entrance of his reigne answerable to his Fathers instructions began his arbitrary worke and in pursuance thereof had laid sundry destructive and darke plots how to invassalate the three Nations and by degrees to reduce them all under one Intire arbitrary and absolute soveraignty and when they took not the effect he desired being discovered and opposed by this Parliament then to set up his Standard and array the poore people against themselves which never any King of England durst attempt otherwise than by publick consent and against a forraigne enemy and at last to wage open Narre against his owne subjects and the representative of the Nation Plundering Fyring and desolating the Kingdom to the utmost of his power had you avouched thus much you had hit on the right and shewed your selfe both a friend to truth and your Country but it seems you still stand close to your old destructive principles as at first you sided with the King living so dead you persist to make good his cause whether right or wrong it mattered not much with most of your party the truth is how good or bad soever his cause was it was the bare name of a King and hopes of preferment which drew your Iron into the field and t is the very same at present which invites all of you to flatter and sooth up your selves with the empty name of Loyalty to bring in the new Crown'd King of Scots on the old score without looking to the preservation of the Liberty of your Country and proprieties of your own posterity and the sad consequence thereof as if the publick interest ought to be given up for the fulfilling of your desires and of one mans wilfull pleasure a strange dotage that hath possest you and more strange it is that you should now fall a fresh on a subject that loathes any man of ingenuity to think on it much more to treat on a theam so stale were it but in reference to the memory of him who is at rest But since I find that a kind of confidence possesses your intellectuals that all your allegations are unanswerable and that your provocations amounts to a challenge the fault must be yours not mine If in vindication of truth I lay open the grossnesse of all your errors in the manifestation of his which with such eagernesse and confidence you think your self able to defend being forced through your importunity and the nature of the taske you put upon me to run over the whole progres and managery of all the late Kings designs visible and long since very well knowne to all men of common understanding though I confesse I do not much marvell that your selfe amongst the rest of the facill beliefe have been deceived by the Kings woonted and plausible protestations especially as he handled the matter in the cunning and umbragious carrying on of all his close and hidden designs for I very well know many knowing Gentlemen which have had a long conflict with themselves what judgment to make on the first difference arising between the King and Parliament his Majesty so often protesting how much he intended the welfare of all his subjects how unwilling to embrew the Kingdom with blood how willing to embrace and conserve the peace of the Land how resolved to maintaine the true Protestant Religion how carefull and studious to uphold the Lawes and Liberties of the People how ready to preserve inviolable the privileges of Parliaments and how forward to supply his distressed Protestant Subjects in Ireland all which as a Copy of his counterfeit Countenance he so often protested and confirmed with Imprecations that truely the spirits of many wise men were amazed and a long time stood staggering what to be lieve in the case and doubtfull whether the Kings cause or the Parliaments was most just which party gave the first offence which began the Warre and of this number I confesse my self to be one which stood sometimes diffident in a controversy so variously attested but having made a diligent search into all the passages and transactions between both parties both from before the Sword was drawn and after to the year 1645 when the Kings Cabinet Letters were taken at Naseby and other manifests elsewhere I then began to bethink my self that which before I only admitted in a kind of Ambitious beliefe that the Parliament had then to deal with a King howsoever heretofore valued as a Prince of no deep reach who was not to seek without the help and influence of a malicious Councell to play his owne part I shall not say better but more dextrous and cunningly for his owne ends and to the reducing of the Kingdomes under his absolute power than any of those could direct him whom he most trusted with the mannagery of his designs and secrets truely Sir on that discovery on the publishing of his Letters let me tell you there were many thousands which fell off and from the opinion they held of his integrity and the Iustice of his Cause it being in the next degree to a miracle that after so full a disclosure of the Kings juglings and dissemblings there should any remaine to take his part and the wonder is the more remarkeable that since his death any man should believe him to be a Martyr but whom God hardens they shall be hardened let the Charmer Charme never so wisely some will be deafe and diffident of visible truthes never so clearly manifested of which number that you should perceveere to make one as by your sundry invectives it appears surely it hath not a little troubled me to see the excrescencies of your inveterate malignancy to break out even to obstinacy and so long to have blinded your judgment from discerning of truth from falshood and to have bard you from the right use of distinguishing between reason well weighed and fraud umbrated and attested with the usuall artifices of the royall protestations a faculty by your favour too too common with the King and those quaint pen-men which attended him with plausible Declarations frequently sent abroad ad faciendum populum to catch fools and as the Kings usuall phrase was to undeceive the people prepossest with the reality of the Parliaments Remonstrances when in truth the Kings ends were no other than to decoy the poor credulous Annimalls into an opinion of his good meaning towards them when he intended them most harme as we find it evident in the silly devises and quaint impresses of his money coyned at Oxford pretending that he took up arms in defence of the Protestant Religion the Laws and Liberties of the People and the Priviledges of Parliament when the direct contrary appeared by all his Actions and when as it was manifest that before he began to quarrell with the Scots he tacitely intended and even then designed to suppress Parliaments or so to qualify them that they should be onely usefull to his own ends not to the people and likewise to invade the Liberties of
