Simonical praier annex'd Although the Praier it self strongly prays against them For never such holy things as he means were giv'n to more Swine nor the Churches Bread more to Dogs then when it fed ambitious irreligious and dumb Prelats XV. Upon the many Jealousies c. TO wipe off jealousies and scandals the best way had bin by clear Actions or till Actions could be clear'd by evident reasons but meer words we are too well acquainted with Had his honour and reputation bin dearer to him then the lust of Raigning how could the Parlament of either Nation have laid so oft'n at his dore the breach of words promises acts Oaths and execrations as they doe avowedly in many of thir Petitions and addresses to him thether I remitt the Reader And who can beleive that whole Parlaments elected by the People from all parts of the Land should meet in one mind and resolution not to advise him but to conspire against him in a wors powder plot then Catesbies to blow up as he termes it the peoples affection towards him and batter down thir loyalty by the Engins of foule aspersions Water works rather then Engines to batter with yet thosé aspersions were rais'd from the foulness of his own actions Whereof to purge himself he uses no other argument then a general and so oft'n iterated commendation of himself and thinks that Court holy water hath the vertue of expiation at least with the silly people To whom he familiarly imputes sin where none is to seem liberal of his forgiveness where none is ask'd or needed What wayes he hath tak'n toward the prosperitie of his people which he would seem so earnestly to desire if we doe but once call to mind it will be anough to teach us looking on the smooth insinuations heer that Tyrants are not more flatterd by thir Slaves then forc'd to flatter others whom they feare For the peoples tranquilitie he would willingly be the Jonah but least he should be tak'n at his word pretends to foresee within Kenn two imaginarie windes never heard of in the Compass which threaten if he be cast overboard to increase the storm but that controversy divine lot hath ended He had rather not rule then that his people should be ruin'd and yet above these twenty yeres hath bin ruining the people about the niceties of his ruling He is accurate to put a difference between the plague of malice the ague of mistakes the itch of noveltie and the leprosie of disloyaltie But had he as wel known how to distinguish between the venerable gray haires of ancient Religion and the old scurffe of Superstition between the wholsome heat of well Governing and the fevorous rage of Tyrannizing his judgement in Statephysic had bin of more autoritie Much he Prophesies that the credit of those men who have cast black scandals on him shal ere long be quite blasted by the same furnace of popular obloquie wherin they sought to cast his name and honour I beleive not that a Romish guilded Portrature gives better Oracle then a Babylonish gold'n Image could doe to tell us truely who heated that Furnace of obloquy or who deserves to be thrown in Nebuchadnezzar or the three Kingdoms It gave him great cause to suspect his own innocence that he was oppos'd by so many who profest singular pietie But this qualm was soon over and he concluded rather to suspect their Religion then his own innocence affirming that many with him were both learned and Religious above the ordinary size But if his great Seal without the Parlament were not sufficient to create Lords his Parole must needs be farr more unable to create learned and religious men and who shall authorize his unlerned judgement to point them out He guesses that many well minded men were by popular Preachers urg'd to oppose him But the opposition undoubtedly proceeded and continues from heads farr wiser and spirits of a nobler straine those Priest-led Herodians with thir blind guides are in the Ditch already travailing as they thought to Sion but moor'd in the I le of Wight He thanks God for his constancy to the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home Abroad his Letter to the Pope at home his Innovations in the Church will speak his constancy in Religion what it was without furder credit to this vain boast His using the assistance of some Papists as the cause might be could not hurt his Religion but in the setling of Protestantism thir aid was both unseemly suspicious inferr'd that the greatest part of Protestants were against him his obtruded settlement But this is strange indeed that he should appear now teaching the Parlament what no man till this was read thought ever he had lernt that difference of perswasion in religious matters may fall out where ther is the samenes of allegeance subjection If he thought so from the beginning wherfore was there such compulsion us'd to the puritans of England the whole realm of Scotl. about conforming to a liturgie Wherfore no Bishop no king Wherfore episcopacie more agreeable to monarchie if different perswasions in religion may agree in one duty allegeance Thus do court maxims like court Minions rise or fall as the