one of acceptable Conversation to come into his Presence which Restraint was devoutly improv'd in more constant Addresses to Almighty God as we find from those Meditations and Vows in his Solitude at Holmby Neither were their Impositions less Vexatious those two Pulpit Beautifeus Marshal and Caryl having attended as Chaplains upon the English Commissioners at New-Castle return'd with them to Holmby and were recommended to Preach before the King and say Grace at Meals but were deny'd as to both the King always saying Grace himself with an audible Voice standing under the State Though 't is said that Marshal did on a Time put himself more forward than was meet to say Grace and while he was long in forming his Chaps as the Manner was among the Saints and making ugly Faces His Majesty said Grace himself and had eaten up some part of his Dinner before Marshal had ended his Cant. But this Scene lasted not long Cornet Ioyce gave these Commissioners and their Chaplains an unwilling Discharge carrying the King to the Army 't is unaccountable to what a height the Feuds between those two Factions Presbyterian and Independents were now grown how cursedly that Hell was divided within it's self what Plots and Counter-plots were continually carrying on each Party conceiving the King's Person and Presence of great Advantage to their Designs though both of them no less against him than each other For his Majesty's Thoughts hereof take from his own Excellent Words What Part God will have me now to Act or suffer in this new and strange Scene of Affairs I am not much Solicitous some little Practice will serve that Man who only seeks to represent a part of Honesty and Honor. In this my Surprise I tell the World That a King cannot be so low but he is considerable adding weight to that Party where he appears And so goes on most judiciously observing the Hand of Divine Iustice how they that by Tumults first occasion'd the raising of Armies are now chastned by their own Army for new Tumults The Members of both Houses who at first withdrew as my self was forced to do from the rudeness of the Tumults were counted Deserters and outed their Places in Parliament such as staid and enjoy'd the Benefit of the Tumults were asserted for the only Patriots Now on the contrary the Deserters are abetted by the Army and such as remain'd and kept their Stations are charg'd for Tumultuary Insolencies and betrayers of the Freedom and Honor of Parliaments and doubtless amidst those many
be without me you will fall to ruin if I do not sustain you which manner of Carriage he saith was observ'd with Amasement and so it might well for he was never observ'd to do so by any other Author or Person And when a little further on 't is said Dr. Hammond was the Governour 's own Kinsman it must certainly be Ludlow for Sir Iohn certainly knew him to be his Brother From these and several such like Instances it may be inferr'd that though such Papers were left by Sir Iohn yet might they be alter'd or added to by Ludlow to Blacken as their Term was his Majesty's Discretion and Policy though they could not his Virtue It may be further observ'd there was no good Understanding between Sir Iohn and Mr. Asburnham though both of them doubtless very Faithful and Loyal Sir Iohn really believ'd the Army was in good Earnest the other very much suspected and who of the two had most Reason therein the Event declar'd the King in the mean while might hesitate between both and rather incline to Mr. Asburnham's Opinion To pass by therefore those Difficulties and Distractions the several contending Parties lay under and how impossible it was for his Majesty to come to any thing of a fix'd Resolution amidst so many Confusions we will come to this one Enquiry whether Cromwel and Ireton ever really intended to establish the King upon his Throne For I look upon them two as the gand Intriguers driving on a distinct Design of their own which none of their Comrades then so much as dreamt of but were implicitly carried on to promote what at first they could not see nor at last prevent For that Cromwel was the exactest Piece of Dissimulation Hell ever inspir'd must be own'd on all Hands so that he and his Confederates sending Sir Allen Appesly to Sir John Barkly and desiring them both to assure the Queen and Prince of their good Intentions was but a Blind to fortify their Interest against the Presbyterians who as Ludlow or the Paper tells us though much weakned by the Absence of the Eleven Members pass'd a Vote that the King should be brought to Richmond whereto he inclin'd so that the Army were oblig'd to cause the Parliament to recall their Vote Neither were Cromwel's Protestations to Sir Iohn the least to be regarded Of that tenderest Sight his Eyes ever beheld the Interview between the King and his Children and that never Man was so abus'd as he in his sinister Opinion of the King who he thought was the most Upright and Conscientious of the Kingdom c. concluding with this Wish That God would be pleased to look upon him according to the Sincerity of his Heart towards the King pag. 199 Such Tricks as these were as natural