of the Roman Church a truth so perspicuous as that I have wondred on the reading of the discourse between his Majesty and those learned Divines why it was not prest by them that Episcopacy quatenus as it stood here since and before the Reformation was spurious papall and of no affinity with the Apostlick or primitive institution especially the wonder is so much the more that the King for the upholding of 26 square caps should with such obstinancy which he would have to be esteemed constancy oppose a Court of Parliament composed of 500 Lords and Gentlemen and pretend so much to honour and conscience when as about the same time and as I remember before that the dispute was here in the House for the expulsion of the Bishops the King had granted the same boon to the Scots But I beseech you take notice how mindfull the King was to remember his friends and what were they think you more than Delinquents Soldiers of Fortune and the loosest vermin that the Kingdom could afford him together with the Papists many Country Gentlmen and the Fugitive Members of both Houses which he had corrupted and drawn from their trust with double ends of his own not onely to make up his mungrell Parliament at Oxford but to lame or destroy the legall Parliament at Westminster whose privileges with so many protestations he had so often aver'd to maintain In the next place please you to observe how memorative the King was to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament for this expression manifestly shewes how he intended to deal with all others a Parliament as himself had made it indissolvable by any other way than that of the Sword which by no meanes he meant to depart withall until needs he must and the act assented and granted by himself on reasons merely relative to the payment of his owne debts contracted by his unnecessary raising of War against his Native Subjects the Scots and for the more speedy discharge of the arrears due to both armies which the Parliament was then most willing to defray without the least scruple or upbraiding him with the cause of contracting so vast a sum and all to gain at any rate his love and favour where I must tell you that you would have thought it somewhat harsh should they have told him as it was answered in full Parliament to Hen the third that they would not pay his debts neither give him a groat postquam coepit esse dilapidator regni so long as he continued to destroy the Kingdom but you cannot deny how ready they were to expedite the payments by taking it up of the City on the publick faith which the Citizens on remembrance of the Kings wonted manner of dissolving of all the Parliaments of his Reign without their due effects utterly refused unlesse an Act were past for the continuation of the Parliaments sitting upon which grounds the King granted that act which so nearly concerned his own particular and the sending home of the Scots whose company was then loathsome unto him How then it comes to passe that your selfe and so many of your party should think this such an act of Grace seems to me a wonder when he had so often protested not onely to maintain the Privileges of Parliament but whatsoever acts he had formerly assented unto but you see here his own expression That he would not forget to put a short period to this perpetuall Parliament what then I beseech you do you conceive would have been the issues otherwise than to recall all those his so much magnified acts of grace as Edward the third yeelded him a president and at last by the power of the Sword which he sayes God had put into his hands to have invaded the Lawes and universall freedomes of the Nation as his very next Letter to the Queen manifestly imports March 9. 1645. from Oxford number the 20th viz. I have thought of one means more to furnish thee withall for my assistance than hitherto thou hast had it it this that I give thee power to promise in my name to whom thou thinkest most fit that I will take away all penall Laws against the Roman Catholicks in England as soon as God shall inable me to doe it so as by their means or in their favours I may have so powerfull assistance as may deserve so great a favour and inable me to do it but if thou aske what I call that assistance I answer that when thou knowest what may be done for it it will be easily seen if it deserve to be so esteemed I need not tell thee what secrecy this businesse requires yet this I will say that this is the greatest point of confidence I can expresse to thee for it is no thanks to me to trust thee in any thing else but in this which is the onely thing in difference of opinion betwixt us and yet I know thou wilt make as good a bargaine in this I trusting thee though it concerns Religion as if thou wert a Protestant the visible good of my affairs so much depending thereon Observation The Comment on this his Majesties 20th Letter principally relates to these two most important considerations first the invading of the Laws secondly to the affront of the Parliament and the Protestant Religion when he should be impowred by the assistance of the Papists and a third necessarily ariseth on the neck of the other two viz. by giving power to the Queene a profest Papist and an enemy to the English Nation to manage the businesse and to make the best bargain for him as she should thinke most fit under the seale of secrecy as being himself ashamed to be seen in the businesse as God knowes good reason he had But in the mean time speak your Conscience where was then the Kings Conscience and his honour and what became of his former protestations wherein he so often avows the maintenance of the Protestant Religion without mixtures and what was his own Religion more than formall or like a nose of wax convertible onely as it should conduce to the visible good of his affaires they are his owne words and what those affaires were more than his will and pleasure in his uttermost endeavour to continue to imbrue the Kingdomes with more blood and rapine by the swords and assistance of Papists cannot well be imagined these and a world of his other expressions compared together with his own Letters and his Pourtraicture I must tel you plainly have very much troubled my spirits that he should so much and so often pretend to Religion Conscience and Honour in yeelding up of Episcopacy when he made no scruple of Conscience to grant to the Scots the abolishing of their Episcopacy which in the Chapter of Church-Government in his Pourtraicture he strives to salve with an ill savoring playster but for the retention of it in England he pleads and stands stiffly on his Coronation Oath with the swallowing up
