her which even malice it self could hardly be induced to believe The Parliament had before the Queens departure endeavoured to clear themselves from any intention of drawing up any Articles against her and that it was only a scandal put upon them by some malicious Incendiaries To which excuse of theirs the Queen mildely returned answer That there was a general report thereof but she never saw any Articles in writing and having no certain Author for either she gave little credit thereto nor could she believe that they would lay any aspersions upon her who had ever been very unapt to misconster the actions of any one person and much more the proceedings of Parliament And should at all times wish a happy Union and understanding between the King and his people However the King thought it the best course to send her out of the way During the Queens absence broke out those irreconcilable discontents between the King and Parliament The first endeavouring to maintain the Fundamentall Laws of the Land the true professed Protestant Religion and his own due and proper Rights and Prerogatives whilest the latter endeavoured to subvert all of them by infringing and eclipsing that Royal Prerogative which had for above three hundred years adorned this Monarchy endeavouring to settle an arbitrary Power in themselves by subverting and overturning at pleasure the fundamental Laws of the Land making new ones according as their designs served them taking away from the King all power over the Militia his undoubted and inherent right surprizing and engarrisoning his Forts and Castles robbing him of his Ships and Navies denying him entrance into one of his own Towns and disposal of his Magazine of Arms and Ammunition there though bought with his own Money and intended to be imployed in reducing the Irish then in Rebellion for the generall good of these Kingdoms and all this under the large pretences of Reformation of Religion removing the King from such as they pleased to call evil Counsellours making him a happy and glorious King whilest indeed in stead of him as the event proved they intended to constitute themselves so many petty Athenian Kings to Rule and Domineer at pleasure over these three Kingdoms And to this effect they first raise Arms perswading the People That their intentions were only to bring the King again to his Parliament from whence by the violent proceedings of some Members in the Commons House who suggested jealousies and fears into the Suburbian Rabble of the City of London and induced them to come to his Court in tumultuous manner and threaten him at his very Palace-gate he was forced in honour to go away and retire himself to York where after many messages and sollicitations to the Parliament to come to an accord and agreement he likewise endeavoured to put himself into a posture of Defence But the Parliament having both the Magazine of Men Money and Ammunition the City of London in their hands were extreamly before-hand with him though the Queen used her utmost endeavours in Holland by the assistance of the Prince of Orange and those Jewels she carried over with her to raise him both supplyes of Money Arms and Ammunition by means of which and the Contributions and assistance of those Subjects which still continued loyal to him he gathered such an Army as was able for some time to oppose his enemies And on the sixteenth of February 1642. the Queen her self imbarques for England but was the first time by contrary windes and foul weather beaten back again into Holland But fearing no storms for her dear Consorts sake puts to sea again and on the nineteenth she with some hazard anchors at Burlington Bay and safely lands the two and twentieth with some supply of Officers Munition and Money But though she got safely to shore yet she endured there as great a Tempest if not worse then any she had done at Sea of which she thus by Letter acquaints the King THE next night after we came to Burlington four of the Parliament Ships arrived without being perceived by us and about Five a Clock in the Morning they began to ply us so fast with their Ordinance that it made us all to rise out of our Beds and leave the Village at least the Women One of the Ships did me the favour to flank upon the House where I lay and before I was out of my Bed the Cannon Bullets whistled so loud about me that all the Company pressed me earnestly to goe out of the House their Cannon having totally beaten down all the neighbouring houses and two Cannon Bullets falling from the top to the bottom of the House where I was so that cloathed as I could be I went on foot some little distance out of the Town under the shelter of a Ditch like that of New-market whither before I could get the Canon Bullets fell thick about us and a Serpent was killed within twenty paces of me We in the end gained the Ditch and stayed there two hours whilest their Canon plaid all the while upon us The Bullets flew for the most part over our heads some few only grazing on the Ditch covered us with Earth c. Yet notwithstanding their strenuous endeavours it pleased God to preserve this Illustrious Princess from their disloyal violence which they had not yet given over had not the ebbing of the Tide and some threats from the Admiral of Holland forced them to desist in the further pursuance of it The Queens Majesty was at Burlington met by the Earl of Montrose and the Lord Ogilby who with two Troops of Horse conveyed her to York where she uses her utmost diligence in promoting his Majesties affairs and in a short time raises a pretty considerable force which with an Amazonian courage she undertakes to command in person And with these Forces thus raised she first advances to Newark from thence to Weston and so to Ashby where she resolves to think upon what might most conduce to the benefit of his Majesties affairs having received intelligence that the Enemies Forces from Nottingham were retreated into Leicester-shire and Derby-shire to joyn with a greater force to oppose or intercept her Majesties passage which she endeavoured to make towards the King to conjoyn their powers But yet before she goes forward she takes a prudent care of preserving those Countries which she left behinde her and therefore she leaves Sir Charls Cavendish brother to the Earl of Newcastle with the command of three thousand Foot Arms for five hundred and twenty Troops of Horse to secure Lincolnshire and Nottingham-shire the better to preserve those who were already loyal from the enemies violence and to keep subject such whose volatile spirits were too subject to flie from their Allegiance as likewise to keep in awe those thousand Foot which the enemy had left engarrisoned in Nottingham And so her self marches forward accompanyed with three thousand Foot thirty
