growing Hemp and there lay on the Ground almost 20 Hours without Meat or any sustenance so that what with fright and dampness of the Earth some of them contracted dangerous Sicknesses and hardly escaped with Life The Terrour which fell upon the Country thereabout was so great that the neighbouring Justice of Peace durst not grant his Warrant to search after any of Sir Richard's Goods though earnestly intreated to it And the Neighbours were so ill used and threatned to extort confession from them where Sir Richard was or where any of his Goods were conveyed that some swooned for fear some fell mad and some died Certain it is their carriage was so barbarous that it inforced Mr. Jo. Crew one of the Company to profess his dislike and to tell the Lord Brooks and the rest That they being Law-makers should not be Law-breakers nor make such precedents as would discover their intentions and render them odious unto the Country Since that knowing Sir Richard to have put himself for preservation of his Life under his Majesties Protection they have caused his Pond-heads to be digged down and have destroyed all his Fish they have cut down his Woods and seised on all his Lands or made them utterly unprofitable unto him for they will not suffer any Bayliff or Servant of his to take any care of his Estate but have often sent parties of Horse to seise on them or kill them At a place called Kings-harbour near Hounslow-heath three Soldiers under the Command of the Lord Wharton came into a House to drink going away they of the House demand Money for their Drink So unexpected an affront did so incense the Soldiers that one of them told his Companions he would shew them how they set Houses on fire in Ireland and so put his Carbine into the Thatch and discharged it set the House on fire and departed The General ESSEX returning from London came by as the House was on fire complaint is made unto him that the owner of the House was undone but all in vain his Excellency was not at leisure to do Justice The Countess of Rivers who as you heard in the second Weeks Relation was Plundered to the value of an Hundred thousand or an Hundred and fifty thousand pounds finding her abode here unsafe having lost her Goods and her Person in danger to secure her self resolved for a time to abandon her Country and rather expose her self to the hazard of Travel than commit her self to that protection which the contemned Laws now afford To this purpose she obtained a Pass to go beyond Seas While she was in preparing for her Voyage Mr. Martin Plunder-master General he that so familiarly speaks Treason and steals the King's Horses or doth any thing plunders the Countess of her Coach Horses notwithstanding a Warrant from the Lords House to secure them And when this Warrant was produced to stave off this Parliament Horse-taker he replied That if the Warrant had been from both Houses he would obey it as coming from the highest authority in England sure this man was born with Treason in his Mouth but since it came But from the Lords he did not value it When this Warrant could not prevail the Countess obtains a Warrant from the Earl of Essex to have the Horses restored unto her again but Mr. Martin to overbear all procures an Order from the House of Commons to keep them This Honourable Ladies Goods were seised on though Licensed to pass by the Lords and searched and allowed by the Custome-House At Pebmarsh in the same County of Essex on the Lords Day divers of the Parliament Voluntiers came into the Church while the Parson Mr. Wiborow was in his Prayer before Sermon and placed themselves near the Pulpit and when he was in his Prayer one of them struck divers times with his Staff against the Pulpit to interrupt him and while he was in his Sermon in contempt of the place where they were and the sacred action in doing they were almost as loud as the Preacher to the great disturbance of the Congregation No sooner was the Sermon ended and the Parson come out of the Pulpit as far as the Reading-desk but they lay violent hands upon him rent his Clothes threaten to pull him in pieces in the Church With much intreaty they spare him there and permit him to go into the Church-yard he is no sooner come thither but they assault him more violently than before Mr. Wiborow seeing the Constable who all this while stood a spectator of his hard usage calls unto him and charges him in the King's Name to keep the Kings Peace At his request they did a little forbear him But before he could get half ways Home they assault him again and demand the Book of Common-Prayer which he used in the Church That which was found by the Parish being torn in pieces before which he refusing to deliver up unto them they reek their fury on him They tug and hale him and vow to kill him unless he deliver up the Book of Common-Prayer to their pleasure he stoutly refuseth Hereupon they fall upon him strike up his Heels and take it from him by force and so carry it away in triumph Mr. Blakerby a silenced Minister heretofore preaching at Halstead in the same County told them That to bow at the Name of Jesus was to thrust a Spear into Christ's side and such Ministers as signed Children with the sign of the Cross did as much as in them lay to send such Children unto the Devil When the Earl of Essex and the rest went from Reading to London after the unhappy to say no more surrender of that town they left there a Committee consisting of none but City Captains and Tradesmen these according to the authority committed unto them summon all the able men of the Parishes thereabout to appear before them at Reading and Assessed them at their pleasure In Marlow they Assessed one Mr. Drue at 1000 l. they fell to 500 l. he refusing to pay was Imprisoned but the Prison being most nasty and loathsom denied the accommodation of Bedding was forced to pay 300 l. Mr. Horcepoole they assessed at 200 l. Mr. Chase a man plundered before at 40 l. 20 pound was offered but nothing will be abated of 30. Eliot a Butcher at an 100 l. and Imprisoned Cocke a Baker at 20 l. Mr. Fornace the Vicar not suffered to speak for himself because a Malignant at 10 l. and paid seven John Langley 10 l. Thomas Langley 20 l. William Langley 5 l. and Wilmot his Servant 5 l. John More 80 l. Hoskins a Shoomaker 5 l. Cane an Innkeeper 7 l. Rates so Illegal or had they been Legal so unequally proportioned to these mens Estates that had Ship-money been still on foot it would not have drawn so much Money out of their Purses in forty or fifty years as this Blew-Apron Committee at Reading removed some seven or eight Degrees from the Close Committee at Westminster
put him in the strong hold a place provided for the most desperate Malefactors affirming they would soon return to take further order with him There he remained till one a clock being then removed to another Chamber They now return to their fellows who were searching Sir John Lucas's house some twenty of them rush'd into the Ladies Chamber laid hands upon her set a sword to her breast requiring her to tell where the Arms and Cavaliers were The Horse and Arms are soon found and seized on by the Mayor who sends the Arms to the Town-Hall the Horse to an Inn to be there kept on Sir John Lucas's cost till they could be sent to the Parliament The People lay hands on Sir John Lucas his Lady and Sister and carry them attended with swords guns and halberts to the common Goal Last of all they bring forth his Mother with the like or greater insolency who being faint and breathless hardly obtained leave to rest herself in a Shop by the way yet this leave was no sooner obtained but the rest of that rude rabble threatned to pull down the house unless they thrust her out being by this means forced to depart from thence A Countryman whom the Alarm had summoned to this work espies her and pressing with his Horse through the crowd struck at her head with his sword so heartily that if an Halbert had not crossed the blow both her sorrows and her journey had there found an end Two Gentlewomen one of which had long been sick by flight escaped their fury but their most well-wishing neighbours dared not to be known to receive them into their house the people threatning to burn that house that gave them entertainment Having secured the Master they now begin to plunder the house all is prize that comes to hand money plate jewels linnen woollen brass pewter c. A few hours disrobe the house of that rich furniture that had adorned it many years The Mayor and Aldermen standing by all this while but either not able or not willing to conjure down the Devil which themselves had raised up All the servants they could meet with they bring to prison they lay hands on John Brown one who had been a servant to the family from the time of Sir John Lucas's Grandfather they bind him to a tree set a Musquet to his breast and a sword to his throat and tie lighted matches between his fingers and John Furley a young pragmatical boy examines him concerning his Masters intentions Horses Money c. but especially concerning Mr. Newcomin whether he had not given an Oath of secrecy Whether he were not to ride a great Horse whether he were not habited in a Buff Jerkin and Velvet Coat c. Fear easily prompts the old man to answer what he thought would give content Out of his Examination the Mayor frames an Information against Sir John and Mr. Newcomin not forgetting to relate the good service he had done the Horse and Arms he had taken but withal implying how miserably the house was plundered by the zealous people adding in his Letters and that very truly that he could do no more than a Child among them with these Letters he presently dispatcheth a Post to the House of Commons About one a clock a new Alarm is raised that 200 armed Horsemen are discovered in a Vault at Sir John Lucas's That they had killed nine men already and were issuing forth to destroy the Town The shops are shut up in an instant and the multitUde throng down thither to take or kill these Cavaliers And because they find none there they now spend their rage upon the house they batter down the doors and walls beat down the windows tear his Evidences deface his Walks and Gardens do any thing that may do mischief From thence they go to his Park pull down his Pales kill his Deer drive away his Cattel And to shew that their rage will know no bounds and that nothing is so sacred or venerable which they dare not to violate they break into S. Giles his Church open the Vault where his Ancestours were buried and with Pistols Swords and Halberts transfix the Coffins of the dead And now the Mayors care begins to shew it self he sets a guard upon the house that no hurt should be done unto it yet that Guard suffered 100 l. worth of corn which at first was neglected as contemptible luggage to be carried out and the most of it to their own houses Another Guard he sets upon the Prison lest the Prisoners should be assaulted by the people who were so much incensed against them though it had been fit to set some honest men to guard them from those Guardians who were as forward as the people to drink their blood On Thursday comes down Sir Thomas Barrington and Mr. Grimston as a Committee from the House who comming into the market place before the prison-door the Town Hall not able to receive the least part of the multitude there published two Orders from the House one wherein Sir John Lucas and his adherents were praclaimed guilty of high Treason for intending to assist the King Another wherein thanks were given the People for the good service they had done yet they were told withal that their Act of Plundering was against the sense of the House Some of the agents in that work produced a printed Order of Parliament not heard of before among honest men by which they justified what they had done Sir Thomas Barrington replyed that it was a false and feigned Order contrived by the malignant party to render the House odious and very lovingly besought the people to do so no more And indeed the next weeks Diurnal tells us that upon occasion of the outragious plundering in Essex It was Ordered that thenceforward none should Plunder but those that were authorized by the House to do it Friday was designed for the carrying up of the Traytors Sir John Lucas and Newcomin for whom there was one Messenger come from the Black Rod and another from the Serjeant at Arms for the Ladieswere declared no Prisoners after they had layn in the common Goal four days When the time of their departure was come many thousands of people were gathered together both of Town and Country a Drum being struck up to give them warning The Coaches are come and the Prisoners called forth only Mr. Newcomin they dared not carry forth as yet because the people threatned to tear him in pieces as assuredly they had done had not Mr. Grimston's care been very great who placeing a Court of Guard on each side of Sir Thomas Barrington's Coach from the Prison door brought him forth unexpectedly and put him into the Coach the people then not daring to strike or stone him lest the mischief intended on him should light on Sir Thomas Barrington The Coach being guarded thus a mile out of Town they passed on suffering no other strokes but those of the tongue bitter Curses
or me to write Hereupon Mistris Swift fled to the place where her Husband for fear of the Rebels had withdrawn himself She had not been gone two hours but they come from the Castle and bring with them three Teems to carry away what was before designed for Plunder but wanted means of conveyance When they came amongst other things there was a Batch of Bread hot in the Oven this they seize on Ten Children on their knees intreat but for one Loaf and at last with much importunity obtained it but before the children had eaten it they took even that one Loaf away and left them destitute of a morsel of Bread amongst ten Children Ransacking every corner of the house that nothing might be left behind they find a small Pewter dish in which the dry Nurse had put Pap to feed the poor Infant the Mother which gave it suck being fled to save her Life this they seize on too The Nurse intreats for Gods sake that they would spare that pleading that in the Mothers absence it was all the sustenance which was or could be provided to sustain the life of the Child and on her knees intreated to shew mercy unto the Child that knew not the right hand from the left a motive which prevailed with God himself though justly incensed against Nineveh But to shew what Bowels of Compassion and Mercy are to be expected in Sectaries and how far they are from being Disciples to him who says Be ye merciful as your Father which is in heaven is merciful They transgress that precept of our Saviour in the Letter and take away the Childrens meat and give it unto dogs for throwing the Pap to the dogs they put up the dish as lawful prize Master Swifts eldest son a youth seeing this barbarous cruelty demanded of them a reason of this so hard usage they replyed That his Father was a Traitor to the King and Parliament and added that they would keep them so short that they should eat the very Flesh from their Arms and to make good their word they threaten the Miller that if he ground any Corn for these Children they would grind him in his own Mill and not contented with this they go to Mr. Swifts next Neighbour whose daughter was his Servant and take him Prisoner they examine him upon oath what goods of Mr. Swifts he had in his custody he professing that he had none they charge him to take his daughter away from Mr. Swifts service or else they threaten to Plunder him and to make sure work they make him give them security to obey all their commands terrified with this the Neighbours stand afar off and pity the distressed Condition of these persecuted Children but dare not come or send to their relief by this means the Children and Servants had no sustenance hardly any thing to cover them from Friday six a clock at night until