to him as his Meat and Drink and no less requisite to support the Life of his cursed Designs Did he not at the same time assure the Parliament That the Army should at their first Command cast their Arms at their Feet and solemnly Swear that he had rather himself with his whole Family should be consumed than the Army break out into Sedition Yet at the same time did he by his Creatures administer new Fewel to those Flames and posting down to the Head Quarters set the whole Synagogue of Agitators on Work and directed them in carrying on the Conspiracy and therefore however Sir Iohn's Sanguin Temper and good-natur'd Disposition might be impos'd upon by Cromwel's Arts the King was not without considerable Cautions from others of the no Trust which was to be put in any thing he said that amongst his Confidents he did frequently boast of his fine Arts in imposing upon the King and that thereby he intended nothing less than his Destruction It must indeed be acknowledg'd that some of the General Officers were Sincere to his Majesty really his Converts one of which seeing Cromwel hold the King's Hand between his own during a solemn Protestation of unfeigned Assurances and even washing it with Tears when he came out ask'd the Officer who stood by whether he had not acted his Part very well Who replied Why were you not in good Earnest Not in the least replied he for which he ever after Abominated him and acquainted the King with what a Devil incarnate he had to deal withall And here I must observe no small Piece of Perfidy in our Author that he will not let us know what Part Sir Iohn what himself bears in relating these Affairs for what I question'd as to some harsh Expressions he would have the King use towards the Army seems much confirm'd from an absolute Falshood he relates as the effect thereof which runs thus pag. 205. The King having thus bid Defiance to the Army thought it necessary to bend all his Force against them and especially to strengthen their Enemies in the Parliament To this end a Petition was fram'd to press them to speedy Agreement with the King and presented in a Tumultuous manner by a great Number of Apprentices and Rabble back'd by many Dismiss'd and Disaffected Officers c. This indeed was the last Effort of the Presbyterian Iunto to preserve themselves from the Army's Lash but as it took no Effect so the King was not at all concern'd therein but continu'd with the Army and upon very good Terms for it was not time to throw off the Vizard till as Cromwel whisper'd Ludlow they had pull'd the Parliament out by the Ears page 189. In the mean while to show how Ludlow contradicts himself the King who just now was said to bid defiance to the Army upon showing his Answer to the Officers before it was sent they seemed much satisfyed with it and promised to use their endeavours for a Personal Treaty Cromwel and Ireton and many of their Party in the House pressing the King's desires with great earnestness wherein contrary to their expectation they found a vigorous opposition c. pag. 213. This Fellow Ludlow cannot be so ignorant of those Intrigues as he would seem That Cromwel and his Confidents ran with the Hare and hunted with the Hound set on their Properties in the House and Agitators in the Army to complain of that free Access all the Cavaliers had to the King at Hampton-Court Of Sir John Barkly 's and Mr. Ashburnham 's Intimacy with the Chief Officers of the Army that Cromwel 's and Ireton 's Doors were open to them when shut to those of the Army whereat saith our Author Cromwel was much offended telling Mr. Ashburnham and Sir John that if he were an honest Man he had said enough of the sincerity of his intentions and if he were not nothing was enough c. pag. 212. So likewise he tells us Cromwel wheadled with the King acquainting him with his danger and protesting it was not in his power to undertake for his security in the place where he was viz. Hampton-Court assuring him of his real service and desiring God to deal c. as
before all which was abominable Trick to affright the King into those Nets and Toyls he had so craftily set for him till a fit opportunity of proceeding to his Murder And that all the Caresses wherewith most of the Army more especially those two Nonparells of Treachery the Father and Son in Law courted the King tended thereto is clear from every Circumstance of their Proceedings as likewise from that Assurance Ireton gave Ludlow at first who tells us he went down to Mayden-head their Head-Quarters where Ireton suspecting these Things their caressing his Majesty might occasion Jealousies in me and others of their Friends in Parliament desired me to be assured of their stedfast Adherence to the publick Interest and that they intended only to dispense with such Things as were not material till they could put themselves into a Condition of serving the People effectually pag. 194 And when the Army drew up that bloody Remonstrance November 48. in order to taking away the King's Life the same Ireton sent him Word that now he hop'd he should please him which he owns they did by the way they were taking c. pag. 266. Now