Rebels to speed their recruits against those which he then stiles his Well-affected Subjects On the consideration of the premisses I pray tel me where is that Sophister to be found that can handsomely make an Apology for such foul dissimulations If you cannot finde any I will point you to himselfe as you may see it in his Pourtraicture Cap. XXII on his going into the Scotch Army where he sayes That what Providence denyes to force it may grant to prudence necessity is now my chiefest Counsellour and commands me to study my safety by a disguized withdrawing from my chiefest strength and adventuring on their Loyalty which first began my troubles Here you have an Apology of his owne though surely it is a very poore one where first I pray make your own judgement whether the Scots began his troubles or he theirs if you doubt on 't Straffords and the late Arch Bishops Ghosts will witnesse that he would not suffer them to be at quiet But what prudence was that when he could no longer stand up to infest three Kingdomes at once then to put himself on the precipice of necessity and for his safety to goe into the Scotch Army and why not first into his Throne in the Parliament House at Westminster from whence he fled as from a Serpent and by a thousand most humble Petitions and motions was invited to returne with welcome untill he had wilfully and most perversly made himself uncapable of acceptance and so imbrued himself and the three Kingdoms with the loathsome leprosie of Innocent blood that with Vzziah he had made himselfe more fit for a Cloyster than a Palace I pray speake your owne judgement whether this his prudence was any other than an indefatigable pursuance to fulfill his own will in re-involving the Kingdomes in a more direfull War than he had done before and could Providence doe lesse than to deny him safety when all his studies were devoted to find out any means to disturbe the Kingdomes peace and safety and to destroy Parliaments whereby to make himself an absolute Monarch and of a King of Gentlemen and Freemen to become a Tyrant over so many inanimated Slaves you may without injustiee avouch it that none of his courses were like to thrive when they were continually known to be accompanied with a spirit of errour and that the effects and ends of studying his own safety chiefly consisted in malice and laying of new snares to catch others in in which Providence thought it most fit that himselfe should first be taken Observations on the Irish Rebellion IT is without all question that the King was more indulgent towards the Irish blood-thirsty Rebells than suited with his publick professions and often protestations I shall not say so much in projecting that horrible Massacre of the English there as in protecting those Rebels after the fact was committed having to use his own expression such visible designs and ends of his owne as from the very beginning of the War and before to make use of their service against the English and their Representative as that in any impartiall eye could neither look handsome or suitable to the Religion he professed To treat of the originall ground of this rising or to point out the Author and the authority by which those vile Caytiffes enterprised on so barbarous an act is more than I shall heere deliver for this is as yet a hidden peece of villany although this I can affirm from the mouth of a Gentleman well borne though I dare not say of any great credit that before the Kings going into SCOTLAND and before the flight of the Lord Iermin he being then a kind of an attendant on the Queen and having many times admission into Master Iermins Chambers averres that he saw nine severall Commissions sealed in Master Iermins lodging for so many Regiments to be commanded by the like number of Colonels in Ireland whereof one was to Colonel Plunket but with what seals the Gentleman hath not declared neither do I believe that he was able to distinguish between the Broad and the Privy seale But this is most manifestly knowne that the Rebels for a long time and at the very beginning of their rising styled themselves the King and Queens Army and that they had good authority for doing that which they had done and this is most perspicuous that the King himselfe was ashamed to be seen or to own his owne worke and with what instructions and Commissions he had impowred the Marquesse of Ormand as in his own private Letter to him evidently appears Number 22. December 13. 1644. from Oxford viz. I hope my publick dispatch will give you sufficient instructions and power yet I have thought it necessary for your more incouragement in this necessary worke to make this addition with my own hand as for Poynings act I referre you to my other Letters and for matter of Religion though I have not found it fit to take publick notice of the paper which Browne gave you yet I must command you to give him my Lord Muskery and Plunket particular thanks for it assuring them that without it there could be no peace and that sticking to it their Nation in generall and they in particular should have comfort in what they have done and to shew that this is more than words I do promise them and command you to see it done that the Penal Statutes against Roman Catholicks shall not be put in execution the Peace being made and they remaining in their due obedience and further when the Irish gives me that assistance which they have promised for the suppression of this Rebellion and I shall be restored to my rights then I will consent to the repeat of them by Law but all those of Appeals 〈◊〉 Rome and Premunire must stand all this in Cipher you must impart to none but to those three already named and that with injunction of strict secrecy so 〈◊〉 recommending to your care the speedy dispatch of the Peace of Ireland and my necessary supply from thence as I wrote to you in my last Letter I rest Observations Wee have here in the first place a manifestation of the Kings close and serpentine windings in the next his injunction of strict secrecy to Ormond that that which he had written in Cipher should not be imparted to any but Muskery Browne and Plunket three of the most desperate Rebels in that Kingdom which cannot possibly stand with the Kings innocency neither with the breach of his faith with the Parliament and people or with God in point of his protestations to maintain the true Protestant Religion where it is evident that he plaid fast and loose on all hands as best suited with his necessary affairs and worke as he calles it all his ends tending to this only center to gaine the Irish Rebels to his assistance against the Parliament at any rate though to the prophanation of Religion and his breach of faith with God and
