Piety Sanctity and Constancy as he did and lest you should ascribe too much to that presence of mind which some common Malefactors have so great a measure of at their death many times despair and a hardned heart puts on as it were a Vizor of Courage and Stupidity of Quiet and Tranquility of mind Sometimes the worst of men desire to appear good undaunted innocent and now and then Religious not only in their life but at their death and in suffering death for their villanies use to act the last part of their hypocrisie and cheats with all the show imaginable and like bad Poets or Stage-players are very Ambitious of being clapp'd at the end of the Play Now you say you are come to enquire who they chiesly were that gave Sentence against the King Whereas it ought first to be enquired into how you a Foreigner and a French Vagabond came to have any thing to do to raise a question about our Affairs to which you are so much a stranger And what Reward induced you to it But we know enough of that and who satisfied your curiosity in these matters of ours even those Fugitives and Traytors to their Countrey that could easily hire such a vain Fellow as you to speak ill of us Then an account in writing of the state of our affairs was put into your hands by some hair-brain'd half-Protestant half-Papist Chaplain or other or by some sneaking Courtier and you were put to Translate it into Latin out of that you took these Narratives which if you please we 'll examine a little Not the hundred thousandth part of the people consented to this sentence of Condemnation What were the rest of the people then that suffered so great a thing to be transacted against their will Were they stocks and stones were they mere Trunks of men only or 〈◊〉 Images of Britans as Virgil describes to have been â—…ught in â—…ry Purpurea intexti tollunt aulea Britanni And Brittains interwove held up the Purple hangings For you describe no true Britains but Painted ones or rather Needle-wrought Men instead of them Since therefore it is a thing so incredible that a warlike Nation should be subdued by so few and those of the dregs of the People which is the first thing that occurs in your Narrative that appears in the very Nature of the thing it self to be most false The Bishops were turn'd out of the House of Lords by the Parliament it self The more deplorable is your Madness for are you not yet sensible that you Rave to complain of their being turn'd out of the Parliament whom you your self in a large Book endeavour to prove that they ought to be turn'd out of the Church One of the States of Parliament to wit the House of Lords consisting of Dukes Earls and Viscounts was removed And deservedly were they removed for they were not deputed to sit there by any Town or County but represented themselves only they had no Right over the People but as if they had been ordained for that very purpose used frequently to oppose their Rights and Liberties They were created by the King they were his Companions his Servants and as it were Shadows of him He being removed it was necessary they should be reduced to the same Level with the Body of the People from amongst whom they took their rise One part of the Parliament and that the worst of all ought not to have assum'd that Power of judging and condemning the King But I have told you already that the House of Commons was not only the chief part of our Parliament while we had Kings but was a perfect and entire Parliament of it self without the Temporal Lords much more without the Bishops But The whole House of Commons themselves were not admitted to have to do with the Tryal of the King To wit that part of them was not admitted that openly revolted to him in their Minds and Councels whom tho they stil'd him their King yet they had so often acted against as an Enemy The Parliament of England and the Deputies sent from the Parliament of Scotland on the 13th of January 1645. wrote to the King in Answer to a Letter of his by which he desired a deceitful Truce and that he might Treat with them at London that they could not admit him into that City till he had made Satisfaction to the State for the Civil War that he had raised in the three Kingdoms and for the Deaths of so many of his Subjects slain by his Order and till he had agreed to a true and firm Peace upon such Terms as the Parliaments of both Kingdoms had offered him so often already and should offer him again He on the other hand either refused to hear or by ambiguous Answers eluded their just and equal Proposals tho most humbly presented to him seven times over The Parliament at last after so many years patience lest the King should over-turn the State by his Wiles and Delays when in Prison which he could not subdue in the Field and lest the vanquish'd Enemy pleased with our Divisions should recover himself and triumph unexpectedly over his Conquerors vote that for the future they would have no regard to him that they would send him no more Proposals nor receive any from him After which vote there were found even some Members of Parliament who out of the hatred they bore that invincible Army whose Glory they envied and which they would have had disbanded and sent home with disgrace after they had deserved so well of their Nation and out of a servile Compliance with some Seditious Ministers finding their opportunity when many whom they knew to be otherwise minded than themselves having been sent by the House it self to suppress the Presbyterians who began already to be Turbulent were absent in the several Counties with a strange Levity not to say perfidiousness Vote that that inveterate Enemy of the State who had nothing of a King but the Name without giving any Satisfaction or Security should be brought back to London and restored to his Dignity and Government as if he had deserved well of the Nation by what he had done So that they preferr'd the King before their Religion their Liberty and that very celebrated Covenant of theirs What did they do in the mean time who were sound themselves and saw such pernicious Councils on foot Ought they therefore to have been wanting to the Nation and not provide for its safety because the Infection had spread it self even in their own House But who secluded those ill affected Members The English Army you say so that it was not an Army of Foreigners but of most Valiant and Faithful Honest Natives whose Officers for the most part were Members of Parliament and whom those good secluded Members would have secluded their Country and banished into Ireland while in the mean time the Scots whose Alliance begin to be doubtful had very considerable Forces in four of
scorn to have Charles compared with so cruel a Tyrant as Nero he resembled him extremely much For Nero likewise often threatned to take away the Senate Besides he bore extreme hard upon the Consciences of good men and compelled them to the use of Ceremonies and Superstitious Worship borrowed from Popery and by him re-introduced into the Church They that would not conform were imprisoned or Banisht He made War upon the Scots twice for no other cause than that By all these actions he has surely deserved the name of a Tyrant once over at least Now I 'le tell you why the word Traytor was put into his Indictment When he assured his Parliament by Promises by Proclamations by Imprecations that he had no design against the State at that very time did he List Papists in Ireland he sent a private Embassie to the King of Denmark to beg assistance from him of Arms Horses and Men expresly against the Parliament and was endeavouring to raise an Army first in England and then in Scotland To the English he promised the Plunder of the City of London to the Scots that the four Northern Counties should be added to Scotland if they would but help him to get rid of the Parliament by what means soever These Projects not succeeding he sent over one Dillon a Traytor