up to three hundred pounds a piece But now again the poor Courtiers were so indigent that sixty pounds would purchase a Knighthood the King wanting other means to gratifie his Servants Yet he was of so free a Nature and careless of Money when he had it though solicitous to get it that he batled in his own bounty For being one day in the Gallery at White-hall and none with him but Sir Henry Rich who was second Son to the Earl of Warwick afterwards Earl of Holland a Gentleman of excellent Natural Parts but youthfully expensive and Iames Maxwel one of his Bed Chamber some Porters past by them with three thousand pounds going to the Privy Purse Sir Henry Rich whispering Maxwel the King turned upon them and asked Maxwel what says he what says he Maxwel told him he wisht he had so much money Marry shalt thou Harry saith the King and presently commanded the Porters to carry it to his Lodging with this Expression You think now you have a great Purchase but I am more delighted to think how much I have pleasured you in giving this money than you can be in receiving it This Story intervenes to shew the Temper of his Mind About this time also Gold was raised to two shillings in the pound occasioned from the high value set upon it abroad which made the Merchant transport it But the first Inhancers can make their Markets by ingrossing great Sums especially the Payments of those times and all this Kings Reign being for the most part in Gold so that it might be called the Golden Age that it is a wonder now what gulf hath swallowed those great sums if their golden wings be not flown to the Sun-rising But these little projects will bring in but small store of money to maintain the Work many such Materials must go to make up a Royal Building and little Streams will not easily fill a Cistern that hath many Issues A Parliament can furnish all but who dare venture on such Refractory Spirits Yet there was a generation about the Court that to please and humour Greatness undertook a Parliament as men presuming to have Friends in every County and Borough who by their Power among the People would make Election of such Members for Knights and Burgesses as should comply solely to the Kings desires and Somerset is the Head and Chief of these Vndertakers But this was but an Embrion and became an Abortive The English Freedom cannot be lost by a few base and tame spirits that would unmake themselves and their Posterity to ingrandize one Man For the Parliament meeting according to their Summons such Faces appeared there as made the Court droop who instead of Contributing to the Kings wants lay open his wasts especially upon the Scots with whom they desire medietatem linguae a share of favour The Bread by our Saviours rule properly belonging to the Children of the Kingdom And they beseech His Majesty to stop the Current of future access of that Nation to make residence here having enough to eat up their own Crums They enquire into the Causes of the unexpected increase of Popish Recusants since the Gun-Powder Plot the detestation whereof they thought should have utterly extinguished them and they find it to the Admission of Popish Nobility into his Counsels the silencing of many watchful and diligent Ministers the divers Treaties his Majesty hath entertained not only for the Marriage of the deceased Prince Henry but for Prince Charles that now liveth with the Daughters of Popish Princes which dis-heartneth the Protestant and encourageth the Recusant laying open with these many other miscarriages in Government which the King willing to have concealed stopt them in their Course dissolving the Parliament and committing to the Tower and other Princes the beginning of incroachment upon the publick liberties such as were most active for the Common good These fair Blossoms not producing the hoped-for fruit they find out new Projects to manure the People different much in name and nature a Benevolence extorted a Free-gift against their wills was urged upon them and they that did not give in their money must give in their names which carried a kind of fright with it But the most knowing men like so many Pillars to the Kingdoms liberties supported their Neighbours tottering Resolutions with assuring them that these kind of Benevolences were against Law Reason and Religion First against Law being prohibited by divers Acts of Parliament and a Curse pronounced against the infringers of them Secondly against Reason that a particular man should oppose his judgment and discretion to the wisdom and judgment of the King assembled in Parliament who have there denyed any such aid Thirdly against Religion That a King violating his Oath taken at his Coronation for maintaining the Laws Liberties and Customs of the Realm should be assisted by the people in an Act of so much Injustice and Impiety These and many other Arguments instilled into the people by some good Patriots were great impediments to the Benevolence So that they got but little money and lost a great deal of love For no Levies do so much decline and abase the love and spirits of the people as unjust Levies Subsidies get more of their money but Exactions enslave the mind for they either raise them above or depress them beneath their sufferings which are equally mischievous and to be avoided This Summer the King of Denmark revisited his Sister the Queen of England with some forty Lords Gentlemen and others in his Train landing at Yarmouth and passing directly to London took up his Lodging in our Common Inns and was not known but for some Outlandish Nobleman till he came to the Queens Palace in the Strand where she was surprized with the unexpected joy of a Brothers company distanced from her by the interest of his people the great Bar that hinders Princes the common civilities and happiness of their Inferiors But the joy continued not long for after some fourteen days interview they parted again But those days had such a plenitude of all those delights that contend to satisfaction as if a great deal of more time had been involved and contracted in them VERA EFFIGIES FRANCISCAE COMITISSAE SOMERSETIAE VICECOM ROFFEN ETc The lively portraict of the Lady Francis Countesse of Somerset Sir Ralph Winwood who had been Lieger-Ambassador with the States in the Netherlands for his abilities and good service had merited so much from the King that he made him Secretary of State The Queen closes with him the better to discover Somersets miscarriages and he was ready enough to oblige her for Somerset made him but an Vnderling grasping all Publick imployments into his own hand not caring whom he disobliged or what Malice he pulled upon himself for like a Coloss he stood the brunt of all the Tempests of Envy making those that carried the greatest sail to strike and come under him Nor would he suffer any
this blow reached presently into England and came somewhat near our Kings Heart therefore he took the best way to prevent his Fears by striving to prevent his Dangers having no other end but his own For when he considered the horridness of the Powder Plot and by it the irreconcileable malice of that Party he thought it the safest policy not to stir those Ashes where so much Fire was covered which gave way to a flux of that Iesuitical humour to infest the Body of the Kingdom But now being startled with this poysoned knife he ventures upon a Proclamation strictly commanding all Iesuits and Priests out of the Kingdom and all Recusants to their own Houses not to come within ten miles of the Court and secures all the rest of his Subjects to him by an universal taking of the Oath of Allegiance which the Parliament both Lords and Commons then sitting began and the rest of the People followed to the Kings great contentment For the last Session the Parliament was prorogued till the sixteenth of October this year and meeting now they were willing to secure their Allegiance to the King out of Piety yet they were so stout even in those youthful days which he term'd Obstinacy that they would not obey him in his incroachments upon the Publick Liberty which he began then to practise For being now season'd with seven years knowledg in his profession here he thought he might set up for himself and not be still journy-man to the lavish tongue of men that pryed too narrowly into the secrets of his Prerogative which are mysteries too high for them being Arcana imperii fitter to be admired than questioned But the Parliament were apprehensive enough that those hidden mysteries made many dark steps into the Peoples Liberties and they were willing by the light of Law and Reason to discover what was the Kings what theirs Which the King unwilling to have searched into after five Sessions in six years time dissolved the Parliament by Proclamation HENRICUS Princeps Walliae etc a. Reverendissimus in Christo Pater D.D. RICHARDUS BANCROFT Archiepiscopus Cantuariensis About this time Richard Bancroft Arch-Bishop of Canterbury died a person severe enough whose roughness gained little upon those that deserted the Ceremonies One work of his shewed his spirit better than the ruggedest Pen can depaint it For it was he that first brought the King to begin a new Colledg by Chelsey wherein the choice and abiest Scholars of the Kingdom and the most pregnant Wits in matters of Controversies were to be associated under a Provost with a fair and ample allowance not exceeding three thousand pounds a year whose design was to answer all Popish Books or others that vented their malignant spirits against the Protestant Religion either the Heresies of the Papists or the Errors of those that strook at Hierarchy so that they should be two-edged Fellows that would make old cutting and flashing and this he forwarded with all industry during his time and there is yet a formal Act of Parliament in being for the establishment of it But after his death the King wisely considered that nothing begets more contention than opposition and such Fuellers would be apt to inslame rather than quench the heat that would arise from those embors For Controversies are often or for the most part the exuberancies of Passion and the Philosopher saith men are drunk with disputes and in that inordinateness take the next thing that comes to hand to throw at one anothers faces so that the design fell to the ground with him and there is only so much Building standing by the Thames-side as to shew that what he intended to Plant he meant should be well Watered and yet it withered in the bud I can lay nothing to the charge of this great man but from common fame yet this I may truly say That for his Predecessor Whitgift and his Successor Abbot I never heard nor read any thing tending to their disparagement But on him some unhappy Wit vented this Pasquin Here lies his Grace in cold Earth slad Who died with want of what he had The Queen was Mistress of Somerset-house as well as the Prince was Master of St. Iames and she would fain have given it the name of Denmark-house which name continued her time among her people but it was afterwards left out of the common Calender like the dead Emperors new named Month. She was not without some Grandees to attend her for outward glory The Court being a continued Maskarado where she and her Ladies like so many Sea-Nymphs or Nereides appeared often in various dresses to the ravishment of the beholders The King himself being not a little delighted with such fluent Elegancies as made the nights more glorious than the days But the latitude that these high-flying fancies and more speaking Actions gave to the lower World to judg and censure even the greatest with reproaches shall not provoke me so much as to stain the innocent Paper I shall only say in general That Princes by how much they are greater than others are looked upon with a more severe eye if their Vertues be not suitable to their Greatness they lose much of their value For it is too great an allay to such resinedness to fall under the common cognizance Philip Earle of Pemb Mong Lord Chamberlaine to the King etc. Now all addresses are made to Sir Robert Car he is the Favourit in Ordinary no sute nor no reward but comes by him his hand distributes and his hand restrains our Supreme Power works by second Causes the Lords themselves can scarce have a smile without him And to give the greater lustre to his power about this time the Earl of Dunbar the Kings old trusty Servant the Cabinet of his secret Counsels died so that he solely now took the most intimate of them into his charge and the Officer of Lord high Treasurer of Scotland which staff the other left behind him and though it could be no great Supporter yet the credit of it carried some reputation in his own Country where it was his happiness to be magnified as well as in England for he had Treasure enough here where the Fountain was And to ingrandize all the King created him Baron of Brandspech and Viscount Rochester and soon after Knight of the Garter Thus was he drawn up by the Beams of Majesty to shine in the highest Glory grapling often with the Prince himself in his own Sphear in divers Conteslations For the Prince being a high born Spirit and meeting a young Competitor in his Fathers Affections that was a Mushrom of yesterday thought the venom would grow too near him and therefore he gave no countenance but opposition to it which was aggravated by some little scintils of Love as well as Hatred Rivals in passion being both amorous and in youthful blood fixing by accident upon one object who was a third mans in which the Viscount
but what is their great Errand to get Money If they touch upon miscarriage in Government it disparages him to his people for now the inside of his Copses are well grown again If upon Religion he knows well enough how to order that if the Treaty with Spain goes on And for the affairs of State he seems to imply as if there were some hidden and secret Art in those Mysteries of King-craft that the Parliaments apprehension cannot reach For who can have wisdom saith he to judge of things CAESAR BORGIA VALENtiorum Dux Cum pater ad summos Romae esset vectus honores Borgaei toto Praesulvt orbe foret Purpuraei donat gnato huic insigne galèri Quod tamen hoc tantum respuit ille decus Cum ferabella sequi mallet Veneremâ— nefandam Et sratrâ—m è â—ediâ— tolleret suum of that Nature but those that are traded in them Every man in his Profession So the Priests by their old Oracles did strive to keep the World in ignorance as the Romish Factors do now Whereas the true way of Treaties is with Christian not Machiavelian policy This we require this answer we expect you shall have this Retribution from Us. If you go about to cozen and cheat Us by delays and spin out time for ends such Syrens must not be listened after Every State must stand upon the foundation of its own Reason and Power and not build Castles of paper Hopes upon deceitful promises unless there be such redundant Causes of dependency upon them as it is impossible to subsist without them It was observed by Comines that in all Treaties betwixt the English and the French the English ever had the worst but in all Wars and Conflicts the English had the better intimating that Subtilâ—y may deceive but plain down-right Honesty is best and will prevail Falsness is fit for such spirits as Pope Alexander or his Nephew Caesar Borgia Scipio though a Heathen in his pactions with Spain and Carthage scorned it and the old Roman Senate were so Gallant as to rebuke Lucius Marcius their Ambassador and General because in the managing of his Wars and Treaties with Perseus King of Macedon he went about by subtilties to circumvent him And now an Ambassador as one saith lyes abroad Reipublicae causa for the good of his Countrey which tends rather to the hurt of it But now they find that the King would only make Merchandize of the Common-wealth yet Merchants look for their Money again with advantage and therefore their Counsel in disposing it may be well spared But the Parliament it they raise Money from the People which is never to be repayed there is good reason they should know not only to what purpose it is levied but how prudently and sitly laid out otherwise as the King tells them in the comparison of the Robber though in relation to his Prerogative if they should be summoned to levy Money of the people without consideration of what it is for or how it shall be disposed for the good of the Kingdom they may very well say and protest That they meant not to take it from them so that is not to rob them of it But the King's necessities must come under the Common Emergencies which he would not have known and what will one Subsidy without fifteens do The Protestants want in the Palatinate so doth he in England But he had lately a great assistance from his People never King of England found greater love as he saith of himself yet he wants still and would have supply for it under the notion of a War They must consider what Money is fit what Foot what Horse necessary but they must not know for what All that they can imagine is that the King wants Money for his Favourite Buckingham and his kindred to furnish them against Christmas for feasting gaming and bravery the three main pillars of the Times licentiousness raised up to a stupendious and excessive height or to send out his Ambassadors or help his indigent and expensive Courtiers and then the Wars are ended for Want is a great War But if the good of the Kingdom