being the scope and method of the whole I have thought it not impertinent in preparation thereunto here to adjoyn some thing of the place of his birth and manner of his breeding That he was born in Scotland 1600. and remained there untill the second year of his Fathers reigne needs no further attestation That on the ceasing of the sicknesse 1602. at London for its ominously remarkable that two most furious plagues immediately followed the very ingresse both of the Father and the Son to their Crowns under the stile and title of Duke of Yorke he was conveyed from Edenborough to St. James's known to many yet living That during his Infancy then fitter for the oversight of the female sex than the masculine there was such an innated incorrigible obduracy and inflexibility in his nature that his Nurses and those Gentlewomen that attended him could very rarely devise how to please him much lesse to reclaim that intemperature of his naturall constitution which as the Gentlewomen themselves have both often related and protested so are there yet enough alive which will justifie it as a known truth and of which his mother Queen Anne would often complain usually calling him her perverse and obstinate Son and his Brother Prince HENRY not without a propheticall judgement to befall the Kingdome in case on King James his Father and his own decease the Crown should descend on him God knows and I call him to witnesse that I shall not willingly present a syllable to the prejudice of his memory otherwise then for truths sake abused and the generall satisfaction of such as would be rightly informed thereof having never had any cause given me to write more or lesse than becomes me in sincerity confessing that considering the distance I stood in to be a pertaker of his secrets as having been only a poor servant of his Fathers untill weary of the Court I retired having seen enough of the vanity thereof and of both raigns though on some urgent occasions in my Addresses to him I have had the honour of his gracious aspect and sometimes good words from his own mouth never any other injury than in my particular sufferings involved in the generall calamity proceeding from the late fatall warre of which I cannot in justice excuse him whose ambition and wilfulness to rule alone and without controule of any others than hers which had too long and imperiously overruled him which the following Animadversions will more amply manifest Having thus made my Apology that neither any particular spleen or quarrell to his person hath incensed me to write as in justice I ought I come to his education as he arrived to riper years under the tutorship of Bishops and men of that Garbe known to many who they were how he was seasoned both in Learning and Religion It s most certain that he attained to some competent measure of literature for a Prince and as I have some reason to beleeve suckt in with the most of the Episcopall leven but as to the Religion wherewith afterward he was seasoned I am confident he was more beholding to his honest Secretary Mr. Murrey than to any other of his Prelaticall Tutors though he after proved at best a mere formall Protestant an enemy to the Puritan party and a friend to Bishops as proceeding from the instructions of his own Father and the influence of his Prelaticall tetinue It s a known truth that in the midst of that long fruitlesse and restlesse pursute of the old Kings for a marriage with the Infanta Secretary Murrey who had then the chiefest influence on his Counsells had privatly diswaded him from any further thought thereof as a Match which would neither be well pleasing to God acceptable to the generality of the people or propitious to the Kingdom in respect of the disparity of their religions which so much wrought upon him what by the Secretaries owne perswasions and the reading unto him of Mr. De Molins Tractate on the 17 of Deutronomy De Illegitimes Marages that he was altogether averted to marry in any papisticall family insomuch as the old King making diligent inquiry by whose infusions he was so much alienated from the Spanish Match it was at last found out to be Mr. Murreys workemanship which cost the honest man the losse of his place and expulsion the Court Howsoever the King out of his restlesse desire to match his Son in the House of Austria soone turn'd his affection and sends him in person attended with the Duke of Buckingham privately by the way of France to Madrid where after an expencefull voyage and to no other purpose but to his own dishonour and disgrace to the Prince after six moneths stay in Spain he returned to London the 5 of October following his going from hence and about 5 moneths after his arrivall the old King dyed at Theobalds and the Crown descended upon him which anon we shall see how he managed it That he had then so much applause and love of the people in generall even to a kind of veneration in the hopes that all men conceived of his future Government is known to thousands yet living and that no Prince sooner lost it is also not unknown most men wondering how so suddenly not only the affections of the people were withdrawn from him but to fall into the generall obloquy was held by the wisest a kind of Riddle not suspecting and indeed then not knowing or not observing the reasons thereof to have arisen from his then present steerage of the Helm by the only Compasse of the old Kings delineation whereof more hereafter will appear in his carriage at his first Oxford Parliament where I must give this caution to the Reader not to value that late impartiall and flattering Author Aulicus Coquinariae neither to give over much credit to King Iames his Court who in some particulars speakes much more of truth than the other babler who with no colour at all of sincerity and knowledge of those times talks at randome palpably and ridiculously rendring King Iames for the only Platonicall Politick Peaceable and pious King of his time a Prince as he would have it beleeved the Paragon for his wisdome and care the fruits whereof no rationall man could ever yet discerne when the plain truth was and the right measure of his peaceable reigne was well known to all Europe to be the onely occasion of all the after Wars throughout Germany and the root of all those of his Successors throughout his Dominions those in Germany to the utter undoing of his Son-in-Law the Count Palatyne and all those Princes which assisted him in the Cause of Bohemia whilst himself refused or durst not draw his Sword through meer fear of offending the SPANIARD in the least punctilio but sate musing at home how to improve his Soveraignty to devise projects how to raise moneyes to satiate his needy and greedy Scotch Courtiers by privy seals benevolences sale of Forrest lands asserts