Saturday twelve at night until at last the Neighbours moved with the lamentable cryes and complaints of the Children and Servants one of the Neighbours over-looking all difficulties and shewing that he durst be charitable in despite of these Monsters ventured in and brought them some provision And if the World would know what it was that so exasperated these Rebels against this Gentleman the Earl of Stamford a man that is not bound to give an account of all his actions gave two reasons for it First because he had bought arms and conveyed them into Monmouth-shire which under his Lordships good favour was not so and secondly because not before he preached a Sermon in Rosse upon that Text Give unto Caesar the things that are Caesars in which his Lordship said he had spoken Treason in endeavouring to give Caesar more than his due these two Crimes cost Mr. Swift no less than 300 l. About Feb. 1642. the Duke of Vendosme being to return home into France but resolving first to take his leave of the King at Oxford obtained a Pass from the close Committee that he might be free from any let or molestation in his journey but notwithstanding this Pass in his return from Oxford he was searched and plundered at Uxbridge by that worthy Knight Sir Samuel Luke who was sent by his Excellency from Windsor with a Troop of Horse for that purpose That France by experience might know that Thieves rob as confidently in the Towns of England as in the woods of Ardenna or any Forrest in France About December 1642. the Collonels Waller Brown and others marching from Ailesbury to Windsor and thence by Newbury to Winchester their Soldiers in the March Plundered every Minister within five miles of the Road without distinction whether of their own party or of the other whether they subscribed for Episcopacy Presbytery or Independency whether they wore a Surpless or refused it only if they did not they afforded them the less booty Those that were Confiders whose Irregularity and Non-Conformity armed them with confidence to appear Petitioned the House of Commons for Relief and satisfaction it being taken into Consideration that this was not according to their new Phrase to weaken the wicked but the Righteous and such who stood well affected to the Parliament hereupon slandering the Cavaliers with the fact which their own Soldiers had done and to make the foolish Citizens bleed free there was an Order drawn up and published That in regard the Petitioners were well-affected men and Plundered by the Cavaliers that there should be a general Collection made for them the next Fast-day and that the Preachers should exhort the People and pray to God to enlarge the Peoples hearts bountifully to relieve the Petitioners But Winchester being surprized and the Lord Grandison taken Prisoner Collonel Brown in a Letter to famous Isaac Pennington magnifies the Victory and inlarged the glory of it very much by that Circumstance of taking that Noble Lord Prisoner but which did much eclipse the honor obtained that day in the Letter he adds that by the Treachery of Colonel Urrey he was escaped little Isaac had hardly so much patience as to read out the Letter but he summons his Mirmidons and gives an Alarm to his Red-coats the Messengers of his Fury and sends them instantly to plunder Mistris Urries Lodging it was no sooner said than done they being as swift to act mischief as Isaac was ready to command it what they had in charge they perform faithfully and Plunder her of no more but all Mistris Urrey presently gives notice to her Husband what measure she found in the City while he was in their Service in the Country the Colonel upon the Information hastens to London to expostulate for this Injury and for redress complains to the House against the Ring-leader Brown and Rout-master little Isaac upon hearing both Parties the House quits Colonel Urrey from any conspiracy with my Lord Grandison or connivance at his escape and for reparation of his Losses they order him 400 l. to be paid him out of
Gospel by the same creature as those offered to a Prophet under the Law Or lastly why may not the blood of him that owned this Beast be required by this Beast of him that had his hand in shedding it This was not the first time that God gave commission to the Brute to execute his vengeance But I forget my self my business is to relate things done not to encounter Objections against their probability of doing To go on therefore Having brought Mr. Jones to Northampton his entertainment there was as bad as his usage in the way thither though it were in the depth of Winter when old age needed good fortifications of Lodging and Diet against the incursions of cold and wet yet they afforded him nothing but a hard mat with a little straw under him and to cover him and to keep him warm nothing but one blanket and his own wearing cloaths As for his food they give him the Bread of Affliction denying his own friends leave to supply him with competent diet to sustein nature and his growing infirmities yet to shew that Man lives not by bread only but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God it pleased his good providence to preserve him like the young Children in Daniel fed only with Pulse so that he was in good plight and semed to want nothing though he continued in this distressed condition from Christmas to almost Easter about which time not remorse of conscience for so much cruelty practised on a decrepid old man but an Orthodox Reverend Divine but importunity of friends prevailed with the Rebels to release him of his imprisonment in Northampton and to remit him to a neighbour Minister of his one Mr. Walters Bachelor in Divinity Vicar of Doddington near Wellingborow a very learned and industrious Preacher and permitted him to Officiate in his own Cure at Easter there being but one Parish Church in the Town but no less than two thousand Communicants Having licence to visit his Charge not awed by that tyrannous usage which he had undergone Conscience of his duty doth press him to a punctual observance of the Orders and Canons of the Church he celebrates Divine Service according to the Book of Common Prayer preacheth Obedience as boldly as if there had been no Rebels in Northamptonshire administreth the Sacraments with the same Reverence Decency and Devotion as if there had been no Puritans in Wellingborow Nor doth the undaunted old man remit any thing enjoyned by Canon or Rubrick This constancy of his so incensed the Schismatical Puritanical Party of the Town that complaint is made at Northampton that Mr. Jones is the same man he was as much a true Son and Minister of the Church of England as ever Upon this information he is apprehended in Easter week and carried Prisoner to Northampton a second time where they use him with more inhumanity if it be possible than before they will not permit his Wife to visit him and kept him so short in his diet not suffering his Wife or friends to relieve him that most barbarously they starved him to death for about Whitsontide his spirits exhausted and his body pined by famine the good old Martyr resigned his Soul to God There is in Northampton one John Gifford for his extraction the Hog-herds Son of Little-Hougton for his education a Knitter afterwards a Hose-buyer now Mayor of Northampton and Colonel of the Town Regiment This man to his power Civil and Martial assumes an Ecclesiastical Superintendency too and orders what forms shall be used in Baptism the Lords Supper Burial of the Dead and the like When therefore they came to interr the skin and bones of this starved Martyr for flesh he had none the form enjoyned by this Gifford was the same which one Brooks a London Lecturer used at the burial of John Gough of S. James Dukes Place within Aldgate in London viz. Ashes to Ashes Dust to Dust Here 's the Pit and in thou must The World may in this see what devout Liturgies we are like to have when a Mayor of a Town shall suppress the Ancient pious forms and introduce rime Doggerels fitter for a painted Cloth in an Alehouse than the Church of Christ. Before I leave this particular Relation I must not forget to tell you one act of these Religious Reformers being at Willingborow at the Sign of the Swan two maid Servants making a bed some of these Rebels did sollicite them to incontinency but the Maids refusing to hearken to their beastly sollicitations they began to offer violence and to enforce what they could not perswade they still making resistance they shot one of them dead in the place and shot the other through the wrist such Monuments of Religion and Purity do these blessed Reformers leave at all places where they come Mr. Frederick Gibb Parson of Hartist in Suffolke in Morning Prayer before his Sermon desired his Parishoners to give attention to one of His Majesties Declarations newly set forth with an express Command to have it published in all Parish Churches thereby to rectifie the People and to wipe off those false Impressions which the Incendiaries of the Kingdom had made in them concerning the Kings Actions and Intentions whereupon one Mr. Coleman a Parishioner being present impudently replied unto him openly in the Church that he might be ashamed to abuse the People by Reading his Majesties Declarations unto them and therefore he would fetch him some Parliament Declarations which were a great deal better to be published unto them while this railing Rabshekeh reviled his Sovereign Mr. Gibb as if he had received the Command in that case given answer him not made no reply at all but as not heeding this snarler calls on the Congregation a second time to give attention Coleman interrupts him again and in a scoffing manner saies Well then Sir you mean to be an obedient Servant to his Majesty Mr. Gibb then thinking it not only seasonable but necessary to profess his Loyalty replied Yes Sir I am and hope to continue a faithful Servant unto Him as long as I live and so proceeds to read the Declaration the People notwithstanding all this Incouragement from Coleman to contradict with them standing very attentive to hear it The main drift of the Kings Declaration was to assure all His loving Subjects That as He expected that they should make the Laws the rule of their obedience so He would make the Laws the guide of His Government Mr. Gibb having published the Declaration Coleman stands up and most Traitorously replied to his Parson Well Sir the King neither is nor shall be Judge of the Law whatever such prating fellows as you would have him after this being inraged as the rest of that Faction are that the Peoples eyes should be opened or that they should being truly informed conceive of the King as he is a most just and pious Prince but still to look on him and all his actions through those
one of the Doctors made it a request to Cromwell that he might stay a little to put up some linnen Cromwell denied him the favour and whether in a jeer or simple malice told him That it was not in his Commission having now prepared a shew to entertain the People in Triumph they lead them Captives towards London where the People were before-hand informed what Captives Colonel Cromwell was bringing In the Villages as they passed from Cambridg to London the People were called by some of their Agents to come and abuse and revile them When they came to London being to bring their Prisoners to the Tower no other way would serve their turn but from Shoreditch through Bartholomew-Fair when the Concourse was as thick as the Negotiation of Buyers and Sellers and the warning of the Beadles of the Faction that use to give notice to their Party could make it they lead these Captives leisurely through the midst of the Fair as they pass along they are entertained with Exclamations Reproaches Scorns and Curses and considering the prejudice raised in the City of them it was Gods great mercy that they found no worse usage from them having brought them to the Tower the People there use them with no less Incivility within the Walls than the People did without calling them Papists Arminians and I know not what After some time Imprisonment there they were removed to the Lord Peters House in Aldersgate-street and though they often Petitioned to be heard and brought to judgment yet they could obtain neither a Trial nor enlargement unless to free their Bodies they should ensnare their Souls by loans of Monies to be imployed against the King or taking impious Oaths or Covenants at last after almost a years imprisonment on Friday the 11. of August 1643. by order from the Faction that call themselves a Parliament they were removed from thence and all put on Ship-board in a Ship called the Prosperous Sail or the Prosperous Sailer lying before Wapping They went by Coach from Aldersgate-street to Billingsgate in the way to the Common Stairs there to take water one was over-heard to say These look like honest men and he was not a jot mistaken however for bearing testimomy of the truth he incurr'd the censure of a Malignant and was in danger to be committed but another looking these grave learned Divines in the face reviled them saying That they did not look like Christians and Prayed that they might break their Necks as they went down the Stairs to take water This harsh usage they found by land but yet they found far worse by water being come on ship-board they were instantly put under Hatches where the Decks were so low that they could not stand upright and yet were denied stools to sit on or so much as a burden of straw to lie on Into this Little Ease in a small Ship they crowd no less than four score Prisoners of Quality and that they might stifle one another having no more breath than what they sucked from one anothers mouths most malitiously and certainly to a murtherous intent they stop up all the small Auger holes and all other inlets which might relieve them with fresh air an act of such horrid barbarism that nor age nor story nor Rebellion can parallel But O Lord God to whom Vengeance belongeth thou God to whom vengeance belongeth shew thy self O let the vengeance of thy Servants blood that hath been shed in this land be openly shewed upon these worse than Heathen Salvages in our sight O let the sorrowful sighing of thy Prisoners come before thee according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die Mercurius Rusticus c. XIII Mr. Anthony Tyringham a Minister wounded and most inhumanely used by the Rebels in Buckinghamshire Mrs. Wiborow the Parsons Wife of Pebmarsh in Essex and her Children exposed to great extremity by the Sectaries of that County A lively pattern of ingratitude acted by a schismatical Smith at Dalham in Suffolk c. MAster Anthony Tyringham Parson of Tyringham in Buckinghamshire having business at Maidsmorton at his return came to Buckingham where he met with two of his Nephews The Uncle and his Nephews glad of so happy a meeting after some stay to congratulate the good chance and to refresh themselves set forward in their journey and passed in peace without danger until they came near Stony-Stratford where a party of Dragooners coming from Alesbury surprized them and instantly scarce asking them from whence they came searched and disarmed them which was no difficult atchievment there being but one sword amongst all three The Rebels take from them their Horses their Coats and Mony superfluous things as they conceived for men designed to captivity for having spoiled them of their Horses Mony and Garments they send them with a strong guard Prisoners to Ailesbury while the rest of the Party lurking about Stony-Stratford stayed there to expect some fresh Booty And that in this we do not slander these great Champions of the Subjects Liberties and Properties the issue will acquaint us for presently after to shew that all was Fish which came to net they seized upon a poor Bone-lace man and a Shoomaker robbed them of what they had and in the same manner sent them away Prisoners to Ailesbury The Guard of Dragooners having brought their three Prisoners about a mile and a half on the way towards Ailesbury commanded them again to alight The first Plunder was for the Captain or Commanders or else a share was set apart Anathema for the support of the publick Cause these men to whose trust they were committed now intend to plunder for themselves And first they command Mr. Tyringham to put off his Cassock who being not sudden in obeying the command nor over-hasty to untye his Girdle to disrobe himself of the distinctive Garment of his Profession though now a Cassock contracted into the Compendium of a Gippo is become the Garb of the Reformers one of the Dragoons to quicken him cut him through the hat into the Head with the Sword taken from one of his Nephews and with another blow cut him over the fingers Mr. Tyringham wondring at so barbarous usage without any provocation came toward him that had thus wounded him and desired him to hold his hands pleading that he was a Clergie-man a Prisoner and disarmed the cowardly Villain either fearing the approach of a disarmed man or willing to lay hold on any advantage to expose the Prisoners to the fury of his fellows cried out Shoot the Rogues for they intend to resist the word was no sooner given but a Musquets was instantly discharged at one of Mr. Tyringhams Nephews but the Musqueteer missing his mark another of the Rebels with his Sword aimed righter and ran him into the shoulder a Musquet was presented to the other Nephew but Gods providence restrained the murtherous intention of the Rebel that he did not give fire Thus exercising
