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
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 migâ—â— 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 leâ—â— 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
day before to murther him but before he went out of the field sent Sir William Le-neve Clarencieux King at Arms to Warwick whither the Earl of Essex was fled with a Proclamation of Pardon to all that would lay down arms which though they scornfully received and the Herald threatned to be hanged if he did not depart the sooner cannot perswade him from sending a Declaration or Message to the Parliament to offer them all that could be requested by Subjects but all the use they made of it was to make the City of London believe they were in greater danger then ever if they lent them not more moneys and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army and to cousen and put the people on the more to seek their own misery a day of thanksgiving was publiquely kept for the great Victory obtained against the King And Stephen Marshal a Factious bloody minister though he confessed he was so carried on in the crowd of those that fled from the battel as he knew not where he was till he came to a Market Town which was some miles from Edge-hill where the Battel was fought preaches to the people too little believing the Word of God and too much believing him That to his knowledge there was not above 200. men lost on the Parliaments side that he picked up bullets in his black Velvet cap and that a very small supply would now serve to reduce the King and bring Him to His Parliament And here ye may see Janus Temple wide open though the doors of it were not lift off the hinges or broken open at once but pickt open by those either knew not the misery of War or knowing it will prove to be the more guilty promoters of it That we may the better therefore find out though the matter of Fact already represented may be evidence enough of it self who it was that let out the fury and rage of War upon us we shall consider CHAP. III. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the People be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War if it were made between equals WAr where it is made by any rules of justice between equals is to be for necessity where the determining of controversies cannot otherwise be obtained or when between two Princes of equal power it cannot be had because they have no superiour A Rebel therefore cannot properly be called an enemy for Hostis nomen notat aequalitatem and when any such arms are born against Rebels it is not to be called a War but an exercise of jurisdiction upon traiterous and dis-loyal persons y atque est ratio manifesta saith Albericus Gentilis qui enim jure judex est superior non jure cogitur ad subeundas partes partis aequalis non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant exercitus proinde nec ulla cum illis belli jura saith z Besoldus The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publique denouncing of War and sending Ambassadors before they made War against any other Nation did not do it in cases of rebellion and defection and therefore a Fidenatibus Campanis non denunciant Romani And Cicero that was of opinion that nullum bellum justum haberi videtur nisi nunciatum nisi indictum nisi repetitis rebus stood not upon those solemnities in the Cataline conspiracy for the rules of justifying a War against an enemy or equals as demanding restitution denunciation and the like are not requisite in that of punishing of Rebels b Pompey justifies the war maintained by the Senate against Caesar not then their Soveraign with neque enim vocari praelia justa decet c. Cicero did not think it convenient to send Ambassadors to Anthony nor intreat him by fair words but that it was meet to enforce him by Arms to raise his siege from Mutina for he said c They had not to do with Hannibal an enemy to the Common-wealth but with a Rebellious Citizen The resisting of the Kings Authority when the Sheriff of a County goes with the posse Comitatus to execute it was never yet so much as called a War but Rebellion insurrection or commotion were the best terms which were bestowed upon it For such attempts are not called wars but robberies of which the Law taketh no other care of but to punish them And the haste that all our Kings and Princes in England have made in suppressing Rebellions as that of the Barons Wars by Henry the 3. and his sending his son the Prince to besiege Warren Earl of Surrey in his Castle of Rygate for affronting the Kings Justices saying That he would hold his Lands by the Sword That which Ri. 2. made to suppresse Wat. Tiler H. 6. Jack Cade H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels and Queen Eliz. to suppress the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland may tell us that they understood it no otherwise then all the Kings and Magistrates of the World have ever practised it by the d Laws of England if Englishmen that are Traytors go into France and confederate with Aliens or Frenchmen and come afterwards and make a War in England and be taken prisoners the strangers may be ransomed but not the English for they were the Kings Subjects and are to be reckoned as Traytors not strangers And the Parliaments own advise to the King to suppress the Irish Rebels that ploughed but with their own Heyfer and pretended as they did to defend their Religion Laws and Liberties and the opinion also of Mr. President Bradshaw as Sir John Owen called him in his late sentence given against the Earls of Cambridge Holland and Norwich Lord Capel and Sir John Owen whom he mistakenly God and the Law knows would make to be the subjects of their worser fellow subjects may be enough toturn the question out of doors But lest all