the establishment of Religion the happiness of the King and his Posterity be not fit Themes for them to discourse of why are they called The late Queen whose memory will be for ever famous by the King 's own relation liked the Parliaments Petition well when they humbly besought her to marry because they did not prescribe her place and person but left that to her Election if they had done otherwise She would have thought it presumption in them The King thinks it presumption in the Parliament humbly to beseech him for the good of Religion to permit his Son to marry with a Protestant Princess if they had fixt upon place or person he would have thought it High Treason So many degrees high was the King's spirit mounted above a Woman's to humble Subjects and so many degrees lower then Hers was his Spirit to daring Enemies Some of these things were publickly discoursed of among them in the House and other-some muttered and talkt of in private for full breasts will find vent but the main business that the Commons insisted on was the King's incroachment upon their Liberties debarring them freedom of speech in Parliament which was a Natural Reasonable and uncontroul'd immunity as long as they kept themselves within the limits of their duty which the House was to be the sole judge of And who can tax any particular Member with miscarriages that way that the house hath not Censured hitherto for now the heat is but new broke in among them and this liberty of speech stuck most with them for if any man should speak any thing to displease the King though it tended never so much to the good of the Kingdom it might be termed insolent behaviour and be liable to punishment after Parliament if not then as the King threatens in his Letter which carried such a Terror and over-awing with it that they resolved to give over all business left they should offend Which the King hearing of writes again to his Secretary Calvert and the Speaker to take off the edge of those sharp expressions he used in his Letters thinking to cool the heat among them But before this heat was in the House of Commons the Lords began to consider how cheap they were made by the multitude of Irish and Scotch Earls and Viscounts the King had accumulated not the Natives of those Kingdoms but private English Gentlemen who had procured and assumed those Titles to perch above the English Baronry to their great regret and dishonour And after some debate and canvassing in it they resolved That though they could not debar the King from making such swarms of Nobles with Outlandish Titles yet they would let him know what prejudice it was to them and if it produced no other good effect the King might at least see they took offence and
what he said in his own excuse My Lords and Gentlemen of both Houses I cannot but commend your Zeal in offering this Petition to me yet on the other side I cannot but hold my Self unfortunate that I should be thought to need a Spur to do that which my Conscience and Duty binds me unto What Religion I am of my Books do declare my Profession and Behaviour doth shew and I hope in God I shall never live to be thought otherwise surely I shall never deserve it And for my part I wish it may be written in Marble and remain to Posterity as a mark upon me when I shall swerve from my Religion For he that doth dissemble with God is not to be trusted with Men. My Lords for my part I protest before God That my Heart hath bled when I have heard of the increase of Popery God is my judge it hath been such a great grief to me that it hath been as Thorns in my Eyes and Pricks in my Sides and so for ever I have been and shall be from turning another way And my Lords and Gentlemen you shall be my Confessors that one way or other it hath been my Desire to hinder the growth of Popery and I could not be an honest Man if I should have done otherwise And this I may say further That if I be not a Martyr I am sure I am a Confessor and in some sense I may be called a Martyr as in the Scripture Isaac was Persecuted by Ismael by mocking Words for never King suffered more ill Tongues than I have done and I am sure for no cause yet I have been far from Persecution for I have ever thought that no way increased any Religion more than Persecution according to that Saying Sanguis Martyrum est Semen Ecclesiae Now my Lords and Gentlemen for your Petition I will not onely grant the Substance of what you craved but add somewhat more of my own For the Two Treaties being already anulled as I have declared them to be it necessarily follows of it self that which you desire and therefore it needs no more but that I do declare by Proclamation which I am ready to do That all Jesuits and Priests do depart by a Day but it cannot be as you desire by Our Proclamation to be out of all my Dominions for a Proclamation here extends but to this Kingdom This I will do and more I will Command all my Judges when they go their Circuits to keep the same Courses for putting all the Laws in Execution against Recusants as they were wont to do before these Treaties for the Laws are still in force and were never dispensed with by me God is my judge they were never so intended by me But as I told you in the beginning of the Parliament you must give me leave as a good Horse-man sometimes to use the Reins and not always to use the Spurs So now there needs nothing but my Declaration for the disarming of them that is already done by the Laws and shall be done as you desired And more I will take order for the shameful disorder of the Resorting of my Subjects to all forein Ambassadours of this I will advise with my Council how it may be best reformed It is true that the Houses of Ambassadors are privileged places and though they cannot take them out of their Houses yet the Lord Mayor and Mr. Recorder of London may take some of them as they come from thence and make them Examples Another Point I will add concerning the Education of their Children of which I have had a principal care as the Lord of Canterbury and the Bishop of Winchester and other Lords of my Council can bear me witness with whom I have advised about this Business For in good faith it is a shame their Children should be bred here as if they were at Rome So I do grant not onely your Desire but more I am sorry I was not the first mover of it to you But had you not done it I should have done it my self Now for the second part of your Petition You have there given me the best advice in the World For it is against the Rule of Wisdom that a King should suffer any of his Subjects to transgress the Laws by the intercession of other Princes and therefore assure your selves that by the Grace of God I will be careful that no such Conditions be foisted in upon any other Treaty whatsoever For it is fit my Subjects should stand or fall to their own Laws If the King had seriously and really considered the Minute of this Petition the very last Clause wherein the Glory of God and the Safety of his Kingdoms so much consisted as the Parliament wisely express and foresee and which the King saith is the best Advice in the World and which he promised so faithfully to observe in the next Treaty of Marriage for his Son it might perhaps have kept the Crown upon the Head of his Posterity But when Princes break with the People in those Promises that concern the Honour of God God will let their people break with them to their Ruin and Dishonour And this Maxim holds in all Powers whether Kingdoms or Common Wealths As they are established by Iustice so the Iustice of Religion which tends most to the Glory of God is principally to be observed The King grants them more than they desire but not so much as they hope for they have many good words thick sown but they produce little good fruit Yet the Parliament followed the Chace close and bolted out divers of the Nobility and Gentry of Eminency Popishly affected that had Earth'd themselves in Places of high Trust and Power in the Kingdom as if they meant to under-mine the Nation Viz. Francis Earl of Rutland the Duke of Buckingham's Wives Father Sir Thomas Compton that was married to the Duke's Mother And the Countess her self who was the Cynosure they all steered by The Earl of Castle-Haven The Lord Herbert after Earl of Worcester The Lord Viscount Colchester after Earl of Rivers The Lord Peter The Lord Morley The Lord Windsor The Lord Eure. The Lord Wotton The Lord Teinham The Lord Scroop who was Lord President of the North and which they omitted the Earl of Northampton Lord President of Wales who married his Children to Papists and permitted them to be bred up in Popery Sir William Courtney Sir Thomas Brudnell Sir Thomas Somerset Sir Gilbert Ireland Sir Francis Stonners Sir Anthony Brown Sir Francis Howard Sir William Powell Sir Francis Lacon Sir Lewis Lewkner Sir William Awberie Sir Iohn Gage Sir Iohn Shelly Sir Henry Carvel Sir Thomas Wiseman Sir Thomas Gerrard Sir Iohn Filpot Sir Thomas Russell Sir Henry Bedingfield Sir William Wrey Sir Iohn Conwey Sir Charles Iones Sir Ralph Connyers Sir Thomas Lamplough Sir Thomas Savage Sir William Moseley Sir Hugh Beston Sir Thomas Riddall Sir Marmaduke Wivel Sir Iohn Townesend Sir William Norris Sir
of some of these Particulars they insisted upon the Bishops power of Confirmation which they would have every Minister capable of in his own Parish They disputed against the Cross in Baptism the Ring in Marriage the Surplice the Oath ex officio and other things that stuck with them which they hoped to get all purged away because the King was of a Northern constitution where no such things were practised not yet having felt the Kings pulse whom the Southern Air of the Bishops breaths had so wrought upon that He himself answers most of their Demands Sometimes gently applying Lenitives where he found Ingenuity for he was Learned and Eloquent other times Corrosives telling them these Oppositions proceeded more from stubborness in Opinion than tenderness of Conscience and so betwixt his Arguments and Kingly Authority menaced them to a Conformity which proved a way of Silencing them for the present and some of them were content to acquiesce for the future and the King managed this Discourse with such power which they expected not from him and therefore more danted at That Whitgift Arch. Bishop of Canterbury though a holy grave and pious man highly pleased with it with a sugred bait which Princes are apt enough to swallow said He was verily perswaded that the King spake by the Spirit of God This Conference was on the fourteenth of Ianuary and this good man expired the nine and twentieth of February following in David's fulness of days leaving a Name like a sweet perfume behind him And Bancroft a sturdy piece succeeded him but not with the same Spirit for what Whitgift strove to do by Sweetness and Gentleness Bancroft did persevere in with Rigour and Severity Thus the Bishops having gotten the Victory strove to maintain it and though not on the suddain yet by degrees they press so hard upon the Non-conformists whom they held under the yoke of a Law that many of them are forced to seek Foreign Refuge They prevailed not only for themselves here but by their means not long after the King looked back into Scotland and put the Keys there again into the Bishops hands unlocking the passage to the enjoyment of their Temporal Estates which swel'd them so high that in his Sons time the Women of Scotland pulled them out of their tottering seats On the other side the late Conspiracy of Cobham and Grey had so chilled the Kings blood that he begins to take notice of the swarms of Priests that flockt into the Kingdom For though the Conspirators were of several Religions yet in their correspondence with Foreign Princes Religion was the pretence For in every alteration of Kingdoms few are so modest but they will throw in the Hook of their vain Hopes thinking to get something in the troubled Stream The Iesuits were not slack coming with the Seal of the Fisher in spreading their Nets but a Proclamation broke through them The King being contented to let them alone till they came too near him willing to comply rather than exasperate the safety of his own person made him look to the safety of Religion and to secure both He found this the best Remedy Declaring to all the World the cause of this Restriction VINVIT QVI PATITVR OBIIT ANNO AETATIS SVAE 73 Having after some time spent in setling the Politick affairs of this Realm of late bestowed no small labour in composing certain Differences We found among Our Clergy about Rites and Ceremonies heretofore established in this Church of England and reduced the same to such an order and form as We doubt not but every spirit that is led only with piety and not with humour should be therein satisfied It appeared unto Us in debating these Matters that a greater Contagion to Our Religion than could proceed from these light differences was eminent by persons common Enemies to them both namely the great numbers of Priests both Seminaries and Iesuits abounding in this Realm as well of such as were here before Our coming to the Crown as of such as have resorted hither since using their Functions and Professions with greater liberty than heretofore they durst have done partly upon a vain confidence of some Innovation in matters of Religion to be done by Us which We never intended nor gave any man cause to suspect and partly from the assurance of Our general Pardon granted according to the Custom of Our Progenitors at Our Coronation for offences past in the days of the late Queen which Pardon 's many of the said Priests have procured under Our Great Seal and holding themselves thereby free from danger of the Laws do with great audacity exercise all offices of their Profession both saying Masses and perswading Our Subjects from the Religion established reconciling them to the Church of Rome and by consequence seducing them from their Duty and Obedience to Us. Wherefore We hold Our self obliged both in Consequence and Wisdom to use all good means to keep Our Subjects from being affected with superstitious Opinions which are not only pernicious to their own souls but the ready way to corrupt their Duty and Allegiance which cannot be any way so safely performed as by keeping from them the Instruments of that infection which are Priests of all sorts ordained in Foreign parts by Authority prohibited by the Laws of the Land concerning whom therefore We have thought fit to publish to all Our Subjects this open Declaration of Our pleasure c. Willing and Commanding all manner of Iesuits Seminaries and other Priests whatsoever having Ordination from any Authority by the Laws of this Realm prohibited to take notice that Our pleasure is that they do before the nineteenth of March next depart forth of Our Realm and Dominions And to that purpose it shall be lawful for all Officers of Our Ports to suffer the said Priests to depart into Foreign parts between this and said nineteenth day of March Admonishing and assuring all such Iesuits Seminaries and Priests of what sort soever that if any of them after the said time shall be taken within this Realm or any of Our Dominions or departing now upon this Our pleasure signified shall hereafter return into this Our Realm or any of Our Dominions again they shall be left to the penalty of the Laws here being in force concerning them without hope of any favour or remission from Us c. Which though perhaps it may appear to some a great severity towards that sort of Our Subjects yet doubt We not when it shall be considered with indifferent judgment what cause hath moved Us to use this Providence all men will justifie Us therein For to whom is it unknown into what peril Our Person was like to be drawn and Our Realm unto Confusion not many Months since by Conspiracy First conceived by persons of that sort Which when other Princes shall duly observe We assure Our selves they will no way conceive that this alteration proceedeth from any change of disposition but out of