into Ireland with private Instructions to the Natives to fall suddenly upon all the English that inhabited there These are the most remarkable instances of his Treasons not taken up upon hear-say and idle reports but discovered by Letters under his own Hand and Seal And finally I suppose no man will deny that he was a Murderer by whose order the Irish took Arms and put to death with most exquisite Torments above a hundred thousand English who lived peaceably by them and without any apprehension of danger and who raised so great a Civil War in the other two Kingdoms Add to all this that at the Treaty in the Isle of Wight the King openly took upon himself the guilt of the War and clear'd the Parliament in the Confession he made there which is publickly known Thus you have in short why King Charles was adjudged a Tyrant a Traytor and a Murderer But say you why was he not declared so before neither in that Solemn League and Covenant nor afterwards when he was delivered to them either by the Presbyterians or the Independents but on the other hand was receiv'd as a King ought to be with all reverence This very thing is sufficient to persuade any rational man that the Parliament entred not into any Councils of quite deposing the King but as their last refuge after they had suffered and undergone all that possibly they could and had attempted all other ways and means You alone endeavour maliciously to lay that to their charge which to all good men cannot but evidence their great Patience Moderation and perhaps a too long forbearing with the King's Pride and Arrogance But in the month of August before the King suffered the House of Commons which then bore the only sway and was governed by the Independants wrote Letters to the Scots in which they acquainted them that they never intended to alter the form of Government that had obtain'd so long in England under King Lords and Commons You may see from henâ—e how little reason there is to ascribe the deposing of the King to the principles of the Independents They that never used to dissemble and conceal their Tenents even then when they had the sole management of affairs profess That they never intended to alter the Government But if afterwards a thing came into their minds which at first they intended not why might they not take such a course tho before not intended as appear'd most advisable and most for the Nation 's Interest Especially when they found that the King could not possibly be intreated or induced to assent to those just demands that they had made from time to time and which were always the same from first to last He persisted in those perverse sentiments with respect to Religion and his own Right which he had all along espoused and which were so destructive to us not in the least altered from the man that he was when in Peace and War he did us all so much mischief If he assented to any thing he gave no obscure hints that he did it against his will and that whenever he should come into power again he would look upon such his Assent as null and void The same thing his Son declared by writing under his hand when in those days he ran away with part of the Fleet and so did the King himself by Letters to some of his own Party in London In the mean time against the avowed sense of the Parliament he struck up a private Peace with the Irish the most barbarous Enemies imaginable to England upon base dishonourable terms but whenever he invited the English to Treaties of Peace at those very times with all the power he had and interest he could make he was preparing for War In this case what should they do who were intrusted with the care of the Government Ought they to have betrayed the safety of us all to our most bitter Adversary Or would you have had them leâ—â— us to undergo the Calamities of another Seven years War not to say worse God put a better mind into them of preferring pursuant to that very solemn League and Covenant their Religion and Liberties before those thoughts they once had of not rejecting the King for they had not gone so far as to vote it all which they saw at last tho indeed later than they might have done could not possibly subsist as long as the King continued King The Parliament ought and must of necessity be entirely free and at liberty to provide for the good of the Nation as occasion requires nor ought they so to be wedded to their first Sentiments as to scruple the altering their minds for their own or the Nation 's good if God put an opportunity into their hands of procuring it But the Scots were of 〈…〉 opinion for they in a Letter to Charles the King's Son call his Father a most Sacred Prince and the putting him to death a most execrable Villany Do not you talk of the Scots whom you know not we know them well enough and know the time when they called that same King a most â—…rable person a Murtherer and Traytor and the putting a Tyrant to Death a most sacred action Then you pick holes in the King's Charge as not being properly penn'd and you ask why we needed to call him a Traytor and a Murtherer after we had stiled him a Tyrant since the word Tyrant includes all the Crimes that may be And then you explain to us grammatically and critically what a Tyrant is Away with those Trisles you Pedagogue which that one definition of Aristotle's that has lately beeen cited will utterly confound
our Northern Counties and kept Garisons in the best Towns of those Parts and had the King himself in Custody whilest they likewise encouraged the tumultuating of those of their own Faction who did more than threaten the Parliament both in City and Country and through whose means not only a Civil but a War with Scotland too shortly after brake out If it has been always accounted praise-worthy in private Men to assist the State and promote the publick Good whether by Advice or Action our Army sure was in no fault who being ordered by the Parliament to come to Town obey'd and came and when they were come quell'd with ease the Faction and Uproar of the King's Party who sometimes threatned the House it self For things were brought to that pass that of necessity either we must be run down by them or they by us They had on their side most of the Shopkeepers and Handicrafts-men of London and generally those of the Ministers that were most factious On our side was the Army whose Fidelity Moderation and Courage were sufficiently known It being in our Power by their means to retain our Liberty our State our Common-safty do you think we had not been fools to have lost all by our negligence and folly They who had had places of Command in the Kings Army after their Party were subdued had laid down their Arms indeed against their Wills but continued Enemies to us in their hearts and they flock'd to Town and were here watching all opportunities of renewing the War With these Men tho they were the greatest Enemies they had in the World and thirsted after their Blood did the Presbyterians because they were not permitted to exercise a Civil as well as an Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over all others hold secret Correspondence and took measures very unworthy of what they had formerly both said and done and they came to that Spleen at last that they would rather enthral themselves to the King again than admit their own Brethren to share in their Liberty which they likewise had purchased at the price of their own Blood they chose rather to be Lorded over once more by a Tyrant polluted with the Blood of so many of his own Subjects and who was enraged and breath'd out nothing but revenge against those of them that were left than endure their Brethren and Friends to be upon the square with them The Independents as they are called were the only men that from first to last kept to their point and knew what use to make of their Victory They refus'd and wisely in my opinion to make him King again being then an Enemy who when