this should not be thought sufficient to satisfie those who can like nothing but what there is Scripture for we shall a little turn over the leaves of that Sacred Volume and see what is to be found therein concerning this matter Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the World and better acquainted with Him that made the fifth Commandment then these that now pretend Revelations against it thought fit to suppress the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram as soon as he could and for no greater offence then a desire to be co-ordinate with him procured them to be buried alive with all that appertained unto them When Absalon had Rebelled against his father David and it was told him e That the hearts of the men of Israel were after him David a man after Gods own heart without any Message of Peace or Declaration sent unto his dear son Absalon or offering half or any part of his Kingdom to him sent three several armies
fight and have been told that the King shot at them for the safety of His own Person and that they also shot against Him for the safety of His own Person and being asked which of the two parties he believed did really or most of all intend the safety of it we cannot tell how to think any man such a stranger to nature reason or understanding as to think the King should not fight as the Dictates of nature perswaded him to or that the King could tell how to fight against those that fought for him or that if he should be so hugely mistaken in that one year or Battel he should be in several other years and Battels after To fight for the defence of the Religion established as they made also the people believe was as needless when the King offered to do every thing might help to promote it and they are so little also to be credited in that pretence as we know they did all they could from the beginning to ruine it took away Episcopacy the hedge and bounds of it brought in Presbytery to preach up and aid their Rebellion and when their own turns were served encouraged Conventicles and Tub-preachers to pull down the Presbytery And being demanded at the treaty at Uxbridge by the Kings Commissioners what Religion they would have the King to establish were so unprovided of an answer as they could not resolve what to nominate nor in any of their propositions afterwards sent to the King though ofted urged and complained of by the Scottish Commissioners could ever finde the way to do it but have now set up an Independent extemporary enthusiastick kinde of worshipping God if there were any such thing in it or rather a religious Chaos or gallimaufrey of all maner of heresies errours blasphemies and opinions put together not any of the owners of which we can be confident will subscribe to that opinion that Wars may be made for Religion or that conscience ought to be forced by it As for the restrictive part of the Laws to keep the people in subjection we can very well perswade our selves no such War was ever made yet in the World nor any people ever found that would engage in a War for that they obeyed but against their wills And for that part of the Law that gives them the Kings protection priviledges immunities and certainties of deciding controversies which are more fitly to be called the Liberties of the people then to have 45. of the House of Commons or a Faction to make daily and hourly Laws Religion and Government and vote their estates in and out to pay an Army to force their obedience to it if we had not out-lived the Parliaments disguises and pretences saw them now tearing them up by the roots that there may be no hope of their growing up again and setting up their own as well as the ignorant and illiterate fancies of Mechaniques and Souldiers in stead of them we might have said that also had been needless when the King had done abundantly enough already and offered to grant any thing more that could in reason be demanded of Him And as touching their priviledges of Parliament They that understand but any thing of the Laws of England or have but looked into the Records and Journals of Parliament can tell that all priviledges of Parliament as King James said were at first bestowed upon them by the Kings and Princes of this Kingdom That priviledges of Parliament extended not to Treason or Felony or breach of the Peace That m 32. Hen. 6. Sir Thomas Thorpe Speaker of the House of Commons being arrested in execution in the time of the prorogation of the Parliament the Commons demanded he might be set at liberty according to their priviledges whereupon the Judges being asked their Councel therein made answer that general supersedeas of Parliament there were none but special supersedeas there was in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the House of Commons ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony or breach of the Peace After which answer it was determined that the said Sir Thomas Thorpe should lye in execution and the Commons were required on the behalf of the King to choose a new Speaker which they did and presented to the King accordingly That Queen Elizabeth was assured by her Judges that she might commit any of her Parliament during the Parliament for any offence committed against her Crown and dignity and they shewed her precedents for it and that primo tertio Caroli Regis upon search of precedents in the several great cases of the Earls of Arundel and Bristol very much insisted and stood upon the House of Peers in Parliament allowed of the exception of Treason Felony and breach of the Peace For indeed it is as impossible to think that there can be any priviledge to commit Treason as to think that a King should priviledge all his Nobility and every one of his Subjects that could get to be elected into the House of Commons in Parliament to commit