Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
religion_n	great_a	king_n	majesty_n	3,331	5	6.0086	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A90657	Veritas inconcussa or, a most certain truth asserted, that King Charles the First, was no man of blood, but a martyr for his people. Together with a sad, and impartial enquiry, whether the King or Parliament began the war, which hath so much ruined, and undone the kingdom of England? and who was in the defensive part of it? By Fabian Philipps Esq;; King Charles the First, no man of blood: but a martyr for his people.	Philipps, Fabian, 1601-1690.	1660 (1660)	Wing P2020; Thomason E1925_2; ESTC R203146	66,988	269

beginning of this Parliament accepted of one for the County of York Gave his People to understand That He had awarded the like Commissions into all the Counties of England and Dominion of Wales to provide for and secure them in a legal way lest under a pretence of danger and want of Authority from His Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should be drawn and engaged in any opposition against Him or His just Authority But 21 June 1642. e The Lords and Commons in Parliament Declaring The design of their Propositions of raising horse and moneys was to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Kings Authority and Person and that the Forces already attending His Majesty and His preparations at first coloured under the pretence of a guard being not so great a guard as they themselves had constantly for 6. moneths before did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary disign so as at this time also they do not charge the King with any maner of action of War or any thing done in a way or course of War against them and gave just cause of fear and jealousie to the Parliament being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make a War against their Soveraign did forbid all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and other Officers to publish His Majesties said Letter to the City of London And declare that if He should use any force for the recovery of Hull or suppressing of their Ordinance for the Militia it should be held a levying War against the Parliament and all this done before His Majesty had granted any Commission for the levying or raising of a man and lest the King should have any maner or provision of War to defend himself when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault Him Powder and Armes were every where seized on and Cutlers Gun-smiths Sadlers and all Warlike Trades ordered not to send any to York but to give a weekly account what was made or sold by them And an Order made the 24. day of June 1642. That the Horses which should be sent in for the Service of the Parliament when they came to the number of 60. should be trained and so still as the number increased 4. July 1642. The King by His Letter under His signe Manual commanded all the Judges of England in their circuits f to use all means to suppresse Popery Riots and unlawful assemblies and to give the People to understand His Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Kingdom and not to govern by any Arbitrary way and that if any should give the King or them to understand of any thing wherein they held themselves grieved and desired a just reformation He would speedily give them such an answer as they should have cause to thank Him for His Justice and favour But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parliament commanding g That no Sheriff Mayor Bayliff Parson Vicar Curate or other Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London not many dayes before having been imprisoned for proclaiming the Kings Proclamation against the bringing in of Plate c. should publish or Proclaim any Proclamation Declaration or other Paper in the Kings Name which should be contrary to any Order Ordinance or Declaration of both Houses of Parliament or the proceedings thereof and Order h That in case any forces should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the Peace thereof they should be suppressed by the Trained bands and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Hull whilest the King is at York i seizeth on a Ship coming to Him with provisions for His houshold takes Mr. Ashburnham one of the Kings Servants prisoner intercepts Letters sent from the Queen to the King and drowneth part of the Countrey round about the Town k which the Parliament allows of and promise satisfaction to the owners 5 July 1642. They Order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every Countey and list the Horse under Commanders and the morrow after Order 2000. men should be sent to relieve Sir John Hotham in case the King should besiege him to which purpose Drums were beat up in London and the adjacent parts to Hull The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance instructions drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lieutenants of the several Counties to tender the Propositions for the raising of Horses Plate and Money Mr. Hastings and divers of the Kings Commissioners of Array impeached for supposed high Crimes and misdemeanours and a Committee of five Lords and ten of the House of Commons ordered to meet every morning for the laying out of ten thousand pounds of the Guild-hall moneys for the buying of 700. Horse and that 10000. Foot to be raised in London and the Countrey be imployed by direction of the Parliament and the Lord Brook is furnished with 6. pieces of Ordinance out of the Tower of London to fortifie the Castle of Warwick And 9. July 1642. Order That in case the Earl of Northampton should come into that County with a Commission of Array they should raise the Militia to suppresse him And that the Common Councel of London should consider of