he was their King had made himself their Enemy Nor were they ever the less averse to a Peace but they very prudently dreaded a new War or a perpetual slavery under the name of a Peace To 〈◊〉 our Army with the more reproaches you begin a silly confused Narrative of our Affairs in which tho I find many things false many things frivolous many things laid to our charge for which we rather merit yet I think it will be to no purpose for me to write a true relation in answer to your false one For you and I are arguing not writing Histories and both sides will believe our reasons but not our narrative and indeed the nature of the things themselves is such that they cannot be related as they ought to be but in a set History so that I think it better as Salust said of Carthage Rather to say nothing at all than to say but a little of things of this weight and importance Nay and I scorn so much as to mention the praises of great men and of Almighty God himself who in so wonderful a course of Affairs ought to be frequently acknowledged amongst your Slanders and Reproaches I 'le therefore only pick out such things as seem to have any colour of argument You say the English and Scotch promised by a Solemn Covenant to preserve the Majesty of the King But you omit upon what terms they promised it to wit if it might consist with the safety of their Religion and their Liberty To both which Religion and Liberty that King was so averse to his last breath and watcht all opportunities of gaining advantages upon them that it was evident that his life was dangerous to their Religion and the certain ruin of their Liberty But then you fall upon the King's Judges again If we consider the thing aright the conclusion of this abominable action must be imputed to the Independents yet so as the Presbyterians may justly challenge the glory of its beginning and progress Hark ye Presbyterians what good has it done you how is your Innocence and Loyalty the more cleared by your seeming so much to abhor the putting the King to death You your selves in the opinion of this everlasting talkative Advocate of the King your accuser went more than half-way towards it you were seen acting the fourth Act and more in this Tragedy you may justly be charged with the King's death since you ban'd the way to it 't was you and only you that laid his head upon the Block Wo be to you in the first place if ever Charles his Posterity recover the Crown of England assure your selves you are like to be put in the Black List But pay your Vows to God and love your Brethren who have delivered you who have prevented that calamity from falling upon you who have saved you from inevitable ruin tho against your own wills You are accused likewise for that some years ago you endeavoured by sundry Petitions to lessen the Kings authority that you publisht some scandalous expressions of the King himself in the Papers you presented him with in the name of the Parliament to wit in that Declaration of the Lords and Commons of the 26th of May 1642 you declar'd openly in some mad Positions that breath'd nothing but Rebellion what your thoughts were of the King's authority Hotham by order of Parliament shut the Gates of Hull against the King you had a mind to make a trial by this first act of Rebellion how much the King would bear What could this man say more if it were his design to reconcile the minds of all English men to one another and alienate them wholly from the King for he gives them here to understand that if ever the King be brought back they must not only expect to be punisht for his Father's death but for the Petitions they made long ago and some acts that past in full Parliament concerning the putting down the Common-Prayer and Bishops and that of the Triennial Parliament and several other things that were Enacted with the greatest consent and applause of all the people that could be all which will be look'd upon as the Seditions and mad Positions of the Presbyterians But this vain fellow changes his mind all of a sudden and what but of late when he considered it aright
assistance I have finished the Work I undertook to wit the defence of the Noble Actions of my Country-men at home and abroad against the raging and envious madness of this distracted Sophister and the asserting of the common Rights of the People against the unjust domination of Kings not out of any hatred to Kings but Tyrants Nor have I wittingly left unanswered any one argument alledged by my adversary nor any one example or authority quoted by him that seem'd to have any force in it or the least colour of an argument Perhaps I have been guilty rather of the other extreme of replying to some of his fooleries and trifles as if they were solid arguments and thereby may seem to have attributed more to them than they deserved One thing yet remains to be done which perhaps is of the greatest concern of all and that is That you my Country-men refute this adversary of yours your selves which I do not see any other means of your effecting than by a constant endeavour to out-do all men's bad words by your own good deeds When you laboured under more sorts of oppression than one you betook your selves to God for refuge and he was graciously pleased to hear your most earnest Prayers and Desires He has gloriously delivered you the first of Nations from the two greatest mischiefs of this life and most pernicious to Vertue Tyranny and Superstition he has endued you with greatness of mind to be first of mankind who after having conquered their own King and having had him delivered into their hands have not scrupled to condemn him Judicially and pursuant to that Sentence of Condemnation to put him to death After the performing so Glorious an Action as this you ought to do nothing that 's mean and little not so much as to think of much less to do any thing but what is great and sublime Which to attain to this is your only way As you have subdued your Enemies in Field so to make appear that unarmed and in the highest outward peace and tranquility you of all mankind are best able to subdue Ambition Avarice the love of Riches and can best avoid the corruptions that Prosperity is apt to introduce which generally subdue and triumph over other Nations to show as great Justice Temperance and Moderation in the maintaining your Liberty as you have shown courage in freeing your selves from slavery These are the only Arguments by which you will be able to evince that you are not such persons as this fellow represents you Traytors Robbers Murderers Parâ—icides Mad-men that you did not put your King to death out of any ambitious design or a desire of invading the Rights of others not out of any seditious Principles or sinister ends that it was not an act of fury or madness but that it was wholly out of love to your Liberty your Religion to Justice Vertue and your Countrey that you punished a Tyrant But if it should fall out otherwise which God forbid if as you have been valiant in War you should grow debauch'd in Peace you that have had such visible demonstrations of the Goodness of God to your selves and his Wrath against your Enemies and that you should not have learned by so eminent so remarkable an example before your eyes to fear God and work Righteousness for my part I shall easily grant and confess for I cannot deny it whatever ill men may speak or think of you to be very true And you will find in a little time That God's Displeasure against you will be greater thâ—n it has yet been against your Adversaries greater than his Grace and Favour has been to your selves which you have had larger experience of than any other Nation under Heaven FINIS * Lupus in Latin signifies a Wolf ☞ St. Lou in Latin Sanctus Lupus Saint Wolf is the name of a place in France where Salmasius had some small Estate and was called so from St. Lupus a German Bishop who with St. German came over into England Anno Dom. 429.