had Ludlow been a Man of any Thought any Reflection upon himself he must needs have consider'd what a contemptible Fellow they took him to be as not vouchsafing to trust him in a Design his wicked Soul most earnestly desir'd to have Accomplished As for Cromwel's ambitious Enthusiastical Spirit that he had some thoughts by removal of the King to ascend the height he at last attain'd unto there are several inducements to perswade Ludlow tells us of many Passages and Actions which when the Riddle was unfolded discover'd what he aim'd at Particularly about this Time when the King was in the Isle of Wight there were frequent Consults and Conferences amongst them about reconciling Parties and fixing a Government wherein Cromwel kept himself in the Clouds and would declare neither for Monarchical Aristocratical nor Democratical maintaining that any of them might be good in themselves or for us according as Providence should direct pag. 238 And when Providence suffer'd this glaring Meteor with all it 's Evil Influences to rest so long upon our Horizon and his vain Mind affected to add the Regal Title to that Power he had so unjustly assum'd one main Inducement of his attempting it was thought to be a Dream he had of being King whilst a young Rake in Sidny College Cambridge for so he really was which he frequently declar'd to his Companions and was not a little proud of and that it made a deeper Impression upon his Mind than any Learning he got there give me leave to add this odd Passage when he was Protector I knew an Old Man who in his younger Days had been Serving-Man to his Uncle Sir Thomas Stewart was the Fac totum in the Family and had more especially charge of the Cellar where he told me Cromwel and he toss'd the Pot many a Time and when his natural Enthusiasm was assisted by a good Dose of strong Liquor would thus vent himself Well Iames notwithstanding my Uncle's and Aunt 's Unkindnesses I may yet be a great Man before I die I had a lucky Dream at the College and I have a young Daughter a shrewd Girl she is who will be often telling me Father you will be a Great Man Father I cannot sleep soundly a Nights for Dreaming of your being a Great Man indeed Father you will be as Great as the King and then he would go on I don't know Iames nor can I see any thing of likelyhood yet but God often times brings strange things about and if he should call me to any thing extraordinary sure I should understand to prosecute my own advantage This the Old Man told me he would be often repeating over his Cups several years before the Wars broke out which as he laugh'd at then so he had thought upon it a thousand times with astonishment since he came to be Protector I hope this Story will not be thought altogether impertinent upon this consideration that it shows how much his Mind was puff'd up with hopes even when there was no ground for them but when he saw all sorts of Mischiefs and Rebellions begin to work with such Hellish success and himself got into the Second Command of the whole Army under such a Cypher of a General as he manag'd him no less than he did the Inferiour Officers most of whom he engag'd to oppose all Superiors as well their Masters the Parliament as their Sovereign This doubtless made him dream of a Crown every Night and think a Year an Age till possest of the sole Power For having Modell'd the Parliament according to his Will made them as tractable as Setting-Dogs to whatsoever he and his Mirmidons thought fit to put them upon and wheadled the King into a Prison under a Property of his own for whatever Ludlow or Sir Iohn relates of Hammond's Surprise and Consternation at the News pag. 218. the History of Independency assures us he had been with Cromwel who sent him down fully Instructed as to his Deportment in that Critical Affair And from hence forward we hear no more of his Caresses and Protestations May the Lord deal with him according to the Sincerity of his Heart towards the King c. But a tendency on all hands to the Destruction both of his Person and Government CHAP. V. Of the King's Murder WE are now come to the last Act so full of Horror and Amasement as nothing but the doing it could make the Attempt credible and seems to transverse that Old Conceit of the Lycanthropi Wolves and Tygers appearing not only in humane Shape but humane Societies for of some such Composition must those several Scenes of Regicides be which made up those Conferences our Author mentions p. 238. and forward in the first of which he tells us the Commonwealth's-men declared Monarchy was neither good in it's self nor for us That it was not desirable in it's self they urg'd from the 8 th Chapter of the first Book of Samuel the 8 th Verse where the rejecting of the Judges and the choice of a King was charg'd upon the Israelites by God himself as to rejecting him Scripture is so much out of these Peoples way as they never blunder more than when they think to support their Cause from thence as will appear from this short Account of the whole Story Where first it was not the Israelites rejecting the Iudges but the Theocracy which gave the Provocation for so Almighty God himself declares in the precedent Verse 7. upon Samuel's Complaint they have not rejected thee but me they have rejected that I should not reign over them Samuel was not only as a Viceroy to see those Laws observ'd which the Supreme Sovereign had already Enacted but as a Prophet and so the Mouth of God further to declare whatever Divine Will thought fit to Prescribe And if in the second Place if