can very well assure you and in the Word of a King promise unto you that I shall never give the first occasion of the breach thereof neither shall I ever be moved for any particular or private passion of mind to interrupt your publick peace except I be forced thereunto either for reparation of the honour of the Kingdom or else by necessity for the weal and preservation of the same In which case a secure and honourable War must be preferred before an unsecure and dishonourable peace Yet do I hope by my experience of the by past blessings of peace which God hath so long ever since my birth bestowed upon me that he will not be weary to continue the same nor repent him of his grace towards me transferring that sentence of King Davids upon his by past Victories of War to mine of peace That that God who preserved me from the devouring jaws of the Bear and of the Lion and delivered them into my hand shall now also grant me Victory over that uncircumcised Philistine But although outward peace be a great blessing yet it is as far inferiour to peace within as Civil Wars are more cruel and unnatural than Wars abroad And therefore the second great blessing that God hath with my Person sent unto you is Peace within and that in a double form First by my dedescent lineally out of the loyns of Henry the seventh is re-united and confirmed in me the Vnion of the two Princely Roses of the two Houses of Lancaster and York whereof that King of happy memory was the first Vniter as he was also the first ground-layer of the other peace The lamentable and miserable events by the civil and bloody dissension betwixt these two Houses was so great and so late as it need not be renewed unto your memories which as it was first setled and united in Him so it is now re-united and confirmed in Me being justly and lineally descended not only of that happy conjunction but of both the Branches thereof in any Times before But the Union of these two Princely Houses is nothing comparable to the Union of the two ancient and famous Kingdoms which is the other Inward peace annexed to my Person And here I must crave your patience for a little space to give me leave to discourse more particularly of the Benefits that do arise of that Vnion which is made in my blood being a matter that belongeth most properly to me to speak of as the Head wherein that great Body is united And first if we were to look no higher than to Natural and Physical Reasons we may easily be perswaded of the great Benefits that by this Vnion do redound to the whole Island for if twenty thousand men be a strong Army is not the double thereof forty thousand a stronger Army If a Baron enricheth himself with double as many Lands as he had before is he not double the greater Nature teacheth Vs that Mountains are made of Motes and that at first Kingdoms being divided and every particular Town or little Country as Tyrants or Usurpers could obtain the possession of a Signory apart many of these little Kingdoms are now in process of Time by the Ordinance of God joyned into great Monarchies whereby they are become powerful within themselves to defend themselves from all Outward invasions and their Head and Governour thereby enabled to redeem them from Foreign Assaults and punish private transgressions within Do we not yet remember that this Kingdom was divided into seven little Kingdoms besides Wales And is it not now the stronger by their Vnion And hath not the Vnion of Wales to England added a greater strength thereto Which though it was a great Principality was nothing comparable in greatness and power to the antient and famous Kingdom of Scotland But what shall we stick upon any Natural appearance when it is manifest that God by his Almighty Providence hath pre-ordained it so to be Hath not God first united these two Kingdoms both in Language and Religion and similitude of Manners Yea hath he not made Vs all in one Island compassed with one Sea and of it self by Nature so indivisible as almost those that were borderers themselves on the late Borders cannot distinguish nor know or discern their own Limits These two Countries being separated neither by Sea nor great River Mountain nor other strength of Nature but only by little small Brooks or demolished little Walls so as rather they were divided in apprehension than in effect and now in the end and fulness of time united the right and title of both in my Person alike lineally descended of both the Crowns whereby it is now become a little World within it self being intrenched and fortified round about with a natural and yet admirable strong Pond or Ditch whereby all the former fears of this Nation are quite cut off The other part of the Island being ever before now not only the Place of Landing to all Strangers that were to make Invasion here but likewise moved by the Enemies of this State by untimely Incursions to make inforced diversion from their Conquests for defending themselves at home and keeping sure their Back-door as then it was called which was the greatest hindrance and Let my Predecessors of this Nation ever had in disturbing them from their many famous and glorious Conquests abroad What God hath conjoyned then let no man separate I am the Husband and all the whole Island is my lawful Wife I am the Head and it is my Body I am the Shepherd and it is my Flock I hope therefore no man will be so unreasonable as to think that I that am a Christian King under the Gospel should be a Polygamist and Husband to two Wives that I being the Head should have a divided and monstrous Body or that being the Shepherd of so fair a Flock whose Fold hath no wall to sence it but the four Seas should have my Flock parted in two But as I am assured that no honest Subject of whatsoever degree within my whole Dominions is less glad of this joyful Vnion than I am so may the frivolous objection of any that would be hinderers of this Work which God hath in my Person already established be easily answered which can be none except such as are either blinded with ignorance or else transported with malice being unable to live in a well-governed Common-wealth and only delighting to fish in troubled waters For if they would stand upon their reputation and privileges of any of the Kingdoms I pray you were not both the Kingdoms Monarchies from the beginning And consequently could ever the Body be counted without the Head which was ever unseparably joyned thereunto So that as the honour and priviledges of any of the Kingdoms could not be divided from their Sovereign so are they now confounded and joyned in my Person who am equal and alike kindly Head to both When this Kingdom of England was divided
into so many petty Kingdoms as I told you before one of them eat up another till they were all united into One. And yet can Wiltshire or Devonshire which were of the West-Saxons although their Kingdom was of longest durance and did by Conquest overcome divers of the rest of the little Kingdoms make Claim to Priority of place or Honour before Suâ—sex Essex or other Shires which were Conquered by them And have We not the like experience in the Kingdom of France being composed of divers Dutchies and one after another Conquered by the Sword For even as little Brooks lose their Names by running and falling into great Rivers and the very name and memory of great Rivers swallowed up in the Ocean so by the conjunction of divers little Kingdoms into One are all these private differences and questions swallowed up And since the success was happy of the Saxon Kingdoms Conquered by the Spear of Bellona how much greater reason have We to expect a happy issue of this greater Vnion which is only fastned and bound up by the Wedding-Ring of Astrea And as God hath made Scotland the one half of this Island to enjoy my birth and the first and most imperfect half of my life and you here to enjoy the perfect and last half thereof so can I not think that any would be so injurious to me no not in their thoughts and wishes as to cut asunder the one half of Me from the other But in this matter I have far enough insisted resting assured that in your hearts and minds you all applaud this my Discourse Now although these blessings before rehearsed of inward and outward peace be great yet seeing that in all good things a great part of their goodness and estimation is lost if they have not appearance of perpetuity or long continuance so hath it pleased Almighty God to accompany my person also with that favour having healthful and hopeful Issue of my bod whereof some are here present for continuance and propagation of that undoubted Right which is in my person under whom I doubt not but it will please God to prosper and continue for many years this Vnion and all other blessings of inward and outward Peace which I have brought with me But neither peace outward nor peace inward nor any other blessing that can follow thereupon nor appearance of the perpetuity thereof by propagation in posterity are but weak pillars and rotten reeds to lead unto if God doth not strengthen and by the staff of his blessing make them durable for in vain doth the Watchman watch the City if the Lord be not the principal defence thereof in vain doth the Builder build the house if God give not the success and in vain as Paul saith doth Paul plant and Apollo water if God give not the increase for all worldly blessings are but like swift passing shadows fading flowers or chaff blown before the wind if by the profession of true Religion and works according thereunto God be not moved to maintain and settle the Thrones of Princes And although since mine entry into this Kingdom I have both by meeting with divers of the Ecclesiastical state and likewise by divers Proclamations clearly declared my mind in points of Religion yet do I not think it amiss in this so solemn an Audience to take occasion to discover somewhat of the secrets of my heart in that matter For I shall never with Gods grace be ashamed to make publick profession thereof upon all occasions lest God should be ashamed of me before Men and Angels especially lest at this time men might presume further upon the misknowledg of my meaning to trouble this Parliament than were convenient At my first coming although I found but one Religion and that which by my self is professed publickly allowed and by the Law maintained yet found I another sort of Religion besides a private Sect lurking within the bowels of this Nation The first is the true Religion which by me is professed and by Law is established The second is the falsly called Catholicks but truly Papists The third which I call a Sect rather than a Religion is the Puritans and Novelists who do not so far differ from us in points of Religion as in their confused form of policy and parity being ever discontented with the present Government and impatient to suffer any superiority which maketh their Sects insufferable in any well governed Common-wealth But as for my course towards them I remit it to my Proclamations made upon that subject And now for the Papists I must put a difference betwixt mine own private profession of my salvation and my politick Government of the Realm for the weal and quietness thereof As for my own profession you have me your head now among you of the same Religion that the Body is of As I am no stranger to you in Blood no more am I a stranger to you in Faith or in matters concerning the House of God And although this my profession be according to my education wherein I thank God I suckt the milk of Gods Truth with the milk of my Nurse yet I do here protest unto you that I would never for such a conceit of Constancy or other prejudicate opinion have so firmly kept my first profession if I had not found it agreeable to all reason and to the rule of my conscience But I was never violent nor unreasonable in my profession I acknowledg the Roman Church to be our Mother Church although defiled with some infirmities and corruptions as the Iews were before they Crucified Christ. And as I am no enemy to the life of a sick man because I would have his body purged of ill humours no more am I an enemy to their Church because I would have them reform their errors not wishing the down-throwing of the Temple but that it might be purged and cleansed from corruption otherwise how can they wish us to enter if their house be not first made clean But as I would be lother to dispense in the least point of mine own conscience for any worldly respect than the foolishest Precisian of them all so would I be as sorry to streighten the politick Government of the bodies and minds of all my Subjects to my private Opinions Nay my mind was ever so free from persecution or inthralling of my Subjects in matters of conscience as I hope those of that profession within this Kingdom have a proof since my coming that I was so far from increasing their burthens with Rehoboam as I have so much as either time occasion or law could permit lightned them And even now at this time have I been careful to revise and consider deeply upon the Laws made against them that some overture might be made to the present Parliament for clearing these Laws by reason which is the soul of the Law in case they have been in times past further or more rigorously extended by Iudges than the meaning of the
Law was or might tend to the hurt as well of the Innocent as of the guilty persons And as to the persons of my Subjects which are of that profession I must divide them into two ranks Clericks and Laicks for the Laicks I ever thought them far more excusable than the other sort because their Religion containeth such an ignorant doubtful and implicite kind of Faith grounded upon their Church that except they do generally believe whatsoever their Teachers please to affirm they can not be thought guilty of these particular Points of Heresies and Corruptions which their Teachers so wilfully profess And again I must subdivide the Laicks into two ranks which are either quiet and well-minded men peaceable Subjects who either being old retain their first drunk-in liquor upon a certain shamefacedness to be thought curious or changeable Or being young men through evil education have been nursed and brought up upon such venom instead of wholsome nutriment And this sort of People I would be sorry to punish their Bodies for the error of their minds the reformation whereof must only come of God and the true Spirit But the other rank of Laicks who either through curiosity affectation of novelty or discontentment have changed their Coats only to be factious stirrers of sedition and perturbers of the Common-wealth thâ—s giveth a ground to Me the Magistrate to take better heed to their proceedings and to correct their obstinacy REVERENDIS S D NS TOBIAS ARCHIEPISCOPVS EBORACENSIS ET ANGLIAE PRIMAâ—… Exerit Hic Sanctos viva ub imagine vultus Ecce Senex Vtinam fas sit et inde loqui Qui dum Zelus iners Boreali friget in Orbe Emicuit gelidis flamma corusca plagis Christiadae nautae Mundi qui fluctuatâ—… dis Erranti et dubio Stellae Polaris adest Duplex cum Tibi sit Sanctorum Nomen Vtru In vitam pariter conuenit Alme tuam But of one thing would I have the Papists of this Land to be admonished that they presume not so much upon my lenity because I would be loth to be thought a Persecutor as thereupon to think it lawful for them daily to increase their number and strength in this Kingdom whereby if not in my time at least in the time of my Posterity they may be in hope to erect their Religion again No let them assure themselves that as I am a Friend to their Persons if they be good Subjects so I am a vowed Enemy and do denounce Mortal War to their Errors And as I would be sorry to be driven by their ill behaviour from the protection and conservation of their bodies and lives so will I never cease as far as I can to tread down their Errors and wrong Opinions For I could not permit the increase and growing of their Religion without betraying my self and my own Conscence and this whole Island as well the part I am come from as the part I remain in in betraying their Liberties and reducing them to the former slavish yoke which both had cast off before I came among them as also the Liberty of the Crown in my Posterity which I should leave again under a new Slavery being left free to me by my Predecessors And therefore I would wish all good Subjects that are deceived with this Corruption if they find any beginnings in themselves of knowledg and love to the truth to foster the same by all lawful means and to beware of quenching the Spirit that worketh within them And if they can find as yet no motion tending that way to be studious to read and confer with learned Men and to use all such means as may further their Resolution assuring them that as long as they are disconformable in Religion to us they cannot be but half my Subjects be able to do but half service and I shall want the best half of them which is their souls And here I have occasion to speak to you my Lords the Bishops for as you my Lord of Durham said very learnedly today in your Sermon Correction without Instruction is but Tyranny So ought you and all the Clergy under you to be more careful vigilant and careful than you have been to win souls to God as well by your exemplary Life as Doctrine And since you see how careful they are sparing neither labour pains nor extreme peril of their Persons to pervert the Devil is so busie a Bishop ye should be the more careful and wakeful in your Charges Follow the Rule prescribed you by Saint Paul Be careful to exhort and instruct in season and out of season And where you have been any way sluggish before now waken your selves up again with a new diligence remitting the success to God who calling them either at the second third tenth or twelfth hour as they are alike welcom to him so shall they be to me his Lieutenant here The third Reason of my Convening you at this time which containeth such Actions of my Thankfulness towards you as I may either do or leave undone yet shall with Gods grace ever press to perform all the days of my life It consists in these two Points In making of Laws at certain Times which is only at such Times as this in Parliament or in the careful Execution of the Laws at other Times As for the Making of them I will thus far faithfully promise unto you that I will ever prefer the Weal of the Body above any particular or private ends of my Own thinking ever the Weal of the Commonwealth to be the greatest Weal and worldly felicity A Point wherein a lawful King doth directly differ from a Tyrant But at this time I am only thus far to forwarn you in that Point that you beware to seek the making of too many Laws for two especial Reasons First because In corruptissima Republica plurimae leges And the execution of some good Laws is far more profitable in a Common-wealth than to burthen mens memories with making too many of them And next because the making of too many Laws in one Parliament will bring in Confusion for want of leisure wisely to deliberate before you conclude for the Bishop said well to day That to Deliberation a large time would be given but to Execution a greater promptness was required As for the Execution of good Law it hath been very wisely and honourably foreseen and ordered by my Predecessors in this Kingdom in planting such a number of Iudges and all sorts of Magistrates in convenient places for execution of the same And therefore must I now turn to you that are Iudges and Magistrates under me as mine Eyes and Ears in this case I can say no otherwise to you than as Ezekias the good King of Iuda said to their Iudges Remember that the Thrones you sit on are Gods and neither yours nor mine And as you must be answerable to me so must both you and I be answerable to God for the due Execution of Our Offices