Treason and to take away his life in the time of Parliament whensoever their revenge or malice or interest should find the opportunity to do it or that if it could be so any King or Prince would ever call or summon a Parliament to expose himself to such a latitude of danger or give them leave to sit as long as they would to breed it or that priviledges of Treason can be consistent with the name or being of a Parliament to consult and advise with the King for the defence of him and his Kingdom or that when Felony and breach of Peace are excepted out of their priviledge Treason that is of a far higher nature consequence and punishment should be allowed them or if there could have been any such priviledge and a meaner man then their Soveraign had broke it a small understanding may inform them that they could not without breach of the Peace have fought for it against a fellow Subject and then also could not their priviledges have reached to it but the King might have punished them for it and if they cannot upon a breach of priviledge n as it was adjudged in Halls case without the Kings writ and the cause first certified in Chancery deliver one of their own servants arrested It is not likely any warrant can be found in Law to inforce the King to reparation though he himself should have broken it but to petition the King for an allowance of that or any other priviledge as well in the middle or any other time of their sitting in Parliament as they alwayes do at the presenting of their Speaker in the beginning of it Wherefore certainly the People never gave the Parliament Commission if they could have given a Commission to make a War against their Soveraign to claim that was never due to them or to fight for that was never yet fought for by any of their
notwithstanding all that made shift to throw a message or Declaration to his people made up like a ball out of the place of his close Imprisonment at Carisbrook was not like to desire the lengthening that war wch he did all he could to avoid and offered so much to make an end of but on the contrary if we take inour consideration the more then Gothish unheard of inhumane cruelties acted and done by the Parliament against their better fellow Subjects their Plundrings Sequestrations and racking of every mans estate they pleased to call Delinquents severities in all their actions standing upon every punctilio or word or superscription of a Letter and not abating a tittle of their demands as if they had been the Decalogue or some other place of Scripture though rivolets of blood hundred thousand of ruined families and thronged hospitals of sick and wounded men Widows and Fatherless cryed aloud to them for peace and their killing and murthering those that but Petitioned for it and a foundation laid of a new War may last as long as that of the Netherlands and Germany There will be enough and enough again to insure us of this most cleer and evident truth That the King did all he could and more then any man else would have done to obtain peace and the Faction or Parliment all they could to avoid it for certainly if there be any rules of Learning Truth or Reason left us to judge by He must be sequestred of all his brains that can but endeavour to make a doubt whether the King did not more resemble the true mother of the Child in the case before Solomon who did so much and offered to part with so much to save the life of it then the Parliament that would have it more divided and to be cut and torn all to bits and pieces and would do nothing at all to save but every thing to destroy it And now we have seen a King undone and imprisoned for his endeavours to protect his people and bring again beloved Peace to those that would not entertain it and heard the report of his murther for most of the peoples eyes have not seen it nor have their hearts acted in it we shall as most men do after they have lost a good offer or oportunity enquire CHAP. VIII Whether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have goâ— instead of them IN order to which though so woful and over-and-over-bitterly-Tasted Seen Felt Heard and Understood-experiences of the miseries wch have come unto us by the Parliaments not accepting the gracious offers conditions wch the King made unto them may make it to be as needless to enquire of them as for a man to ask where to find Pauls Steeple in London when he is in Pauls Church-yard or to enquire for the Sun in the Dog-dayes when he and every man else may see or feel the effects of it we shall be content to consider what the King offered and what the Parliament would have had him to grant What the King would have done and what the Parliament have done and by that see which would have been the better bargain The King like a pater patriae offered over and over to grant all manner of Laws and Liberties which might be good and wholsome for his people and only denyed to grant those things the granting whereof as he said himself vvould alter the Fundamental Lavvs and endanger the very foundations upon vvhich the publick happiness and vvelfare of his people were founded and constituted or to give them stones instead of bread or Scorpions instead of Fishes But the Parliament meaning to feed the people neither vvith bread nor fishes ask the Royal Svvord Crown and Scepter Coronation-Oath and Conscience and an Arbitrary povver to Govern and Domineere over their fellow Subjects and to enslave those that trusted them And though the King had already granted enough to preserve the Lavvs Lives Religion and Liberty of the people and vvas so vvilling almost at any rate to purchase a peace for himself and his people as he vvas content to part vvith his Svvord and Militia and divers other parts of his Regality during his life Yet that vvould not serve the turne t vvas Naboths Vineyard