A DEFENCE OF THE People of ENGLAND BY JOHN MILTON In ANSWER to Salmasius's Defence of the King Printed in the Year 1692. TO THE ENGLISH READER THE Author of this Book is sufficiently known and so is the Book it self both at Home and Abroad to the Curious and Inquisitive but never having been rendred into English many whose Veneration for the Author would induce them to read any thing of his and who could not máster it in the Language in which he wrote it were deprived of the pleasure of perusing it and of the Information they might justly expect from it To gratifie them it is that this Translation long since made is now published for the person who took the pains to Translate it did it partly for his own private entertainment and partly to gratifie one or two of his Friends without any design of makâ—… it publick and is since deceased And the Publisher thinks it necessary to advertise the Reader some few things concerning it As First That the Author does with a great Freedom of Language and Strength of Reason detect the Fallacy of all the Cobweb Arguments made use of by the Flatterers of Princes to prove their Power to be derived immediately from God and to be superior to that of the Law whether deduced from Scripture Reason or Authority Secondly That whereas some things are inserted that contain Personal Reflections upon the late King Charles the First and pains taken to justifie all the Proceedings of the Parliament from first to last which may sound harsh in some of our ears the Reader ought to consider the time when these things were written and the occasion of the Author ' s Undertaking this Defence which were such as put him under a necessity of Vindicating whatever his Masters had done The Translator has not gelt him nor was the Publisher willing to do it especially since the Book has for many years been so publick tho in another Language And the great Use which it yields for the most part ought not to be lost because some things are here and there interspersed which the â—…blisher could wish there had been no occasion for Thirdly That some Passages here and there may seem obscure because the Author presupposeth his Readers to have read Salmasius to some or other of whose Authorities and Reasons such Passages relate Fourthly That where Salmasius ' s words are inserted they are for the most part if not always in Italick Tho the Coherence of the Discourse would sufficiently disclose to one that reads with care when Salmasius speaks and when the Author Fifthly That if the Author may seem to lay aside even rules of Decency in treating his Adversary whom indeed he ridicules and exposes with a great deal of Smartness Freedom and Contempt it must be considered That the Author wrote on the behalf and in Defence of the Powers then in being and in answer to a privaâ—e person who had loaded them with all Reproaches imaginable and who could not possibly give worse language to the meanest the most contemptible and the most unworthy person upon earth than he does in his Defensio Regia to men that had then the Government of one of the most Potent Nations in Christendom Sixthly That the Translator has kept perhaps too close to his Copy and not taken that liberty which is allowed to a Translation especially in the angry and peevish parts of it But it 's hoped the Faithfulness of the Translation may in some measure recompence for that and it is very well known to those that knew him that he neither could nor did pretend to lash so well in English as the Author could in Latin Lastly That some of the Author's Sarcasmes depending upon the sound and ambiguity of Latin words do as they needs must lose their Beauty and Elegance in a Translation THE AUTHOR'S Preface ALTHO I fear lest if in defending the People of England I should be as copious in Words and empty of Matter as most Men think Salmasius has been in his Defence of the King I might seem to deserve justly to be accounted a verbose and silly Defender yet since no Man thinks himself obliged to make so much haste tho in the handling but of any ordinary Subject as not to premise some Introduction at least according as the weight of his Subject requires if I take the same course in handling well-nigh the greatest Subject that ever was without being too tedious in it I am in hopes of attaining two things which indeed I earnestly desire The one not to be at all wanting as far as in me lies to this most Noble Cause and most worthy to be recorded to all future Ages The other That I shall appear to have avoided my self that frivolousness of Matter and redundancy of Words which I find fault with in my Antagonist For I am about to discourse of Matters neither inconsiderable nor common but how a most Potent King after he had trampled upon the Laws of the Nation and given a shock to its Religion and was ruling at his own Will and Pleasure was at last subdu'd in the Field by his own Subjects who had undergone a long Slavery under him how afterwards he was cast into Prison and when he gave no ground either by Words or Actions to hope better things of him he was finally by the Supreme Council of the Kingdom condemned to dye and beheaded before the very Gates of the Palace I shall likewise relate which will much conduce to the easing mens minds of a great Superstition by what Right especially according to our Law this Judgment was given and all these Matters transacted and shall easily defend my Valiant and Worthy Countrymen and who have extremely well deserved of all Subjects and Nations in the World from the most wicked Calumities both of Domestick and Foreign Railers and especially from the Reproaches of this most vain and empty Sophister who sets up for a Captain and Ringleader to all the rest For what King 's Majesty sitting upon an Exalted Throne ever shone so brightly as that of the People of England then did when shaking off that old Superstition which had prevailed a long time they gave Judgment upon the King himself or rather upon an Enemy who had been their King caught as it were in a Net by his own Laws who alone of all Mortals challenged to himself impunity by a Divine Right and scrupled not to inflict the same punishment upon him himself being guilty which he would have inflicted upon any other But why do I mention these things as performed by the People which almost open their Voice themselves and testify the Presence of God throughout Who as often as it seems good to his Infinite Wisdom uses to throw down proud and unruly Kings exalting themselves above the Condition of Humane Nature and utterly to exâ—irpate them and all their Family By his manifest Impulse being set on work to recover our almost lost Liberty following
seems then the taking away his Life was not done upon so much Premeditation as he talked of before and that we did not lay hold on all opportunities and means that offer'd themselves to renounce our King Those things that in the beginning of the War we demanded of him when he had almost brought us under which things if they were denied us we could enjoy no Liberty nor live in any Safety those very things we petitioned him for when he was our Prisoner in an humble submissive way not once nor twice but thrice and oftner and were as often denied When we had now lost all hopes of the King 's complying with us then was that noble Order of Parliament made That from that time forward there should no Articles be sent to the King so that we left 〈◊〉 applying our selves to him not from the time that he began to be a Tyrant but from the time that we found him incurable But afterward some Parliament-men set upon a new Project and meeting with a convenient opportunity to put it in practice pass a Vote to send further Proposals once more to the King Whose Wickedness and Folly nearest resembles that of the Roman Senate who contrary to the Opinion of M. Tullius and all honest Men voted to send Embassadors to M. Anthony and the Event had been the same but that it pleased God Almighty in his Providence to order it otherwise and to assert our Liberty tho he