Peer that was nobly descended he could not be justified but was enjoyned by the House to give the Lord Spencer such satisfaction as they prescribed which his Greatness refusing to obey he was by the Lords sent Prisoner to the Tower and Spencer re-admitted into the House again When Arundle was well cooled in the Tower and found that no Power would give him Liberty but that which had restrained him rather blaming his rashness than excusing his stubborness his great Heart humbled it self to the Lords betwixt a Letter and a Petition in these words To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in the Higher House of Parliament assembled May it please your Lordships WHere as I stand committed here by your Lordships Order for having stood upon performing some part of that which was injoined me by your Lordships which I did rather in respect the time was short for advice than out of any intent to disobey the House for which I have suffered in this place till now I do therefore humbly beseech your Lordships to construe of what is past according to this my profession and for the time to come to believe that I both understand so well your Lordships power to command and your nobleness and tenderness to consider what is fit as I do and will wholly put myself upon your Honors and perform what is or shall be injoyned me So beseeching your Lordships to construe these lines as proceeding from a heart ready to obey you in what you command I rest Your Lordships most humble Servant Thomas Arundle Tower 2 June 1621. Upon this submission the Lords commanded him to be sent for and presenting himself at the Bar of the House with the accustomed Humility that Offenders do he thus expressed himself Because I have committed a fault against this House in not obeying all the Order that your Lordships commanded me I do here acknowledg this my fault and ask your Lordships pardon for the same and am ready to obey all your Lordships commands Thus this great Lord though he fluttered in the Air of the Court and mounted by that means upon the Wings of Passion was glad to stoop when consideration lured him to it lest by the heat that he himself made melting the Waxen Plumes that he thought would have supported him his suffering might have been a greater mischief to him than his submission so sour and severe a School-master is Passion to be both Author and Punisher of our Errors yea making the best Natures often correct themselves most The fourth of Iune this year the Parliament had a Recess the King being to go his Progress wherein some Lords and others of the Parliament were to attend him For it seems his business was not yet ripe for the Parliament and he was loth they should have too much leisure therefore they were not to meet again till the eighth of February following which being a long time of Vacancy the House of Commons before they parted took the Miseries of the Palatinate into serious debate and though they felt the King's pulse and knew the beat of his thought when he spake of providing an Army this Summer for the recovery of it and would engage his Crown Blood and Soul for it finding him apt to say what he had no will to do yet they were so wise as not to slacken or draw back in so good a work that if there were a failing it should not be on their side knowing how much Religion was concerned in it for to the appearance of Reason the triumphing Emperor and Universal King would quickly tread all under foot therefore with one voice none daring to oppose they made this Declaration THe Commons assembled in Parliament taking into most serious consideration the present state of the King's Children abroad and generally afflicted estate of the true Professors of the same Christian Religion professed by the Church of England in Forreign Parts and being touched with a true sence and fellow-feeling of their distresses as Members of the same Body do with unanimous consent in the name of themselves and the whole Body of the Kingdom whom they represent declare unto his most excellent Majesty and to the whole World their hearty grief and sorrow for the same and do not only joyn with them in their humble and Devout Prayers unto Almighty God to protect his true Church and to avert the Dangers now threatned but also with one heart and voice do solemnly protest That if his Majestie s pious endeavours by Treaty to procure their Peace and Safety shall not take that good effect which is desired in Treaty wherefore they humbly beseech his Majesty not to suffer any longer delay that then upon signification of his Majestie s pleasure in Parliament they shall be ready to the utmost of their Powers both with their lives and fortunes to assist him so as that by the Divine Help of Almighty God which is never wanting unto those who in his fear shall undertake the defence of his own Cauâ—e he may be able to do that with his Sword which by a peaceable Course shall not be effected The King took this Declaration of the Commons in very good Part and meant when occasion served to make good use of it For as he found them forward enough to begin a War so he knew his own constitution backward enough the Sword being in his Hand and did fore-see an advantage arising from a Medium betwixt the Parliament and him if he could bring his Ends about which he after put in practice but it broke all to pieces and now away he goes on his Progress Towards Winter the Lord Digby returns from his soliciting journey in Germany His first addresses he made to the Emperour his second to the Duke of Bavaria and his last to the Infanta at Bruxels and all to as little purpose as if he had stayed at home that three-fold Cord twisted by the power of Spain was not easily to be broken Some little twilight and scintil of Hope was given him by the Emperour for restitution of the Palatinate yet not so much as would discover the error of our easie belief But the Bavarian had already swallowed the Electurate and his Voraginous appetite gaped after the possession of the Countrey though the English there were bones in his way Digby being arrived at Court and bringing him with doubtful answers from the Emperour and sullen ones from the Duke of Bavaria the King thought it good Policy to shorten the long Recess till February and to re-assemble the Parliament the 20 th of November that meeting before their Time it might more amaze them and intimate some extraordinary Cause which happily might produce some extraordinary effect if well mannag'd And as incident thereunto he gave order to Digby as soon as the Parliament assembled to make relation to the Houses of his proceedings there which he did in these words IT pleased his Majesty to
The strange Confederacy of the Princes of the Popish Religion aiming mainly at the advancement of theirs and subverting Ours and taking the advantages conducing to that End upon all Occasions 6. The great and many Armies raised and maintained at the charge of the King of Spain the chief of that League 7. The expectation of the Popish Recusants of the Match with Spain and feeding themselves with great hopes of the consequences thereof 8. The interposing of Foreign Princes and their Agents in the behalf of Popish Recusants for connivence and favour unto them 9. Their open and usual Resort to the Houses and which is worse to the Chappels of Foreign Ambassadors 10. Their more than usual concourse to the City and their frequent Conventicles and Conferences there 11. The education of their Children in many several Seminaries and Houses of their Religion in Foreign parts appropriated only to the English Fugitives 12. The Grants of their just forfeitures intended by your Majesty as a reward of service to the Grantees but beyond your Majesties intention transferred or compounded for at such mean rates as will amount to little less than a Toleration 13. The licentious printing and dispersing of Popish and seditious Books even in the time of Parliament 14. The Swarms of Priests and Jesuits the common Incendiaries of all Christendom dispersed in all parts of your Kingdom And from these Causes as bitter Roots we humbly offer to your Majesty that we foresee and fear there will necessarily follow very dangerous effects both to Church and State For 1. The Popish Religion is incompatible with Ours in respect of their Positions 2. It draweth with it an unavoidable Dependency on foreign Princes 3. It openeth too wide a Gap for Popularity to any who shall draw too great a Party 4. It hath a restless Spirit and will strive by these Gradations if it once get but a Connivence it will press for a Toleration if that should be obtained they must have an equality from thence they will aspire to Superiority And will never rest till they get a Subversion of the true Religion The Remedies against these growing Evils which in all humbleness we offer to your most excellent Majesty are these 1. That seeing this inevitable Necessity is faln upon your Majesty which no wisdom or providence of a peaceable and pious King can avoid your Majesty would not omit this just occasion speedily and effectually to take your Sword into your hand 2. That once undertaken upon so Honourable and just grounds your Majesty would resolve to persue and more publickly avow the aiding of those of our Religion in foreign parts which doubtless would reunite the Princes and States of the Union by these disasters disheartned and disbanded 3. That your Majesty would propose to your self to manage this War with the best advantage by a Diversion or otherwise as in your deep judgment shall be found fittest and not to rest upon a War in these parts only which will consume your Treasure and discourage your people 4. That the bent of this War and point of your Sword may be against that Prince whatsoever Opinion of Potency he hath whose Armies and Treasures have first diverted and since maintained the War in the Palatinate 5. That for securing of our peace at home your Majesty will be pleased to review the parts of our Petition formerly delivered unto your Majesty and hereunto annexed and to put it in execution by the care of choice Commissioners to be there unto especially appointed the Laws already and hereafter to be made for preventing of Dangers by Popish Recusants and their wonted evasions 6. That to frustrate their hopes for a future Age our most Noble Prince may be timely and happily married to one of our own Religion 7. That the Children of the Nobility and Gentry of this Kingdom and of others ill affected and suspected in their Religion now beyond the Seas may be forthwith called home by your means and at the charge of their Parents or Governours 8. That the Children of Popish Recusants or such whose wives are Popish Recusants be brought up during their minority with Protestant Schoolmasters and Teachers who may sow in their tender years the seeds of true Religion 9. That your Majesty will be pleased speedily to revoke all former Licences for such Children and youth to travel beyond the Seas and not grant any such licence hereafter 10. That your Majesties learned Councel may receive commandment from your Highness carefully to look into former Grants of Recusants lands and to avoid them if by Law they can and that your Majesty will stay your hand from passing any such Grants hereafter This is the sum and effect of our Humble Declaration which we no ways intending to press upon your Majesties undoubted and Regal Prerogative do with the fulness of our Duty and Obedience humbly submit to your most Princely consideration the Glory of God whose Cause it is the Zeal of our true Religion in which we have been born and wherein by God's grace we are resolved to die the safety of your Majesties person who is the very life of your people the happiness of your Children and Posterity the Honour and good of the Church and State dearer unto us then our own lives having kindled these Affections truly devoted to your Majesty And seeing out of our Duty to your Majesty we have already resolved to give at the end of this Session one entire Subsidy for the present relief of the Palatinate only to be paid in the end of February next which cannot well be effected but by passing a Bill in a Parliamentary course before Christmas We most humbly beseech your Majesty as our assured hope is that you will then also vouchsafe to give life by your Royal assent to such Bills as before that time shall be prepared for your Majesties Honour and the general good of your People And that such Bills may be also accompanied as hath been accustomed with your Majestie 's gracious Pardon which proceeding from your own meer Grace may by your Highness direction be drawn to that latitude and extent as may best sort with your Majesties Bounty and Goodness And that not only Fellons and criminal offenders may take benefit thereof but that your good Subjects may receive ease thereby And if it shall so stand with your good pleasure that it may extend to the relief of the old Debts and Duties to the Crown before the first year of your Majesties raign to the discharge of Alienations without licence and misusing of Liveries and Oustre le main before the first summons of this Parliament and of concealed Wardships and not suing of Liveries and Oustre le mains before the twelfth year of your Majesties Reign Which gracious favour would much comfort your good Subjects and ease them from Vexation with little loss or prejudice to your own profit And we by our daily and devout prayers to the Almighty the great King of
Common-wealth from ruin in so great a time of danger And thus they address themselves to their great Pilot. Most dread and gracious Soveraign WE your most humble and loyal Subjects the Knights Citizens and Burgesses assembled in the Commons House of Parliament full of grief and unspeakable sorrow through the true sence of your Majesties displeasure expressed by your Letter lately sent to Our Speaker and by him related and read unto Us Yet comforted again with the assurance of your Grace and Goodness and of the sincerity of our own intentions and proceedings whereon with confidence we can rely in all humbleness beseech your most excellent Majesty that the Loyalty and Dutifulness of as faithful and loving Subjects as ever served or lived under a gracious Soveraign may not undeservedly suffer by the mis-information of partial and uncertain Reports which are ever unfaithful Intelligencers but that your Majesty would in the clearness of your own Judgment first vouchsase to understand from Our selves and not from others what our humble Declaration and Petition resolved upon by the Universal Voice of the House and proposed with your Gracious favour to be presented unto your Sacred Majesty doth contain Upon what Occasion we entred into Consideration of those things which are therein contained with what dutiful respect to your Majesty and your Service we did consider thereof and what was our true intention thereby And that when your Majesty shall thereby truly discern our dutiful Affections you will in your Royal judgment free us from those heavy Charges wherewith some of our Members are burthened and wherein the whole House is involved And we humbly beseech your Majesty that you will not hereafter give Credit to private Reports against all or any of the Members of our House whom the whole have not censured until your Majesty have been truly informed thereof from our selves and that in the mean time and ever we may stand upright in your Majesties Grace and good Opinion than which no worldly consideration is or can be dearer unto us When your Majesty had reassembled us in Parliament by your Royal Commandment sooner than we expected and did vouchsafe by the mouths of three honourable Lords to impart unto us the weighty occasions moving your Majesty thereunto And from them we did understand these particulars That notwithstanding your Princely and Pious indeavours to procure Peace the time is now come that Janus Temple must be opened That the Voice of Bellona must be heard and not the Voice of the Turtle That there was no hope of Peace nor any Truce to be obtained no not for a few days That your Majesty must either abandon your own Children or ingage your self in a war wherein Consideration is to be had what foot what horse what money would be sufficient That the Lower Palatinate was seized upon by the Army of the King of Spain as Executor of the Ban there in quality of Duke of Burgundy as the Upper Palatinate was by the Duke of Bavaria That the King of