Son who entred into the world on the twentieth of July 1640. and was Christned Henry and after created Duke of Glocester She had before been delivered of her third Daughter on the 17th of March 1636. who was Christned Anna and died before her Father And shortly after the Duke of Glocesters birth in the same year the Ambassadour Leiger of Holland made some overtures of a Marriage between the young Prince William of Nassau Prince of Orange and the Kings eldest Daughter the Lady Mary Which Overtures were willingly assented to by the King and likewise agreed upon by the Parliament who expressed much joy at the Kings inclinations to marry his Daughter to a Protestant Prince though somewhat inferior to her in birth and nobleness So on Sunday the second of May the Marriage was with a great deal of Solemnity performed in the Kings Chappell at White-hall Notwithstanding the Parliaments former suspension of all proceedings against the Kings servants who collected the Benevolence amongst the Catholiques for the Kings necessary supply in his Expedition against the Scots yet a strange report after there was of the Parliaments intentions to draw up Articles of High Treason against her And indeed some resolutions there were of the Parliaments upon a fond conceit that the Queen had so much power with the King as to misadvise him either to perswade her to withdraw her self aside by some fears wherewith they would possess her or else to drive her away perforce which the King finding and thinking the first the surest course thought it better to have her go as it were voluntarily and therefore acquainted the Parliament That he was pressed by the States Ambassadours to send the Princesse Maria into Holland to her late Espoused Husband and that the Queen desiring it he had given her leave to goe with her And so the good Queen was got out of their Clutches the King accompanying her and the Princess to the Sea-side at Dover and she carrying with her all the Jewels belonging to the Crown the Pawn of which afterwards with some additional supplyes from the Prince of Orange assisted the King in his extreamest necessities The King was extreamly troubled at the Queens departure which made him fall into this rare Soliloquie of her in which because he who knew her best gives the best Characters of her that possibly can be given I shall here insert it ALthough I have much cause says the King to be troubled at my Wives departure from me and out of my Dominions yet not her absence so much as the scandal of that necessity which drives her away doth afflict me That she should be compelled by my own Subjects and those pretending to be Protestants to withdraw for her safety This being the first example of any Protestant Subjects that have taken Arms against their King a Protestant For I look upon this now done in England as another act of the same Tragedy which was lately begun in Scotland the Brands of that fire being ill quenched have kindled the like flames here I fear such motions so little to the adorning of the Protestant Profession may occasion a further alienation of minde and divorce of affections in her from that Religion wherein we only differ Which yet God can and I pray he would in time take away and not suffer these practices to be any obstruction to her judgement since it is the motion of those men for the most part who are yet to seek and settle their Religion for Doctrine Government and good manners and so not to be imputed to the true English Protestants who continue firm to their former setled Principles and Laws I am sorry my relation to so deserving a Lady should be any occasion of her danger and affliction whose merits would have served her for a protection amongst the savage Indians whilest their rudenesse and barbarity knows not so perfectly to hate all vertues as some mens subtilty doth among whom I yet think few are so malicious as to hate her for her self the fault is she is my Wife All justice then as well as affection commands me to studie her security who is only in danger for my sake I am content to be tossed weather-beaten and shipwrackt so as she may be in a safe harbour This comfort I shall enjoy by her safety in the middest of my personal dangers That I can perish but half if she be preserved to whose memory and hopefull Posterity I may yet survive the malice of mine enemies although they should be satiated with my blood I must leave her and them to the love and loyalty of my good Subjects and to his protection who is able to punish the faults of Princes and no lesse severely to revenge the Injuries done to them by those who in all duty and Allegiance ought to have made good that safety which the Laws chiefly provide for Princes But common civility is in vain expected from those who dispute their Loyalty Nor can it be safe for any Relation to a King to tarry among them who are shaking hands with their Allegiance under pretence of laying faster hold on their Religion 'T is pity so noble and peacefull a Soul should see much more suffer the rudenesse of those who must make up their want of Justice with inhumanity and impudence Her sympathie with me in affliction will make her Vertues shine with greater lustre as Stars in the darkest nights and assure the envious World That she loves me not my Fortunes Neither of us but can easily forgive since we do not much blame the unkindnesse of the generality and Vulgar for we see God is pleased to trie both our Patience by the most selfpunishing sin the ingratitude of those who having eaten of our Bread and being enriched by our bounty have scornfully lift up themselves against us and those of our own Houshold are become our enemies I pray God lay not their sin to their charge who think to satisfie all Obligations to duty by their Corban of Religion and can lesse endure to see then to sin against their Benefactors as well as their Soveraigns But even that policy of mine enemies is so far venial as it was necessary to their designs by scandalous Articles and all irreverend demeanour to seek to drive her out of my Kingdoms lest by the influence of her example eminent for Love as a Wife and Loyalty as a Subject she should have converted to or retained in their Love and Loyalty all those whom they had a purpose to pervert The lesse I can be blest with her Company the more I will retire to God and mine own Heart whence no malice can banish her Mine Enemies may envy but they can never deprive me of the enjoyment of her Vertues while I enjoy my self Let the world then judge by this noble character given her by him who of all men in the world best knew her how ill she deserved those many scandals and reproaches upon