king pleases Not to tax him for want of Elegance as a courtier in writing Oglio for Olla the Spanish word it might be wel affirm'd that there was a greater Medley disproportioning of religions to mix Papists with Protestants in a Religious cause then to entertaine all those diversifi'd Sects who yet were all Protestants one Religion though many Opinions Neither was it any shame to Protestants that he a declar'd Papist if his own letter to the Pope not yet renowne'd bely him not found so few protestants of his religion as enforc'd him to call in both the counsel the aid of papists to help establish protestancy who were led on not by the sense of thir Allegeance but by the hope of his Apostacy to Rome from disputing to warring his own voluntary and first appeale His hearkning to evil Counselers charg'd upon him so oft'n by the Parlament he puts off as a device of those men who were so eager to give him better counsell That those men were the Parlament that he ought to have us'd the counsel of none but those as a King is already known What their civility laid upon evil Counselers he himself most commonly own'd but the event of those evil counsels the enormities the confusions the miseries he transferrs from the guilt of his own civil broiles to the just resistance made by Parlament imputes what miscarriages of his they could not yet remove for his opposing as if they were some new misdemeanors of their bringing in and not the inveterat diseases of his own bad Goverment which with a disease as bad he falls again to magnifie and commend and may all those who would be govern'd by his Retractions and concessions rather then by Laws of
for his high misgoverment nay fought against him with display'd banners in the field now applaud him and extoll him for the wisest and most religious Prince that liv'd By so strange a method amongst the mad multitude is a sudden reputation won of wisdom by wilfulness and suttle shifts of goodness by multiplying evil of piety by endeavouring to root out true religion But it is evident that the chief of his adherents never lov'd him never honour'd either him or his cause but as they took him to set a face upon thir own malignant designes nor bemoan his loss at all but the loss of thir own aspiring hopes Like those captive women whom the Poet notes in his Iliad to have bewaild the death of Patroclus in outward show but indeed thir own condition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hom. Iliad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And it needs must be ridiculous to any judgement uninthrall'd that they who in other matters express so little fear either of God or man should in this one particular outstripp all precisianism with thir scruples and cases and fill mens ears continually with the noise of thir conscientious Loyaltie and Allegeance to the King Rebels in the mean while to God in all thir actions beside much less that they whose profess'd Loyalty and Allegeance led them to direct Arms against the Kings Person and thought him nothing violated by the Sword of Hostility drawn by them against him should now in earnest think him violated by the unsparing Sword of Justice which undoubtedly so much the less in vain she bears among Men by how much greater and in highest place the offender Els Justice whether moral or political were not Justice but a fals counterfet of that impartial and Godlike vertue The onely grief is that the head was not strook off to the best advantage and commodity of them that held it by the hair an ingratefull and pervers generation who having first cry'd to God to be deliver'd from thir King now murmur against God that heard thir praiers and cry as loud for thir King against those that deliver'd them But as to the Author of these Soliloquies whether it were undoubtedly the late King as is vulgarly beleev'd or any secret Coadjutor and some stick not to name him it can add nothing nor shall take from the weight if any be of reason which he brings But allegations not reasons are the main contents of this Book and need no more then other contrary allegations to lay the question before all men in an eev'n ballance though it were suppos'd that the testimony of one man in his own cause affirming could be of any moment to bring in doubt the autority of a Parlament denying But if these his fair spok'n words shall be heer fairly confronted and laid parallel to his own farr differing deeds manifest and visible to the whole Nation then surely we may look on them who notwithstanding shall persist to give to bare words more credit then to op'n deeds as men whose judgement was not rationally evinc'd and perswaded but fatally stupifi'd and bewitch'd into such a blinde and obstinate beleef For whose cure it may be doubted not whether any charm though never so wisely murmur'd but whether any prayer can be available This however would be remember'd and wel noted that while the K. instead of that repentance which was in reason and in conscience to be expected from him without which we could not lawfully re-admitt him persists heer