That she would rather be killed within doors than perish without but withal earnestly intreated that she might enjoy so much of her Husbands right as his house to shelter her and her Children who poor Souls stood about their Mother crying and in their natural oratory craving compassion towards their Mother whom at every word the Rebels threaten to Pistol but neither the earnest intreaty of the Mother nor the pitiful out-cries of the Children could prevail with them they remain as deaf men void of all pitty or bowels of Compassion nay they violently seize on her drag her down the stairs and out of the house into the yard the poor Children being almost distracted and at their wits end for fear what would become of their Mother being thus violently drawn out of the house into the yard there she found Meriton Simpson and Cooke the Sequestrators with other attending there to see this joyful spectacle a poor oppressed Gentlewoman and her small Children cruelly cast out of their own habitation by Rebels and Traitors As soon as Mrs. Wiborow saw them she presented them with the Kings Proclamation against the Oppression of the Clergy by the intrusion of factious and schismatical persons into the Cures and Revenues of Learned Orthodox Divines by Order of one or both pretended Houses of Parliament contrary to all Law and Justice which she hoped would have found so much obedience and respect as to restore her to her house This was so far from mollifying these Rebels and Schismatiques that it provoked them to great insolencies at last when Mrs. Wiborow perceived that all her intreaties and her Childrens tears prevailed nothing to restore her to her house she intreated the Sequestrators that in case she could not be permitted to dwell in her own house that yet she might have some other place of accommodation provided to receive her and her Children Meriton insolently replied That he would provide his Tumbril that is his Dung-Cart to carry her and her Children from Constable to Constable till she came to her Husband after many bitter scoffs and scorns in this her affliction she desired that if she might not obtain so much favour to dwell in her house yet they would not deny her access to her house but that she might go in to fetch out provision for her Childrens supper that night But these Monsters of men would not give her leave and to compleat this unheard-of Tyranny and Oppression the Authorized Thieves I mean the Commissioners appointed by the pretended House of Parliament to seize upon the Estates of all Delinquents and to point out who shall be plundered next Order that whatsoever Mr. Wiborow had left should be seized on for the use of that Thing which they call a Parliament thereby to support Rebellion with Robbery and Theft Instantly they seize on his Corn and those few Cattle the remainder of former Plunderings though they knew it was the life of the Mother and her Children and that in taking away these they deprived them of all means of subsistence and exposed them to extream want having reduced them to this miserable condition to beg or starve Now for the comfortless trouble sake of the needy and because of the deep sighing of the poor I will up saith the Lord and will help every one from him that swelleth against him and will set him at rest The good God perform his promise Let God arise and let these Enemies of God and Man be scattered Mr. Thomas Dalton Bachelour of Divinity and Parson of Dalham in the County of Suffolke being plundered of his Horse by Colonel Russels Troop Deputy Lieutenant of the County of Cambridge on more than probable grounds fearing that they would seize upon his Person and commit him to Prison was compelled to leave his family and retire privately to some friends where he continued some months In the interim one Barnard a poor Smith and one that formerly had lived on the Parish Alms informed the Committee at Cambridge of Mr. Daltons absence and making it his Crime Petitioned for a Sequestration of his living intending to make a gain of it himself for whereas the living is worth 140 l. per annum and had been so let for many years before Vulcan I mean Barnard the Smith having got a Chaplain of his own one Randall by name intends with him to serve the Cure for 50 or 60 Pounds a year intending to put up the Overplus into his own Purse nor did he fail of his pious project so apparently tending to the publick good and reformation of the Church For on the Smiths bare instance though earnestly opposed by the Lord of the Town and about forty of the chiefest of the Parish who all laboured earnestly to withstand it the committee for the advancement of the Reformation hearken to Barnard and substitute Randall Vulcan Priest in Mr. Daltons place and revenue This grant of the Committee was ratified by the Committee at Westminster for 't is not impossible but Barnard might have sharers with him in both Committees For the Tyth of the Tyth was enough for an Alms-man nay this Committee did not only ratifie the Order of the other Committee but added to the injustice by ordering Mrs. Dalton instantly to resign possession of the Parsonage house to Randall of which Ordinance when the Patron of the living had intelligence he instantly posted to London and knowing how unjust and trivial the accusation against Mr. Dalton were absence being his main Crime being put to this hard Option either to stay and be committed Prisoner or to fly and be robb'd of the profits of his Living for this is the Dilemma to which all Orthodox Conformable Ministers are now put resolved to intercede for him hoping either quite to take him off or at least to procure a mitigation of the Order but contrary to his expectation he found the Smith Courted applauded and to enjoy freedom of access to the Committee and himself a Gentleman of very good rank and esteem in his Country to be slighted neglected and made dance attendance and after long waiting not regarded what he spake for his Minister At last this good Gentleman having by experience observed that the practices of the Faction in Parliament did engage them to slight and suppress the Gentry and all that made Honour or Conscience the rule of their Actions and to court and observe the dregs and scum of the People as the fittest instruments for their designs returned home and sending for Mrs. Dalton entreats her to make use of his house as her own until God should enable the King to restore her and all his loyal Subjects to their own Mrs. Dalton accepts of his courteous offer but leaves her man to keep possession of the Parsonage house She had not stayed long here before her Hoast is threatned to be plundered for his hospitality Barnard the Smith as bad as Alexander the Copper-smith being now so rich as to be able to travel to
perseverance in the fear of God and the King presently a Warrant is granted for the apprehension of Mr. Chestlen on the Thursday following they rioutously assault him in his house with great Tumults armed with drawn Swords and Pistols and seizing on him in great triumph they carry him to the Court of Aldermen who now it seems are succeeded in the place of the High Commission and are to be Judges of true or false Doctrin being brought before this Lay Sanadrim whereof Pennington the pretended Lord Mayor was President and a Rabble of Schismaticks crowding in to give countenance to the business Captain Ven their Leader stands forth and accuseth Mr. Chestlen for a most dangerous seditious Preacher tho he confessed that he never heard him and that he stood a Delinquent in Parliament others objected against him that he Preached to discourage the Citizens from going to Windsor though this Sermon were preached before that treasonable design was known that the Kings Royal Castle should become Captain Ven's Royal Castle or his Country house for the recreation of his Mopsa and that the People might have full content Mr. Chestlen was there baited on every hand every Alderman had his fling at him At last having made him a publick scorn of the multitude Pennington commits him into the hands of his accusers to expose him to more abuse and to commit him to the Compter the Rabble being now made Serjeants they threaten to carry him in a Cart through the open streets to the Prison to deliver him from the fury and rage of the People his Father a known able Citizen tendered Bail of ten Thousand Pounds but it was not accepted away they carry him to the Compter and the next day being Friday he is brought to the Bar at the House of Commons where the Speaker who had been happy in the deceived worlds opinion both of his wisdom and honesty had he never known other Bar but that of the Exchequer interrogated him touching his Preaching against Brownists and Anabaptists and presently though no witness appeared though no crime were objected though no accuser appeared against him he was voted by the House of Commons to be sent Prisoner to Colchester Goal in Essex there to remain during the pleasure of the House and to pay the Charges of his conveyance thither And that Posterity may read and reading stand amazed to see how Tyrannical how unlimited an Empire these Subjects have exercised upon their fellow Subjects without any legal process or any cause shewn to doom them to Banishment and Captivity during their High and mighty pleasure we have here inserted a true and perfect Copy of the Warrant and Sub-warrant by which Mr. Chestlen was sent from hand to hand till he came to his Goal at Colchester By vertue of an Order this day made by the Commons House of Parliament these are to will and require you to take into your Custody the body of Mr. Robert Chestlen Clerk and him by your self your Deputy or Deputies according to the said Order to carry in safe custody to the Prison of Colchester Castle in Essex there to be delivered to the Goaler or Keeper of the said Prison to be kept in safe custody as his Prisoner until the pleasure of the House be made known to him to the contrary It is also ordered that the said Mr. Chestlen shall defray the Charges of his carriage to Colchester Castle aforesaid And for so doing this shall be a sufficient Warrant Dated this 28. of Octob. 1643. Henry Elsyng Cler. Parl. D.C. To John Hunt the Serjeant at Arms attending on the House of Commons his Deputy or Deputies I do appoint the Party or Parties whose name or names are subscribed to be my lawful Deputy or Deputies for the Execution of this Warrant Witness my hand this 26. day of Octob. 1643. John Hunt Serjeant at Arms. Mr. Dodson Walter Story John Hinde Gentlemen Next Morning being Saturday was this righteous sentence put in execution Thus to make way to reduce Burton a Stigmatized infamous Scismatick to his former place was Mr. Chestlen doomed to banishment and captivity in a remote place from his Father his Wife and Family into a noisome Goal where he was made a Companion to Theives and Felons in a Town where 't was little less than death to be Loyal or as themselves phrase it to be Caesars Friend A Town in which they that sent him thither could not but know that they exposed his life to the fury of an inraged Fanatick People and not long before had not only murthered Sir John Lucas his Mother and Sister together with Mr. Newcomin one of their own Ministers and for this had received publick thanks from the House of Commons for their forwardness and zeal to the service of the Parliament Lastly in a Town arrived at that high degree of madness that the Independent Church is openly practised in it and the Mayor banished one of the Town for a Malignant and a Cavalier whose name was Parsons and gave this learned reason for this exemplary peice of Justice Because it was an ominous name While Mr. Chestlen remained in this durance if any man durst visit him it was at his peril he was in danger to be Plundered and branded with the dangerous name of a Malignant They raised reports of great resort of Cavaliers to him and of Arms brought unto him insomuch that Alderman Barrington told the Committee that their Town was not in safety because of Mr. Chestlen who poor man had no other endeavour than how to free himself from the loathsom nastiness of his Prison To this end many Petitions were delivered to the House of Commons that he might be delivered from the Goal to some private house which boon after much and earnest prosecution by Mrs. Chestlen and his friends was obtained Having an Order to exchange his Goal for a private house Mr. Hammon an honest Gentleman dwelling in the Town entertained Mr. Chestlen but for his Charity incurred the hatred of the Common People for whereas before he lived beloved and in good estimation amongst his Neighbours now for harbouring Mr. Chestlen and for this and other actions being under the Jealousie of the Crime of Loyalty they call him Cavalier they threaten to call him up to the Parliament and at last were as good as their word for upon their Complaint he was sent for up to the Parliament and committed for receiving Mr. Chestlen into his house though in reason he might safely conclude that that Order of the House which gave Mr. Chestlen liberty to remove to another house did withal give that house liberty to entertain him Thus continued Mr. Chestlen in this exile and Imprisonment from October 1642. until the February following when the Kings express Warrant being sent for his release having the opportunity now and then to go abroad and take the air he left the Warrant for the Goaler to make use of for his best advantage while he came