a way for the speedy raising of the 10000. Foot and that they should be listed and put in pay within four dayes after 11. July 1642. l The King sends to the Parliament to cause the Town of Hull to be delivered unto Him and desires to have their answer by the 15. of that moneth and as then had used no force against it But m the morrow after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings Person and both Houses of Parliament and n those who have obeyed their Orders Commands in preserving the true Religion the Laws Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom and that they would live and dye with the Earl of Essex whom they nominate General in that Cause 12. July 1642. Declare That they will protect all that shall be imployed in their assistance and Militia And 16. July 1642. Petition the King o to forbear any preparations or actions of War and to dismisse His extraordinary guards to come nearer to them and hearken to their advice but before that Petition could be answered wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should be delivered to Him He would no longer have an Army before it and should be assured that the same pretence which took Hull from him may not put a Garrison into Newcastle into which after the Parliaments surprise of Hull He was inforced to place a Governour and a small Garrison He would also remove that Garrison and so as His Magizine and Navy

regal Authority to the great and difficult work of Reformation and purging the Church The Lord Fairfax and his general Councel of Officers in their Remonstrance of the 16. November 1648. made to the Parliament did call the putting down of Monarchy and the establishing of their unjust ends the publique interest originally contended for on the Parliament part and the Declaration and Votes of those that call themselves the Commons of England in Parliament assembled 15. January 1648. Affirm the bringing of Delinquents to punishment which if any who had assisted the King had been Delinquents is certainly a part of the Kingly office and were never refused to be brought to a due and legal tryal to be one of the pretended causes of making this War And in another place thereof acknowledges the rooting out of Episcopacy and bringing Delinquents to punishment to be the onely motives which induced them to undertake this War Wherefore though our Achans will neither confess nor be brought to punishment till the wrath and never failing judgment of God shall bring them and their sons and their daughters and their successes and the asses that follow them to be consumed in the field of Achor the Fig-leaves which they have patched together to palliate and hide their nakedness cannot keep out the eyes and understanding of a ruined Nation bleeding under the burden of their iniquity but whether ever confessed or never it will be as plain as the most infallible demonstration that they were never necessitated to make a War but were so far from the Justification of a defensive War as that they were altogether in the offensive For beside all that which hath been said to prove them guilty of the blood and misery of this Nation who can think or be believed if he should be so mad as to say it That they were forced to make a war for that which was none of their own or for Laws and Liberties when they did not want them and might have had as much addition made unto them as the good of the Nation and right reason could have desired or that they were constrained to make a War because he would not un-King or un-man himself and give away his Negative voice and undertaking by his Oath to do justice to his people and protect and defend them quit his Militia and put himself out of all power to do it or because he would not leave the care education and marriage of his children which every man that is not hors du sens sans raison out of his vvits or a very great stranger to the most ordinary and common parts of understanding was never yet denied or were enforced to make a War to take away tenures in Capite which was a principal flower of the Kings Crown or for a Reformation of Religion which was already the envy and ambition of the best of the Reformed Churches or to commit sacriledge or abolish Episcopacy which at the least was of Apostolical institution or to preserve the Statute of 25. E. 3. concerning what was Treason when they themselves committed most of the Treasons were mentioned in it and more then their fore-fathers and the makers of that Statute ever thought on But that we may do all the right we can to those which have done so much wrong and the better carry on our judgements to a certain conclusion of that which God and all good and just men know to be true enough it will not we hope be impertinent in this our search and disquisition of the truth to proceed to the enquiry CHAP. V. Whether the Parliament in their pretended Magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against Insurrections Treasons and Rebellions as they are pleased to call them ALl in the Neighbourhood of their proceedings that know but any thing of them can tell it The Parliament have not been wanting to their own preservations and purposes in the exercise of the greatest Jealousie Vigilancy Terror and Authority over those they could but get within their pretended Jurisdiction witness Edward Archer who was whipt and punished almost to death for speaking but his ill wishes to the Earl of Essex when he was marching out of London with their Army against the King the Imprisonment of their own Members for speaking against the Sence and Cabal of the House of Commons men and women old and young shut up under Decks ready to be stifled a ship-board upon suspicion that they affected the King hanging of the two Bristoll Merchants Mr. Bourchier and Mr. Yeomans for an