of the most essentiall part thereof which by far more obligeth the Kings of England to observe than the preamble to that Oath penn'd of old by the Prelats Church-men for their own onely ends and interests a very inconsiderable party in respect of the quality of the Nobility and Gentry and that vast number of the Laity of which it seems the King reckoned of after the Popes computation to be extra Caulam either out of the Church or at best but the fag end thereof and accompts little better of them than as so many cyphers or his slaves at will at pleasure cleane forgetting or slighting the grand more essentiall part of his Coronation Oath which is confidently averr'd the late Arch Prelate purposely emasculated and never gave it him at his Coronation but left him at liberty which all men knows is that which obligeth the King to rule not onely by the Lawes in being but per istas bonas leges quas vulgas eligerit to govern by such good Laws as the Parliament shall chuse and the reason of this is most most perspicuous for the Lawes of England are not of that stamp as those of the Medes and Persians unalterable but changeable according to the vicissitudes of times and change of mens manners and at the Election of the people in their Representative the Kings assent being formall and onely a necessary appendant and by the intent of the Law his principall power consists in the executive part the Parliaments in the elective for it is without all question that never any of our Kings either abrogated or made any Law obligatory to the people by his onely lawfull power but by the Parliaments consent and election the nature of the Kings Office being more cumulative then privative to give rather than to take any thing from their subjects but here you may see what a latitude of power the King assumes to himself where he promiseth to the Queen to take away all the penal laws against Papists as soon as he shall be enabled to doe it without a word of by your leave Parliament so that you may manifestly see what he intended and that no other sence than his owne is here pind upon him you may further observe out of this Letter his windings doublings and fouldings and how dexterously cunning he was growne at playing fast and loose with RELIGION or with any thing else that might promote his mischievous designs leaving no way unattempted though to prophaning of Religion that he conceived might conduce to the visible good of his affairs as that was his usuall expression and what was that visible good think you other than to overpower the Parliament and then to rule as he listed But to shew unto you what a gamester he was at Hocus-pocus I pray look upon the Postcript of his Letter to the Marquesse of Ormond February 16. 1648. from Oxford viz. In case upon particular mens fancies the Irish peace should not be procured upon powers I have already given you I have thought good to give you farther order which I hope will prove needlesse to seek to renue the treaty for a peace for a yeare for which you shall prowise the Irish if you can have it no better cheap to joyn with them against the Scots and Inchiquine but I hope by that time my condition may be such as the Irish may be glad to accept les or I be able to grant more Observation Hence you may make your owne judgement what a Proteus the King was grown you may take this also into your observation as suitable to the rest that in all his Declarations Letters and Messages to the Parliament and after he had lost all and could stand up no longer and was a prisoner they were then directed to his two Houses at Westminster but during his power and so long as he had any hopes left him to conquer them he misses not throughout all his expresses to call them Rebels and in that capacity tacitely treats with them at Vxbridge which the Scots at Rippon utterly refused to treat with him unlesse he would withdraw and disown his proclamations in stiling them Traytors and although he calls them a Parliament yet was it with a mental reservation not so to acknowledge them as you may see in his 17 letter to the Queen where it seems she had schoold him to the purpose for acknowledging them to be a Parliament for which he makes a very humble and ample apology and sayes If there had been but two besides my self of my opinion I had not done it and the argument that prevailed with me was that the calling did no wayes acknowledge them to be a Parliament upon which condition and construction I did it and no otherwise and accordingly it is registred in the Councel books and with the Councells unanimous approbation but thou wilt find that it was my misfortune not my neglect that thou hast been no sooner advertised of it Observation I need not comment on these fine pieces of the Kings your own judgment may informe you what a quaint Iesuiticall jugler he was grown by the conversation he had with the Mother and the Daughter both of them being excellent proficients in the doctrins of Matchivill and surely under the Rose be it spoken himself no very bad Scholler in that kind of learning yet here you may see what pains he was put unto how to make a handsome excuse to save himself from a chiding but I forbeare to make further mention of his perfidious courses more than to put you in minde that so long as his vain imaginations prompted to over-power the Parliament and to reduce all to his own absolute pleasure it s most certain that he refused ali overtures for agreement with the Parliament other than such as before I have intimated he verily believed to make advantage of and this appears in his 9th Letter to the Queen March thirteenth from Oxford viz. Dear Heart What I told thee the last week concerning a good parting with our Lords and Commons here was on Monday last handsomly performed and if I now do any thing unhandsome or disadvantagious to my self or Friends in order to a Treaty it will be merely my owne fault for I confesse when I wrote last I was in feare to have been prest to make some mean overtures to renew the Treaty knowing that there were great labourings to that purpose but I now promise thee if it be renewed which I believe wil not without some eminent good successe on my side it shall be to my honour and advantage I being now as well freed from the place of base and mutinous motions that is to say of our mungrel Parliament here as of the chief causers for whom I may justly expect to be chidden by thee for having suffered thee to be vexed by them Observations We have here a plain proof of the former assertion that during the Kings power he would entertain no Treaties but