to maintain and justifie the most apparent of his evil doings and washes over with a Court-fucus the worst and foulest of his actions disables and uncreates the Parlament it self with all our laws and Native liberties that ask not his leave dishonours and attaints all Protestant Churches not Prelaticall and what they piously reform'd with the slander of rebellion sacrilege and hypocrisie they who seem'd of late to stand up hottest for the Cov'nant can now sit mute and much pleas'd to hear all these opprobrious things utter'd against thir faith thir freedom and themselves in thir own doings made traitors to boot The Divines also thir wizzards can be so braz'n as to cry Hosanna to this his book which cries louder against them for no disciples of Christ but of Iscariot and to seem now convinc'd with these wither'd arguments and reasons heer the same which in som other writings of that party and in his own former Declarations and expresses they have so oft'n heertofore endeavour'd to confute and to explode none appearing all this while to vindicate Church or State from these calumnies and reproaches but a small handfull of men whom they defame and spit at with all the odious names of Schism and Sectarism I never knew that time in England when men of truest Religion were not counted Sectaries but wisdom now valor justice constancy prudence united and imbodied to defend Religion and our Liberties both by word and deed against tyranny is counted Schism and faction Thus in a graceless age things of highest praise and imitation under a right name to make them infamous and hatefull to the people are miscall'd Certainly if ignorance and perversness will needs be national and universal then they who adhere to wisdom and to truth are not therfore to be blam'd for beeing so few as to seem a sect or faction But in my opinion it goes not ill with that people where these vertues grow so numerous and well joyn'd together as to resist and make head against the rage and torrent of that boistrous folly and superstition that possesses and hurries on the vulgar sort This therefore we may conclude to be a high honour don us from God and a speciall mark of his favor whom he hath selected as the sole remainder after all these changes and commotions to stand upright and stedfast in his cause dignify'd with the defence of truth and public libertie while others who aspir'd to be the topp of Zelots and had almost brought Religion to a kinde of trading monopoly have not onely by thir late silence and neutrality bely'd thir profession but founder'd themselves and thir consciences to comply with enemies in that wicked cause and interest which they have too oft'n curs'd in others to prosper now in the same themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I. Upon the Kings calling this last Parlament THat which the King layes down heer as his first foundation and as it were the head stone of his whole Structure that He call'd this last Parlament not more by others advice and the necessity of his affaires then by his own chois and inclination is to all knowing men so apparently not true that a more unlucky and inauspicious sentence and more betok'ning the downfall of his whole Fabric hardly could have come into his minde For who knows not that the inclination of a Prince is best known either by those next about him and most in favor with him or by the current of his own actions Those neerest to
cannot but be farr short of spirit and autority without dores to govern a whole Nation Her tarrying heer he could not think safe among them who were shaking hands with Allegiance to lay faster hold on Religion and taxes them of a duty rather then a crime it being just to obey God rather then Man and impossible to serve two Maisters I would they had quite shak'n off what they stood shaking hands with the fault was in thir courage not in thir cause In his Prayer he prayes that The disloyaltie of his Protestant Subjects may not be a hindrance to her love of the true Religion and never prays that the dissoluteness of his Court the scandals of his Clergy the unsoundness of his own judgement the lukewarmness of his life his Letter of compliance to the Pope his permitting Agents at Rome the Popes Nuntio and her Jesuited Mother here may not be found in the sight of God farr greater hindrances to her conversion But this had bin a suttle Prayer indeed and well pray'd though as duely as a Pater-noster if it could have charm'd us to sit still and have Religion and our Liberties one by one snatch'd from us for fear least rising to defend our selves wee should fright the Queen a stiff Papist from turning Protestant As if the way to make his Queen a Protestant had bin to make his Subjects more then half way Papists He prays next That his constancy may be an antidote against the poyson of other mens example His constancy in what Not in Religion for it is op'nly known that her Religion wrought more upon him then his Religion upon her and his op'n favouring of Papists and his hatred of them call'd Puritants the ministers also that prayd