endeavour to deliver up Bristol putting Colonel Essex out of the Governmen of that Town upon suspicion of favouring the enterprise hanging of Master Tompkins and Master Chaloner for a purpose to force the delivery up of some factious men to Justice banishing Master Waller an eminent member of the House of Commons for the contrivance of it searching the Houses of Forraign Embassadors and intercepting and opening their Letters Beheading Sir Alexander Cary for an intention to deliver up Plymouth and Sir John Hotham who adventured first of all to set up their authority and was magnified and almost adored for it for an intention only to deliver up Hull to the King executing of his Son for joyning with his Father in it hanging Master Kniveton one of the Kings Messengers but for bringing his Majesties Proclamation to London for the adjourning of the Tearm being a greater misusage then Davids messengers received from King Ammon imprisoning starving undoing of any that durst but own the King or write any thing for or in his behalf or send or bring any message from him or his party or that did but give any aid or assistance to him to which their Oaths and Consciences and the Covenant which they themselves took and forced upon the people did oblige them shooting and cannonading of the Queen when she came but to aid her husband and chasing and shooting after her at sea a year after when she was going back into France from him sequestring wives and mothers that did but relieve their husbands and childrens wants when they returned out of the Kings service putting thousands of Orthodox Ministers out of their benefices and livelyhoods for using the Common-Prayer-Book preaching true Doctrine and obedience to the King or praying for him at the same time when they pretended liberty of conscience and preservation of Religion voting the Prince a Traitor for wishing well or being in company with his Father for he was too young to do any thing else for him and making or rather supposing charges of high Treason against those that either fought for the King or counselled him how to defend himself in obeying the known Laws wch they themselves made the world believe they made some part of the war for ordering all to die without mercy that did but harbor the King when he fled in a disguise before their Armies condemning men by a Court martial after the War

VERITAS INCONCUSSA OR A most certain Truth asserted THAT KING CHARLES THE FIRST Was no MAN OF BLOOD But a MARTYR For His People Together with a sad and impartial enquiry whether the King or Parliament began the War which hath so much ruined and undone the Kingdom of England and who was in the defensive part of it By FABIAN PHILIPPS Esq Exoritur aliquod majus è magno malum Nondum ruentis Ilii fatum stetit SENEC Tragoed in Troade Act. 3. LONDON Printed by Richard Hodgkinson in the Year 1649. and reprinted by Thomas Newcomb and are to be Sold by William Place at Grayes-Inn-Gate 1660. Though CHARLES be added to their heaps of slain They cannot prove that Abel murder'd Cain He dy'd a Martyr for his Peoples good Vote what they can they 're guilty of his blood But their 's the sin His the eternall Glory And Truth commends to Time his lasting Story TO THE KING' 's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY Most Gracious Soveraign IT having been the Cardo quaestionis or too much a question betwixt your Royal Father and His Parliament to whom the sin of our late Civil Wars and miseries with the bloody and horrid consequences thereof did belong though without question He was no way guilty of it but was a Martyr and sufferer in it and the guilt and profit of that great and crying sin being so inlaid and riveted in the promoters thereof as it was not only by time and successes which are not seldom the encouragers and supporters of it become to be the interest of a great part of that Faction or people but to be miscalled Piety Religion good affection and Godliness it self and yet sticks as a Leprosie to those and their seed that were more wicked then the covetous but unbloody Gehazi and if God of his mercy do not cleanse them from it will transmit it with an impenitency to boote which we do not finde entailed upon Gehazi's to their posterities The ensuing vindication of your Royal Father that he was not the Contriver Author and Beginner of that War which hath so undone and Harassed these three Nations was for the most part written by me a little before His Martyrdom and finished and published about the moneth of April 1649. in the midst of a fiery persecution and ruining of all that did but act or write or do any thing on His behalf and now re-printed and come abroad again may if publiquely owned under your Majesties gracious Patronage after Your happy restauration and the peoples sense and sight of their sin and follies be more instrumental in the conviction converting of many of those misguided zelots or thriving sinners then it was or could be before they had tasted and been so long acquainted with miseries and release them out of the prisons of that self-conceitedness and opiniastretè wherein Satan hath cunningly lodged and imprisoned their deluded Souls making them believe that they are in the Church way to Heaven when as without a timely repentance they are but going down to the place of everlasting burnings and is now the more necessary for that no longer ago then in April last a printed and publique Address was as impudently as wickedly made by a Seditious party calling themselves the most faithful friends and servants in the Common-cause to the Lord General Monck and the Officers of the Army under his Command to perswade them upon false and mistaken grounds out of their Loyalty by telling them That though it were possible that they should forget the publique Interest