away to Oxford and put himself under the Kings Protection Since that in London they have broken up his house and Plundered his Goods a common evil incident to all the Kings faithful Subjects which are within the Verge of the Rebels usurped power Mercurius Rusticus c. XVII Mr. Fowler Parson of Minchin-Hampton in Gloucestershire his Wife and Children barbarously used and his House plundered by the Rebels Mr. Bartlets house at Castle-morton in Worcestershire five times Plundered but especially by Captain Scriven an impudent Rebel c. ON New-years day 1643. seventeen Soldiers sent by Captain Jeremy Buck came to Mr. Henry Fowlers house Parson of Minchin-Hampton in the County of Gloucester being entred the house they find Mr. Fowler sitting as the season of the year required by the fire side presently they seize on him and tell him that he is their Prisoner and though he instantly submitted unto them without any the least resistence yet to wreck their own malice and the malice of him that sent them upon him one of the Rebels takes him by the throat and holds the point of his Sword at his breast two more on each side one present their Pistols at him another shakes his Pole-axe over his head others strike him with their Pole-axes threatned he is on every side with varieties of death All Smite him with the tongue they rail at him objecting against him as heinous crimes First that he read the Common-Prayers at length and that he had published the Kings Proclamations with a loud voice and then with renewed fury they assault him again they beat him with their Pole-axes and call him Mass-Priest Rogue Rascal and tell him Sirrah you can furnish the King with a Musquet a Corslet and a Light-Horse but thou old Knave thou canst not find any thing at all for the Parliament And then to work they fall again with their Pole-axes and beat and bruise him in most parts of his body so that being aged no less than Threescore and two years old and being not yet perfectly recovered of a former lameness in one of his hips though he were in a probable way towards it by this barbarous usage being so cruelly beaten and tugged and haled by them he is made a very Cripple irrecoverably lame without all possibility of recovering of his Limbs All this inhumanity was practised on Mr. Fowler in the presence of his Wife and Children the Wife in the behalf of her Husband the Children in the behalf of their Father humbly entreating on their knees that they would have compassion on him and not murther a peaceable man in his own house While some of these Rebels were executing this cruelty on his Person others go up into his Study and Chambers and take away all that was of good value and portable And having crippled the Master of the Family and rifled his house like the true Servants of that Master whom they serve the Devil they leave him but it was but for a season Now though the present sense of these sufferings could not be but very great to an aged man and one labouring under former infirmities especially to have his sufferings imbittered by the reproachful railings of the Rebels and the mocks and mowes of Captain Bucks friends and Kindred who stood by jeering and clapt their hands for joy applauding the exact execution of Bucks commands given his Soldiers concerning Mr. Fowler yet the sad effects which followed were evidence enough how cruel his usage was First Mr. Fowler presently upon the Rebels departure fell into an extream bleeding which continued and could not be stanched in six hours and more by which great outlet of Spirits his strength was so much exhausted that the was not able to stand Secondly the next day after his bleeding what with the loss of so much blood and what with violence offered to his whole body the Retentive Faculty was so weakened that his urine came from him insensibly and in this wretched condition he continued very near a month Lastly by the many confusions and knocks which he received on his head with their Pole-axes he lost his hearing which he hath not perfectly recovered unto this day And now after all this barbarous usage remains there yet any thing else to be added to his sufferings was not their malice satisfied and these outrages designed to be committed on him compleated yet No Captain Bucke knew that it would not be lawful always to commit murther and rob those that are quiet in the Land and therefore resolved to make use of the present opportunity he was not ignorant that the wages of a faithful Servant to the Rebellion was full licence to do any thing that can satisfie Lust private Revenge or Avarice And therefore in July last Bucke himself not like a Captain of Soldiers but a Ring-leader to a Rout of Rogues came to Mr. Fowlers house at Minching-Hampton and most thievishly broke open the Window of his Sons Study and so entered the house In the Study they found Rich Treasure which they did not know being indeed without a Metaphor Pearl before Swine for young Mr. Fowler a Practitioner it seems in Physick had in his Study Extract of Pearl Aurum Potabile Confections of Amber a great quantity of Compound Waters a good proportion of Pearl in Boxes a Box full of Bezoar Stone with many other things of admirable use for the preservation of the Life of Man and of very great value all which they took and brake in pieces and trampling them under foot made them utterly unuseful either for themselves or others One of Mr. Fowlers Daughters in a just indignation at so great wast of things so precious told Bucke that he might be ashamed to spoil things of that use and value Bucke a rude untutored man as he is called her Whore and with his Pole-ax gave her a blow on the Neck and struck her down and being risen again again he strikes her down with his Pole-ax nay to pursue the glorious victory he strikes her down a third time and had she been able to rise from the floor questionless had struck her down a fourth time The compassionate Mother Mrs. Fowler standing by and seeing her Daughter thus barbarously used to redeem her from this cruelty resolved to expose her own person to the fury of this mad Beast and therefore interposing asked Bucke whether he thought she could endure to see her Child murthered before her face but as soon as Mrs. Fowler came within his reach without regard either to her Age or Sex he caught her by the Throat knocked her down and being down kicked her and trampled on her with his feet At last having acted what cruelty he pleased according to the Latitude of that Tacite Commission given every Captain of the Rebellion on Mrs. Fowler and her Daughter he and his Rabble Plundered the House and so departed If the monstrousness of these barbarous and inhuman cruelties committed on this Reverend Divine his
but for the King for his good to bring him back to his Parliament to make him more glorious than any of his Predecessors and to redeem him from his evil Counsellors and those Popish Malignants that were about him To which old thredbare pretences invented to palliate Treason and blanch their most gross Rebellion when Master Cotterell opposed the Laws of God the Laws of the Kingdom and seconded both by the Kings most clear and satisfactory Declarations able to undeceive the abused World and dispel that mist of errour and prejudice which the heads of this Rebellion had cast before the eyes of the People of this deluded Nation the Colonel not able to return any reasonable answer or pre-instructed by Sedgwick who foresaw what encounter he was like to meet withal suddenly called aloud to his servants to come in whose presence set an end to the Conference after this Master Cotterell some say by Doctor Bruce his Physicians advice though I do not absolutely affirm it was wholly neglected and Master Halsetor was sent for Parson indeed of S. Nicolas in Worcester but more acceptable to those that gave this Counsel under another capacity as he was the City Lecturer But before we acquaint you with what success Halsetor undertook and discharged this imployment it will not be amiss to let the World know what reward this dying Colonel intended to bestow on Master Cotterell for all his pains taken with him when the Colonels Wife came to Worcester to visit her Husband what pains he had taken in administring the Sacrament and his great care in Praying and conferring with him she very nobly pressed her Husband to gratifie Master Cotterell by some honorary gift as an acknowledgment of his thankfulness that he might reap some of his Temporalls to whom he had so plentifully sowed Spiritual things to so reasonable a motion made by the Wife of his bosome the Colonel most unworthily and most uncharitably replyed Sweet-heart be content we shall find him a Delinquent but he that shall reward a Cup of cold water shall not forget so great a work of Charity he that endeavours to turn a sinner to righteousness though the success answer neither his labour nor expectation yet he shall shine as the Stars for ever and ever nor shall his work be in vain in the Lord. Master Cotterell being thus most unthankfully rejected the Colonel is now committed wholly to the care of his new ghostly Fathers Master Halsetor a man of a Schysmatical Turbulent Spirit fitter to make a Rebel than reclaim a relapsed Traitor and since hath followed that counsel which he gave by deserting his Cure and joyning himself to the Rebels the men of this Faction have an Art to torment perplext consciences instead of comforting them dispensing not so much the promises of the Gospel as the terrours of the Law as if the way to spiritual Consolation were through despair and no way led to Heaven so sure as what coasted by the confines of Hell whether Master Halsetor dealt thus with the Colonel I cannot say perhaps he might go about as some others of his Faction have done to sow Pillows under their seduced Champions arm-holes and to justifie the sinner in the sin comparing circumstances questionless this was his way but the sad effects of his Rebellion which the Col. felt in his body and those flashes of horrour affrighting his guilty Soul would not permit this dying man to be lulled asleep in so vain presumption though at first therefore when Master Cotterell was with him to assist him in that great work to prepare him to stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ and the preparatories were confessions and sorrow for sins though but in the general deprecations of Judgment and the wrath of God and the like some spiritual comfort began to dawn in his benighted Soul and that he might seal that obscure glimmering of hope opened unto him in this valley of Achor and obtain more he desired to Communicate in the Body and Blood of Christ yet after Master Halsetor came unto him woe woe to evil Counsel to use his own exclamation it was observed that the Col. fell into strong distempers of mind which suddenly grew to so great a height that he was utterly distracted even to raving and madness which amongst them that think of Gospel ineffectual unless the spiritual man be mad is taken for the undoubted evidence of a Powerful Ministery certainly it was a sad spectacle to see him lye in this condition and a horrid thing to hear that his last breath which should have been breathed out in Prayers and deprecations and humble Confessions of sin should be spent in venting the wild fancies of his distracted brain sometimes crying out that his Chirurgion and servants had broken up his Trunks and robb'd him of of his Gold and by and by starting up and crying out that the Enemy was at the Walls of the City and calling for the keys to lock up the Gates Thus he lay divers weeks and in these distractions dyed dreadful things are these but 't is written The Lord shall smite thee with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart His Wife and Son coming to visit him in this wretched condition poysoned with the stench of his body both fell sick of the small Pox of which she dyed and both of them lie Buried in the South I le of the body of the Cathedral in that Cathedral of Worcester where his Grandfather Doctor Edwin Sandys afterwards Arch-Bishop of York made his first step to the Arch-Episcopal honour being first Consecated Bishop of that Diocess and there laid the foundation of those fortunes which descending to this man made him forget his own extraction and certainly it was no small aggravation of his sin that being descended from an Arch-Bishop and that Estate which made him considerable in the World being raised out of the Revenues of the Church and a Cathedral Church a blessing which but few Church-men have attained unto though advanced to the same or the like dignity to raise a family He should yet so far degenerate so far forget himself and the Rock from whence he was hewn to be a Ringleader to so Barbarous a Rout which beginning at Canterbury went on to ruine and deface all Cathedral Churches where they came ending with that of Worchester were he had the undeserved Priviledg to be interr'd Thus as briefly as I could I have given an account of the unhappy end of this miserable Gentleman In which I call God to witness there is nothing feigned nothing suborned there being nothing here recorded but was is attested by men beyond all exception And I must appeal again to the same God that this account is not given to that end to make his name or memory odious either with the men of this present age or with posterity I must confess I would disgrace the Sin but my intent is by this example to teach those that seduced as this Man
we spkae with our Tongue The Preface And now that the string of our tongue is untyed our earnest desire is that none of these its sorrowful expressions may be mis-interpreted by any And to that end we have perfixed this advertisement to prevent three mistakes which are all we can possibly imagin the malice of our greatest Enemies can any way fansie against this our Remonstrance I. The first is That perhaps it may be groundless because we have not therein set down the express words either of those Protections by which we might securely have expected an Indemnity or of those Orders by which we suffered To which we answer that the reason hereof was partly to avoid tediousness and therefore we gave onely some short hints in the margent And partly because being despersed we could not possibly have the true Copies of all of them by us And to publish any thing that was but supposititious could not consist with our constant endeavour still to maintain the truth notwithstanding whatsoever difficulties to the contrary But yet to prevent all mistakes as near as we can we have here inserted the true Copies of such as we had by us whereby the indifferent Reader will not onely guess at the rest but also easily imagin what rigour and malice there was used in the execution of them which we assure him are as much or more than he can possibly fansie For they being to deal with an Vniversity which then had a reverend esteem over the whole Kingdom must counterfeit Jacobs voice as much as possibly he could in their Orders though their hands were far rougher than Esau's in the execution of them And accordingly though now it is too apparent it was but only in mockery we had sent us these two following Protections Die Sabbati 4. Mar. 1642. THE Earl of Holland Chancellour of the University of Cambridge having this day represented in the House the present condition of the said University the Lords in Parliament apprehending that through the publick distractions and by reason of great multitudes of Soldiers resorting from several places to the Town of Cambridge some disturbance might happen to the quiet and studies of the Scholar For preventing therefore of any such mischief have thought fit to declare the esteem and care they have of that ancient and noble Seminary of Learning and have accordingly Ordered that no Person or Persons whatsoever shall presume to offer any outrage or violence either by themselves or others unto any the Colledges Chappels Libraries Schools or other buildings belonging to the said University or to any the Scholars or publick Ministers thereof Nor plunder purloin deface spoil or take away any the Books goods chattels or houshold-stuff of or belonging to the said University or any Col. there or to any Scholar or publick Minister thereof under any colour or pretence whatsoever as they will answer the contrary to this House at their utmost perils And that Divine Service may be quietly performed and executed throughout all the said University according to the settlement of the Church of England without any trouble let or disturbance until the pleasure of the Parliament be further signified Provided nevertheless that this Protection shall not extend to stop any due course of Law or proceeding of Parliament that may or might have had its course if this Protection had not been granted And herein ready obedience is to be given by all such whom this doth or may concern as they will answer the contrary at their perils Jo. Brown Cleric Parliamentorum THese are to will require and command you and every of you to forbear under any pretence whatsoever to prejudice or offer any dammage to the University of Cambridge or to any the Schools Colledges Halls Libraries Chappels or other places belonging to the said Universities by plundering the same or any part thereof in any kind whatsoever Hereof fail not as you will answer the contrary at your perils Given under my hand and seal the 7. day of March 1642. Essex To all Colonels Lieutenant-Colonels Captains and all other Officers and Soldiers of the Army under my command These indeed were our Protections but they were blasted in the bud by this following Warrant THese are to authorize you to enter into the houses of all Papists Malignants and other Persons whatsoever that have or shall refuse to appear at Musters or to contribute according to the Propositions of both Houses of Parliament or refuse to enter into the Association and to seize upon all such Horses Arms and Ammunition as shall be found in their custodies and to apprehend their said Persons and them to be brought before me or any one of the Deputy-Lieutenants of the County and in case of Resistance to force the same Commanding all Mayors Sheriffs Captains Trained-Bands and other inferiour Officers whatsoever to be aiding and assisting to Colonel Coke herein Dated Feb. 23. 