Spain at his own Charge had now at least five several Armies on foot That the Princes of the Union were disbanded but the Catholick league remained firm whereby those Princes so dissevered were in danger one by one to be ruined That the Estate of those of the Religion in Foreign parts was miserable And That out of these Considerations we were called to a war and forthwith to advise for a Supply for keeping the forces in the Palatinate from disbanding and to fore-see the means for raising and maintaining the body of an Army for the war against the Spring We therefore out of our Zeal to your Majesty and your Posterity with more alacrity and colerity than ever was precedented in Parliament did address our selves to the Service commended unto Us. And although we cannot conceive that the honor and safety of your Majesty and your posterity the patrimony of your Children invaded and possessed by their Enemies the welfare of Religion and State of your Kingdom are matters at any time unfit for our deepest consideration in time of Parliament And though before this time we were in some of these points silent yet being now invited thereunto and led on by so just an occasion we thought it Our Duties to provide for the present supply thereof and not only to turn our eyes on a war abroad but to take care for the securing of our peace at home which the dangerous increase and insolency of Popish Recusants apparently visibly and sensibly did lead us unto The consideration whereof did necessarily draw us truly to represent unto your Majesty what we conceive to be the Causes what we feared would be the effects and what we hoped might be the remedies of these growing Evils Among which as incident and unavoidable we fell upon some things which seem to touch upon the King of Spain as they have relation to Popish Recusants at home to the Wars by him maintained in the Palatinate against your Majestie 's Children and to his several Armies now on foot yet as we conceived without touch of dishonour to that King or any other Prince your Majestie 's Consederate In the discourse whereof we did not assume to our selves any power to determin of any part thereof nor intend to incroach or intrude upon the Sacred bounds of your Royal Authority to whom and to whom only we acknowledg it doth belong to resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most noble Prince your Son But as your most Loyal and humble Subjects and Servants representing the whole Commons of your Kingdom who have a large interest in the happy and prosperous estate of your Majesty and your Royal Posterity and of the flourishing Estate of our Church and Common-wealth did resolve out of our Cares and Fears truly and plainly to demonstrate these things to your Majesty which we were not assured could otherwise come so fully and clearly to your knowledg and that being done to lay the same down at your Majesties feet without expectation of any other answer of your Majesty touching these higher points than what at your good pleasure and in your own time should be held fit This being the effect of that we had formerly resolved upon and these the occasions and reasons inducing the same our humble suit to your Majesty and confidence is that your Majesty will be graciously pleased to receive at the hands of these our Messengers our former humble Declaration and Petition and to vouchsafe to read and favourably to interpret the same And that to so much thereof as containeth our humble Petition concerning Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants the passage of Bills and granting your Royal Pardon you will vouchsafe an answer unto us And whereas your Majesty by the general words of your Letter seemeth to restrain us from intermedling with matters of Government or particulars which have their motion in the Courts of Justice the generality of which words
press upon our most undoubted and Regal Prerogative as if the petitioning of Us in matters that your selves confess ye ought not to meddle with were not a medling with them And whereas ye pretend that ye were invited to this course by the Speeches of three honourable Lords ye thy so much as your selves repeat of the Speeches nothing can be concluded but that We were resolved by War to regain the Palatinate if otherwise We could not attain unto it And you were invited to advise forthwith upon a Supply for keeping the Forces in the Palatinate from disbanding and to fore-see the means for the raising and maintaining of the Body of an Army for that War against the Spring Now what inference can be made upon this That therefore we must presently denounce War against the King of Spain break our dearest Son's Match and Match him to one of Our Religion Let the world judge The difference is no greater than if we would tell a Merchant that We had great need to borrow money from him for raising an Army that thereupon it should follow that We were bound to follow his advice in the Directions of the War and all things depending thereupon But yet not contenting your Selves with this excuse of yours which indeed cannot hold water ye come after to a direct contradiction to the conclusion of your former Petition saying that the Honor and Safety of Us and Our posterity and the patrimony of our Children invaded and possessed by their Enemies the welfare of Religion and State of Our Kingdom are matters at any time not unfit for your deepest considerations in Parliament To this generality We answer with the Logicians That where all things are contained nothing is omitted So as this plenipotency of yours invests you in all power upon Earth lacking nothing but the Popes to have the Keyes also both of Heaven ahd Purgatory And to this vast generality of yours we can give no other Answer for it will trouble all the best Lawyers in the House to make a good Commentary upon it For so did the Puritan Ministers in Scotland bring all kind of Causes within the compass of their Jurisdiction saying That it was the Churches Office to judge of Slander and there could no kind of crime or fault be committed but there was a slander in it either against God the King or their Neighbour and by this means they hooked into themselves the too fair a ground and opened them too Wide a Gate for Curbing and oppressing of many thousands of our Religion in divers parts of Christendom And whereas you excuse your touching upon the King of Spain upon occasion of the incidents by you repeated in that place and yet affirm that it is without any touch to his Honour We cannot wonder enough that ye are so forgetful both of your Words and Writs For in your former Petition ye plainly affirm that he affects the Temporal Monarchy of the whole Earth then which there can be no more malice uttered against any great King to make all other Princes and Potentates both envie and hate him But if ye list it may be easily tried whether that Speech touched him in Honour or not if we shall ask him the Question whether he means to assume to himself that Title or no For every King can best judge of his own Honour We omit the particular ejaculations of some foul mouthed Orators in your House against the Honour of his Crown and State And touching your excuse of not determining any thing concerning the Match of our dearest Son but only to tell your opinions and lay it down at Our feet First We desire to know how you could have presumed to determin in that point without Committing of high Treason And next you cannot deny but your talking of his Match after that manner was a direct breach of Our commandment and Declaration out of Our own mouth at the first sitting down of this Parliament where we plainly professed that we were in treaty of his Match with Spain and wished you to have that Confidence in our Religion and Wisdom that We would so manage it as Our Religion should receive no prejudice by it And the same We now repeat unto you professing that We are so far engaged in that March as we cannot in Honour go back except the King of Spain perform not such things as we expect at his hands And therefore We are sorry that ye should shew to have so great Distrust in Us or to conceive that We should be cold in our Religion otherwise We cannot imagine how Our former public Declaration should not have stopt your mouths in this point And as to your Request That We would now receive your former Petition We wonder what could make you presume that We would not receive it whereas in our former Letter We plainly declared the Contrary unto you and therefore we have justly rejected that suit of yours For what have you left un-attempted in the Highest points of Soveraignty in that Petition of yours except the striking of Coin For it contains the violation of Leagues the particular way how to govern a War and the Marriage of our dearest Son both Negative with Spain nay with any other Popish Princess And also Affirmatively as to the Matching with one of Our Religion which We confess is a strain beyond any Providence or Wisdom God hath given Us as things now stand These are unfit things to be handled in Parliament except your King should require it of you For who can have Wisdom to judge of things of that Nature but such as are daily acquainted with the particulars of Treaties and of the Variable or fixed Connexion of Affairs of State together with the knowledge of the secret ways ends and intentions of Princes in their several Negotiations otherwise a small mistaking in matters of this Nature may produce more effects than can be imagined And therefore Nesutor ultra crepidam And besides the intermedling in Parliament with matters of Peace or War and Marriage of Our dearest Son would be such a diminution to Us and to Our Crown in forraign Countries as would make any Prince neglect to treat with Us either in matters of Peace or Marriage except they might be assured by the assent of Parliament And so it proved long ago with a King of France who upon a trick procuring his States to dissent from some Treaty which before he had made was after refused treating with any other Princes to his great reproach unless he would first procure the Assent of his Estates to their Proposition And will you cast your eyes upon the late Times you shall find that the late Queen of Famous memory was humbly petitioned by a Parliament to be pleased to marry But her Answer was that she liked their petition well because it was simple not limiting her to place or person as not besitting her liking to their Fancies and if they had done otherwise she would
were not well pleased with it which made them present him with this Petition thus Subsigned The Humble Petition of the Nobility of England THat whereas your Majesty at the importunity of some natural Subjects of this Realm of England hath been pleased to confer upon them Honours Titles and Dignities peculiar to other your Majestie 's Dominions by which all the Nobility of this Realm either in themselves their Children or both find they are prejudiced Our humble desire is that with your gracious allowance we may challenge and preserve our Birth-rights And that we may take no more notice of these Titulars to our Prejudice than the Law of this Land doth but that we may be excused if in civil courtesie we give them not the respect or place as to Noblemen strangers seeing that these being our Country Men born and inheritanced under our Laws their families and abode among us have yet procured their Translation into foreign names only to our injury But in this address to your Sacred Majesty it is far from Us to meddle with much less to limit or interpret the Power of your Soveraignty knowing that your Majesty being the Root whence all Honour receives Sap under what Title soever may collate what you please upon whom when and how you please Wherefore in all humbleness We present this to your gracious view confident of your Majesties equal favour herein 1. Oxford 2. Huntington 3. Essex 4. Lincoln 5. Dorset 6. Salisbury 7. Warwick 8. Abergavenie 9. Dacres 10. Darcie 11. Stafford 12. Willoughbie 13. Sheffeild 14. Windsor 15. Gray 16. Wentworth 17. Mordant 18. Scroop 19. Cromwell 20. Sturton 21. Howard 22. St. Iohn 23. Paget 24. Russell 25. Gerrard 26. Dudley 27. Hunsdon 28. Denny 29. Spencer 30. Haughton 31. Stanhope 32. Say 33. Noell Thus we see the Errors of Princes are sometimes put into the Scale and they bring with them so much trouble and vexation that they often weigh down their Glory and Happiness for no man can feel the load and burthen of it but he that wears a Crown The King was conscious to himself that he had done these Noblemen injury especially the Barons to advance their inferiours above them for a little profit either to himself or his Courtiers And if he had not heard of this Petition before such a Troop of attendance together might have startled him but being prepared for it he mustered up his Spirits thinking it too great an abasement for Majesty to stoop at their Summons being so publick an Action or to lesson or recall what he had done Yet he was troubled not knowing what quarrels the strife for place and precedency might produce or what ill blood the discontent of so many of the Nobility at one time might ingender Therefore he sent for them all or the most eminent and leading men of them some days after and expostulated the business with them one by one in private knowing he could deal best with them so beginning with some of them roughly yet still he closed with them at last his anger being as it were raised to make them humble and reconcile themselves to him that he might the better reconcile himself to them And to the Earl of Essex he vented this Expression I fear thee not Essex if thou wert as well beloved as thy father and hadst forty thousand men at thy heels Which words he uttered as if he had chid himself that they made an escape from him And though this Petition did not derogate from the Dignity of those creations past yet the King willingly restrained himself for the time to come But the House of Commons found the King's Letters to entangle the way rather than make a free passage to their Liberties for that which was their birth-right would now come to be derived from his Ancestors And for all the King's finenesses they thought Religion very un secure for as long as the bent of his Affections tended to the Spanish match there must needs be a wide Gap open as an inlet to Popery and if it may be made Treason for his Parliament to advise him from it they saw but a very small door left open to liberty But whatsoever befell them they resolved to leave to posterity some prints and footsteps of their Parliamentary Rights and Privileges left them by their great Ancestors that though they could not preserve them intire those that succeed them might at least find some Reliques and ruins of what they had Which made them make this Protestation recorded in their Iournal Book 19. Dec. 1621. THe Commons now Assembled in Parliament being justly occasioned thereunto concerning sundry Liberties Franchises and Privileges of Parliament among others here mentioned do make this Protestation following That the Liberties Franchises Privileges and Iurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted Birth-right and inheritance of the Subjects of England And that the arduous and urgent affairs concerning the King State and defence of the Realm and of the Church of England and the Maintenance and making of Laws and redress of Mischiefs and grievances which daily happen within this Realm are proper Subjects and matter of Counsel and debate in Parliament And that in the handling and proceeding of those businesses every Member of Parliament hath and of right ought to have freedom of Speech to propound treat reason and bring to Conclusion the same And that the Commons in Parliament have likewise liberty and freedom to treat of these Matters in such order as in their judgments shall seem fittest And that every Member of the said House hath like Freedom from all impeachment imprisonment and Molestation other then by censure of the house it self for or concerning any speaking reasoning or declaring of any matter or matters touching the Parliament or Parliament business And that if any of the said Members be complained of and questioned for any thing done or said in Parliament the same is to be shewed to the King by the advice and assent of all the Commons assembled in Parliament before the King give credence to any private information The King was again Alarum'd by this Protestation and he that naturally loved Peace both at home and abroad found a loud War in his own Breast which indeed was in effect raised by himself for no wisdom could resolve the Intricacies of his Resolutions but his own for he would have a War with the Emperor in Contemplation and a Treaty with the King of Spain in Action both at one time who were as it were one person and because the Parliament like wise Mathematicians would use the Practical part as well as the Theory he was enraged against them and his Prerogative stept in as a stickler and broke out like an Exhalation in thundring and terror to the Astonishment and fear of his people which made them shrowd themselves from those storms by creeping under the Shelter of their Native liberties And now the King flies from his