and their own yet certainly God would not all the injuries and oppressions done by that Family which pretends to the Government of these Nations to His Church and people in these and other Nations And though the Inscription of Exit Tyrannus which was fixed over the place where the Statue of the late King formerly stood at the Exchange hath been blotted out by the Rabble yet it was written with the Pen of a Diamond in the hearts of many thousands and will be so hereafter in the Adamantine Roles of Fame and History And that one of the great Incendiaries and Capital Offenders could very lately and since the Parliaments voting of him to be excepted desire and make means for a Pardon but being put to shew his repentance by a publique retractation in order to the obtaining of your Majesties favor would rather be without it then forsake his former opinions and that there are too many amongst those many that made acclamations and seemed to rejoyce in Your Majesties return to Your Throne and most ancient and undoubted Rights who have not changed their Spots but counterfeiting Loyalty to get blessings they never deserved can outdo a Proteus or the greatest of Dissemblers and onely keep their vomit to make a Cordial of when they shall but espy an opportunity to lick it up again and think themselves as infallible as they fancied the Spirit to be which deluded them To convert whom if possible and those too too many who have exceeded the gain-sayings of Korah Dathan and Abiram been greater gainers by it and to lead them into the right way and guard as well as I could Piissimi Regis Cineres the ashes and memory of my late Soveraign from the violation scandals and injuries which those who are rightly called Phanaticks are never a weary to put and cast upon them hath been and is the design aswell as the duty of him who having not come in only at the eleventh hour but laboured all that he could in the other part of the morning or day in the vineyard of Loyalty shall never cease to be a lover and servant of that Truth and Reason which enjoyns it And Your MAJESTIES Loyal and Obedient Subject FABIAN PHILIPPS TO HENRY BELL A PRINTER Arrogating to himself to be the Author of this Book HENRY BELL YOu might have contented your self with that unjust and now too common liberty taken by some Printers and Booksellers in abusing of Authors Readers and People by a false imposition of names and many counterfeit pieces and selling of one thing for another which in the want and absence of the good and Kingly Government of England and a Court of Star-Chamber which in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr had limited the Printers in the City of London not to exceed the number of twenty two of which who were then named are now only left alive our late unruly and licencious Times allowed you for in our formerly well-ordered dayes of a peaceable subjection to a most gracious King Books were as in most other Kingdoms of Europe to be licenced before they could be printed and the Printers and Stationers knew not at least durst not put in practise those grand Cheates which of late too many of them have put upon the people nor did use as many tricks in their Trades as the devil could invent or provide for them by printing and publishing books manuscripts

they have brought to pass against Him 25 August 1642. being some dayes after the Earl of Bedford had marched with great forces into the West that His Subjects might be informed of His danger and repair to His succour setteth up His Standard at Nottingham r being a thing of a meer legal necessity if He would have any at all to come to help Him and not forfeit and surprise those that by tenure of their Lands or by reason of offices fees or annuities enjoyed under Him were more immediately bound to assist Him And yet here He must weep over Jerusalem and once again intreat the Parliament and His Rebellious subjects to prevent their own miseries and therefore sends the Earls of Southampton and Dorset to the Parliament to desire a Treaty offering to do all on His own part which might advance the Protestant Religion oppose Popery and Superstition and secure the Laws and Liberties of his Subjects and just priviledges of Parliament Which after several scornes put upon those Noble Messengers as denying the Earl of Southampton to come and sit in the House of Peers a right by birth and inheritance due unto him and causing the Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons to go before him with the Mace as they use to do before Delinquents They refuse to accept of unless the King would first take down His Standard and recal His Declarations and Proclamations against them To which the King the 5. Septemb. 1642. notwithstanding the Earl of Bedford had with great forces in the mean time besieged the Marquis of Hartford in the Castle of Sherborn in Dorset-shire replying That He never did Declare nor ever intended to Declare both His Houses of Parliament to be Traytors or set up His Standard against them much less to put them and the Kingdom out of His protection And utterly s protesting against it before God and the World offered to recal His Declarations and Proclamations with all cheerfulness the same day that they should revoke their Declarations against those that had assisted Him and desiring a Treaty and conjuring them to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the danger of England undertakes to be ready to grant any thing shall be really good for His Subjects which being brought by the Lord Falkland one of His Majesties Secretaries of State and a Member of the House of Commons and not long before in a very great esteem with them all the respect could be afforded him being to stand at the Bar of the House of Commons and deliver his Message unto them had onely