not Ahabs Fast wch made all the business The Faction or Partie in the Parliament that pretended so much to deny themselves and to dote upon the people do notwithstanding all they can to continue the War and to cozen and force the peoples blood estates and conscience out of them and they must never give over paying of Taxes fighting and fooling till they enable them to imprison their King and not only murder him but thousands and many ten thousands of their fellow Subjects and the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people And now that they have done more then the men of the Gunpowder-treason ever intended to do and that all England are become like sheep without a Shephard wandring on the mountains and thousands of Wolves by Votes and Ordinances and mis-called Acts of Parliament appointed to feed them four or five years sad experience in the Wars of the Parliament against the King and almost as much more time spent in setling subduing the people making them like Camels to kneel down to take up their burdens labour and travel hard and endure hunger and thirst under them yet yield up the veines to be pricked for blood to enable their drivers to furnish them with a new supply of burdens when they shall be discharged of what they have laid upon them may easily shew us a difference as big as a mountain betwixt our old good Laws and Liberties enjoyed under a gracious King who had an Estate of inheritance large enough of his own besides an Oath to oblige Him to protect us and a Hell upon Earth and the most Slavish of all the governments which were ever yet put upon a Nation by men of as little Wit and Estates as they have honesty having no other obligations upon them but their own abhominable designs and interests For which of the people unless those that have traded in their neighbours blood and ruine but hath made their complaints of their undoing The Religion of the Kingdom once so glorious is now cut into fancies and blasphemies the Churches where God was wont to be worshipped either defaced pulled down or made Stables for horses the Laws of the Kingdom which were consonant to the Word of God and had in them the Quintessence of all which could be found to be extant in the Laws of Nature Nations Civil Laws or rectified Reason and whatsoever the wisdom and care of all former Kings in Parliament or the usage and customes of this or any other neighbouring Nations could bring to its perfection and were wont to nourish and preserve peace and property among us voted out or into that sense or the other
great part of them either by Rebellion or an accursed Newtrality helped to ruine him and when he knew whatsoever Conditions or Propositions he should be forced to yield unto would by the Law of God as well as the Civil and Common Law the Laws of Nature and Nations and the dictates of every common mans reason and apprehension have been void in the very making of them and could not have reached to his posterity and that if he would but have surrendred up his people and gone along with their new masters in their Arbitrary and Tyrannical government as some of His last words upon the Scaffold plainly intimate and sided with 20. or 30. of the Faction and delivered up the Sheep to the Wolves he might no doubt have had a good part of the Fleece to his own share or but have pleased himself with revenge delivered up a people to Slavery who were at so much expence of Treasure and Blood and their own Souls to bring their Soveraign to it might have worn the title of a King and played the wanton with Sardanapalus in the company and delight of women pleased his palate with Vitellius his pride if he had any with Bassianus his cruelty if he could ever have been guilty of it with Commodus and with Childerick the lazy King of France in a Chariot deck't with garlands whilst others governed for him been at certain times of the year onely exhibited to the people and like the Minotaure of Creete wallowed in the labyrinth of Parliament priviledges and devoured his people did notwithstanding refuse to do any thing that might help himself either to purchase his own quiet or so great a Liberty and would neither for any good which might come to himself or any evil that might be cast upon him and his posterity be perswaded or threatned from the protection of His People who if He had not taken more care for them then they did for themselves must if He had yielded to all the Parliament Propositions for then they might have imagined mischief by a Law have from time to time been engaged in any War that their task-masters had a mind to put them upon must have been excised plundred sequestred ruined and undone sworn and forsworn constrayned to swear to do a thing to day and the next day swear not at all to do it The son set to kill his Father and brothers forced to fight one against another and have all their holy-dayes turned to thanks-giving days that they are undone or fasting dayes that they may be undone soon enough And if at any time that thing they call a Parliament should think it fit to make a directory to the Alchoran and to order every man to turn Turk and the King as their Henry Scobel or Town Cleark but subscribe it their Spiritual as well as their Temporal Estate and their Souls as well as their Bodies must be voted and forced to it And now let the People that have tasted too much of such a kind of happiness and are like to continue in it as long as their misery-makers can by any help of the Devil or his angels hold them to it consider whether they or their forefathers though some have thought themselves to have wit enough to adventure to call them fools were the wiser whether they that setled the government and were contented with it or they that pulled it in pieces and whether the tearing up of the fundamental Laws