yet in the mean time will use her utmost power and interest by all ways imaginable to help him She likewise sends another Letter to the French Ambassadour resident to be delivered to the L. Gen. which she directs To her Trusty well-beloved Tho. Lord Fairfax Generall of the Parliaments Forces Therein imploring his aid and assistance to come over to the King her Husband to see him before he should be proceeded against by any Tryall or Charge and to have a Passe for her secure coming and returning This Letter was by the L. Gen. Fairfax sent to the House of Commons but they not so much as deigning to take it into consideration laid it aside And on they proceed in their intended traiterous design against the King her Husband condemning him by their pretended High Court of Justice to be murdered by severing his head from his body before his own Palace-gate of White-hall which accordingly they executed on that black day for ever to be rased out of the Kalender Tuesday the 30 of Jan. to the astonishment of the whole World and grief of all good men But with what unexpressible grief and sorrow to his Royal Consort must be left to imagination no pen being able to express that black cloud of distractions which so sad an accident must necessarily involve her in certainly had she been of the same Religion that those noble Roman Women were who scorned to survive their Husbands her magnanimous spirit had certainly followed their example But since her Religion though it could not restrain her sorrow for her murdered King and Husband restrained her from following him in death she is resolved to spend the rest of her time in Religion and therefore retired her self to the Monastery of Challons where she ceased not daily to lament both his and her own hard Fortune his in coming to so untimely an end by the treachery of his Subjects and her own in surviving him Till at length overcome by the importunities of the King and Qu. Mother of France she came to keep Court though with the most obscurity that could be in Pallace Royal a Pallace built by Cardinal Richelieu at Paris yet never interposing in any matters of Estate except what might be for the Promoting of the interest of her Son King Charles the Second who not only lost his Father but was deprived of his Kingdoms by his Fathers Murderers till it pleased God of late to restore him which sure does in a great measure comfort this disconsolate Princesse though Worlds cannot repair the loss of such a Husband A Prince he was of an incomparable piety and so rare a pattern of Conjugal love that he commanded the Princess Elizabeth the day before his death to tell her mother That his thoughts had never strayed from her and that his love had been the same to the last Nor were her Vertues less resplendant which should I undertake to Characterize I should wrong what King Charles himself hath done I therefore only conclude with this Wish May England ever be happy in such Princes but may never Princes of England be so unhappy in their Governments as the Malice and Rebellion of some men made Them to be FINIS The Queen born Prince Charls his Voyage to Spain His return K. James his Letter to the K. of France Letters sent to the Princess Henrietta Maria King James his Death Prince Charles succeeds Letters of Proxie to the Duke of Chevereux Buckingham and others sent to fetch the Queen K. James his Funerall The Qu. sets forward The Queen puts to sea Arrives at Dover The King and Queen set forward to Londen The Marriage proclaimed Occasion of discontent between the King and Queen The Qu. Servants dismissed Bishop of Menes Madam St. George offer a defence of themselves The Qu. extreamly disturbed at the sending away of her servants The Kings endeavour to pacifie her The French misdemeanours King of France resents the sending away of his Sisters servants Ambassadours sent to demand their restitution But in vain War with France unsuccessefull The Queen brought to bed before her time Prince Charles born The Prince baptized Princess Mary born And Duke of York The Queen raises a Benevolence amongst the Catholiques The Catholiques free supplyes The Collectors of her Majesties Benevolence questioned The Qu. message to the House of Commons The Qu. Mother arrives in England Her death Duke of Glocester born The Marriage of the Princess Mary with the Prince of Orange The Qu. accused of High treason The Queen goes for Holland The Parliaments endeavour to clear themselves The Qu. answer to their excuse The breach betwixt the King and Parliament The Parliament raise Arms The King likewise arms The Queen comes to England The Qu. Letter to the King about her escape at Burlington The Qu. goes to York Advances to Newark Her Majesties Forces Card Richelieu his death His birth extract Character Mazarine succeeds him Lewis 13. dies The Qu. and King meet at Edge hill Ambassadour from France The Qu. at Oxford Sir William Waller routed The Qu. intends to journey to the West Queen proclaimed traitor Sets forward towards the West Delivered of a daughter Queen passes into France Waller and Essex routed Nazeby fight the Kings ruine The King disguised leaves Oxford The Qu. desires to procure Lorrain to assist the King Oxford taken The Scots sell the King The Qu. Letter to the King And to the Lord Fairfax The King beheaded The Qu. goes into a Monastery at Challons