Prosecutions this might have done something towards an Expiation and put away the Guilt of Innocent Blood amongst us by neglect whereof to return the Text upon Ludlow and his Party 't is to be feared the Land still continues defiled therewith And next to this of Blood-guiltiness give me leave to add my Suspition that we have another deep Arrear for their gross Abuse and Profanation of Scripture whereof our Author hath given an exact Specimen in the two foremention'd Texts although he is very sparing in comparison with his Fellow-Rebels especially the violent Pulpit-Drivers who studied nothing so much as to pervert it and that not only to their own but the whole Nations destruction Curse ye Meroz c. did more Mischief than all the Trumpets in the Army and made as loud a Noise and their numberless Fast-Sermons were but a wresting so many Texts to Sedition and Treason In the same manner likewise they manag'd Controversies All Church-Government must be fram'd according to the new-fangled Conceits of their Geneva Rabbies though the continued Sense and Practice of Antiquity speak the quite contrary And because the Doctrine of Obedience is so expresly laid down in 13th to the Romans and elsewhere they hammer'd out this Impudent Evasion that the Apostles deliver'd what the Circumstances they lay under forc'd them unto not having Strength to make Opposition otherwise might have been as very Rebels as themselves In the mean while the AEquivocal Sense of our English word Power was thought to give them so great a Latitude as they might submit to whatever came uppermost and if you urg'd them with the different Acceptations of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Original 't was Heathen Greek to them the Language of the Beast and ought not to restrain the Liberty of their perverse Spirits neither are such Prejudices altogether laid aside but seem rather to be assum'd afresh too many of our present Divines being very backward to consider those two Words themselves or attend to the Information of others and yet a very nice Case depends thereupon But commend me to our Modern Commonwealth's Men who finding with how ill Success their Predecessors made use of Scripture have taken a much shorter Cut set up for Theists or Atheists and thereby supersede all Authority from thence What he relates as to the Treaty in the Isle of Wight is a barefac'd discovery of their Design that having got the King there with the Parliament and City under their Lash they were now resolv'd to kill and take Possession his Majesty therefore is no more caress'd by the Army Sir Barkly's cold Entertainment from the Officers at Windsor was a full discovery of what they all along had in purpose Yet since he takes no Notice of the King's Deportment in that grand Affair but represents their Jealousies of him according to the Guilt of their own just Deservings I shall take leave to observe that never any Prince strugled with so many different and violent Interests as this good Man at that Treaty nor deported himself with greater Honor Iudgment and Discretion The Presbyterian Iunto in the House tho sensible of that deplorable Condition they had brought both King and Kingdom into yet stood so stifly upon their first Propositions as their Commissioners were not allow'd to recede one Ace from them The Scotch likewise stood by rather to serve themselves than him and observe how they should next play their Game for now every Eye could discover whatever Protestations they made Mony and Covenant was the only Diana they contended for The Independent Party in the House tho out-Voted as to the Treaty yet were able to start so many Scruples Restrictions and Delays as might baffle much sincerer Intentions than appear'd in their Opponents Yet contrary to all their Expectations the King in his own Person manag'd the whole Debate with such incredible Prudence found out such Temperaments for their harshest Demands and made such Concessions with a reserve both of Honor and Conscience as astonish'd them all and wrought a full Conviction in such as had any Reserve even of Humanity left in their Breasts One Passage I must needs relate from our Author whereby we may guess at his and all his Complices Ingenuity he saith when some Commissioners who had been with the King pleaded in the House for a Concurrence with him c. p. 268. Sir Henry Vane oppos'd it and inveigh'd against the King in his Reasons against it concluding that if they should accept of these Terms without consent of the Army it would prove but a Feather in their Caps And yet this base Fellow Vane perswaded the King at the Isle of Wight not to be too prodigal of his Concessions that he had already yielded more than 't was fit for him