an answer in a printed Declaration of the Lords and Commons returned unto him That it was Ordered and Declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament That the Arms which they have been forced to take up or shall be forced to take up for the preservation of the Parliament Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom shall not be laid down until His Majesty shall withdraw His protection from such persons as have been voted by both Houses of Parliament to be Delinquents or that shall by t both Houses of Parliament be voted to be Delinquents which after their mad way of voting mig●● have been himself his Queen or His Heir apparent and leave them to the Iustice of Parliament according to their demerites to the end that those great Charges and damages wherewithal the Common wealth hath been burdened since His Majesty departed from the Parliament might be born by the Delinquents and other Malignant and dis-affected persons and that those who by Loans of money or otherwise at their charges have assisted the Common-wealth or shall in like maner hereafter assist the Common-wealth in times of extream danger and here they would also provide for future friends and quarrels may be re-paid all sums of money le●● for those purposes and satisfied their charges susteined out of the Estates of the said Delinquents and of the Malignant and dis-affected party in this Kingdom And to make good their words 8. of September 1642. Before their answer could come unto the Kings hands Ordered certain numbers of horse and foot to be sent to Garrison and secure Oxford and the morrow after before the King could possibly reply unto it their Lord General the Earl of Essex marched out of London against him with an Army of 20000. men horse and foot gallantly Armed and a great train of Artillery to attend him Notwithstanding all which and those huge impossibilities which every day more and more appeared of obtaining a Peace with those who were so much afraid to be loosers by it as they never at all intended it The King must needs send one message more unto them to try if that might not give them some occasion to send Him gentler conditions and therefore 13. September 1642. Being the same day they had impeached the Lord Strange of High-Treason for executing the Kings Commission of Array and Ordered the propositions for furnishing of horse plate and money to be tendred from house to house in the Cities of London Westminster to be sent into all the Shires Counties of England to be tendred for the same purpose and the names of the refusers to be certified Mr. May one of the Pages to the King comes to the Lords House in Parliament with a message from Him bearing date but two dayes before u That although He had used all ways and means to prevent the present distractions and dangers of the Kingdom all His labours have been fruitless that not so much as a Treaty earnestly desired by Him can be obtained though He disclaimed all His Proclamations and Declarations and the erecting of His Standard as against His Parliament unless He should denude himself of all force to defend Him from a visible strength marching against Him That now He had nothing left in His power but to express the deep sense He had of the publique misery of the Kingdom and to apply himself to a necessary defence wherein He whoily relied upon the providence of God and the affection of His good people and was so far from putting them out of His protection as when the Parliament should desire a treaty He would piously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this quarrel and cheerfully embrace it But this must also leave them as it found them in their ungodly purposes for the morrow after being the 14. day of Septemb. 1642. Mr. Hampden one of the 5. Members by this time a Collonel of the Army brings letters to the House of Commons from the Parliaments General that he was at Northampton in a very good posture and that great numbers of the Countreys thereabouts came in dayly unto him and offered to march under him and that so soon as all his forces that are about London shall come unto him which he desires may be hastened he intended to advance towards His Majesty and it was the same day voted That all things sealed by

the Kings Seal since it was carried away by the Lord Keeper Littleton should be Null and of no force in the Law and that a new Seal should be provided The King therefore seeing what He must trust to 19. September 1642. being at Wellington in Shrop-shire in the head of such small forces and friends as He could get together for the Parliament that very day had received letters That the King but the week before having a muster at Nottingham there appeared but about 3000. foot and 2000. horse and 1500. dragoons and that a great part of His men were not provided with Arms made His protestation and promise as in the presence of x Almighty God and as He hoped for His blessing and protection to maintain to the utmost of His power the true Reformed Protestant Religion established in the Church of England and that He desired to govern by the known Laws of the Land and that the Liberty and property of the Subject should be preserved with the same care as His own just rights and to observe inviolably the Laws consented to by Him in this Parliament and promised as in the sight of Almighty God if He would please by His blessing upon that Army raised for His necessary defence to preserve Him from that Rebellion to maintain the just priviledges and freedom of Parliament and govern by the known Laws of the Land In the mean while if this time of War and the great necessity and straights He was driven to should be get any violation of them He hoped it would be imputed by God and man to the Authors of the War and not to Him who had so earnestly