1642. Gray of Wark To Col. Coke Lieutenant-Col Bryldon or any other of his Officers This Warrant was issued out the more suddenly and prosecuted the more violently in regard that our Protections were then in procuring But the rigorous prosecution of this made those to be of little or no use more than the name unless it was to shut the Stable door after the Steed was stoln For under pretence of Papists Malignants c. there was scarce a Scholar in all the Vniversity which escaped examination And lest our Colledge Chappels Libraries or Treasuries or even the privatest Cabinet therein or in any of our Chambers or Studies should perchance have been converted into Stables for Horses or Magazines for Arms and Ammunition they searched them all so strictly and plundered them all so throughly that nothing which they liked escaped their fingers our ancient Coins not excepted When we had seen their unparallel'd rigour herein and how we were slighted when we made our just complaints against it we did not much regard whether they had any Commission or not for whatsoever they did to us afterward But like Christian sufferers when they took our Cloaks we forbad them not to take our Coats also and when they took our goods we asked them not again For we did plainly see that we were destinated to ruin and that all these were but previous dispositions to take us down and fit us for the great stroke when they should please to lay it upon us And therefore omitting all the rest though we could insert some we shall here only add two other Warrants mentioned hereafter The one their general Summons the other their first form of their Writs of Ejection THese are to will and require you upon sight hereof to give speedy advertisement viis mediis modis to Master Fellows Scholars and Officers of your Colledge to be resident in your said Colledge the 10. day of March next ensuing to give an account wherein they shall be required and to answer such things as may be demanded by me or such Commissioners
him we may justly receive at his hands heavier Judgments than these yet our Innocence will plead Not Guilty to the face of any Man who shall object against us any Civil Misdemeanors whereby we can more justly be deprived of our Fellowships than any free Subject in England of his fee Simple if they please to say he is guilty of Misdemeanors And as it hath pleased our gracious Master whose Ministers we are to make us examples though but of suffering to the rest of our Brethren So we hope he will continue unto us his grace of humilation under his mighty hand as an earnest of his exalting us in due time And in the interim that he will lay no more upon us than he shall be pleased to strengthen our infirmities to bear And that he will still preserve unto us a good conscience that whereas our persecutors speak evil of us as of evil doers they may be ashamed that falsly accuse our good conversation in Christ. FINIS Mercurius Belgicus OR A briefe Chronology of the Battels Sieges Conflicts and other most remakable passages from the beginning of this Rebellion to the 25 th of March 1646. Together with A Catalogue of the Persons of Quality slain on both sides CICERO Incerti sunt exitus pugnarum Marsque esi communis qui saepe spoliantem jam exultantem evertit perculit ab abjecto Printed in the Year 1685. The Preface Readers YOU have here a canded and impartial Epitomy of an unnatural War Subjects banding against their lawful Prince Brother against Brother and Father against Son Read but the said ensuing Story and therein consider the number and quality of Persons slain the destruction of Houses and Families the desolation of Cities and Towns the increase of Widows and Orphans the Tyranny and inhumanity of our new Legislators over their own Fellow-Subjects and you will easily conclude of these as Cicero did of Sylla's time Nemo illo invito nec bona nec patriam nec vitam retinere potueirt In earnest it may well be wondred whence these men have their minds God nor man nor Nature ever made them thus To be short the Reader may here see the flux and reflux of Fortune de la Guerre now this party flourisheth and that goes down anon that flourisheth and this goes down as if the guilt of our sins were drawing a heavy Judgment from Heaven upon this Land and these Rebels were ordained for the instruments of it But let us hope for better And particularly that God in the richness of his mercy will look down upon these macerated Kingdoms and periodize these distractions That Religion may again flourish in its purity maugre the Plots and impieties of all Seditiaries and Schismaticks That His Sacred Majesty may be re-established in His just Rights and Prerogatives that Parliaments may move in their own and known Centre the Ancient Laws of the Land re-inforced and freed from fellow-subjects Tyranny and Arbitration and the Subject re-estated in his Ancient Liberties freed from Murder Rapine and Plunder which that we may quickly see let it be the Subject of ever good Christian Prayer Memorable OCCURRENCES since the beginning of this REBELLION Anno Dom. 1641. IN December 1641. The House of Commons published a Remonstrance of the State of the Kingdom therein setting forth all the errors of his Majesties Government a meer design to alienate the affection of his Subjects from him The tenth of January following his Majesty with the Queen Prince and Duke of Yorke left White-hall and went to Hampton Court to avoid the danger of those frequent tumults then hazarding the safety of his Royal Person February the 23 d. the Queens Majesty took shipping at Dover having been driven before from White-hall by the frequent tumults of the Rebels And soon after His Majesty went to New-market and from thence to Yorke where after the Rebels had Guards for three Months before the Gentry of the Country raised a Guard for his Majesties Person Anno Dom. 1642. MAY the 20 th it was voted by both Houses That the King intended to levie War against the Parliament which they did on purpose to excuse themselves for raising a Rebellion against His Majesty as appeared within few days after July the second the Kings ship called the Providence Landed in the Creek of Kenningham near Hull till which time His Majesty had not a Barrel of Powder nor any Arms or Ammunition whatsoever July the 12 th the pretended two Houses Voted that the Earl of Essex should be General of their Army and that they would live and die with him August the first the Earl of Essex caused all the men then raised being in number about 10000 to be committed to Officers and divided into Regiments which men had been raising ever since the 12 th of July 1642. at which time he was made General of the Rebels August the sixth the Earl of Bedford having fruitlessely besieged the Lord Marquess of Hertford in Sherburn Castle for four days before retreated to Yevell the Noble Marquess sallied after him and with a small number fell on that great body of the Rebels Kill'd above 140 whereof 9 Commanders took divers Prisoners and routed the rest so as he marched away and after divided his small Forces going himself into Wales and Sir Ralph now Lord Hopton into Cornwall of both which there followed so good an effect August the 22 d. His Majesty set up his Standard Royal at Nottingham for raising of Forces to suppress the Rebels then marching against him September the 23 d. Prince RUPERT with about 11 Troops of Horse gave a great overthrow to the Rebels in Wikefield near Worcester where Colonel Sands that commanded in chief received his mortal wound Major Douglas a Scot and divers other Captains and Officers slain and drowned Captain Wingate a Member of the House of Commons with four Coronets taken and two more torn in pieces This body of the Rebels was observed to be the flower of their Cavalry October the 23 d. was that signal great battel fought between Keynton and Edg-hill by his Majesties Army and that of the Rebels led by the Earl of Essex wherein the Rebels lost above 70 Colours of Coronets and Ensigns and His Majesty but only 16 Ensigns and not one Coronet The exact number that were slain on both sides in this Battel is not known But it is certain that the Rebels lost above three for one Men of eminence of his Majesties Forces who were slain in the Battel were the two Noble and valiant Lords Robert Earl of Lindsey Lord High Chamberlain of England and George Lord D. Aubigney Brother to the Duke of Richmond and Lenox Sir Edmund Verney Knight Marshal to His Majesty with some other worthy Centlemen and Soldiers but besides these three named there was not one Noble Man or Knight kill'd which was an extraordinary mercy of Almighty God considering what a glorious sight of Princes Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons Knights and
willing to be too long is my self I was born and baptized in the bosom of the Church of England established by Law in that profession I have ever since lived and in that I come now to dye This is no time to dissemble with God least of all in matter of Religion and therefore I desire it may be remembred I have always lived in the Protestant Religion established in England and in that I now come to dye What clamours and slanders I have endured for labouring to keep an Uniformity in the external service of God according to the Doctrin and Discipline of this Church all men know and I have abundantly felt Now at last I am accused of High Treason in Parliament a crime which my Soul ever abhorred this Treason was charged to consist of these two parts An endeavour to subvert the Laws of the Land and a like Endeavour to overthrow the true Protestant Religion estabâ—â—shed by Law Besides my Answers to the several Charges I protested my innocency in both Houses It was said Prisoners protestations at the Bar must not be taken I can bring no witness of my heart and the intentions thereof therefore I must come to my Protestation not at the Bar but my Protestation at this hour and instant of my death in which I hope all men will be such charitable Christians as not to think I would dye and dissemble being instantly to give God an account for the truth of it I do therefore here in the presence of God and his holy Angels take it upon my death That I never endeavoured the subversion either of Law or Religion and I desire you all to remember this Protest of mine concerning mine innocency in these and from all Treasons whatsoever I have been accused likewise as an Enemy to Parliaments No I understand them and the benefit that comes by them too well to be so But I did mislike the misgovernments of some Parliaments many ways and I had good reason for it for Corruptio optimi est pessima there is no corruption in the World so bad as that which is of the best thing in it self for the better the thing is in nature the worse it is corupted And that being the highest Court over which no other hath jurisdiction when t is mis-informed or misgoverned the Subject is left without all remedy But I have done I forgive all the World all and every of those bitter Enemies which have persecuted me and humbly desire to be forgiven of God first and then of every man whether I have offended him or not if he do but conceive that I have Lord do thou forgive me and I beg forgiveness of him And so I heartily desire you to joyn in Prayer with me O Eternal God and merciful Father look down upon me in mercy in the riches and fulness of all thy mercies look upon me but not till thou hast nailed my sins to the Cross of Christ not till thou hast bathed me in the blood of Christ not till I have hid my self in the wounds of Christ that so the punishment due unto my sins may pass over me And since thou art pleased to try me to the uttermost I humbly beseech thee give me now in this great instant full patience proportionable comfort and a heart ready to dye for thy honour the Kings happiness and this Churches preservation And my zeal to these far from Arrogancy be it spoken is all the sin human frailties excepted and all incidents thereto which is yet known to me in this particular for which I now come to suffer I say in this particular of Treason but otherwise my sins are many and great Lord pardon them all and those especially what ever they are which have drawn down this present judgment upon me and when thou hast given me strength to bear it do with me as seems best in thine own eyes and carry me through death that I may look upon it in what visage soever it shall appear to me Amen And that there may be a stop of this issue of blood in this more than miserable Kingdom I shall desire that I may pray for the People too as well as for my self O Lord I beseech thee give grace of repentance to all Blood-thirsty People but if they will not repent O Lord confound all their devices defeat and frustrate all their designs and endeavours upon them which are or shall be contrary to the Glory of thy great Name the truth and sincerity of Religion the establishment of the King and his posterity after him in their just rights and Priviledges the honour and conservation of Parliaments in their just power the preservation of this poor Church in her truth peace and patrimony and the settlement of this distracted and distressed People under their ancient Laws and in their native Liberties And when thou hast done-all this in meer mercy for them O Lord fill their hearts with thankfulness and with Religious dutiful obedience to thee and thy Commandments all their days So Amen Lord Jesus Amen and receive my Soul into thy Bosom Amen Our Father which art in Heaven c. January the 11 th Sir Henry Gage Governour of Oxford marched thence with a party of horse and foot towards Abingdon with intention to raise a Fort at Cullom bridg but Brown having treacherous notice of the design was prepared accordingly which begat a hot skirmish wherein the Rebels lost Major Bradbury and at least 30 others slain and on His Majesties part not above 7 common Soldiers but by great misfortune Sir Henry Gage himself marching in the front of his men did here receive a fatalshot whereof within few hours after he dyed His Body was afterwards interred at Oxford with funebrious exequies and solemnities answerable to his merits who having done His Majesty special service was whilst living generally beloved and dead is still universally lamented His daily refreshed memory makes me trespass on the Readers patience with this ELEGY Upon the never-enough lamented Death of Sir HENRY GAGE the most desired Governour of OXFORD SO Titus called was The Worlds delight And straight-way dy'd The envious Sisters spight Still the great favourite The darling head Unto the Fates is always forfeited Our Life 's a Chase where tho the whole Herd fly The goodlyest Deer is singled out to dye And as in Beasts the fattest ever bleeds So amongst men he that doth bravest deeds He might have liv'd had but a Coward fear Kept him securely sculking in the rear Or like some sucking Colonel whose edg Durst not advance a foot from a thick hedg Or like the wary Skippon had so sure A suit of Arms he might besieg'd endure Or like the politick Lords of different skill Who thought a Saw-pit safer or a Hill Whose valour in two Organs too did lye Distinct the ones in 's ear th' others in his eye Puppets of War Thy name shall be divine And happily augment the number Nine But that the Heroes