of Monarchy Peerage Parliament and Magna Charta ever since the day the King was murthered for defending of them which every one but themselves desired to uphold be not enough besides the Scottish combination and the plots to ruine Monarchy and the King His posterity before they had so far engaged themselves in it to inform them if nothing else had been demonstrated unto them That the King did all He could to preserve the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people which divers pieces of His coyn will help to perpetuate the truth as well as the memory of and the Parliament all they could to destroy them And that as He actually endeavoured to defend them so they have as actually undone and destroyed them And let the greatest search of History that can be made or time it self be Judge if ever any War was more made in the defensive or upon juster grounds or greater necessities or if ever any King before fought for the Liberties of those He was to govern and for Laws to restrain himself withall or if it were possible for him to suffer so much in any mans opinion as to have it thought to be unlawful or that He was a murderer of His people for seeking to protect them How shall any King or Magistrate be able to bear or use the sword when they themselves shall be in continual danger to be beaten with it King Edward the 2. of England was not murdered for the blood that was shed in the Barons wars though some of them had drawn their swords but in performance of his fathers will to take away his favorite Gaveston from him King Rich. 2. in those many devised Articles charged against him was not deposed for the blood was shed in Wat Tilers Commotion nor Hen. 6. publiquely accused for that of Jack Cades rebellion and the most bloody differences of the White and Red Roses nor Queen Elizabeth for all that was spilt in reducing Ireland when her favorite the Earl of Essex made it to be the more by his practises with Tyrone nor for the blood of Hacket who pretended to be Christ nor of Penry and other Sectaries lesser Incendiaries then Burton Bastwick their disciples for disturbing the Common-wealth the great Henry of France was not endeavoured by his Catholick Subjects to be brought to trial for shedding so much of their blood to reduce them to his obedience nor by his Protestant Subjects after he was turned Catholique for spending so much of their blood to another purpose then they intended it Nor have the stout-hearted Germans though many of them great and almost free Princes in their late peace and accord made betwixt the Swedes and the Emperor thought it any way reasonable or necessary to demand reparation for those millions of men women and children houses and estates which were ruined and spoiled by a 30. years war to reduce the Bohemians and Prince Elector Palatine to their obedience For what rules or bounds shall be put to every mans particular fancy or corrupted interest if they shall be at Liberty to question and call to account the authority which God hath placed over them Shall the son condemn or punish the father for his own disobedience the Wife her Husband for her own act of Adultery or the Servant the Master for his own unfaithfulness or can there be any thing in the reason or understanding of man to perswade him to think that the King was justly accused for the shedding of His Subjects blood which the
accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every â—0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1â— de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.
it 192 CHAP. VIII VVHether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have got instead of them 205 ERRATA Which escaped the Press PAg. 120. l. 15. read their for they p. 118. l. 20. Saxon for Sixon p. 122. l. 22. interfere a. KING CHARLES The first No Man of Blood BUT A Martyr for his People THat there hath been now almost seven years spent in Civil Wars abundance of Blood-shed and more Ruine and Misery brought upon the Kingdom by it then all the several Changes Conquests and Civil Wars it hath endured from the time of Brute or the first Inhabitants of it every mans woful experience some onely excepted who have been gainers by it will easily assent unto No mervail therefore that many of those who if all they alledge for themselves that they were not the cause of it could be granted to be true might either have hindred or lessened it would now put the blame of so horrid a business from themselves and lay it upon any they can perswade to bear it And that the Conquerours who would binde their Kings in Chains and their Princes with fetters of Iron and think they have a Commission from Heaven to do it the guilt of it being necessarily either to be charged upon the Conquerors or conquered are not willing to have their triumphant Chayres and the glories as they are made believe that hang upon their shoulders defiled with it but do all they can to load their Captives with it But howsoever though the successe and power of an Army hath frighted it so far out of question as to charge it upon the King and take away his life for it by making those that must of necessity be guilty of the fact if He should have been as in all reason He ought to have been acquited of it the onely Judges of him It may well become the judgement and conscience of every man that will be but either a good Subject or a Christian not to lend out his Soul and Salvation so much on trust as to take those that are parties and the most ignorant sort of mens words for it but to enter into a most serious examination of the matter of Fact it self and by tracing out the footsteps of Truth see what a conclusion may be drawn out of it In pursuance whereof for I hope the original of this Sea of blood will not prove so unsearchable as the head of Nile we shall enquire who first of all raised the Feares and Jealousies Secondly represent set down the truth of the matter of Fact and proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the tumultuous and seditious coming of the People to the Parliament and Whitehall until the 25. Aug. 1642. when he set up his Standard at Nottingham and from the setting up of his Standard until the 13 Septemb. 