such as here he promiseth the Queen should be both to his honour and advantage and he renders the reason viz. That he was then left free to himselfe to doe as he listed and as his inclinations should prompt him as being quit of those base and mutinous motions of his mungrell Parliament at Oxford where you may observe how well Parliaments suited with the nature of this King for this at Oxford which was of his own designe and calling of set purpose to annihilate the legall Parliament at Westminster was as himself stiles it a base mutinous and mungrel Parliament and he might with good reason so accompt of it for they were indeed a sort of perfidious Fugitives false to themselves and their Countreyes and the King no doubt in his own thoughts esteemed them no other for such as would be fals to themselves the King was not to seek to make his own judgement what they would be to him on the turn of any tyde of advantage but that at Westminster he calls a Rebell Parliament though of his own first Summons The truth was none would or could please him neither any councell but such as futed to his own will and pleasure It s true and it is confest that after he had lost all and was a prisoner he seemed more inclinable to embrace peace and to that end sent his frequent Messages to the Parliament but evermore with the old scruples of his Conscience and Honour persisting to his last as being fed with hopes of the generall rising 1647. and the comming in of the Scots under Hamilton to wind himself up again to that power whither his restlesse ambition to be more absolute than he ought to have been lead him to the precipice of his own ruine and it is more than probable that during the last Treaty in the Isle of Wight and the expectation of the successe of that rising to his rescue he had a perfidious hand therein for it cannot be imagined that such an association of English Scots and Welch would ever in one conjuncture of time adventure to rise without either his Privity or Commission howsoever it is manifestly known that both the English and Welch had for their undertaking the Princes Commission under hand and seale neither is it likely that the Prince himself during a Treaty so neer a period to an attonement would either authorize that rising or to have approached at that very time with his Fleet so near the Thames mouth without either his Fathers Commission or approbation the perfidie shewed therein I am more than confident utterly lost him and was a principall canse that the Parliament could not in reason or with safety of themselves and the King dom readmit or trust such a Prince with the government of whose Reformation they could not but despair Observations upon the Reliquiae Sacrae Carolinae IT is worth his pains who desires to berightly informed of the truth of al passages and transactions between the late King and the Parliament his mysterious motions pretences and carriages both during all the warres and since his death how matters have been managed by his partakers especially by those which first published his Pourtraicture and him who hath taken such pains in collecting so many of his papers printing exposing and dispersing them throughout all parts of the Kingdom purposely both to deceive the people and malitiously to work upon the facility of their affections in commiseration of him and casting an odium on the Parliament The artifice which this Impostor uses is worth consideration as he hath garnished the approaches to his collections with the Kings picture in some places standing in others kneeling and as it were ejaculating his prayers to God and those drest with sundry devices and motto's and all this to invite the eye if not the understanding of the silly beholder to a beleef that he died an innocent Martyr a Prince who suffered for his restlesse endeavor to desend the Protestant Religion the Laws and Libertyes of his Subjects as he would intimate by his hudling of the Kings many specious and fraudulent overtures for peace to the Parliament and avoyding of future bloodshed In all the Catalogue of his one and twenty Messages of the Kings besides additionalls he is pleased not so much as to insert one of the Parliaments Answers in rejoynder to any of the Kings Messages onely taking in so many of his Majesties which he conceived might serve his turn to clear the Kings innocency and leaving out such of the Parliaments most materiall Missives to which the King omitted to give any answer at all as for instance let him produce what reply the King made to the Parliaments charge for Ruperts intercepting of the Clothes Provisions horses and other necessaries sent by the Parliament in the way to Chester for the releef of the relicts of the poor Protestants in Ireland true it is that long after an answer was such as it was made though not by him mentioned viz. that those provisions might have been better guarded a proper answer if you please to take notice of it when its mostevident that the Kings forces not only took them with his expresse command but drew over the principall Commanders and Soldiers before sent by the Parliament to his own assistance against the Parliament now that you may see how the active part of the war was carried on by the King take into your serious considerations his Message of the 15 of April 1642. from Huntington wherein he earnestly desires That the Parliament will use all possible industry in expediting the businesse of Ireland in which they shall finde so cheerfull a concurrence by his Majesty that no inconvenience shall happen to that service by his absence he having all that passion for the reducing of that Kingdome