A party of Rebels near Uttoxeter in Staffordshire were routed by His Majesties Forces who slew Captain Watson their Commander in chief with Captain Hard-staffe and divers others and took 60 Prisoners but more Horses and good store of Arms. In this action His Majesty lost Captain Sares only of Note and three Troopers Feb. 26 th His Majesty sent a ninth Letter to Westminster to desire an Answer of his former Letters still pressing for Peace Feb. 16 th The strong Castle of Corf which had been lately relieved was delivered into the hands of the Rebels by the Treachery and perfidiousness of one Lieutenant Colonel Pitman March the 2 d. A party of His Majesties Forces from Oxford entred the Town of Abbington seised upon the Ordnance and Magazin yet for want of a sufficient supply were forced to retreat with some Prisoners and few slain on either side March the 12 th The Lord Hopton being much overpowered by the Rebels in the West was necessitated to accept of Conditions for the disbanding his Army c. March the 21 st the Lord Ashley commanding a Brigade of horse and foot from Worcester-shire which were intended for Oxford were set upon by an aggregate body of the Rebels on the edg of Gloucestershire and defeated the foot most taken with my Lord himself and some of the horse the remainder escaped and got to Oxford Thus had His Majesty two Armies defeated in less than a fortnight yet we are confident when Almighty God hath sufficiently punish'd the sins of this Nation he will in his good time restore a pious King to his just rights and his bleeding Kingdoms to peace and union in despight of all Sectaries and Opponents March the 23 d. His Majesty never weary in acting any thing tending to Peace sent his tenth Message to this effect That in case he might have the faith of his two houses of Parliament for the preservation of his Honour person and estate and that liberty might be given to all those that do and have adhered to His Majesty to enjoy their Estates without any sequestration or being compelled to take any Oaths not enjoined by Law he would then disband his forces dismantle his Garrisons return to and reside with his two Houses of Parliament c. And could more be offered by or expected from a Gracious King If the Ears of the Parliament continue deaf to so reasonable a motion the World will easily perceive their intentions are not conform to their often professions And His Majesty will be abundantly cleared before God and man for any ensuing miseries that shall by want of an Accommodation befal these Kingdoms whereunto God of his goodness afford Peace and Truth Reader THere remains now nothing to compleat this short sad story but a Catalogue of the Persons of Note slain in these last four years not to speak of those many thousands of inferiour Rank which may well challenge even from an adamantine heart the tribute of a bleeding eye the rather since there 's hardly any story can parallel these calamities which if truly resented will exact from all good Christians an earnest and continual supplication that Almighty God would please to avert his anger from us and set a period to these distractions A Catalogue of the Names of all or the most part of the Lords Knights and men of Quality slain or Executed by Law-Martial on both sides since the beginning of this Unnatural War to the 25 th of March 1646. On His Majesties part slain EArl of Lindsey Earl of Northampton Earl of Carnarvon Earl of Sunderland Farl of Litchsield Earl of Kingstone Marquess de Vieuville a French man Lord Viscount Faulkland Lord d' Aubigny Lord John Steward Lord Grandison Lord Cary eldest Son to the E. of Monmouth An Outlandish Lord slain at Nottingham who was a near kinsman to the Prince of Orange Sir Edmon Verney Sir Bevill Grenvile Sir Nicholas Slannyng Sir Richard Lawdy Sir Ingram Hopton Sir William Butler Sir William Clark Sir Thomas Metham Sir Anthony Maunsell Sir Anthony St. Leger Sir Henry Gage Sir John Girlington Sir William Mainwaring Sir John Digby Sir William Crofts Sir John Smith Sir Thomas Gardiner and his Brother Sir Peter Brown Sir Thomas Dallison Sir Bernard Ashley Sir Richard Crane Sir Richard Hutton Sir Gilbert Gerard. Sir William Wentworth Sir Cha. Blunt by Mutiny Sir Jo. Scudamore in a Duel Colonel Blague Col. Windebank Sir Job Cademan Executed by Martial Law The first for Treachery the second for Cowardise and the third Beheaded at Bristol for killing an Officer there Col. Howard Col. Lunsford Col. Trevanian Col. Morgan Col. Eure. Col. Cavendish Col. Townley Col. Herne Col. Ferdinando Stanhop and Col. Stanhop Sons to the Earl of Chesterfield Col. Marrow Col. Prideaux Col. Mynne Col. Mannyng Col. Slaughter Col. Bernard Col. S. George Col. Taylor Col. Bawd Col. Carnaby Col. Bentall Lieut. Col. Markham Master Sackvile Son to the Earl of Dorset Persons of Note slain on the Parliaments part where the Reader may observe that as His Majesty had on his side ten Gentlemen at least for every one on their side it must by consequence follow that he must lose many more of Note than they THe Lord S. John eldest Son to the E. of Bullingbrook Lord Brook Sir Charles Essex Sir William Fairfax Sir Charles Fairfax Sir John Meldrum Major Gen. Crawford Col. John Hampden one of the 5. Members Col. Sands Col. Armyne Col. Thornton Col. Lister Col. Meldrum Col. Malevory Col. Cockeram Lieutenant Col. Stanley Lieut. Col. Quarles Lieut. Col. Harrington Lieut. Col. Gurdon Major Dowglas Doctor Scudamore Executed on the Parliaments side by Law-Martial not to speak of the E. of Strafford and the Arch-Bishop of Cant. Sir Alexander Carew At LONDON Sir John Hotham and his Son At LONDON Master Tomkins At LONDON Master Chaloner At LONDON Master Bourchier At BRISTOLL Master Yomans At BRISTOLL FINIS THE TABLE OF Mercurius Rusticus ARcher Preaches Rebellion up and Gentry and Learning down pag. 35 Articles of Surrender broken 49 51 65 76 Sir Henry Audley Plundered 13 14 B. Doctor Bargrave Plundered 79. c. dies of grief 81 Barnard an ungrateful Schismatick 145 Sir Tho. Barrington for bids the Preaching of Divine Truth 20 21 Master Bartlets house five times Plundered 186 c. Doctor Beale Doctor Martin Doctor Sterne imprisoned and barbarously used on Ship-board 132 Beale a Rebel Plundered by the Rebels 91 A Bear more merciful than the Rebels 94 Bible abused 213. Blasphemy 43 123 124 Sir Wllliam Boteler Plundered 7. His Steward tortured 10 Bowlstrodes Prayer 157 Sir Wil. Brooke stormes a Gally-pot 9 John Brown tortured 3 Burton intruded into Mr. Chestlins Living 177 Master Bykar Murthered because he was a Parsons Son 57 C Sir Ralph Canterills man Tortured 149 Cathedral Churches Prophaned and abused at Canterbury 119. Rochester 136. Chichester 139. Winchester 146 c. Westminster 154. Exeter 158 159 Mr. Chaldwel and his Wife barbarously used and his Servant Murthered 104
false Perspectives of slander and falsehood which they hold before their eyes Coleman speeds to London and complains to that Conventicle which call themselves a Parliament against Mr. Gibb for so foul an Affront put upon them by Publishing the Kings Declaration presently being servilely Observant to every base informer they dispatch several Pursevants to apprehend Mr. Gibb he seeing the Storm coming as wise men do hides himself after some time of retirement advised unto it by his friend he goes to London where by the great mediation of friends and paying fees to the sum of 30 l. he was dismissed upon engagement to be forth-coming whensoever they should call for him There is none so insolent and intolerable as a base mean man started up into command or authority we cannot give you a greater instance than in that beggarly Captain Ven Citizen of London made Colonel and Commander in chief of Windsor-Castle who doth not only assume to himself the propriety of his Sovereigns house dating his Letters to Jezabel his Wife From our Castle at Windsor and building some additions to the Deans lodgings as if he meant to set up his rest there and make that his habitation when no place in that Royal Castle is fit for such a Couple but the Cole-house and even that too good for them but as if there would never come a time to call him to an account he doth use the Gentlemen and Soldiers taken by the Rebels and sent Prisoners thither with that cruelty and inhumanity as if they were Turks not Christians for the Gentlemen that are Prisoners there are not only kept from Church nor permitted to receive the Sacrament neither from their own Preachers nor from any friend whom they could procure to do that office for them nay they were not permitted to joyn together in devotions in their private lodgings but each man a part and if this petty Tyrant could have hindred that intercourse which every particular devout Soul injoys with his God this Atheist would have hindered that too And because the sedentary Solitary Lives which they led there were prejudicial to their healths they earnestly entreated Ven that they might recreate themselves in the Tennis-Court near the Keep and offered to be at the charges of a Guard if those high walls and the many guards about them were not thought sufficient to secure them but yet were denied Nay when the Sheriff of Sussex was brought Prisoner from London to Windsor very lame though his Chirurgion offered Colonel Ven to be deposed that on the least neglect his Leg was like to gangreen yet after he came to Windsor he was forced to lie with the rest of the Knights and Gentlemen on the ground many nights at last shewing his leg to Ven he confessed that he never saw a more dangerous lameness and promised to acquaint the Earl of Essex with it and the Sheriff himself being acquainted with the Earl presuming on some interest in him wrote unto him to acquaint him with his condition and earnestly entreating him that he might be sent to London and disposed of though in a Dungeon for a week that he might have the assistance of his own Physitian and Chirurgion offering to give any security and be at any charges to assure him of his safe return to render himself true Prisoner but neither the sense of his misery nor his earnest sollicitations could prevail with his Excellency And if the Knights and Gentlemen who had money to bribe that compassion which they could not intreat found no better measure at their hands what then think you were those heavy pressures under which the poor common Soldiers groaned there were in the Castle eight poor Soldiers to whom the Sheriff of Sussex allowed eight shillings a week yet notwithstanding because they refused to take the wages of Iniquity and serve under the Rebels Colours and fight against their Sovereign they starved them insomuch that being released that they might not die in the Castle coming into the air three of them fell down dead in the streets three more recovered as far as Eaton where a good Woman for five shillings a week given for their relief by the Sheriff of Sussex gave them entertainment and when the Sheriff made his happy escape he left them alive There was a poor man living near Moore Park whom when Prince Rupert was in those parts commanded to shew him where the Pipes lay which conveyed water to the Castle for this crime they apprehend him and commit him Prisoner to the Castle where they fed him with so slender diet that they even starved him and when upon his Wives tears and lamentable cries that she and her Children were like to starve at home while her Husband starved at Windsor they having no subsistence but what he got by the sweat of his browes he was released he was not able to stand on his legs and whether dead since we have no information There was at the same time in the Castle one Lieutenant Atkinson Prisoner who suffering under the same want of necessary food sent to his Father humbly petitioning for relief his Father though a man of good estate returned answer that unless he would take profered Entertainment from the Parliament he should lie there rot and starve and be damn'd for him He finding no pity from his Father where Nature and Religion bade him expect it petitioned the Gentlemen in the Keep for bread as many others daily did and on his Petition had monies sent him but died starved two daies after and left this just ground to the World to make this Observation That where Puritanism prevails it cancels all Obligations both of Religion and Nature and never fails to make men guilty of that sin which is in the number of those which the Scripture tells us shall heap wrath on the end of the World the want of natural affection Mercurius Rusticus c. X. Master Chaldwel and his Wife barbarously used by the Rebels at Lincoln and his Servant Murthered Mr. Losse Parson of Wedon Pinkney in Northampton-shire himself and the Church infinitely abused on the Lords day by some Rebel-Troopers of Northampton c. WIlliam Chaldwell of Thorgonby in the County of Lincoln Esquire and Justice of Peace being an aged Gentleman yet his Loyalty and desire to serve the King in his just Wars made him over-look his infirmities so that he resolved in person to come to his assistance To this purpose he provided four horses compleatly furnished of which the Rebels having intelligence they surprize him and seize on his horses In February 1643. some Rebel-Troopers came to Mr. Chaldwells House and demanded entrance which he denying unless they could shew some Commission from the King they presently broke up his Hall windows and forcing his entrance apprehend his Person yet his Person is not all they come for they begin to plunder his Goods and the first thing which they lay hold on was some Linnen lying on the Hall