by the Text of Scripture free both the Doctrine and the Discipline of the Church of England from the aspersions of either adversary especially where the Auditory is Suspected to be tainted with the One or the other infection 6. Lastly that the Arch-Bishops and Bishops of the Kingdom whom his Majesty hath good cause to blame for this former remissness be more wary and choice in their licensing of Preachers and revoke all Grants made to any Chancellor Official or Commissary to pass Licences in this kind And that all the Lecturers throughout the Kingdom of England a new Body severed from the ancient Clergy as being neither Parsons Vicars nor Curates be licensed henceforward in the Court of Faculties but only from a Recommendation of the Party from the Bishop of the Diocess under his hand and seal with a Fiat from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Confirmation under the great Seal of England And that such as do transgress any one of these Directions be suspended by the Bishop of the Diocess or in his default by the Arch-Bishop of the Province ab officio beneficio for a Year and a Day until his Majesty by the advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further punishment The Directions the Archbishop recommended to his several Diocesans that they might be put in execution with caution And then may be observed that the King's affections tended to the peaceable comportment of his people that both Papist and Puritan might have a quiet being which preponderation of His puts them in Aequi-librio nay the Papist was in the prime Scale But this new thing called a Lecturer he could by no means endure unless he past through all the Briers of his several Courts to the Broad Seal which was a kind of pungent Ordeal Tryal to which he must put his Teste me ipso and then it was Orthodox so that though Lecturers were not absolutely forbidden yet the charge and trouble to come to it made the way inaccessible Preachers by an Order of Star-chamber in Heaven were first licensed with an Ite praedicate before Henry the Eighth's time and certainly they have a great Seal from thence for what they do Therefore it behoves them to take heed what they say left that Spirit they receive Directions from bind them not up But this Animosity of the King 's against Puritans was thought to be fomented by the Papists whose Agent Bishop Laud was suspected to be though in Religion he had a Motley form by himself and would never as a Priest told me plainly in Flanders bring his neck under the obedience of the Roman Yoak though he might stickle for the grandure of the Clergy And now he began to be Buckingham's Confessor as he expresseth in his own Notes and wore the Court Livery though the King had a sufficient character of him and was pleased with Asseveration to protest his incentive Spirit should be kept under that the flame should not break out by any Preferment from him But that was now forgotten and he crept so into favour that he was thought to be the Bellows that blew these Fires For the Papists used all the Artifices they could to make a breach between the King and his People that they might enter at the same for their own Ends which to accomplish they slily close with the chief ministers of State to put the King upon all his Projects and Monopolies displeasing to the people that they might the more Alienate their Affections from him Sowing their seeds of Division also betwixt Puritan and Protestant so that like the second Commandment they quite exclude the Protestant For all those were Puritans with this high-grown-Arminian-popish party that held in judgment the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches or in practice live according to the Doctrine publickly taught in the Church of England And they attribute the name of Protestant 1. To such Papists as either out of policy or by popish indulgence hold outward Communion with the Church of England 2. To such Protestants as were either tainted with or inclinable to their opinions 3. To indifferent Men who imbrace always that Religion that shall be commanded by Authority Or 4. To such Neutrals as care for no Religion but such as stands with their own liking so that they allow the Church of England the Refuse both of their Religion and Ours Then they strive to make a Division of Regians and Republicans The Regians are the great Dependents upon the Crown both in Church and State who swell up the Prerogative preaching and distilling into the King the Almightiness of his power That all that the People hath is the King 's and that it is by his mercy they have a bare empty Being And this hoisting up of the King they knew would stir up the Republicans to oppose him in his Designs by which they pinch as the King thinks his Prerogative feeding a strife betwixt Law and Prerogative whereby they escape the Dint of both and hope the fire they kindle will break out at last to consume their Adversaries That these things were acted and fomented by Papists was very probable for they were great Sticklers about the Court and Council-Table But it was too apparent that some of the Clergy to make their way the smoother to their wished end began so to adore the King that he could not be named but more reverence was done to it than to the Name of God And the Iudges in their itinerant Circuits the more to enslave the people to Obedience being to speak of the King would give him such Sacred and Oraculous Titles as if their advancement to higher places must necessarily be laid upon the foundation of the peoples debasement On the other side The well affected to Religion that knew no other inclination than the Dictates of their own Reason experiences of former times and the constant practices of the Romanists for propagating their own designs did by their writings and discourses strive to warm the King 's cold temper and put fresh spirits into his chilled veins shewing the Tyranny of the incroaching Monarchy of the House of Austria who was Rome's great Factor and how just and secure the opposing of such a growing power will be That no Sword is so sharp nor Arm 's so strong as those that are cemented with true Religion The security of Conscience grounded upon the Word of Truth being not only a Bulwark to defend but the best Engin to oppose Idolatry and Ambition Thus stood the Kingdom divided in it self But as the King strove after this Rupture betwixt him and the Parliament to settle things at home and keep his people in obedience so he was as active abroad to keep up his own Reputation For he made a full account to salve up all these miscarriages by the intended Match with Spain that his people might see he could discern further into the intrinsical matters of State than they and so make the
Canterbury knowing that a Toleration was to be admitted though he stood tottering in the King's Favour and had the Badg of a Puritan clapt upon him thought it better to discharge his Conscience though he hazarded all rather than be silent in such a Cause where the Glory of God and the Good of the Kingdom were so higly concerned Therefore he writes this letter to the King May it please your Majesty I Have been too long silent and am afraid by my Silence I have neglected the Duty of the Place it hath pleased God to call me unto and your Majesty to place me in And now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience towards God and my Duty to your Majesty And therefore I beseech your Majesty give me leave freely to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do with me what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you Sir take into your consideration what the Act is next what the consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up that most Damnable and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How Hateful will it be to God and grievous unto your good Subjects the true Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often disputed and learnedly written against those wicked Heresies should now shew your self a Patron of those Doctrines which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tels your Self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable Add hereunto what you have done in sending the Prince into Spain without the consent of your Council the Privity and Approbation of your People And though Sir you have a large Interest in the Prince as the Son of your Flesh yet hath the people a greater as the Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty their Eyes are fixed and Welfare depends And so tenderly is his going apprehended as believe it Sir however his return may be safe yet the drawers of him to that Action so dangerous to himself to desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestioned and unpunished Besides this Toleration which you endeavour to set up by Proclamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty would let your Subjects see That you will take unto your self a liberty to throw down the Laws of the Land at your Pleasure What dreadful Consequence these things may draw after them I beseech your Majesty to consider And above all lest by this Toleration and discontinuance of the true profession of the Gospel whereby God hath blessed us and under which this Kingdom hath for many years flourished your Majesty do not draw upon the Kingdom in general and your Self in particular God's heavy Wrath and Indignation Thus in discharge of my Duty towards God to your Majesty and the place of my Calling I have taken humble Boldness to deliver my Conscience And now Sir do with me what you please Thus did our Solomon in his latter time though he had fought with the Beasts at Ephesus as one saith of him incline a little too much to the Beast Yet he made his tale so good to the Archbishop of Canterbury what reservations soever he had that he wrought upon the good old man afterwards in the Conclusion of the work to set his Hand as a Witness to the Articles And his desires were so heightned to the Heats of Spain which boyl'd him to such a Distemper that he would listen to nothing and almost yield to any thing rather than not to enjoy his own Humour Divers of his intimate Council affecting Popery were not slack to urge him to a Toleration and many Arguments were used inciting to it As that Catholicks were the King 's best and most peaceable Subjects the Puritans being the only Sticklers and the greatest Disturbers of the Royal peace trenching too boldly upon the Prerogative and striving to lessen the Kingly power But if the King had occasion to make use of the Catholicks he should find them more faithful to him than those that are ever contesting with him And why should not Catholicks with as much safety be permitted in England as the Protestants are in France That their Religion was full of Love and Charity where they could enjoy it with freedom and where Charity layes the Foundation the upper Building must needs be spiritual But these Arguments were answered and many reasons alledged against them proving the Nature of the Protestant Religion to be Compatible with the Nature of the Politick Laws of any State of what Religion soever Because it teacheth that the Government of any State whether Monarchial or Aristocratical is Supream within it self and not subordinate to any power without so that the Knot of Allegiance thereunto is so firmly tied that no Humane power can unloose or dissolve it Whereas on the contrary the Roman Religion acknowledging a Supremacy in another above that power which swayeth the State whereof they are Members must consequently hold that one stroke of that Supreme power is able to unsinew and cut in sunder all the Bonds which ty them to the Subordinate and Dependent Authority And therefore can ill accord with the Allegiance which Subjects owe to a Prince of their own Religion which makes Papists intolerable in a Protestant Common-wealth For what Faith can a Prince or People expect from them whose Tenet is That no Faith is to be held with Hereticks That the Protestants in France had merited better there than the Papists had done in England the one by their Loyalties to their lawful King having ransomed that Kingdom with their Bloods in the Pangs of her desperate Agonies from the Yoak of an Usurper within and the Tyranny of a Forain Scepter without The other seeking to write their Disloyalties in the Heart-Blood of the Princes and best Subjects of this Kingdom That the Number and Quality of the Professors of these different Religions in either Kingdom is to be observed For in France the Number of the Protestants were so great that a Toleration did not make them but found them a Considerable Party so strong as they could not have been suppressed without endangering the Kingdom But a Toleration in England would not find but form the Papists to be a considerable party witness their encrease by this late Connivency a thing which ought mainly to be avoided For the distraction of a State into several powerfull parties is alwaies weakning and often proveth the utter ruine thereof These thing were laid open to the King but all were waved by the King of Spain's Offering His engagement to the Pope by oath That he and the Prince his son should observe and keep the Articles stipulated betwixt them did exceedingly affect him And the Articles now coming to close up all they were ingrossed with a long preamble Declaring to all the World the much desired Union betwixt him and the King of Spain by the marriage of his son to
the Infanta Maria sister to the King To which end he had sent his Son into Spain to treat and conclude the match together with George Duke of Buckingham Iohn Earl of Bristol Sir Walter Astone and Sir Francis Cottington Baronets Commissioners on his part for the said Treaty And on the behalf of the King of Spain Iohn de Mendoza and Luna Marquess of Monstes Claros Didacus Sarmiento de Acuna Earl of Gondemar and Iohn de Cirica Secretary to the Secret Council Which Commissioners for both parts qualified by a Dispensation from his Holiness after long and deliberate Dispute in so serious a matter Communi consensu atque judicio in aliqout Capitulationes conditiones ad rem terminandam absolvendam accommodata quae sic se habent convenerunt by one consent and judgment had determined and concluded the same Then followed the before recited Articles after which this long Postscript attesting them Effigies eximÿ viri Dn̄i Didaci Salmienti de Acuna Comitis de Gondomaere EQuitis nobli ordinis Calatravae This Train of Witnesses are set down to shew who were then of Our King's Council though some of them set their hands to it much against their wills and swore with as little zeal to observe and keep as much as in them lay all the aforesaid Articles Such Power have Kings over mens Reasons and Consciences There was some little Contest betwixt our King and the King of Spains Ambassadours about some particular Ceremonies observed in swearing of these Articles For our King having written and spoken against the Popes Holiness would not admit him to be so styled in his Oath But the Ambassadours refused to proceed further unless that Title were consented unto so that Our King affecting ever to be accounted a Peace-maker though he where Defender of the Faith was forced to lay by his Shield admitting him to be holy who was most unholy and so the strife ended Some other little things were stood upon by the Ambassadours but the King's Patience surmounted all their Demands And in the Close of the Businesse he invited the Ambassadours to a Royall Feast at Whitehal where after dinner retiring into the Council-Chamber The King took another private Oath to observe certain Articles in favour of Roman Catholicks for a free exercise of their Religion in all his Dominions Wherein he protested to do what in him lay that the Parliament should confirm the same And thus was the great Business accomplished which gave Our King so much content that being transported with an assurance of the Match he was heard to say Now all the Devils in Hell cannot hinder it So secure was he of it in his own Opinion But one that heard him said to others standing by That there was never a Devil now left in Hell for they were now all gone into Spain to make up the Match This forwardness of the Union with Spain and indulgence to Papists made Iesuits and Priests swarm in every corner setting up their subtile Traps to catch wavering Spirits And they could not hear of a man of estate that was sick for persons of Quality were only aimed at but they would tamper with his weak conscience and persuade him to the Charity of their Religion whereby his Soul that was tainted with earthly corruptions and must needs be purged by Fire before it can come to God should escape the pains of Purgatory or if it went thither their Prayers could redeem them thence with such stuff as this deceiving many poor Soules But their most specious jugling Argument which did catch many ignorant persons was the Visibility of their Church in all Ages as they pretended and their great Question Where the Protestant Church was before Luther Among the rest one Edward Buggs Esquire living in London aged seventy years and an old professed Protestant was seduced by them in his Sickness and after his recovery being troubled in mind at his request and desire there was a publick conference and dispute appointed at Sir Lind's House Lind being a friend to Buggs and a Gentleman of great knowledge and integrity who was able to grapple with the Iesuits himself yet he modestly desired Doctor White and Doctor Featly Protestants to encounter with Father Fisher and Father Sweet Jesuits Where Featly laid their jugling tricks at their Doores protesting to acknowledg himself overcome by them if they could prove out of any good Author let them brag what they would of the Visibility of their Church in all ages that in City Parish or Hamlet within five Hundred years next after Christ there was any visible assembly of Christians to to be named maintaining or defending either the Council of Trent in general or these Points of Popery in special 1. That there is a Treasury of Saints Merits and super abundant Satisfactions at the Pope's disposing 2. That the Laity are not commanded by Christ's Institution to receive the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper in both kinds 3. That the Publick Service of God in the Church ought or may be celebrated in an unknown tongue 4. That Private Masses wherein the Priest saith Edite bibite ex hoc omnes and yet eateth and drinketh himself only are according to Christ's Institution 5. That the Pope's Pardons are requisite or useful to release Souls out of Purgatory 6. That the effect of the Sacrament dependeth upon the Intention of the Minister Here Mr. Sweet interrupted him saying These were Scholastical Points not Fundamental To which Doctor White replied Those things which are defined in your Council of Trent are to you matters Fundamental And whatsoever Article denied makes a Man an Heretick is Fundamental But the denyal of any of these make a Man an Heretick Ergo Every one of these Articles is Fundamental To which Argument nothing being answered Doctor Featly proceeded 7. That extream Unction is a Sacrament properly so called 8. That we may worship God by an Image 9. That the Sacred Host ought to be elevated or carried in solemn Procession 10. That Infidels and impious persons yea Rats and Mice may eat the Body of Christ. 