in Churches for her Conversion being checkt from Court made most men suspect she had quite perverted him But what is it that the blindness of hypocrisy dares not doe It dares pray and thinks to hide that from the eyes of God which it cannot hide from the op'n view of man VIII Upon His repulse at Hull and the fate of the Hothams Hull a town of great strength and opportunitie both to sea and land affaires was at that time the Magazin of all those armes which the King had bought with mony most illegally extorted from his subjects of England to use in a causless and most unjust civil warr against his Subjects of Scotland The King in high discontent and anger had left the Parlament and was gon toward the North the Queen into Holland where she pawn'd and set to sale the Crown-Jewels a crime heretofore counted treasonable in Kings and to what intent these summs were rais'd the Parlament was not ignorant His going northward in so high a chafe they doubted was to possess himself of that strength which the storehouse and situation of Hull might add suddenly to his malignant party Having first therefore in many Petitions earnestly pray'd him to dispose and settle with consent of both Houses the military power in trusty hands and he as oft refusing they were necessitated by the turbulence and danger of those times to put the Kingdom by thir own autority into a posture ofdefence and very timely sent sir John Hotham a member of the House and Knight of that county to take Hull into his custody and some of the Train'd bands to his assistance For besides the General danger they had before the Kings going to York notice giv'n them of his privat Commissions to the Earl of Newcastle and to Colonel Legg one of those imploid to bring the Army up against the ParParlament who had already made som attempts the latter of them under a disguise to surprise that place for the Kings party And letters of the Lord Digby were intercepted wherin was wisht that the K. would declare himself and retire to some safe place other information came from abroad that Hull was the place design'd for some new enterprise And accordingly Digby himself not long after with many other Commanders and much forrain Ammunition landed in those parts But these attempts not succeeding and that Town being now in custody of the Parlament he sends a message to them that he had firmely resolv'd to go in person into Ireland to chastise those wicked Rebels for these and wors words he then gave them and that toward this work he intended forthwith to raise by his commissions in the Counties neere Westchester a guard for his own person consisting of 2000. foot and 200. horse that should be arm'd from his Magazin at Hull On the other side the Parlament forseeing the Kings drift about the same time send him a Petition that they might have leave for necessary causes to remoove the magazin of Hull to the Towre of London to which the King returnes his denial and soon after going to Hull attended with about 400. Horse requires the Governour to deliver him up the Town wherof the Governour besought humbly to be excus'd till he could send notice to the Parlament who had intrusted him wherat the King much incens'd proclaims him Traitor before the Town Walls and gives immediat order to stop all passages between him and the Parlament Yet he himself dispatches post after post to demand justice as upon a Traitor using a strange iniquitie to require justice upon him whom he then way layd and debari'd from his appearance The Parlament no sooner understood what had pass'd but they declare that Sir John Hotham had don no more then was his duty and was therfore no Traitor This relation being most true proves that which is affirm'd heer to be most fals seeing the Parlament whom he accounts his greatest Enemies had more confidence to abett and own what Sir John Hotham had don then the King had confidence to let him answer in his own behalf To speake of his patience and in that solemn manner he might better have forborne God knows saith he it affected me more with sorrow for others then with anger for my self nor did the affront trouble me so much as their sin This is read I doubt not and beleev'd and as there is some use of every thing so is there of this Book were it but to shew us what a miserable credulous deluded thing that creature is which is call'd the Vulgar who notwithstanding what they might know will beleeve such vain-glories as these Did not that choleric and vengefull act of proclaiming him Traitor before due process of Law having bin convinc'd so late before of his illegallity with the five Members declare his anger to be incens'd doth not his own relation confess as much and his second Message left him fuming three dayes after and in plaine words testifies bis impatience of delay till Hotham be severely punish'd for that which he there termes an insupportable affront Surely if his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin were greater then his anger for the affront it was an exceeding great sorrow indeed and wondrous charitable But if it