away nor well to stay for fear one was slain The Boar of the two a man would think the valianter Creature seeing the ill success of the Sow to cast her Litter before her time durst not advance The most advantageous part for their Batteries was the Church which they without fear of prophanation used not only as their Rampart but their Rendezvouz of the Surpless they made two Shirts for two Soldiers they broke down the Organs and made the Pipes serve for Cases to hold their Powder and Shot and not being furnished with Musket-Bullets they cut off the Lead of the Church and roll'd it up and shoot it without ever casting it in a mould Sir Walter and the Commanders were earnest to press forward the Soldiers but as prodigal as they were of the blood of their common Soldiers they were sparing enough of their own It was a general Observation that valiant Sir Walter never willingly exposed himself to any hazard for being by chance endangered with a Bullet shot through his Coat afterwards he put on a Bears skin and to the eternal honor of this Knights valour be it recorded for fear of Musket-shot for other they had none he was seen to creep on all four on the sides of the Hill to keep himself out of danger This base Cowardise in the Assailants added Courage and Resolution to the Defendants therefore not compell'd by want but rather to brave the Rebels they sallyed out and brought in eight Cows and a Bull into the Castle without the loss of a Man or a Man wounded At another time five Boys fetcht in four Cows They that stood on the Hills called to one in a House in the Valley crying Shoot Anthony but Anthony thought it good to sleep in a whole skin and durst not look out so that afterward it grew into a Proverbial Jeer from the Defendants to the Assailants Shoot Anthony The Rebels having spent much time and Ammunition and some men and yet being as far from hopes of taking the Castle as the first day they came thither At last the Earl of Warwick sends them a supply of an hundred and fifty Mariners with several Cart-loads of Petarrs Granadoes and other Warlike Provision with Scaling-ladders to assault the Castle by Scaladoe They make large offers to him that should first scale the Wall 20 l. to the first and so by descending sums a reward to the twentieth but all this could not prevail with these silly Wretches who were brought thither as themselves confessed like Sheep to the slaughter some of them having but exchang'd the manner of their death the Halter for the Bullet having taken them out of Goals one of them being taken Prisoner had Letters Testimonial in his hands whence he came the Letters I mean when he was burnt for a Felon being very visible to the beholders but when they found that perswasion could not prevail with such abject low spirited men the Commanders resolve on another course which was to make them Drunk knowing that Drunkenness makes some men fight like Lions that being sober would run away like Hares To this purpose they fill them with strong Waters even to Madness and ready they are now for any Design and for fear Sir Walter should be valiant against his will like Caesar he was the only man almost that came sober to the assault an imitation of the Turkish practice for certainly there can be nothing of Christianity in it to send poor Souls to Gods Judgment Seat in the very act of two grievous Sins Rebellion and Drunkenness who to stupifie their Soldiers and make them insensible of their dangers give them Opium being now armed with drink they resolve to storm the Castle on all sides and apply their Scaling-ladders it being ordered by the Leaders if I may without a Solecism call them so that stood behind and did not so much as follow that when 20 were entered they should give a watch-word to the rest and that was Old Wat a word ill chosen by Sir Watt. Earle and considering the business in hand little better than ominous for if I be not deceived the Hunters that beat Bushes for the fearful timerous Hare call him Old Watt. Being now Pot-valiant and possessed with a borrowed Courage which was to evaporate in sleep they divide their Forces into two Parties whereof one assaults the middle Ward defended by valiant Captain Lawrence and the greater part of the Soldiers the other assault the upper Ward which the Lady Bankes to her Eternal Honor be it spoken with her Daughters Women and five Soldiers undertook to make good against the Rebels and did bravely perform what she undertook for by heaving over Stones and hot Embers they repelled the Rebels and kept them from climing their Ladders thence to throw in that Wild-fire which every Rebel had ready in his hand Being repelled and having in this Siege and this Assault lost and hurt an hundred men Old Sir Watt hearing that the Kings Forces were advanced cryed and ran away crying leaving Sydenham to Command in Chief to bring off the Ordnance Ammunition and the remainder of the Army who afraid to appear abroad kept Sanctuary in the Church till night meaning to Sup and run away by Star-light but Supper being ready and set on the Table an Alarm was given that the Kings Forces were coming this News took away Sydenhams Stomack all this Provision was but messes of Meat set before the Sepulchres of the dead he leaves his Artillery Ammunition and which with these men is something a good Supper and ran away to take Boat for Poole leaving likewise at the shore about an hundred Horse to the next Takers which next day proved good prize to the Soldiers of the Castle Thus after six Weeks strict Siege this Castle the desire of the Rebels the Tears of Old Sir Watt and the Key of those parts by the Loyalty and brave Resolution of this Honorable Lady the valour of Captain Lawrence and some eighty Soldiers by the loss only of two men was delivered from the Bloody Intentions of these Merciless Rebels on the fourth of August 1643. Mercurius Rusticus c. XII Mr. Thomas Jones Bachelour in Divinity ill intreated by the Rebels in Devon A Soldier hanged at Thame on the Sign-post of the Kings Head Mr. Wright a Minister in Cheshire plundered and two of his Maid-Servants murthered Doctor Beale Doctor Martin and Doctor Sterne brought Prisoners from Cambridg by Cromwel and their barbarous usage c. MAster Thomas Jones Bachelor in Divinity and Rector of Offwel in the County of Devon having discover'd that the right of Patronage of one of the cures of Tuifordton was in the Crown and worth three hundred Pounds per annum did in the pursuance of his Right spend a Thousand Pounds to recover it from those who account all lawful gain whatsoever they can purloin either from God or the King The pretended Patrons who had invaded this Right were much offended with Mr.
Jones for being at so great expence to redeem the prey out of their hands and did but watch an opportunity to make him know how sensible they were of this their loss This Parliament being called and these men made Members of the Lower House they quickly perceived that this wished-for opportunity was now come wherein they might pervert publick Justice to private revenge quickly learning to exercise that Arbitrary unlimited power over their fellow Subjects which the prevalence of a dangerous Faction had put in their hands According to the general practice since this Parliament they accuse Mr. Jones of some Anti-parliamentary passages in his Sermons which his Judges understood as little as his Accusers Nay perhaps it was with him as with many of his Orthodox Brethren the same men were both his Accusers and Judges However any or no accusation we know have served these mens turns to bring Godly and Learned Ministers to the Bear-baiting of a Committee and to put them into the expensive custody of a Serjeant at Arms so it was with Mr. Jones they first pretended some Crimes and on these pretences they commit him Prisoner to a Serjeant at Arms. Having deprived him of his Liberty and put him into a consumption of his Estate by the unreasonable unlimited exactions of Parliament Goalers they then think him reduced to such a condition as to be willing to hearken to a Composition on any terms At last vexed to an agreement he is to enjoy his Liberty and Peace on this mutual stipulation They are to pardon him the errour of his Doctrine to deliver up his bail being with two Sureties Parliament men bound in a Bond of two thousand pounds and to give two hundred pounds towards his charges Mr. Jones must resign his lately recovered Cure of Tuifordton to make way for a Clerk of their own which to avoid farther molestation to his very great prejudice he was inforced to condescend unto After in September 1642. Mr. Jones riding to Taunton in Somersetshire accompanied by one of the Prince's Servants who wore his Masters Colours was for that reason together with that Gentleman immediately after his departure from thence apprehended and like a Felon brought back to the Castle where he remained Prisoner three weeks and could not be released without the earnest solicitation of his friends and his Wives humble and often petitioning the Earle of Bedford In November last suffering under continual molestations and out of all hope to live peaceably at home he resolved to put himself under the protection of Sir Ralph Hoptons Army then in Cornwal To this purpose he furnished three Horses and Arms proportionable and set forward to deliver them up to his Majesties service but unhappily in the way thither he was intercepted by the Earl of Stamfords Forces under the command of Captain Gould taken Prisoner robb'd to the value of 80 l. the Plunderers leaving him not so much as a boot to ride in By these he is led Captive to Liskard in Cornwal where they kept him three days in which time he and another Minister with him with his servant had but one pint of Beer for their sustinence being kept without either fire or light and for one night had their hands bound behind them and had been still kept in the like bondage had not God in mercy rescued them by Sir Ralph Hopton after the famous Battle of Liskard During the time of their imprisonment they offer them Conditions on which they may purchase their liberty viz. to pay three hundred pound to take an Oath never any more to assist the King with Horse Arms or Money But being delivered on far better terms he was not long after imprisoned for giving God publick thanks for his deliverance Afterwards seeing that Religion it self was but abused being made the Cloak of these mens Hypocrisie and Treasons and that they did fast but to strife and debate he did not observe the Fast every last Wednesday in the Month with that strict observation as was expected from him by that Faction hereupon some of them put him in mind of it Good Friday coming on presently upon the last Wednesday in April he desired his Neighbours and Parishoners to keep that ancient Fast injoyned by the Church in Commemoration of the bitter Death and Passion of Christ and the better to invite them to that days solemn Humiliation he preached to them twice that day Though Sermons be all their Religion yet two Sermons on Good Friday received and practised by all Churches in all Ages till of late a Jewish observation of one day hath shouldred out the religious observation of all other days he was convented before the Sessions where Edmund Prideaux a Parliament man and a pretender to this Law prest this his Obedience to the Church most violently against him malitiously affirming that he did it to affront the Parliament and to advance Popish Superstition and Innovation and that therefore He see what it is to be a Parliament man would make him an Example to the World and as the times then were God as he threatned Israel provoking us by foolish people was like enough to have done it had not Mr. Jones prevented him by withdrawing himself and so declined the evil intended against him Yet we may not omit one thing though it were so heinous a Crime in Mr. Jones not to observe one of their Wednesdays Fasts yet Mr. Darke Minister of Musbury in the same County and a man of that Faction could command his men to follow the Plough that day and yet was never thought fit of a Reprehension nor so much as a Brotherly Admonition and no wonder for tho heretofore Actions did Qualifie persons and denominate them by the Sectaries new Divinity they make Persons to Qualifie Actions those things which are sins in others lose their Nature and their Name in a Child of God and they will take it very ill from you not to be so reputed though living in the most notorious scandalous sins that defile the Soul and lay wast the Conscience of man But to return to our story From the beginning of this Parliament till God by the glorious and no less than miraculous Victories of Sir Ralph Hopton restored some Peace to that miserably distracted Country Mr. Jones was not permitted to live quietly at his own dwelling they threaten to hang him and burn his house which they plundered no less than seven times and not content with this they threaten to carry away his aged Father Prisoner being no less than 86 years of age and had been as good as their word for in mischief they seldom fail of their promises had not the Women of the Parish in detestation of so great barbarism rescued him out of their hands And after that memorable defeat of the Rebels at Stratton in the edge of Cornwal by the brave Sir Ralph Hopton Mr. Jones returned to his own house fearing no danger from the fitters of that broken Army but
the Colonel lay until the time of his dissolution and putting off his earthly but loathsom Tabernacle As the Col. was amongst the Rebels a very considerable man both for his extraction and quality and likewise for his Estate to say nothing of his valour and resolution had they been Loyally imployed so it was among their chiefest cares to recover him of those wounds which he received in their unchristan quarrel while therefore the Rebels Army lay in Worcester which was about three weeks though then upon more strict searching his wounds in the opinion of the best Chirurgions they were not mortal yet whatsoever the Art and invention either of the Physician or Chirurgion could contribute to his recovery was not omitted when the Rebels Army drew out to meet the King in their March from Shrewsbury which they did to their cost at Edge-hill the Colonel was committed to the care of his own Chirurgion then in pay under him John Anthony of London to whom as a witness and an assistant in the crue was joyned a Chirurgion of the City of Worcester Edward Marshall who though they both used all the Art and Industry that possibly they could to effect the cure yet the difficulties every day multiplied against the means and in despight of their Balsoms his wounds did putrify and the flesh rot to the wonder of the Artists and the Scorn of their Art In so much that the Chirurgions after much variety of means used and much strugling with these growing evils the cure still going backward as if their skill had been imploy'd to widen those wounds which they pretended to close up were heard by many of the City of Worcester to confess what Hippocrates saies every Physician should first look after in every cure that there was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hand of God in it that it was a peculiar judgment upon him and that the cause of this putrefaction was more than Natural nor were they without good grounds for this conjecture for besides the conclusions of their own Art directly thwarted experience on the several parts of the body of their Patient was a clear demonstration Those wounds in the upper parts of his body near the Vitals and therefore more dangerous were cured long before his death but those in his thigh which were flesh wounds as they call them these were the Oppropria Chyrurgorum here the flesh did daily rot and putrifie and was cut away by degrees even to the leaving of the bones naked and stunk in so loathsom a manner that as he was a burthen to himself so to his friends too and those that were about him being hardly able for the noysomness of the smell either to come near him to do the office of necessary attendance or so much as to endure the room where he lay so intolerable was the stench and so offensive Nor were the wounds of his Body more insufferable to his friends than the wounds of his Conscience to himself the guilt of Rebellion wrought in him strong convulsions of Soul high distempers of mind yet that he might not sink under the burden of his wounded Spirit a weight that requires more than man to support it he sent for Master Cotterell an Orthodox godly Minister and Parson of S. Andrews in Worcester to Administer a word of comfort unto him in this his afflicted condition When Master Cotterell came unto him he found Obadiah Sedgwick that scandalous seditious Minister of Essex in private conference with the Colonel and Bread and Wine ready prepared for the Lords Supper Sedgwick having ended his discourse went to Prayers whereupon Master Cotterell offering to withdraw he was intreated by one of the Colonels Servants to stay which accordingly he did Sedgwick having concluded his extemporary Prayer took his leave and departed refusing to stay either to administer the Sacrament to the Colonel or to Communicate with him of which refusal when Master Cotterell afterward desired to know the Reason all the satisfaction that was given him was that Sedgwick was not fully assured of the fitness and due preparation of those that were to receive the Sacrament with him Desperate Hypocrisie whatsoever he was perswaded of the preparation of the other Communicants 't is most certain