suffer'd them to be enslav'd For then the King did not agree to any thing that might conduce to a firm Peace and Settlement of things more than he had before they go and Vote themselves satisfied Then the sounder part of the House finding themselves and the Commonwealth betray'd implore the aid of that Valiant and always Faithful Army to the Commonwealth Upon which occasion I can observe only this which yet I am loath to utter to wit that our Soldiers understood themselves better than our Senators and that they saved the Commonwealth by their Arms when th' other by their Votes had almost ruined it Then he relates a great many things in a doleful lamentable Strain but he does it so senslesly that he seems rather to beg of his Readers that they would be sorrowful than to stir up any such Passion in them It grieves him to think that the King should undergo a Capital Punishment after such a manner as no other King ever had done Tho he had often told us before that there never was a King that underwent a Capital Punishment at all Do you use to compare ways and manners ye Coxcomb when you have no Things nor Actions to compare with one another He suffer'd Death says he as a Rabber as a Murderer as a Parricide as a Traytor as a Tyrant Is this defending the King Or is it not rather giving a more severe Sentence against him than that that we gave How came you so all on a sudden to be of our mind He complains that Executioners in Vizars personati Carnifices cut off the King's Head What shall we do with this Fellow He told us before of a Murder committed on one in the Disguise of a King In Personâ Regis Now he says 't was done in the Disguise of an Executioner T were to no purpose to take particular Notice of every silly thing he says He tells Stories of Boxes on the Ear and Kicks that he says were given the King by Common-Soldiers and that 't was four Shillings a piece to see his dead Body These and such like Stories which partly are false and partly impertinent betray the Ignorance and Childishness of our poor Scholar but are far from making any Reader ever a whit the sadder In good faith his Son Charles had done better to have hired some Ballad-singer to have bewailed his Fathers misfortunes than this doleful shall I call him or rather most ridiculous Orator who is so dry and insipid that there 's not the least Spirit in any thing he says Now the Narrative's done and 't is hard to say what he does next he runs on so sordidly and irregular Now he 's angry then he wonders he neither cares what he talks nor how repeats the same things ten times over that could not but look ill tho he had said them but once And I persuade my self the extemporary Rimes of some Antick Jack-pudding may deserve Printing better so far am I from thinking ought he says worthy of a serious Answer I pass by his stiling the King a Protector of Religion who chose to make War upon the Church rather than part with those Church-Tyrants and Enemies of all Religion the Bishops and how is it possible that he should maintain Religion in its Purity that was himself a Slave to those impure Traditions and Ceremonies of theirs And for our Sectaries whose Sacrilegious Meetings you say have publick Allowance Instance in any of their Principles the Profession of which is not openly allow'd of and countenanced in Holland But in the mean there 's not a more Sacrilegious Wretch in Nature than your self that always took liberty to speak ill of all sorts of People They could not wound the Commonwealth more dangerously than by taking off its Master Learn ye abject home-born Slave unless ye take away the Master ye destroy the Commonwealth That that has a Master is one Man's propriety The word Master denotes a private not a publick Relation They persecute most unjustly these Ministers that abborr'd this Action of theirs Lest you should not know what Ministers he means I 'll tell ye in a few words what manner of Men they were they were those very Men that by their Writings and Sermons justified taking up Arms against the King and â—â—irr'd the People up to it That daily cursed as Deborah did Meroz all such as would not furnish the Parliament either with Arms or Men or Money That taught the People out of their Pulpits that they were not about to Fight against a King but a greater Tyrant than either Saul or Ahab ever were â—ay more a Nero than Nero himself As soon as the Bishops and those Clergy-men whom they daily inveighed against and branded with the odious Names of Pluralists and Non-residents were taken out of their way they presently Jump some into two some into three of their best Benefices being now warm themselves they soon unworthily neglected their Charge Their Coverousness brake through all restraints of Modesty and Religion and themselves now labour under the same Infamy that they had loaded their Predecessors with and because their Covetousness is not yet satisfied and their Ambition has accustomed them to raise Tumults and be Enemies to Peace they can't rest at quiet yet but preach up Sedition against the Magistracy as it is now established as they had formerly done against the King They now tell the people that he was cruelly murdered upon whom themselves having heap'd all their Curses had devoted him to Destruction whom
forsaken God And we do not find that Azarias his Son prosecuted those that had cut off his Father You quote a great many frivolous passages out of the Rabbins to prove that the Kings of the Jews were Superior to the Sanhedrim You do not consider Zedekia's own words Jerem. 38. The King is not he that can do any thing against you So that this was the Princes own stile Thus he confessed himself Inferior to the great Council of the Realm Perhaps say you he meant that he durst not deny them any thing for fear of Sedition But what does your perhaps signify whose most positive asserting any thing is not worth a Louse For nothing in Nature can be more Fickle and Inconstant than you are How oft have you appear'd in this Discourse inconsistent with your self unsaying with one Breath what you had said with another Here again you make Comparisons betwixt King Charles and some of the good Kings of Judah You speak contemptibly of David as if he were not worthy to come in Competition with him Consider David say you an Adulterer a Murderer King Charles was guilty of no such Crimes Solomon his Son who was accounted wise c. Who can with Patience hear this filthy rascally Fool speak so irreverently of Persons eminent both in Greatness and Piety Dare you compare King David with King Charles a most Religious King and Prophet with a Superstitious Prince and who was but a Novice in the Christian Religion a most prudent wise Prince with a weak one a Valiant Prince with a Cowardly one finally a most just Prince with a most unjust one Have you the impudence to commend his Chastity and Sobriety who is known to have committed all manner of Leudness in company with his Confident the Duke of Buckingham It were to no purpose to enquire into the private Actions of his Life who publickly at Plays would Embrace and Kiss the Ladies lasciviously and handle Virgins and Matrons Breasts not to mention the rest I advise you therefore you Counterfeit Plutarch to abstain from such like Parallels lest I be forced to publish those things concerning King Charles which I am willing to conceal Hitherto we have entertain'd our selves with what the People of the Jews have acted or attempted against Tyrants and by what Right they did it in those times when God himself did immediately as it were by his Voice from Heaven govern their Commonwealth The Ages that succeeded do not afford us any Authority as from themselves but confirm us in our Opinion by their imitating the Actions of their Fore-fathers For after the Babylonish Captivity when God did not give any new command concerning the Crown tho the Royal Line was not extinct we find the People returning to the old Mosaical Form of Government again They were one while Tributaries to Antiochus King of Syria yet when he injoyn'd