to give or them to ask and undertook to make it evident to the whole World How could any Prince or indeed other Person of a steady Virtue and undesigning Integrity deal with such Proteus's as these Quo teneam nodo What Hold can be laid on them What escape from so damn'd a Perfidy All which his Majesty at that time fully discover'd that tho' some were of a sensible Complyance yet those of most Power were most obstinate intended nothing less than Peace nor could they more than his Destruction The breaking off that Treaty by the Army their Force upon his Majesty there bringing him from thence to London with the Hellish Pageantry of his Tryal was insult enough for our Author 's bloody Mind to relate Matter of Fact in Common with others and is too Melancholy a Subject for me to repeat Only what he saith as to Bishop Iuxton must be all his own and probably invented to be reveng'd on him and the King because his Majesty he saith and I believe truly refused such Ministers as their Court of Injustice had appointed to attend him amongst whom that unhallowed Buffoon Peters was one and the rest had been all most violent Fire-brands of Rebellion and therein of his Murder At last therefore tho' with some Reluctancy and I doubt not but with Ludlow's Negative it was granted that Bishop Iuxton should be permitted to attend his King and Master in this his Translation from a Temporal to an Eternal Crown and though doubtless it was with unexpressable Regret as to the manner of his Departure that he was put upon these holy Offices yet that he should declare himself altogether unprepar'd or complain for want of warning as having nothing ready is a true Piece of Fanatick Wit that is a snarling Reflection without any Truth at the Bottom or Ingenuity in the Expression as no Man approv'd himself more Eminent both for Parts and Integrity than this worthy Prelate in those several Publick Trusts Ecclesiastical and Civil committed to his Care so his Piety and exact Understanding in all Religious Rites qualified him for the most devout Performance of all holy Duties With like Rudeness and
it seems gone beyond not only their own but all abler Men's Cure For as the Learneder Physicians further declare when that Sovereign Part comes to be once jog'd either with Apoplexies Epilepsies Frenzies c. though for the present it may be recover'd from that Fit yet they seldom find it brought to that Strength of Sense or Health as formerly and under continual Apprehensions of a more dangerous Relapse How many returns we have had of this Kind is a very Melancholy Reflection to be sure we seem so much weakned thereby in our Intellectual Part as to admit none but the same or such like Quacks as first brought us into this unhappy Condition and have all along discover'd that they design more the Tryal of their own foolish Experiments than to Re-estate us in that perfect Vigour of Health and Strength which before their tampering we abundantly enjoy'd And hereupon some have further taken notice that a Gubernandi Pruritus seems to have superseded that other of Disputandi an Epidemical Itch of being all Governors sets not only our Fingers but our Heads on Work hath more than once already brought us from Scratching to right down Blows and in the end must certainly ruin all Government And therefore to step out of these cloudy Allegories I shall presume here in the Close frankly to declare that as our Indisposition first began from rejecting that Excellent Regimen wherewith this Royal Martyr and his Predecessors for so long a Time perserv'd us in perfect Health and Happiness So perhaps after another half Century of Experiments we may be brought to full Conviction that nothing but that old Course can Work an effectual Cure And from hence doubtless more especially it is that our Commonwealth Impostors who cannot live without Opposition even amongst themselves when they have gain'd their Point upon others continue to asperse the Memory of this Excellent Prince with a Spight inveterate as Hell and false as their own Souls and with an Impudence none but themselves can reach To take no Notice of whatever is said in his Vindication though clear even to Demonstration or as the Noon-day Sun I say were not these Prejudices perpetually kept up against his Person and Government wherein they first began their Freaks and set the whole Nation a madding most of the People as the Spanish Proverb propounds might chance to rise Sober and Wise some few Mornings together and then not only their Projects but the Projectors would soon meet with such an End as they deserve Could I think these Provocations might have any Influence upon them so as to reply or own a Conviction I should then add this further Request To consider and from thence try what they can object against that great yet withal just Account Dr. Perencheif gives both as to the Active and Passive Part of his most Religious Deportment when their Mouths and their Canon roared with equal Force and Noise against him for that is no Hyperbole or strain of Rhetorick from the Doctor 's Loyal and Affectionate Pen but a Collection of such Observations as several