he could not be ignorant of the unfitness of the Colonel himself whom he himself in all probability perswaded to return with the dog to his vomit and to justify himself in that sin of which but very lately he seemed to repent 't is more probable that that poor remainder of Conscience in Sedgwick not quite yet put away though it suffered him to betray in private a dying man to impenitency under feigned pretences of what he in his own Soul must needs confess to be a crying sin and inrolled by S. Paul himself amongst those works of the flesh which do exclude from the Kingdom of Heaven yet his heart might smite him and his conscience withstand him as it were to the face that he durst not seal that destructive Counsel by delivery of the Sacrament Sedgwick being gone the Colonel willingly entertained conference with Master Cotterell to whom he made a general confession of his sins and the grievousness of them professing his hearty repentance and sorrow for them But as the two pretended Houses of Parliament in their Catalogue of sins reckoned up in their Homily if without offence I may so call it and offered to this Nation as the subject matter of their solemn humiliation quite forgot Lying and Rebellion for some reasons best known to themselves so this Champion of theirs in his general Confession made no mention of the sin of Rebellion which most nearly concerned him and for which in all probability he was very suddenly to render an account to God a Confession most necessary both for him to make and the Minister to require before he could be thought a fit receiver of those dreadful mysteries but after this general Confession having received the Sacrament Master Cotterell commending him to the grace of God for that time left him and having by one or two visits after that as he thought gained some interest in the Colonel coming again to him and finding him in a calm Temper and judging it a fit oportunity to inquire into his Conscience and to sound him what perswasion he now had of his taking up Arms against his Sovereign he desired the Colonel to command his servants out of the room that he might speak with him in private which being done and all witnesses removed but God and their own Consciences Master Cotterell prefacing his discourse with a solemn Protestation that in what he did he proposed no other end but the salvation of his Soul demanded of him whether he were not sorry for drawing his sword against the King and whether he were not perswaded in his Conscience of the unlawfulness of it To which the Colonel replyed that he was perswaded that it was lawful having taken up Arms not against the King
now made passive Instruments of more than heathenish Sacrilege and prophaneness those Windows which they could not reach with their Swords Muskets or Rests they brake to pieces by throwing at them the bones of Kings Queens Bishops Confessors and Saints So that the spoil done on the Windows will not be repaired for a Thousand Pounds nor did the Living find better measure from them than the dead for whereas our Dread Sovereign that now is the best of King was gratiously pleased as a pledg of his princely favour to this Church to honour it with the gift of his own Statue together with the Statue of his dear Father King James of ever blessed memory both of massy brass both which Statues were erected at the front of the entrance into the Quire These Atheistical Rebels as if they would not have so much of the Militia to remain with the King as the bare Image and representation of of a Sword by his side They break off the Swords from the sides of both the Statues they break the Cross from off the Globe in the hand of the Statue of our gratious Sovereign now living and with their Swords hacked and hewed the Crown on the headof it swearing they would bring him back to his Parliament A most flagitious crime and such as that for the like S. Chrysostome Hom 2. ad populum Antioch With many tears complains he much feared the City of Antioch the Metropolis and head as he calls it of the East would have been destroyed from the face of the earth for when in a Tumult the seditious Citizens of Antioch had done the like affront to Theodosius the Emperour in overturning his Statutes How doth that holy Bishop bemoan how doth he bewail that City which fearing the severe effects of the abused Emperours just Indignation of a Populous City a Mother boasting of a Numerous Issue was on the sudden become a Widow left desolate and forsaken of her Inhabitants some out of the sense and horror of the guilt abandoning the City and flying into the desolate Wilderness others lurking in holes and confining themselves to the dark corners of their own houses thereby hoping to escape the vengeance due to so disloyal so Traiterous a fact because of this foul injury offered the Emperours Statue He as that Father speaks was wronged that was the sepreme head of all men and had no equal on Earth But what wonder is it that these miscreants should offer such scornful indignities to the Representation of his Royal Person and the Emblems of his Sacred power when the heads of this damnable Rebellion who set these their Agents on work offer worse affronts to his Sacred person himself and by their Rebellions Votes and Illegal Ordinances daily strike at the Substance of that power of which the Crown the Sword and Scepter are but Emblems and shadows which yet notwithstanding ought to have been venerable and aweful to these men in respect of their Relation After all this as if what they had already done were all too little they goonin their horrible wickedness they seize upon all the Communion Plate the Bibles and Service-books rich Hangings large Cushions of velvet all the Pulpit-Clothes some whereof were of Cloth of Silver some of Cloth of Gold They break up the Muniment House and take away the common Seal of the Church supposing it to be Silver and a fair piece of gilt Plate given by Bishop Cotton they tear the Evidences of their Lands and cancel their Charter in a word what ever they found in the Church of any value and portable they take it with them what was neither they either deface or destroy it And now having Ransacked the Church having defied God in his own house and the King in his own Statue having violated the Urns of the dead having abused the bones and scattered the Ashes of deceased Monarchs Bishops Saints and Confessors they return in Triumph bearing their spoils with them The Troopers because they were most conspicuous ride through the streets in Surplesses with such Hoods and Tippets as they found and that they might boast to the World how glorious a victory they had atchieved they hold out their Trophies to all spectators for the Troopers thus clad in the Priests Vestments rode carrying Common Prayer-Books in one hand and some broken Organ pipes together with the mangled pieces of Carved work but now mentioned containing some Histories of both Testaments in the other In all this giving too just occasion to all good Christians to complain with the Psalmist O God the Heathen are come into thine Inheritance Thy holy Temples have they defiled The dead Bodies of thy Servants have they abused and scattered their bones as one heweth wood upon the Earth Help us O God of our Salvation for the glory of thy Name Psal. 79. Mercurius Rusticus c. IV. The Rebels prophanation and horrible abuse of the Abby Church of Westminster Together with their several outrages and abominations committed on the Cathedral Church of Exeter c. IF in the Catalogue of Plundered Cathedrals we inroul the now Collegiat Church of Westminster I hope I shall not be thought to make my discourse no more of kin to my Title than Mountain doth some of his Essaies for if we look back on the various condition of this Church no place set apart for Religious Persons having so often shifted its owners we shall find that amongst many changes it had the honour of a Bishops Sec. On the dissolution of the Abbies amongst the rest Henry the Eighth suppressed this Monastery and in the place thereof founded a Deanery Anno 1536. And two years after added a Bishoprick to the Deanery The Bishop sate here but nine Years and again resigned his dilapidated Revenue into the hands of a Dean Middlesex which was the Diocess of the Bishoprick being devolved to London yet though this Bishoprick of Westminster as it relates to the Saxons was but of modern Erection yet in the time of the Ancient Britains it was no less than the See of the Arch-Bishop of London and therefore it is more than probable that that record which tells us that the Arch-Bishop of Londons See was planted in S. Peters in Cornhil was either corrupted or mistaken for S Peters in Thorney for Sic olim à spinis as learned Cambden and other Antiquaries affirm from the great crop of thorns which heretofore grew there that which we now call Westminster was then called Thorney This Church so famous for its Antiquity so admired for its Elegancy of Structure especially by the addition of Henry the Seventh's Chappel a Pile of that polished magnificence ut omnem Elegantiam in illo acervatam dicas as if art and bounty had conspired to raise it to a wonder of the World Lastly a Church so venerable as being once the seat of an Arch-Bishop and a Bishop and now a long time the place where the Kings of England receive their sacred Unction and Crowns
at their Coronation and where their bodies rest in honourable Sepulture when they have exchanged their Temporal for Eternal Crowns This Church under the eye and immediate protection of the pretended Houses of Parliament had its share in spoil and prophanation as much as those Cathedrals which were more remote from them for in July last 1643. some Soldiers of Weshborne and Catwoods Companies perhaps because there were no Houses in Westminster were quartered in the Abby Church where as the rest of our Modern Reformers they brake down the Rail abut the Altar and burnt it in the place where it stood they brake down the Organ and pawned the Pipes at several Ale-houses for Pots of Ale They put on some of the singing mens Surplesses and in contempt of that Canonical Habit ran up and down the Church he that wore the Surpless was the Hare the rest were the Hounds To shew their Christian Liberty in the use of things and that all Consecration or Hallowing of things under de Gospel is but a Jewish or Popish Superstition and that they are no longer to be accounted holy than that holy use to which they serve shall by the actual use only impart a transient holiness to them they set Forms about the Communion Table there they eat and there they drink Ale and Tobacco some of their own Levites if my Intelligence deceive me not bearing them company and countenancing so beastly Prophanation Nor was this done once to vindicate their Christian Liberty as they call Prophanation it self but the whole time of their abode there they made it their common Table on which they usually dined and supp'd though S. Paul calls it despising the Church of Christ and asks his Corinthians if they had not houses to eat and to drink in 1 Cor. 11. They did the easements of nature and laid their Excrements about the Altar and in most places of the Church An abomination which God did provide against by a peculiar prohibition in the Law of Moses and that in places not rendred so dreadful by so peculiar a manner of the presence of God as in the hallowed Temples of his publick worship God would not permit the Jews to do these offices of nature in the Camp they must have a place without the Camp and a Paddle to dig and cover it you have the Law and the reason of the Law both together they must not do so For the Lord thy God walketh in the midst of the Camp therefore shall thy Camp be holy that he see no unclean thing in thee and turn away from thee Deut. 23.12 If God for these reasons would not endure it in the Camp how much more doth his Soul abhor such beastly uncleanness in his House and holy Temple Nay which is the height of all Impiety they familiarly kept their whores in the Church and which I tremble to write Prodigious Monsters as they are lay with them on the very Altar it self and did in that place commit such things as are unfit to be done by Christians These remain yet two Prophanations more of this Church not to be passed over insilence The first was committed by Sir Robert Harlow who breaking into Henry the Seventh's Chappel brake down the Altar-stone which stood before that goodly Monument of Henry the 7. the stone was Touch-stone all of one piece a Rarity not to be matched that we know off in any part of the World there it stood for many years not for use but only for Ornament yet it did not escape the frenzy of this mans ignorant 〈◊〉 for he break it into shivers The second was committed on the 13. of December 1643. When the Carcass of John Pym as much as the lice left of it was brought into this Church and after a Sermon Preached by Stephen Marshall Arch-Flamen of the Rebels and the Church Service Officiated by Lambart Orbaston one of the Prebends of that Church is was interr'd under the Monumental stone of one Windsor Buried about 200 years since in the voyd space or passage as you go to Henry the Seventh's Chappel between the Earl of Dovers place of Burial and the Monument of Henry the Third Founder of that Church usurp'd Ensigns of honour displayed over him 'T was pitty that he that in his life had been the Author of so much bloodshed and those many calamities under which this Kingdom yet groans and therefore deserved not only to have his death with the transgressours and wicked but afterward to be Buried with the Burial of an Ass drawn and cast forth beyond the Gates of the City Jer. 22.19 should after his death make his Sepulchre amongst the Honourable and mingle his Vulgar Lowzy ashes with those of Kings Princes and Nobles The sixth Instance of the Rebels Sacrilege and Prophaneness which I shall present unto the World is in the Cathedral Church of Exeter which was once a Monastery founded by Athelstane the Eighth King of England of the Saxon Race and by him Consecrated to S. Peter Edward the Confessor removing all the Monks from hence and planting them at Westminster which he had newly founded and endowed made it the Bishops See for Devon and Cornwal That Pile which we now see owes its being to many founders William Warlwast the third Bishop of this See after it was translated from Cridington or as it is now usually called Kirâ—on to Exeter built the Quire which now is but was intended by the Founder for the Nave or Body of the Church but Peter Quivil the 13 th Bishop of this See laid the Foundation of that which is now the body of the Church but he prevented by death left the work imperfect John Grandesson therefore the seventeenth Bishop of this See thinking the Foundation laid by his Predecessor Quivil to be faulty in Geometrical proportions the length not being answerable to the height added two Pillars more to the length of the Nave of the Church of a distance proportionable to those laid before he closed up the end with a Wall of most Exquisite work in which he built a little Chappel and in that Chappel a Monument wherein himself was intombed He built likewise the two side Iles and covered the whole Fabrick with an Arch of Exquisite work and brought it to such perfection that in splendour and magnificence it gives precedency to few Cathedrals of the Kingdom and which is very remarkable though this Church was first began by King Athelstane and made many steps before it came to arrive at its perfection so that there are numbered almost five hundred years from the laying the first stone to the covering of the Roof yet the wisdom and care of the several Benefactors was so great that the most curious Surveyor must confess that the Symmetry of the parts and the proportions of the whole are so exact as from the Foundation to the Roof had been the work not of one age only but of one and the same hand and that the Ornaments of