them things that were contrary to the Law of God they resisted him and his Deputies under the Conduct of their Priests the Maccabees and by force regain'd their former Liberty After that whoever was accounted most worthy of it had the Principality conferr'd upon him Till at last Hircanus the Son of Simon the Brother of Judah the Maccabee having spoiled David's Sepulchre entertain'd foreign Soldiers and began to Invest the Priesthood with a kind of Regal Power After whose time his Son Aristobulus was the first that assum'd the Crown he was a Tyrant indeed and yet the People stirred not against him which is no great Wonder for he reigned but one year And he himself being overtaken with a grievous Disease and repenting of his own Cruelty and Wickedness desired nothing more than to dye and had his wish His Brother Alexander succeeded him and against him you say the People raised no Insurrection tho he were a Tyrant too And this lie might have gone down with us if Josepbus's History had not been extant We should then have had no memory of those times but what your Josippus would afford us out of whom you transcribe a few senseless and useless Apothegms of the Pharisees The History is thus Alexander Administred the Publick Affairs ill both in War and Peace and tho he kept in pay great numbers of Pisidians and Cilicians yet could he not protect himself from the Rage of the People but whilest he was Sacrificing they fell upon him and had almost smother'd him with Boughs of Palm-trees and Citron-trees afterward the whole Nation made War upon him six years during which time when many thousands of the Jews had been slain and he himself being at length desirous of Peace demanded of them what they would have him do to satisfy them they told him nothing could do that but his Blood nay that they should hardly pardon him after his Death This History you perâ—… was not for your purpose and so you put it 〈◊〉 with a few â—harisaical Sentences when it had been much better either to have let it quite alone 〈◊〉 to have given a true Relation of it but you trust to â—ies more than to the Truth of your Cause Even 〈◊〉 eight hundred Pharisees whom he commanded to be crucisied were of their number that had taken up Arms against him And they with the rest of the People had solemnly protested That if they could subdue the Kings Forces and get his Person into their Power they would put him to Death After the Death of Alexander his Wife Alexandra took the Government upon her as Athalia had formerly done not according to Law for you have confessed that the Laws of the Jews admitted not a Female to wear the Crown but she got it partly by force for she maintain'd an Army of Foreigners and partly by favour for she had brought over the Pharisees to her Interest which sort of Men were of the greaten Authority with the People Them she had made her own by putting the Power into their hands and retaining to her self only the Name 〈◊〉 as the Scotch Presbyterians lately allowed Chaâ—… the Name of King but upon Condition that 〈◊〉 would let them be King in effect After the 〈◊〉 of Alexandra Hyrcanus and Aristobulus her Sons contended for the Sovereignty Aristobulus was 〈◊〉 industrious and having a greater Party forced his Elder Brother out of the Kingdom A while after when Pompey passed through Syria in his return from the Mithridatick War the Jews supposing they had now an opportunity of regaining their Liberty by referring their Cause to him dispatcht an Embassy to him in their own Names they renounce both the Brothers complain that they had enslaved them Pompey deposed Aristobulus leaves the Priesthood and such a Principality as the Laws allowed to Hyrcanus the Elder From that time forward he was called High Priest and Ethnarcha After these times in the Reign of Archelaus the Son of Herod the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fifty Ambassadors to Augustus Caesar accused 〈◊〉 that was dead and Archelaus his Son that then Reigned they deposed him as
the Law of Nature to oppress their Subjects and go unpunished because as circumstances may fall out it may sometimes be a less mischief to bear with them than to remove them Remember what your self once wrote concerning Bishops against a Jesuit you were then of another opinion than you are now I have quoted your words formerly you there affirm that seditious Civil dissentions and discords of the Nobles and Common people against and amongst one another are much more tolerable and less mischievous than certain misery and destruction under the Government of a single person that plays the Tyrant And you said very true For you had not then run mad you had not then been bribed with Charles his Jacobusses You had not got the King's-Evil I should tell you perhaps if I did not know you that you might be ashamed thus to prevaricate But you can sooner burst than blush who have cast off all shame for a little profit Did you not remember that the Commonwealth of the people of Rome flourished and became glorious when they had banished their Kings Could you possibly forget that of the Low-Countries which after it had shook off the yoke of the King of Spain after long and tedious Wars but Crown'd with success obtained its Liberty and feeds such a pitiful Grammarian as your self with a Pension not that their youth might be so infatuated by your Sophistry as to chuse rather to return to their former Slavery than inherit the Glorious Liberty which their Ancestors purchased for them May those pernicious principles of yours be banished with your self into the most remote and barbarous corners of the World And last of all the Commonwealth of England might have afforded you an example in which Charles who had been their King after he had been taken captive in War and was found incurable was put to death But they have defaced and impoverished the Island with Civil broils and discords which under its Kings was happy and swam in Luxury Yea when it was almost buried in Luxury and Voluptuousness and the more inured thereto that it might be enthralled the more easily when its Laws were abolished and its Religion agreed to be sold they delivered it from Slavery You are like him that published Simplicius in the same Volume with Epictetus a very grave Stoick Who call an Island happy because it swims in Luxury I 'm sure no such Doctrine ever came out of Zeno's School But why should not you who would give Kings a power of doing what they list have liberty your self to broach what new Philosophy you please Now begin again to act your part There never was in any King's Reign so much blood spilt so many Families ruined All this is to be imputed to Charles not to us who first raised an Army of Irishmen against us who by his own Warrant Authorized the Irish Nation to conspire against the English who by their means slew Two hundred Thousand of his English Subjects in the Province of Uâ—… besides what Numbers were sâ—ain in other parts of that Kingdom who sollicited two Armies towards the destruction of the Parliament of England and the City of London and did many other actions of Hostility before the Parliament and people had Listed one Soldier for the preservation and defence of the Government What Principles what Law what Religion ever taught men rather to consult their ease to save their money their blood nay their lives themselves than to oppose an enemy with force for I make no difference betwixt a Foreign Enemy and another since both are equally dangerous and destructive to the good of the whole Nation The People of Israel saw very well that they could not possibly punish the Benjamites forSpanâ— Murthering the Levite's Wife without the loss of many Men's lives And did that induce them to sit still Was that accounted a sufficient Argument why they should abstain from War from a very Bloody Civil War Did they therefore suffer the Death of one poor Woman to be unrevenged Certainly if Nature teacheth us rather to endure the Government of a King though he be never so bad than to endanger the lives of a great many