which he hath expressed in his former Messages being unable to manifest more affection to it than he hath endeavonred to do by those Messages having likewise done all such acts as he hath been moved unto by his Parliment therefore if the misfortunes and calamities of his poor Protestant Subjects there shall grow upon them though his Majesty shall be deeply concerned in and sensible of their sufferings he shall wash his hands before all the world from the least imputation of slacknesse in that most necessary and pious work Observation A very pious work indeed as himself ordered it if you please to examine it to the bottome then make your own judgement whether it was not the Kings reach to gull the Parliament by pressing them to expedite the sending of Forces to the relief of his poor Subjects of Ireland and with such words of pity and expressions of his remorse how deeply he was concerned therein and how sensible of their sufferings and calamities which might grow upon them and just Pilate-like to wash his hands before all the world from the least imputation of slacknesse in him when 't is manifest his meaning was both to make
use of any such forces as the Parliament should send over against them and consequently to dis-enable them the more in levyes here for their own defence against him and his preparations as it evidently appeared within 3. moneths after by the said seizure of the Horses cloaths and provisions sent by Chester as also by his remanding over the Regiments sent before into Ireland to make use of them as it is visibly known he did against the Parliament But I pray extend your patience and look farther into this darke worke of the Kings take a short viewe of his next Message from Nottingham where he erected his Standard it bears date the 25. of August 1642. Next to this his Message of the 5th of Sept. 1642. with another of the 11th of September following in pursuance of the former peruse them all and you shal evidently see such notable juglings and Matchivilian dissemblings as would amaze any Christian eye to behold them compared with his actions his Pourtraicture and his own letters taken at Naseby I shall present them all in their order verbatim and first that of the 25 of August 1642. viz. We have with unspeakable griefe ef heart long beheld the distraction of this our Kingdome our very soul is full of anguish untill we may finde some remedy to prevent the miseries which are ready to overwhelm this Nation by a Civil War and although all our indeavours tending to the composing of those unhappy differences betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament though pursued by us with all zeale and sincerity have been hitherto without the successe we hoped for yet such is our constant earnest care to preserve the publicke peace that we shall not be discouraged to use any expedient which by the blessing of the God of Mercy may lay a happy foundation of peace and happinesse to all our good subjects To this end observing that many mistakes have arisen by the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament which happily may be prevented by some other way of treaty wherein the matter in difference may be more clearly understood more freely transacted we have thought fit to propound to you that some fit persons may be by you enabled to treat with the like number to be authorized by us in such a manner and freedom of debate as may best tend to that happy conclusion which all good men desire the peace of the Kingdom wherein as we promise in the word of a King all safety and incouragement to such as shall be sent unto us if you shall chuse the place where we are for the Treaty which we wholly leave to you presuming on the like care of the safety of those we shall imploy if you shall name another place So we assure you and all our good Subjects that to the best of our understanding nothing shall therein be wanting on our part which may advance the true Protestant Religion opPose Popery and Superstition secure the Law of the Land upon which is built as well our just Prerogative as the propriety and liberty of the Subject confirme all just power and Privileges of Parliament and render us and our people truly happy by a good understanding betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament Bring with you as firm resolutions to doe your duty and let our People joyn with us in our prayers to Almighty God for his blessing upon this worke If this Proposition shall be rejected by you we have done our duty so amply that God will absolve us from the guilt of that blood which must be spilt and whatsoever opinion other men may have of our power we assure you nothing but our Christian and pious care to prevent the effusion of blood hath begotten this motion our provision of men money and armes being such as may secure us from further violence til it please GOD to open the eyes of our People Not to trouble you with further search I shall present you that Message of the 5th of September 1642. in pursuance of the former together with that of the 11th of the same Moneth tending all to the same purpose though the Observations on them you shall finde handled separatim and left to your more mature consideration We will not repeat what meanes we have used to prevent the dangerous and distracted estate of the Kingdome nor how these means have been interpreted because being desirous to avoid effusion of Blood we aere willing to decline all memory if former bitternesse that might make our offer of a Treaty readly accepted We did never declare nor ever intended to declare both our Houses of Parliament Traytors or set up our Standard against them and much lesse to put them and this Kingdome out of our protection wee utterly professe against it before God and the World and farther to remove all possible scruples which may hinder the Treaty so much desired of us we hereby promise so that a day be appointed by you for the unvoting of your Declarations against all persons as Traytors or otherwayes for assisting of us we shall with all chearfulnesse upon the same day recall our Proclamations and Declarations and take down our Standard in which Treaty we shall be ready to grant any thing that shall be really for the good of our Subjects conjuring you to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the dangerous condition of England in as high a degree as by these our offers we have declared our self to do and assuring you that our chief desire in this world is to beget a good understanding and mutuall confidence betwixt us and our two Houses of Parliament Sebtemb 5. 