desired and laboured for the Peace of the Kingdom and preservation thereof and that when He should fail in any of those particulars He would expect no aid or relief from any man nor protection from Heaven And now that the stage of War seems to be made ready and the Parliament party being the better furnished had not seldom shewed themselves and made several traverses over it for indeed the King having so many necessities upon him and so out of power and provision for it might in that regard onely if He had not been so unwilling to have any hurt come to his people by his own defending of himself be backward and unwillingly drawn unto it we may do well to stand by and observe who cometh first to act upon it 22. of September 1642. The Earl of Essex writeth from Warwick that he was upon his march after the King and before the 6. of October following had written to the County of Warwick with all speed to raise their Trained bands and Voluntiers to resist his forces if they should come that way and to the three Counties of Northampton Leicester and Darby to gather head and resist him if he should retire into those parts and by all that can be judged of a matter of fact so truely and faithfully represented must needs be acknowledged to have great advantages of the King by the City and Tower of London Navy Shipping Armes Ammunition the Kings Magazines all the strong Towns of the Kingdom most of the Kingdoms plate and money the Parliaments credit and high esteem which at that time the people Idolized the fiery Zeal of a Seditious Clergy to preach the people into a Rebellion and the people head-long running into the witchcraft of it When the King on the other side had little more to help him then the Laws and Religion of the Land which at that time every man began to mis-construe and pull in pieces had neither ammunition ships places of strength nor money nor any of his party or followers after the Parliament had as it were proclaimed a War against Him could come single or in small numbers through any Town or Village but were either openly assaulted or secretly betrayed no man could adventure to serve or own him but must expose himself and his Estate to be ruined either by the Parliament or people or such as for malice or profit would inform against him All the gains and places of preferment were on the Parliaments part and nothing but losses and mis-fortunes on the Kings No man was afraid to go openly to the Parliaments side and no man durst openly so much as take acquaintance of his Soveraign but if he had done a quarter of that which Ziba did to David when he brought him the 200. loaves of bread or old Barzillai or Ittai the Gittise when he went along with him when his son Absalom rebelled against him They should never have escaped so well as they did but have been sure to be undone and sequestred for it So much of the affections of the people had the Parliament cousened and stoln from them so much profit and preferment had they to perswade it and so much power to enforce those that otherwise had not a minde to it to fight against him Who thus every way encompassed about with dangers and like a Partridge hunted upon the Mountains marcheth from Shrewsbury towards Banbury perswading and picking up what help and assistance His better sort of Subjects durst adventure to afford Him in the way to which On Sunday the 23. of October 1642. for they thought it better to rob God of his Sabbath then lose an opportunity of murdering their Soveraign The Earl of Essex and Parliament army powring in from all quarters of the kingdom upon him had at Edge-hill compassed Him in on all sides and before the King could put His men in battel Array many of whom being young country fellows had no better Arms then Clubs and Staves in their hands cut out of the hedges and put His two young Sons the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York in the guard of a troop of horse at the further end of the field and had finished a short prayer a bullet of the Earl of Essex's Canon grazed at His heels as He was kneeling at His prayers on the side of a bank for Blague a villain in the Kings Army having a great Pension allowed Him for it had given notice in what part of the field the King stood that they might the better know how to shoot at him But God having a greater care of his Anointed then of their Rebellious pretences so ordered the hands of those that fought for the King as the Earl of Essex was so loaden with Victories as he left five of His men for one of the Kings dead behinde him lost his babbage and Artillery retired back to Warwick and left the King to bless God in the field where He supped with such Victuals as the more Loyal and better natured neighbours sent him when the worser sort refused to do it and lying there all night sent warrants out the next day to the neighbour Parishes to bury the dead drew off His Ordinance and marched to Banbury and yet he could not forget to pity those which were at such pains and hazard the