Men in the recovery of our Liberty it must teach us likewise not only to endure a Kingly Government which is the only one that you argue ought to be submitted to but an Aristocracy and a Democracy Nay and sometimes it will persuade us to submit to a Multitude of Highway-men and to Slaves that Mutiny Fulvius and Rupilius if your Principles had been received in their days must not have engaged in the Servile War as their Writers call it after the Praetorian Armies were Slain Crassus must not have Marched against Spartacus after the Rebels had destroyed one Roman Army and spoil'd their Tents Nor must â—â—mpâ—y have undertaken the Piratick War But the State of Rome must have pursued the dictates of Nature and must have submitted to their own Slaves or to the Pyrates rather than run the hazard of losing some Mens lives You do not prove at all that Nature has imprinted any such notion as this of yours on the minds of Men And yet you cannot forbear boding us ill luck and denouncing the Wrath of God against us which may Heaven divert and inflict it upon your self and all such Prognosticators as you who have punished as he deserved one that had the name of our King but was in Fact our implacable Enemy and we have made Atonement for the Death of so many of our Countreymen as our Civil Wars have occasion'd by shedding his Blood that was the Author and Cause of them Then you tell us that a Kingly Government appears to be more according to the Laws of Nature because more Nations both in our days and of old have submitted to that Form of Government than ever did to any other I answer If that be so it was neither the effect of any Dictate of the Law of Nature nor was it in Obedience to any Command from God God would not suffer his own People to be under a King he consented at last but unwillingly what Nature and right Reason dictates we are not to gather from the practice of most Nations but of the wisest and most prudent The Grecians the Romans the Italians and Carthagenians with many other have of their own accord out of choice preferr'd a Commonwealth to a Kingly Government and these Nations that I have named are better instances than all the rest Hence Sulpitius Severus says That the very Name of a King was always very odious among freeborn People But these things concern not our present purpose nor many other Impertinences that follow over and over again I 'll make haste to prove that by Examples which I have proved already by Reason viz. That it is very agreeable to the Law of Nature that Tyrants should be punished and that all Nations by the instinct of Nature have punished them which will expose your Impudence and
make it evident that you take a liberty to publish palpable down-right lies You begin with the Egyptians and indeed who does not see that you play the Gipsy your self throughout Amongst them say you there is no mention extant of any King that was ever slain by the People in a Popular Insurrection no War made upon any of their Kings by their Subjects no attempt made to depose any of them What think you then of Osiris who perhaps was the first King that the Egyptians ever had Was not he slain by his Brother Typhon and five and twenty other Conspirators And did not a great part of the Body of the People side with them and fight a Battel with Isis and Orus the late King's Wife and Son I pass by Sesostris whom his Brother had well-nigh put to Death and Chemmis and Cephrenes against whom the People were deservedly enraged and because they could not do it while they were alive they threatned to tear them in pieces after they were dead Do you think that a People that durst lay violent hands upon good Kings had any restraint upon them either by the Light of Nature or Religion from putting bad ones to Death Could they that threatened to pull the dead Bodies of their Princes out of their Graves when they ceased to do mischief tho by the Custom of their own Country the Corps of the meanest Person was sacred and inviolable abstain from inflicting Punishment upon them in their Life-time when they were acting all their Villanies if they had been able and that upon some Maxim of the Law of Nature I know you would not stick to answer me in the Affirmative how absurd soever it be but that you may not offer at it I 'll pull out your Tongue Know then that some Ages before Cephrene s time one Ammosis was King of Egypt and was as great a Tyrant as who has been the greatest him the People bore with This you are glad to hear this is what you would be at But hear what follows my honest tell-truth I shall speak out of Diodorus They bore with him for some while because he was too string for them But when Actisanes King of Ethiopia made War upon him they took that oppotunity to revolt so that being deforced he was easily subdued and Egypt became an Accession to the Kingdom of Ethiopia You see the â—…tians as soon as they could took up Arms against a Tyrant they joyned Forces with a Foreign saince to depose their own King and disinherit his Posterity they chosâ— to live under a moderate and good Prince as Actisanes was tho a Foreigner rather than under a Tyrant of their own The same People with a very unanimous Consent took up Arms against Apries another Tyrant who relied upon Foreign Aids that he had hired to assist him Under the Conduct of Amasis their General they Conquered and afterward Strangled him and placed Amasis in the Throne And observe this Circumstance in the History Amasis kept the 〈◊〉 aptive King a good while in the Palace and treated him well At last when the People comâ—â—…d that he nourished his own and their Enemy he put him into their hands who put him to Death in the manner I have mentioned There things are related by Heroditus and Diodorus Where are you now Do you think that any Tyrant would not chuse a Hatchet rather than an Halter Asâ—… say you when the Egyptians were brought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the Persians they continued faithful to 〈◊〉 which is most false they never were faithful to 〈◊〉 For in the fourth year after Cambyses had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thâ—m they rebelled Afterward when 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tamed them within a short time after 〈◊〉 râ—volted from his Son Artaxerxes and set up one 〈◊〉 to be their King After whose Death they rebell'd again and made one Tachus King and made War upon Artaxerxes Mnemon Neither were they better Subjects to their own Princes for they deposed Tachus and confer'd the Government upon his Son Nectanebus till at last Artaxerxes Ochus brought them the second time into Subjection to the Persian Empire When they were under the Macedonian Empire they declared by their Actions that Tyrants ought to be under some restraint They threw down the Statutes and Images of Ptolomaeus Physco and would have killed himself but that the Mercenary Army that he Commanded was too strong for them His Son Alexander was forced to leave his Country by the meer Violence of the People who were incensed against him for killing his Mother And the People of Alexandria dragged his Son Alexander out of the Palace whose Insolent Behaviour gave just Offence and killed him in the Theatre And the same People deposed Ptolomaeus Auletes for his many Crimes Now since it is impossible that any Learned Man should be ignorant of these things that are so generally known and since it is an inexcusable fault in Salmasius to be ignorant of them whose profession it is to teach them others and whose very asserting things of this Nature ought to carry in its self an Argument of Credibility it is certainly a very scandalous thing either that so Ignorant Unlearned a Blockhead should to the Scandal of all Learning profess himself and be accounted a Learned Man and obtain Salaries from Princes and States or that so impudent and notorious a Lyar should not be branded with some particular Mark of Infamy and for ever banished from the Society of learned and honest Men. Having searched among the Egyptians for Examples let