11. That all Ecclesiastical Power dependeth on the Pope 12. That he cannot err in matters of Faith 13. That he hath Power to Canonize Saints to dispose of Kings and Kingdomes at his pleasure c. But the Iesuits not being able to prove that any of these things were in practice in the Primitive Times of Christianity but that they wene fobb'd in by several Popes and Councils in latter times to serve their own turns waved the Argument and insisted upon other particulars not material to the Point striving to confound one thing with another as their manner is that they might complicate and wrap up in obscurity all that was spoken Which Mr. Buggs perceiving rested fully satisfied and confirmed in the Truth But thus the Iesuits ranged up and down seeking whom they might devour and their Insolency being greater and more notorious at this
the Rere but the Horse passed the fourth Passage before the Enemy came up Then Brunswick drew off his Cannon and marched away to the fifth Passage leaving Kniphuisen who undertook it voluntarily with two thousand Musqueteers to make good that Passsage which was of that advantage that half the men might have done it and two Regiments of Horse were left to give assistance to the Foot to bring them off when they should retire and joyn with the Army But the Van-guard of Brunswick's Army had scarce entred the fifth Passage but he discovered some Musqueteers running towards a Wood that was on this side and not far from the fourth Passage and riding back to see whether all stood firm he met Kniphuisen and askt him if the Passage was made good Who answered Take you no care trust me But presently discovering some of the Officers that had command of the Musqueteers running towards the Army he took a more lively apprehension that the Passage was lost and meeting Kniphuisen with some heat told him he had betrayed him But Kniphuisen excused himself that he could not keep it against an Army and complained that the Horse had abandoned him But said he the next Passage is of as great importance as the last and I will undertake to keep that upon forfeiture of my Head to redeem my Credit again and to that end he desired an entire Regiment of Foot which the Duke granted him but assured him he should answer it if any ill succeeded by his default Whilest the Army was passing the fifth Passage the Duke sent to know whether the Horse placed according to his Direction in the Rere made good their Station and he had intimation that the Horse were retired close to a Wood and by that means discovered the Foot to the Enemy And the Army was no sooner passed the fifth Passage but Kniphuisen quitted it to the Enemy without so much as a Musquet shot from them And the more to weaken his force before he quitted the Passage he comes to the Duke and tells him but it was not true that the Enemy with thirty Cornets of Horse struck towards the left hand to cut away to the Baggage to possess that And Brunswick looking about perceived within a little Wood not far off a Body of Horse which proved to be the Prince of Ouldenburgh who was Colonel of a Regiment of a thousand Horse whom he sent to resist the Enemy if they should attempt upon the Baggage And advancing his Army to the sixth Passage he passed that also before the Enemy came to it but here was Brunswick's Error in trusting Kniphuisen the third time which was only as he said to redeem his former faults for he gave the keeping of this sixth Passage to him also which he delivered to the Enemy at their first approach as he did the others And drawing the Rere-guard out of the way on the right hand contrary to Brunswick's commands and the General of the Ordnance striking out on the left hand with his Body and Cannon and Stirum sheltring himself in the Woods with his Horse The Enemy advanced freely seeing them thus scattered and charged on all sides with his whole Power But little resistance being made the General Officers leaving the Field every one shifted for himself Some escaped over Statloo Bridge many were drowned in the River the slaughter and ruin was great so was the Confusion and fear Sir Charles Rich being with Brunswick in this disorderly business escaped a great danger for in their flight his Horse fell into a Bogg where Brunswick and the rest left him sticking But being a Spritely Horse that his Brother the Earl of Warwick had given him with much labour he plunged himself out and saved both himself and his Rider The Reliques of this broken Army that scaped the Author saw at Eltem on the Hill in Cleveland and this Relation was made by the Duke of Brunswick to Maurice Prince of Orange for his own Vindication And from a French Copy that the Duke gave to the Earl of Essex he translated it then into English that some of our Nation there might partake of the true knowledge of his Misfortunes And the Duke cited his chief Officers to appear before Prince Maurice where he laid this Accusation to their charge but either the Duke had no power over them being in a strange Country or no proof against them for this strange Miscarriage being accounted among them La Fortane de la Guerre but Chance of War for they all escaped without Punishment And some years after Kniphuisen was thought fit in the Duke of Buckingham's Voyage to the Isle of Ree to be a field-Officer in the English Army which almost if not altogether thriv'd as ill So uncertain is the true State of intricate Transactions for that which is obvious and visible may be believed an Error but secret mischiefs are left to his Discovery who only knows the heart France about this time had her wounds bound up and stancht the bloody Issue by the Pacification of Montpelier but it broke out again at Rochel where some English ships did the King of France service pressed thereto by the Duke of Guise Admiral of France and though it carried a bad savour then that they should fight against the Protestants being forced thereto yet it was not so enormous and dangerous to them as when the Duke of Buckingham afterwards did force the Van-guard a prime Ship of Our King 's and six other gallant Ships out of the English hands and put them into French fingring that they might do the mischief with them Which Act was laid upon the Duke's Account among other hainous Crimes by him committed and he had dearly payed for it if the Prince his Fellow-Traveller in the first year of whose Reign it was done had not acquitted him But in their intimate and secret Counsels in France it was debated whether it were not better to pull such a Goad of Hereticks as they called the Protestants out of the side of the Kingdome that stuck there to their continual Vexation and trouble rather than have their pain perpetually renewed being impossible to heal the Sore but by such an extirpation so much rancour and inveterate Malice sprung up in the Popish Party against them of the Religion that the Animosity of it extended to little less than another Massacre And though Our King who may be said to love them gave them no countenance whatsoever his Promises were otherwise than by intreating for them being a tickle and tender point as he thought to partake with Subjects against their Prince yet God 〈◊〉 them Deliverance such are the Dispensations of his Providence by one that hated their Religion as much if not more than the French For the King of Spain doubling his Ambition possest himself about this time of some parts of the Valtolin thinking to bound France towards Italie the Alpes being not so high as his thoughts as the
good Gardiners you pluck up the weeds that will choak your labours and the greatest weeds among you are jealousies root them out for my Actions I dare avow them before God but jealousies are of a strange depth I am the husband and you the wife and it is subject to the wife to be jealous of her husband Let this be far from you It hath been talked of my remisness in maintainance of Religion and suspicion of a toleration but as God shall judge me I never thought nor meant or ever in word expressed any thing that savored of it It is true that at times best known to my self I did not so fully put those lawes in execution but did wink and Connive at some things which might have hindred more weighty Affaires But I never in all my Treaties agreed to any thing to the overthrow or disagreeing of those Lawes But in all I had a chief regard to the preservation of that Truth which I have ever professed And in that respect as I have a Charitable conceit of you I would have you have the like of me also in which I did not transgress For it is a good Horseman's part not alwayes to use the Spur nor keep streight the Reign but sometimes to use the Spur and sometimes to suffer the Reign more remiss So it is the part of a Wise King and my Age and experience have informed me sometimes to quicken the Laws with strict Execution and at other times upon just Occasion to be more remiss And I would also remove from your thoughts all jealousies that I might or ever did question or infringe any of your lawful liberties or privileges But I protest before God I ever intended you should injoy the fulness of all those that from antient times give good Warrant and Testimony of which if need be I will inlarge and amplifie Therefore I would have you as I have in this place heretofore told you as Saint Paul did Timothy avoid Genealogies and curious questions and quirks and jerks of Law and idle innovations and if you minister me no just Occasion I never yet was nor ever will be curious or captious to quarrel with you But I desire you to avoid all doubts and hindrances and to compose your selves speedily and quietly to this weighty affair Carry your selves modestly and my Prayers shall be to God for you and my love shall be alwayes with you that a happy Conclusion may attend this Parliament God is my Judge I speak it as a Christian King never any way faring Man in the burning drie and sandy Desarts more thirsted for water to quench his thirst than I thirst and long for the happy success of this Parliament that the good issue of this may expiate and aâ—quit the fruitless issue of the former And I pray God your Counsels may advance Religion the publick weal and the good of me and my Children When the King had thus ended the Lord Keeper Williams Bishop of Lincoln and Speaker to the House of Peers who uses always to make the King's mind further known if there because told the Parliament That after the Eloquent speech of his Majesty he would not say anything for as one of the Spartan Kings being asked whether he would not willingly hear a man that counterfeited the voice of the Nightingale to the life made answer He had heard the Nightingale So for him to repeat or rehearse what the King had said was according to the Latine Proverb to enamel a Golden Ring with studs of iron He doubted not but that the King's Speech had like Aeschines Orations left in their minds a sting And as an Historian said of Nerva that having adopted Trajan he was immediately taken away Nepost divinum et immortale factum aliquid mortale faceret So he would not dare after his Majesties Divinum et immortale dictum mortale aliquid addere HONORATISS et REUERENDISS Dê° IOHANES WILIAMES EPISC. LINC et MAG SIGILL ANG 〈◊〉 The right Honourable and right-reverend father in god Iohn Lorde Bishop of Lincolne Lord keeper of the greate Seale of England and one of his Ma.ties most hon ble princes Counsell But the Parliament though they knew there was an intention of a Toleration of Popery upon the close of the Spanish match sealed up as it were their lips and would not see the light that discovered it self through this cloud that the King cast before it though some of the Commons had much ado to hold which he takes notice of at the next Interview and thanks them for but they went on directly to his Business making it their own forgetting all former miscarriages And upon the 24. of this moneth the Duke of Buckingham accompanied with the Prince as his Remembrancer made a long Relation of all the transactions in Spain to both Houses with all the advantage he could to make good his own Actions some of the Particulars whereof are already related And he took the first Discovery of the intention of the King of Spain not to deal fairly with Our King touching the Restitution of the Palatinate from the Arch-dutchess jugling in the Treaty at Bruxels which was managed by Sir Richard Weston our King's Ambassadour there who urged for a Cessation of Armes in the Palatinate the Arch-Dutchess pretending Power to draw off the Spanish Forces if Our King would first draw off his it came to an Agreement but in the close after some Delayes she confessed she had no Power to admit of a Cessation till she had more particular warrant for it out of Spain That these shufflings made Our King send Porter into Spain for a more resolute answer in relation to the Match and the Palatinate and assigned him but ten dayes to stay there In which time Bristol fed him with Hopes which he found very Empty ones whereupon Porter went boldly to Olivares who in an open-hearted way told him plainly that Spain meant neither the Match nor Restitution of the Palatinate Bristol seeing Porter would return with this answer persuaded him to speak with Olivares again who coming to Olivares found him much incensed for relating the private intimation he gave him to Bristol the Publick minister and denyed to speak with Porter anymore Bristol still puffs up Our King with an assurance both of the Match and restitution of the Palatinate but they proceeding slowly the Prince desired that he might go himself into Spain which Buckingham first broke to the King who with Reasons laid down for it was drawn to it When the Prince came there the Match at first was absolutely denied unless he would be converted which Bristol perswaded the Prince unto at least in shew to expedite his Business Then the Spanish Ministers urged for a Toleration of Religion in England which they hoped as some of them expressed would cause a Rebellion and they offered the Prince an Army to Assist him for the Suppression of the same But the Prince finding the Spanish did