1642. when the Parliament by their many acts of hostility and a negative and churlish answer to his propositions might well have put him out of hope of any good to be obtained from them by messages of Peace sent unto them Thirdly whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppresse or punish a rebellion of the People be tied to those rules are necessary to the justifying of a war if it were made between equals Fourthly suppose the war to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it Fifthly 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 Sixthly who most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it Seventhly who laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen it Eightly whether the Conditions proffered by the King would not have been more profitable for the People if they had been accepted and what the Kingdom and People have got in stead of it CHAP. I. Who first of all Raised the Fears and Jealousies THe desiring of a guard for the Parliament because of a tale rather then a plot That the Earl of Crawford had a purpose to take away the Marquis of Hamiltons life in Scotland the refusing of a legal guard offered by the King and His protestation to be as careful of their safety as of the safety of His Wife and Children The dream of a Taylor lying in a ditch in Finsbury fields of this and the other good Lord and Common-wealths-men to be taken away The training of horses under ground and a plague-plaister or rather a clout taken from a galled horse-back sent into the House of Commons to Mr. Pym A designe of the Inhabitants of Covent-Garden to murther the City of London News from France Italy Spain and Denmark of Armies ready to come for England and a supposition or feaverish fancy That the King intended to introduce Popery and alter Religion and take away the Laws and Liberties of the people and many other the like seditious delusions the People so much as their misery will give them leave have now found out the way to laugh at either came from the Parliament party or were cherished and turned into advantages by them For they had found the way and lost nothing by it to be ever jealous of the King And whilest he did all he could to shew them that there was no cause for it they who were jealous without a cause could be so cunning as to make all the haste they could to weaken Him and strengthen themselves by such kind of artifices But He that could not choose but take notice that there were secret ties and combinations betwixt his English and Scottish subjects the latter of whom the Earl of Essex and Sir Thomas Fairfax themselves understood to be no better then Rebels and therefore served in places of Command in His Majesties Army against them That Sir Arthur Haselrig had brought in a Bill in Parliament to take the Militia by Sea and Land away from him saw himself not long after by a printed Remonstrance or Declaration made to the People of all they could but imagine to be errours in his government arraigned and little lesse then deposed The Bishops and divers great Lords driven from the Parliament by Tumults Was inforced to keep his gates at White-hall shut and procure divers Captains and Commanders to lodge there and to allow them a table to be a guard for him and had been fully informed of many Trayterous Speeches used by some seditious mechaniques of London as that It was pitty He should raigne and that The Prince would make a better King was yet so far from being jealous or solicitous to defend himself by the sword and power which God had intrusted him with as when he had need and reason enough to do it he still granted them that he might not seem to deny what might but seem to be for the good
forefathers nor ever understood to be taken from them much less for their ayrie innovated pretences rather than priviledges which have since eaten up all the peoples Laws and Liberties as well as a good part of their lives and estates with it and are now become to be every thing which their representatives will and arbitrary power have a mind to make it who have so driven away their old legal priviledges by setting up illegal and fantastique Priviledges as they are pleased to call them in stead of them as there is nothing now left of the Parliament like a Parliament neither matter nor form nor any thing at all remaining of it For the upper and lower houses have driven away and fought against the King who was their Head the lower after that have driven away the upper and fourty-five of the House of Commons whereof eleven are great Officers and Commanders in the Army have after that imprisoned and driven away four hundred of their fellow Members And from a degenerate and distempered piece of a Parliament brought themselves to be but a representative or journey-men voters to a Councel of War of their own mercenary and mechanique Army and may sit another eight years before ever they shall be able to finde a reason to satisfie any man that is not a fool or a mad-man or a fellow Sharer in the spoiles of an abused and deluded Nation Why the Kings demanding of the five Members and Kimbolton by undeniable warrant of the Laws of the Land and the Records and precedents of their own houses upon a charge or accusation of Treason for endeavouring amongst other pieces of Treason to alter the Government and subvert the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom which the Parliament and they themselves