interest to that every thing or nothing or to that non-sense according as the Lawless Unlimited Unjust and Ignorant will of fellow subjects shall please to mis-use them in the Voting-house or place of bandying aies or noes For a Parliament which in its legal and primitive institution consisting of King Lords and Commons and the right use of it is so venerable as no man as our Laws say ought so much as to speak or think dishonorably of it we cannot without violence to the Laws and our own reason and understanding call it where Publique orders are made without hearing of all or any parties interessed a piece of a cause heard by some and none at all of it by others votes and parties made and packed and lent to one another before-hand and the best of the Faction and juglers carry all the business as they have a mind to it A way of Justice worse then that if there were any in it of a lawless Court said to be kept yearly on a Hill betwixt Raleigh and Rochford in Essex the Wednesday after every Michaelmas-day where the Steward or Judge sitteth a in the night after the first Cockcrowing without any light or Candle and calleth all that are bound to attend the Court with as low a voice as possibly he may writes orders with a coal and they that answer not are deeply amerced For that being a particular punishment long ago inflicted upon the tenants of certain Mannors in Raleigh hundred for a conspiracy against a King is but once a year and some shift change or mercy of the Steward or an appeal may take away the inconveniency of it A vvay of government vvorse then to be subject to the rule of so many fools for they might perchance do that vvould be just or so many Knaves vvho but in playing the Knaves one vvith another or for reward might sometimes do that vvhich vvas right or Mad-men vvhich at intervals might do something vvhich vvas reasonable vvorse then for every subject of England to be put to play at dice for his Life or Estate or any thing else which he should crave a Justice to get or keep for then he might by skill or chance obtain some thing In fine vvorse then any example or vvay of Government the World hath as yet produced and can have nothing vvorse but Hell it self The Parliament and priviledges of it are destroyed and every mans Life and Estate in no better a condition then at the pleasure of the next pretenders to it All the Charters and Liberties of Cities and corporate Tovvns Corporations of Trade and Companies of Merchants made void all Merchandise Trade and manufacture of the Kingdom laid open and in common to every one that will intrude upon it all that is in the Law concerning our Lives Estates Liberties and Religion made voide and dependent upon their Arbitrary Independent power all that is in the Law concerning Navigation the Kings protection of His people certainty of Customes Trade and entercourse leagues and correspondencies with Forraigne Princes expired or anihilated and all that our forefathers have obtained by way of Laws and Settlement and certainty of Estate are now at the dispose of our Votemongers who instead of a most Pious and Gracious King governing by known Laws have set us up 43. or 50. Kings and ten times as many more Knaves and Fooles who will govern by no Law but such as they shall call Laws and make themselves can be accusers witnesses and Judges at one and the same time and if need be condemn and take away mens Estates first and try them after two or three years Petitioning for it a bondage and slavery in the general more then ever any of our ancestors tasted of For the Romans whose Justice and morality at home and vertue and temperance abroad made them free enough from Tyranny did but make them as Tributaries The Picts made but temporary incursions and a wall could be made against them The Saxons and Danes brought us good Laws and William the Conqueror was contented to restore them And all that succeeded him since understood a government by Laws to be their own as well as the peoples security but this which they have now brought upon us and would keep us under is a misery beyond that was suffered under the 30. Tyrants of Athens Spartan Ephori or Romes Decemvirat for there were something of Laws and Rules to govern by The Children of Israel in the Egyptian slavery had a property in their goods and cattel and were at liberty to serve a better God then that of their masters and though they had their burdens doubled upon them were not killed imprisoned or sequestred for petitioning against the sense of Pharaoh The Jews in captivity had so much liberty of conscience allowed to them as to play upon their Harps and sing the Songs of Sion in a strange Land The frozen Russians though so dull and ignorant as when they are asked any matter of State or difficulty make answer God and the great Duke knoweth breath not under so arbitrary and lawless a government The Grecians had not their Laws Religion and Liberties as we have all at once taken from them nor can the sufferings of them or any other vassals of the Ottoman part or those that live under the Crim Tartar equal the one half of our English Slavery Into which we had never fallen or come at all or so long groned under had we but served God and the King as we ought to have done and not wrested the sense as well as the plain words of the Scripture and the Laws of the Land to enable the sons of Zerviah to be too hard for us and bring all maner of mischief confusion and wickedness upon us more then Romes or Constantinoples Antichrist ever brought upon a people and from which the King had delivered us if we had not Cursed Reviled Prayed Contributed and fought against Him for endeavouring to Protect us How gracious then was he who endured the heat of the day and cold of the night to preserve a great deal more for us then Nabals Sheep could amount unto yet being worse used then ever David was for it could not tell how so much as to threaten to do that which David had so great a mind to do but fought as long as he could to protect them would not so much as defend themselves but did all they could to ruine those that defended him And how much was he beyond Codrus the Athenian King the Roman Curtius or Decii if all that the Ancients wrote of them were true who sacrificed themselves but not their Estates and Posterity to preserve the publique and how good beyond example or the Credit of any history who made himself a Martyr for His peoples lives and liberties and endured so many deaths and suffered more indignities then all the Kings of England put together have ever endured to preserve a people who have for a