but dallie with him left a Proxie with Bristol to conclude the Match when the Dispensation came which the Prince forbad him to deliver Bristol nevertheless proceeds and if Gresley had not brought a Revocation of the Proxie from the King over night Bristol had made the Espousalls the next day And alwaies at the end of every point he would look upon the Prince for his approbation and allowance who still as the Duke went on confirmed the same And so Buckingham concluded that if the drawing of us out of Darkness into Light did deserve thanks we all owed it to the Prince who by the Hazard of his Person and by his great care and industry had done this for Us. The Parliament that looked upon the Duke with a Sour Eye for tempting the Prince to so dangerous a journey when they found what excellent effects it had produced forgot the Old Murmurs buzzed against him and with elevated Voices could scarce be contained from acknowledging him The Preserver of the Nation This his discovery is Cryed up every where and who but the Duke is become the Darling of the Multitude So dear then was the Prince unto the People that they tendred his safety as their own and so easily might he have retained his Love if by grasping after Shadows he had not lost the Substance For those people are the soonest deceived that love most to admire The Parliament were but men and could at present see no more than the Duke was pleased to shew them through the flattering glass of this Relation But when Bristol came over and as afterwards he did discover that the Duke carried the Prince purposely into Spain to be the better instructed in Popery That he gave hope to the Spanish Ministers of State of the Prince's Conversion which made them propound far worse Conditions for Religion than had been formerly agreed on That he professed himself a Papist there going to Mass kneeling to and adoring their Sacraments which the Pope being informed of sent the Duke a Bull to perswade and incourage him to pervert the King and Prince with other pernicious Crimes laid to his Charge in the next King's reign as may appear in due time None can blame the People for Mutable affections for when false-hood is so impudent as to hoodwink such an Assembly with the vail that Truth her self is wont to put on who can at an instant discover it But it was a hard Condition for the banished Palatine to have such Mediators as Buckingham Bristol and Weston to make intercession for him the Temper of whose Spirits was well known and which way their affections tended But now the load is all laid upon Bristol though he were at the distance of not being sensible of it yet it was so heavy that most Men thought he would never come to have it taken off But all things were passed over by the Parliament that reflected upon particulars having in their eye the general good of the Kingdom which they strove to manage with advantage And the Treaty of the Marriage with Spain being put into their hands they crushed the brood in the nest advising the King to break the Treaty and proclaim open War with that King Which they did not do suddainly as if they had been eager upon a War but with good advice and deliberate consideration as the most immediate means for the establishment of Religion and setled Peace protesting to assist the King for the regaining of the Palatinate with their lives and fortunes Upon which Declaration and Resolution the King determined to send instantly post into Spain to his Ambassadors to signifie to that King that the Parliament advised him to break off the Treaties and to recover the Palatinate by War and the Post had his Dispatch to that purpose when the King repented him of what he had done and like the Husband how jealous of his Wife writes to Secretary Conway this Letter to impede and delay the Business I doubt not but you have heard what a stinging Petition against the Papists the Lower House have sent to the Higher House this day that they might joyntly present it to me you know my firm Resolution not to make this a War of Religion And seeing I would be loth to be Conny-catcht by my People I pray you stay the Post that is going into Spain till I meet with my Son who will be here to morrow morning Do it upon pretext of some more Letters ye are to send by him and if he should be gone hasten after him to stay him upon some such pretext and let none living know of this as ye love me and before two in the afternoon to morrow you shall without fail hear from me Farewell Apr. 3 1624. By this Letter it appears that the King thought the Petition against Recusants of such high consequence that if he should not give the Parliament a good answer it might make a Rupture with them and therefore he will see further in the Nature of this Petition before he will break with the King of Spain and know more of the Prince his Son's mind happily whether he would yet accept of his Old Mistris or expect a new one Or whether the King feared that the Parliament would not make good their Promises to stand with their lives and fortunes in the Gap when this great Breach was made and so cousen him may be Mystical Conjectures from Mystical Expressions grounded upon the Words of a King Or whether any or all of these like the King's Heart inscrutable are meant in the Letter is not here determined But the King hastens to the House and finding no such terrible things in the Petition the Lords being not so quick in the Resolution of it as the King was in the apprehension of it he stirs not those Waters but sounds the depth of the Parliaments Intentions by propounding his Doubts and requiring a solution to them in order to a War with prudence and caution My Lords and Gentlemen all I have cause first to thank God with my heart and all the faculties of my mind that my speech which I delivered in Parliament hath taken so good effect among you as that with an Unamine consent you have freely and speedily given me your advice in this great Business for which I also thank you all as heartily as I can I also give my particular thanks to the Gentlemen of the lower House for that I hear when some among them would have cast jealousies and doubts between me and my people you presently quelled those Motions which might have hindred the happy agreement I hope to find in this Parliament You give me your advice to break off both the Treaties as well concerning the Match as the Palatinate And now give me leave as an old King to propound my Doubts and hereafter give me your answer First it is true that I who have been all the dayes of my life
Philip Knevit Sir Iohn Tasborough Sir William Selbie Sir Richard Titchborn Sir Iohn Hall Sir George Perkins Sir Thomas Penrodduck Sir Nicholas Sanders Knights Besides divers Esquires Popishly addicted either in their own Persons or by means of their Wives too tedious to be expressed here And these were dispersed and seated in every County who were not only in Office and Commission but had Countenance from Court by which they grew up and flourished so that their exuberancie hindered the growth of any Goodness or Piety their Malice pleased to drop upon These men being now touched began to shrink in their Branches like the new-found Indian Plants but they quickly put out again for though this Disturbance or Movement came upon them by the Dissolution of one Treaty yet they presently got heart and spread again by the other which was in Agitation Carolus D. G. Rex Ang Sco Fran et Hib Henreta Maria D. G. Reg Ang Sco Fran et Hib But the Iesuitical Party both here and there were incessantly laborious for a greater Liberty and the King 's chief Agent in the Treaty Monsieur de Vieuxvill having pulled on him the Odium of the people through some miscarriages being committed Prisoner by the King to protect him from their Rage the Cardinal Richelieu entring then into his Infancy of Favour being preferred by the Queen-Mother to be a manager of the Treaty whose Intimate he was and more Stubborn for promoting the Catholique Cause yet all this could give no stop to the Career but that the Match would be made up upon very easie Terms But when the King of France understood by his Ministers and Agents in England how eager our King was for the Match for he desired it above all Earthly Blessings as one near him said of him for besides the Reproach he thought would fall upon him by another Breach he should lose the Glory of a Conjunction with Kings which he highly wound up his Opinion to to Sublime and as it were Deifie his Posterity in the esteem of the people so that he would almost submit to any thing rather than the Match should not go forward which the King of France finding he bated his Humour of earnestness for it and descended by the same Steps and Degrees that he found his Brother King advanced to it and got several great Immunities for the Papists by it notwithstanding all Our King 's fair Promises to the Parliament as may be seen by those Articles seal'd and sworn to by Our King some few Months before his Death But a little before this when the Hopes of the Match with France began to bud the Earl of Carlile was sent over to mature and Ripen the proceedings with the Earl of Holland to bring the Treaty to some perfection yet with private instructions That if they could find by their Spanish Correspondencies as the Earl of Carlile was a little Hispanioliz'd that the Match there had any Probability of taking effect with the new Propositions that then they should proceed no further in the French Treaty so earnest was the King for the one so Violent for the other The Sophisticate Drugs of the Spanish Restitution of the Palatinate having not yet lost their Operation Thus the Ambition of Princes that devolve all their Happiness upon glorious Extractions doth choak and smother those Considerations that Religion like a clear light discovers to be but gross and cloudy Policy which vanishes often and comes to nothing The Duke of Buckingham swoln with Grandure having two great Props to support him doubted not to Crush any thing that stood in his way so that he fell very heavily upon his Cousen the Earl of Middlesex Lord Treasurer for he remembred how he repined at the Moneys that were spent in Spain and his Comportment to him since his coming over Middlesex being naturally of a Sullen and proud Humor was not such as he thought did become his Creature Therefore he Resolved to bring him down from that Height he had placed him in and quickly sound the means to do it For great Officers that dig deep in Worldly Treasures have many Underminers under them and those that are not just to themselves or others must make use of such as will not be so just to them so that a flaw may easily be found whereby a great Breach may be made And as Middlesex had not Innocency to Iustifie himself so he wanted Humility whereby others might Iustifie him which made him fall unpitied The Prince that was Buckingham's right hand took part against him in the House of Lords where he was Questioned which the King hearing of writes to the Prince from New-Market whither he often retired to be free and at ease from comber and noise of Business That he should not take part with any Faction in Parliament against the Earl of Middlesex but to reserve himself so that both sides might seek him for if he bandied to take away his Servants the time would come that others would do as much for him This wise Advice speaks Buckingham a little declining from the Meridian of the King's Favour or the King from his For if the King did know that Buckingham was his chief Persecutor it could not but relish ill with the Duke to have the King plead for him if the King did not 〈◊〉 know there was not then that intimacy betwixt them that used to be But the Treasurer's Actions being throughly canvased though he had not had such great Enemies he was found guilty of such misdemeanors as were not fit for a Man of Honour to commit so that the Parliament thought to Degrade him but that they looked on as an ill Precedent But though they took not away his Titles of Honour in Relation to his Posterity who had not offended yet they made him utterly uncapable of sitting in the House of Lords as a Peer And for his fine it was so great that the Duke by Report got Chelsie House out of him for his part of it There was an odd accident hapned in Northampton-shire while this Treasurer was in his Greatness One Harman a rich man that knew not well how to make use of his Riches having some bad Tenants and being informed that one of them which Owed him money had furnished himself to go to a Fair to buy some Provisions for his accommodation Harman walks as by accident to meet him in the way to the Market when he saw his Tenant he askt him for his Rent the man that was willing otherwise to dispose of his money denied he had any Yes I know thou hast money said Harman calling him by his Name I prithee let me have my Rent and with much importunity the man pulled out his money and gave all or the most part of it to his Landlord This coming to some Pragmatical knowledg the poor Man was advised to indict his Landlord for Robbing him and taking his Money from him in the High-way which he
more Forces Obstructed by Gondemar Papists flourish Gondemar's power Prevails with both Sexes Buckingham rules all A Duel betwixt Compton and Bird. The Countess of Buck. rules her Son Buckingham a lover of Ladies The King calls a Parliament Sir Rob. Cotton Hen. 3. Jesuits swarm A Satyrical Sermon The Parliament meet the 20 Ian. The King's Speech to the Parliament The Parliament comply with the King Doncaster's Ambassy expensive He is feasted by the Pr. of Orange His short character Digby goes into Germ. The peoples grievances Mompesson and Michel actors in them The Parliaments goodness The King's Speech discanted on Buckingham Master of the Work Michel censured His Supplication Extortion and Bribery the Vices of the Times His censure His description and character Parties in Parliament Spencer and Arundel quarrel Arundel committed His Submission The Parliament adjourned The Commons Declaration The King pleased with it Dighie's return His Relation to the Parliament Seconded The King prevails not abroad nor at home The People and Parliament against the Match A Remonstrance of the House of Commons The King vext at it The Protestant Religion in danger Hicks and Fairfax The King's Letter to the Speaker The Parliaments Petition An humble Parliament And a Pious The King wanted money not advice An. Christi 1621. The King's Answer False play justly rewarded Wars good to prevent wars The King and People Competitors Discourses upon the Kings Answer The Parliament the Kings Merchants The higher House offended They Petition The King angry The Commons discontent Their Protestation The King's trouble increases The Parliament is dissolved A Proclamation against talking Oxford and Southampton committed Sir Ed. Cook in disgrace Some punished some preferred The King dishonoured abroad Car. Bandino Car. Lodâ—visio An. Reg. 20. An. Christi 1622. Lord Keeper's Letter to the Judges His Preferment Character and part of his Story Archbishop Abbat kills a Keeper Arminianisin flourished The King's Letter for regulating the Ministery Observations upon the Directions Papists the fomenters Regians and Republicans The King active in the Treaty The Articles of marriage long a setling Quo semel est imbuta Recens servabit odorem Testa diu Our King's Resolution Sent to Digby in Spain Spanish jugling Austrian jugling An. Reg. 20. An. Christi 1622. The King abused Digby faulty 2. Letter to Digby Gondemar 's Master-piece 3. Letter to Digby The Palat. lost The Palatinate a strong Countrey Our King satisfied of Spainesâ— good intentions Articles of Marriage The Pope extended this Article Habeat exiam Ecclesiam publicam Londini c. Holy Roman Ch. Spanish delusion The King of Spain's letter to Olivares Bergen besieged by Spinola The Battail of Fleury Brunswick's Arm shot off Spinola raises his Siege Buckingham's Medicine to cure the King 's melancholy The King's Choler His sanguine His Flegmatick Humor A Diet at Ratisbone 7 Ian. The opinion of the Protestant Princes The opinion of the Popish Princes The Reply of the Protestant Princes The Emperour's Reply The Elector of Saxony The Protestants answer Result of all The Prince's journey into Spain By Dover Paris Burdeaux At Madrid His Royal entertainment The English Nobility flock into Spain The Spanish strive to pervert the Prince So doth the Pope By his Letters The Pope's cunning The Prince's answer A fatal Letter The Dispensation comes to Madrid The Archbishops letter to the King against a Toleration Arguments for and against a Toleration An. Reg. 21. An. Christ. 1623. The Match concluded in England The Preamble to the Articles Private Articles sworn to Jesuits swarm Dispute publickly An. Reg. 20. An. chisti 1623. A great judgment or an unfortunate mishap Brunswick raises an Army Thier Order in Marching The General of the Horse falters So doth the Sergeant Major General Brunswick's Army defeated The condition of France The Match concluded in Spain The Palatine affairs waved New Resolutions on both sides Buckingham angry The Duke and Olivares quartel Gifts and presents on both sides The Prince leaves Madrid The Prince feasted there The King 's Prince's compliments parting The Prince in danger by a Tempest A demur upon the espousals The Prince comes to Court cold in his Spanish affections Preparation in Spain for the Marriage Spanish delaies retaliated Thoughts of a Match with France A Parliament Summoned The Duke of Richmond dies suddenly Of her Visitants The King's Speech to the Parliament The Bishop of Lincolns short Harangue Feb. 24. Buckinghams Relation to the Parliament The Duke highly esteemed Little deserved An. Reg. 21. An. Christi 1624. The Parliament advise the King to break the Treaties with Spain The King's Letter to Secretary Conway Conjectures on the King's Letter The King 's 2. speech to both Houses An. Reg. 22. An. Christi 1624. The Parliament close with the King Their Declaration The Treaties with Spain dissolved The Spanish Ambassadour accuses Buckingham of Treason Bristol sent toâ— the Tower The Parliaments Petition against Recusants The King prepared for it The Kings answers to the Parliaments Petitions 23. Apt. The King promises much performs little a swarm of Popery Herba mimosa The Lord Treasurer questioned in Parliament Harman's story The Lady Finch Viscountess of Maidstone Cruelty at Amboina The English accused of Treason The improbability of the Attempt by the English 1619 Mansfeldt goes into England Forces raised for him The design ruined The death of the Earl of Southampton and his son The death of the Marquess Hamilton The death of the King An. Christi 1625. The Death of Maurice Prince of Orange 23. Apr. 1625. The death of the Earl of Oxford The King patient in sickness Lamb a Witch Butler a Mountebank The Description of King Iames.