us now consider the Ethiopians their Neighbours They adore their Kings whom they suppose God to have appointed over them almost as if they were a sort of gods themselves And yet whenever the Priests condemn any of them they kill themselves And on that manner says Diodorus they punish all their Criminals they put them not to death but send a Minister of Justice to command them to kill themselves In the next place you mention the Assyrians the Medes and the Persians who of all others were most observant of their Princes And you affirm contrary to all Historians that have wrote any thing concerning those Nations That the Regal Power there had an unbounded Liberty annexed to it of doing what the King listed In the first place the Prophet Daniel tells us how the Babylonians expelled Nebuchadnezzar out of human Society and made him graze with the Beasts when his pride grew to be insufferable The Laws of those Countries were not entituled the Laws of their Kings but the Laws of the Medes and Persians which Laws were irrevocable and the Kings themselves were bound by them Insomuch that Darius the Mede tho he earnestly desired to have delivered Daniel from the hands of the Princes yet could not effect it Those Nations say you thought it no sufficient pretence to reject a Prince because he abused the Right which was inherent in him as he was Sovereign But in the very writing of these words you are so stupid
he thought was to be imputed wholly to the Presbyterians now that he considers the same thing from first to last he thinks the Independents were the sole Actors of it But even now he told us The Presbyterians took up Arms against the King that by them he was beaten taken captive and put in prison Now he says this whole Doctrine of Rebellion is the Independents Principle O! the faithfulness of this man's Narrative How consistent he is with himself What need is there of a Counter narrative to this of his that cuts its own throat But if any man should question whether you are an honest man or a Knave let him read these following lines of yours It is time to explain whence and at what time this Sect of Enemies to Kingship first began VVhy truly these rare Puritans began in Queen Elizabeths time to crawl out of Hell and disturb not only the Church but the State likewise for they are no less plagues to the latter than to the former Now your very speech bewrays you to be a right Balaam for where you designed to spit out the most bitter poyson you could there unwittingly and against your will you have pronounc'd a blessing For it 's notoriously known all over England that if any endeavoured to follow the example of those Churches whether in France or Germany which they accounted best Reformed and to exercise the publick Worship of God in a more pure manner which our Bishops had almost universally corrupted with their Ceremonies and Superstitions or if any seemed either in point of Religion or Morality to be better than others such â—…sons were by the Favourers of Episcopacy termed â—…ans These are they whose Principles you say are so opposite to Kingship Nor are they the only persons most of the Reformed Religion that have not sucked in the rest of their principles yet seem to have approved of those that strike at Kingly Government So that â—hile you inveigh bitterly against the Independents and endeavour to separate them from Christ's flock with the same breath you praise them and those Principles which almost every where you affirm to be peculiar to the Independents here you confess they have been approved of by most of the Reformed Religion Nay you are arrived to that degree of impudence impiety and apostacy that though formerly you maintained that Bishops ought to be extirpated out of the Church Root and Branch as so many pests and limbs of Antichrist here you say the King ought to protect them for the saving of his Coronation-Oath You cannot show your self a more infamous Villain than you have done already but by abjuring the Protestant Reformed Religion to which you are a scandal Whereas you tax us with giving a Toleration of all Sects and Heresies you ought not to find fault with us for that since the Church bears with such a prosâ—igate wretch as you your self such a vain fellow such a lyar such a Mercenary Slanderer such an Apostate one who has the impudence to affirm That the best and most pious of Christians and even most of those who profess the Reformed Religion are crept out of Hell because they differ in opinion from you I had best pass by the Calumnies that fill up the rest of this Chapter and those prodigious tenents that you ascribe to the Independents to render them odious for neither do they at-all concern the cause you have in hand and they are such for the most part as deserve to be laugh'd at and despised rather than receive a serious Answer CHAP. XI YOu seem to begin this Eleventh Chapter Salmasius though with no modesty yet with some sense of your weakness and trifling in this Discourse For whereas you proposed to your self to enquire in this place by what authority sentence was given against the King You add immediately which no body expected from you that 't is in vain to make any such enquiry to wit because the quality of the persons that did it leaves hardly any room for such a question And therefore as you have been found guilty of a great deal of Impupence and Sauciness in the undertaking of this Cause so since you seem here conscious of your own impertinence I shall give you the shorter answer To your question then by what authority the House of Commons either condemn'd the King themselves or delegated that power to others I answer they did it by vertue of the Supreme authority on earth How they come to have the Supreme Power you may learn by what I have said already when I refuted your Impertinencies upon that Subject If you believed your self that you could ever say enough upon any Subject you would not be so tedious in repeating the same things so many times over And the House of Commons might delegate their Judicial Power by the same reason by which you say the King may delegate his who received all he had from the people Hence in that Solemn League and Covenant that you object to us the Parliaments of England and Scotland solemnly protest and engage to each other to punish the Traytors in such manner as the Supreme Judicial Authority in both Nations or such as should have a Delegate power from them should think fit Here you hear the Parliaments of both Nations protest with one voice that they may Delegate their Judicial Power which they call the Supreme so that you move a vain and frivolous Controversie about Delegating this power But say you there were added to those Judges that were made choice of out of the House of Commons some Officers of the Army and that never was known that Soldiers had any right to try a Subject for his life I 'le silence you in a very few words You may remember that we are not now discoursing of a Subject but of an Enemy whom if a General of an Army after he has taken him Prisoner resolves to dispatch would he be thought to proceed otherwise than according to custom and Martial Law if he himself with some of his Officers should sit upon him and try and cendemn him An enemy to a State made a Prisouer of War cannot be lookt upon to be so much as a Member much less a King in that State This is declar'd by that Sacred Law of St. Edward which denies that a bad King is a King at all or ought to be called so Whereas you say it was not the whole but a part of the House of Comâ—â—ons that try'd and condemned the King I give you this answer The number of them who gave their Votes for putting the King to death was far greater than is necessary according to the custom of our Parliaments to transact the greatest Affairs of the Kingdom in the absence of the rest who since they were absent through their own fault for to revolt to the common enemy in their hearts is the worst sort of absence their absence ought not to hinder the rest who continued faithful to the