which were accused have more then once declared to be Treason should be taken to be so great a breach of priviledge in the King their Soveraign when the forcing and over-awing the houses of Parliament by the Army their servants and hirelings demanding the eleven Members and imprisoning and banishing some of them upon imaginary and fantastical offences committed against themselves or they could not tell whom shall be reckoned to be no breach at all of priviledge and the forcing of the Houses by the same Army within a year afterwards by setting guards upon them violently pulling two of the Members of the House of Commons out of the House and imprisoning them and 39. of their fellow Members all night in an Alehouse and leading them afterwards to several prisons with guards set upon them as if they had been common malefactors can be called mercies and deliverances and a purging and taking away rotten Members out of the House of Commons But now that we can finde nothing to make a defensive or Lawful nor so much as a necessary war on the Parliaments part for causa belli o saith Besoldus correspondere debet damno periculo the Parliament fears and jealousies were not of weight enough to put the people into a misery far beyond the utmost of what their fears and jealousies suggested to them did amount unto we shall do well to examine by the rules and laws of war and Nations the ways and means they used in it p Injustum censetur bellum si non ejus penes quem est Majestas authoritate moveatur a War cannot be just if it be not made by a Lawful authority Armorum delatio prohibitio ad Principem spectat q It belongs to the Prince to raise or forbid Armes and the Records of the Parliament which we take to be a better sense of the House then their own purposes can inform them that the Prelates Earls Barons and Commonalty of the Realm did in the seventh year of the reign of King Edw. the first declare to the King r That it belongeth and his part is through his Royal Signory straightly to defend force of Armour and all other force against his Peace when it shall please him and to punish them which shall do the contrary according to the Laws and usages of the Realm and that thereunto they were bound to aid their Soveraign Lord the King at all seasons when need shall be How much ado then will they have to make a War against their Soveraign to be lawful or if by any warrant of Laws Divine or Humane they could but tell how to absolve themselves from their oathes of Supremacy Allegiance and their very many protestations and acknowledgements of subjection to the King finde a Supream Authority to be in the people at the same time they swore an Allegiance and obedience to the King and at the same time they not onely stiled themselves but all those they represented to be his subjects Or how will they be able to produce a warrant from the people their now pretended Soveraignes till they shall be able sufficiently to enslave them to authorize them to make a War to undo them when they elected them but to consent to such things as should be treated of by the King and his Lords for the defence of the King and his Kingdom Or how could a tenth part of the people give warrant to them to fight against the King and the other nine parts of the people Or can that be a good warrant when some of them were cheated and the other by plunderings and sequestrations forced to yield to it Or could the pretence of a war for defence of the Kings Person and to maintain the Religion Laws and Liberties of the people be a warrant to the Parliament which never sought any thing for the King and people but to take away the Soveraignty from the one and the Liberties of the other to do every thing was contrary unto it But if that could have legitimated their actions as it never did or will be able By the rules of Justice in the practise of War and Nations s si bellum geratur sine denunciatione in captivos tanquam latrones animad verti possit It is a thievery rather than a War not to denounce or give notice of it beforehand and in this also the Parliament was faulty for they took Hull and Portsmouth and the Kings Navy and Magazine from him when He hoped better things of them and sent out their Armies and the Earl of Essex against Him whilest He was in treaty with them and offered all that He could for to have a peace with them t Bellum item impium injustumque sit si modus debitus non observetur A War is unjust if there be not a due way of proceedings held in it which especially consisteth in not hurting the Innocent Church-men Husbandmen weak or impotent People as old men women and children and in this also they will fall short of an excuse For how full is every Town and Village of the truth as well as the complaints of the unchristian usage of old and sick people women and children beaten wounded or
killed upon no provocation women and maids ravished and their fingers cut off for their rings old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the privities others tortured and had burning matches tied to their fingers to make them confess where their money was women and children and sick and aged persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the fields and barns their sheep cattel and provisions devoured houses ruined or burnt and their horses that should help to plough and do other works of husbandry taken away in so much as some were inforced to blinde and put out their horses eyes that they might not be taken from them Churches that escaped defacing prophaned and made Stables or Gaoles or Victualing or Bawdy houses Monuments defaced and Sepulchers opened as were those of the Saxon Kings at Winchester and the Priests and Ministers not so much as suffered to weep betwixt the Porch and the Altar but their benefices and livelyhoods taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places had their bookes burned and all their means and maintenance plundred from them and those that were newtrals and medled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could either totally undone or cast in prison not for that they did them any hurt but because they might do it and if they were not imprisoned their Lands Money or goods were sure to be in the fault and taken away from them u Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur necesse est ut adsit intentio bona There ought to be a good intention to make the War conscionable which in this appears to fail also For the Charge against the five Members is now as true as it was then they meant to ruine the King and they have done it and to alter the Government and subvert the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and they have done a great part of it and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder x Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus honestis ne salutem quidem turpibus We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by honest and lawful means and not to do soul and dishonest things to procure our safety from which they made fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use of to usher in their pretences their faining of victories and scandaling the King and his actions not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets Battels Towns and Garrisons and making too many Judases of all that were about him will hardly be able to free them or if they could the making use of men and money intended for the support of Ireland and leaving them wallowing in their blood for seven yeares together whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them violating of their oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which many of their members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oathes taken in their Protestation and Nationall Covenant and not so few as one hundred solemn promises and undertakings in their severall Petitions Remonstrances and Declarations forcing the People to take the Protestation and Covenant and compel them as soon as they had taken it to break them and by cousening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries cheat them out of their Religion Loyalty Laws and Liberties will be sure enough to condemn them and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladâ—staus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensigne of publique detestation in the battel wherein he slew him invoked the God of the Christians to help him to revenge so great a treachery there will be more reason now for all that are but Christians or but pretend to any morality to carry in their banner the pourtraict of the Kings bleeding head as it was cut from His shoulders and make War in revenge of the masterpiece and totum aggregatum of all maner of wickedness and perfidiousness who besides all their own and the peoples oaths taken to defend him when those they called Delinquents some few onely which were specially named and excepted for obeying the known Laws of the Land as well as their Oaths and Consciences were never questioned for their lives but suffered to compound for their Estates would not suffer the King that was neither a Delinquent or Excepted Person to enjoy either His Life or Estate though to save his people and keep them from killing one another He had yielded himself and became a Prisoner upon the publique faiâ—h of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland Pax aequa non est recusanda licet victoriae spes adsit y saith Besoldus A good or fitting Peace is not to be refused though the victory were certain And in this also the Parliament will be as far to seek for a justification as in the other For in stead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it they caused men and women in the first year of their War to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a Peace and in the third and fourth year of their War plundred and robbed others that petitioned them but to hearken to it and put out of office and made all as Delinquents in the seventh year of their War that did but petition them for a Treaty with the King and refused all the Kings many very many Messages for Peace not onely when He was at the highest of His success in the war but when he was at the lowest and a prisoner to them and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadful day of Judgement to pity the bleeding conditions of His Kingdoms and people and send propositions of Peace unto Him and quarters and half years and more then a whole year together after the battel of Naseby insomuch as their fellow Rebels the Scotch Commissioners did heavily complain of it were at several times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready though those which they sent to Oxford Uxbridge Newcastle and Hampton-Court were but substantially and materially the same with their nineteen Propositions which they made unto the King before the Earl of Essex was made their General and in all the Treaties made Propositions for themselves and the Soveraignty and great offices and places of the Kingdom but would neither for Gods sake or their Kings sake or their Oaths or Consciences sake or the Peoples sake or Peace sake which the people petitioned and hungred and thirsted for alter or abate one Iota or tittle of them but were so unwilling to have any Peace at all as six or seven Messengers or Trumpeters could come from the King before they could be at leisure or so manerly as to answer one of them but this or that Message from the King was received and read and laid by till a week or when they would after and the Kings Commissioners in the Treaties must
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