Noble and Worthy Persons made during their Attendance upon him especially under his Confinement and was oblig'd alone to Combate those many Brutish Adversaries who had nothing but the Shape of Men which many Conflicts rather than Disputes he manag'd with so much Iudgment Temper and truly Conscientious Care both of his own Soul and People's Safty as astonish'd those hardned Reprobates which would not be convinc'd and fully assured all others that Almighty God never fails to furnish great and good Men with Assistances answerable to the Afflictions he brings them under whereto he was likewise adapted from that natâ—â—ral Steadiness of Mind his very Infant Studies apply'd themselves unto for I find when Prince of Wales at an Entertainment in Oxon he Matriculated himself as their Custom is a Member of that University by writing this Sentence Si vis omnia Subjicere Subjice te rationi according to which the whole Course of his Life was most exactly steer'd both in Prosperity and Adversity Tho' Plato may be thought a little partial to his own Profession yet was it a pretty Conceit That nothing conduc'd more to the Happiness of any State than to have their Kings Philosophers or Philosophers Kings To be sure the foremention'd Golden Rule spake so much of both as had his Parliaments in any degree endeavour'd the same the fabulous Golden Age might have found here something of Reality but they were for Subjecting their King rather than themselves and by that means subjected all to Slavery and Confusion There is but one Mistake I shall further take Notice of wherewith this Petulant Licentious Humour of Libelling and Lying hath prejudic'd and prepossest many a good Man who are thereupon prone to think of a vast difference between Queen Elizabeth and the two following Reigns whereas paying all the profoundest Defference to that Wise and Happy Princess there was a continual Advance in every thing but the Humor and good Disposition of the People for nigh 40 Years after To be sure during King Charles's first Fifeteen the Wealth and Trade of the Nation was Trebled to what it had been at any time in her Days and every thing else Proportionable and tho' the Trade is or at leastwise was till of late upon the Improve yet take all things together and I am afraid the Child is still unborn who may see them so again their sole Defects were in reference to themselves studying more the Peoples Satisfaction than their own Security all which I hope hath been made out in the Premises And here I must take leave of our Royal Martyr without venturing to Characterise those Divine Superlative Perfections the ablest Pens could never yet fully reach As Man what they have borrowed from Vell. Paterc is highly applicable Homo virtuti simillimus per omnia Ingenio Diis quam Hominibus proprior c. and as Christian none ever came nigher that Man of Sorrows than He So that however some foul-mouth Hell-hounds still continue to Bark at and Blaspheme his Memory there is no doubt but less Partial Posterity will unanimously agree with all good Men now and Seat him in the uppermost Room amongst those Sacred Sufferers OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY FINIS Phil. 3. 1. At h Oxon. vol. 2. p. 439. Hist. of Indepen part 2. pag. 31. Rush. Coll. p. 103. Rush. Col. pag. 215. Arch Bishop Laud's Diary p. 43. Append. p. 7. Detect p. 334. Coll. 208. Eccl. 7. 10. Coll. 615. Col. 628. Dr. â—eren L. of King Charles I. p. 75. Hamond Lestrange Detect p. 419. Sand. Hist. p. 123. Of Trade in Ireland 146. Cab. 255. Detect p. 38. Malach. 1. 10. Mr. Hooker's Pref. Camb. Eli An. 73. Eliz An. 85 88. Detect 237. Coll. 209. Page 105. Advice to a Son pag. 104. Jam. 2. 13. Cabala 392. Rush. Coll. pag. 243. Cabal 269. History of the Council of Trent Pag. 2. Coll. 169. Rush. Appen Pag. 5. Coll. 414. Coll. 517. Coll. 505. Pag. 11. Pag. 21. Coll. 16◠〈◊〉 of Scotland Pag. 507. Coll. 426. Detec 344 Pag. 45. c. Coll. 635. Detec 101 Detec 108 Coll. 15. Coll. ib. Detect 202. Gal. 4. 9. Inst. l. 2.c.8 Pref. parg 22 c. Page 38. Page 45. Canon 13. Troub and Try p. 164. Sir R. Baker An. 1631. Coll 305. Detect 196. Col. 410. Page 44. Nodum in Scyrpo quaerere De nat Deorum l. 2. Eccl. Pol. l. 5. Sect. 79. Arch-Bp Spotsw 260. Detect 365. Spots 275. Spots 174. Detect 352. Troubl Try pa. 168. Alt. Dam. p. 28. Trou Tryal p. 168. See large Declaration Large Declaration Spotsw 324. Large Declaration See large Declaration Large Declar. Trou Try p. 75. Dr. Nals Coll. Vol. p. 455. Dr. Nals Coll. 2 Vol. p. 426. Osb. Mem. p. 470. Cypric Anglic. p. 355. Revel 13. 16. verse 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Dr Nals Coll. Vol. 2. p. 529. Dr. Burl. Append. 129. Dr. Nals Coll. Vol. 11. p. 529. Hos. 4. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Troub and Try p. 282. Detect 386. Troub Try p. 172. 2 d. Vol. 206. Lamen 5. 8. Nals mem 2 d. Vol. 272. Athen. Oxon. Vol II. p. 236. Short Life of K. Ch. by P. H. Upon the Scots Delivery the K. Upon the Army's surprisal of the King Pag. 244. Wisd. Ca. 2 v. 22. Cap. 3. v. 4 5. Stanz 37. Wisd. 3. v. 17. 18 19. Isa. 26. 9. Mr. Black Serm. Jan. 30. p. 16. Pro Baâ—â—â—