1642. Who have taken most ways used most endeavours and made most reall expressions to prevent the present distractions and dangers let all the world judge as well by former passages as our two last Messages which have been so fruitlesse that though wee have descended to desire and presse it not so much as a Treaty can be obtained unles we would denude our self of all force to defend us from a visible strength marching against us and admit those persons accompted Traytors to us who according to their duty their Oathes of Allegeance and the Law have appeared in defence of us their King and liege Lord whom we are bound in Conscience and Honour to preserve though we disclaimed all our Proclamations and Declarations and erecting of our Standard as against our Parliament all we have left in our power is to expresse the deep sense we have of the publick misery of this Kingdom in which is involved that of our distressed Protestants of Ireland and to apply our self to our necessary defence wherein we wholly rely on the providence of God the Justice of our cause and the Affection of our good people so far we are from putting them out of our protection when you shal desire a Treaty of us wee shall piously remember whose blood is to be spilt
in this Quarrel and cheerfully embrace it and as no other reasons induced us to leave our City of London but that with honour and safety we could not stay there nor to raise any force but for the necessary defence of our Person and the Law against Levies in opposition to both so we shall suddenly return to the one and disband the other as soon as those causes shall be removed the God of Heaven direct you and in mercy divert those judgements which hang over the Nation and deale so with us and our posterity as we desire the preservation and advancement of the true Pretestant Religion the Law and the Liberty of the Subject the just rights of Parliament and the peace of the Kingdom Sept. 11. 1642. Observations on the former three Messages of the Kings In these three Messages we have as specious and pious expressions in shew as possibly can be expected from a King that meant really as he writ and said as he thought But on a due consideration of all passages and the subject matter in them contained and as the case then stood betwixt him and the Parliament with as much subtilty craft and cunning as can well be devised by the subtilest Disciple of Machavill I shall take the liberty to comment and prove the assertion out of the first of these Messages of the 25 of August 1642. and so in order to the rest as they visibly shew out unto any rationall man their purport without drawing other Conclusions than necessarily arise out of the expressions themselves compared with the Kings other Declarations his actions and his own private Letters First he tels the Parliament With what unspeakeable griefe of heart he beheld the distractions of the Kingdom untill he could find out a remedy to prevent the miseries which were ready to hang over the whole Nation by a civill Warre Where I pray tell me who first gave the occasion who raised those distractions or made the first preparations to a civill warre other than himselfe Next he speaks of differences betwixt him and the Parliament which he confesseth to have arisen through mistakes of the Messages Petitions and Answers betwixt him and his two Houses of Parliament which he would have prevented by a Treaty wherein the matters in difference might be more clearly understood and more freely transacted And could there have been a more fitter place to debate them with honour and freedome than in the Parliament whither with welcome he might have come without the least danger to his person and whither he was so often and humbly invited to come on no other conditions but to make him great and glorious and leaving Delinquents which he protected against Law and Reason to the discretion of the great Judicature of the Nation which would have been both a safe a profitable and a short course for him to have yeelded unto and saved him the labour of a dishonourable descending out of his dyning room to dispute those differences with the States of the Kingdome in the Kitchin and without so many impertinencies ambages and subterfuges wherewith he solaces himself seemingly moving for authorizing of fit persons on both sides to debate the matter with freedome a very fine way indeed and about the wood when he might have sate still in peace and quietnesse and left the obliquities of the Church and State to those to whom they properly belong'd to be disputed regulated and set straight whilst himself without such an unnecessary and un-Kingly engagement might have taken his pleasure in hunting the Buck rather than to have needlesly all that Summer traversed his ground through so many Counties in hunting after men to kill the best and most faithfull of his Subjects could he have had the grace to have seen it of his whole Kingdome But then he comes to an other overture that if on securing of such Treators as himselfe should chuse and the like safety by him given to such as the Parliament shall design for a Treaty then there shall be nothing wanting on his part to the advance of the true Protestant Religion the Lawes the Liberty of the Subject and just Priviges of Parliament as to Religion can any man beleeve that knew how hee was principled that he would have yeelded to other than that formall and prelaticall Protestantisme which he had vowed to uphold As to the Laws should they have beene other than should still have lain under his negative power As to the Libertyes of the Subject what should they have been more than the Militia his Sword then drawn against them would permit as he pleased to like or dislike As to the Privileges of Parliaments which he takes care to confine with his Epithite Just in the promse he makes what should they have been but as they might suite to the best advantage of the Crown and his unlimitable Prerogative then he concludes that if that Proposition be rejected he appeals to God and the World that he had don his duty which would absolve him from the guilt of that blood which he sayes must be spilt and I beleeve him for it seems he meant then to spill blood as he did afterwards more than befitted a Christian King rather than to have mist of the accomplishment of any of his resolutions having ingraved on his Sword aut Caesar aut nullus Caesar or no body to one of which he attain'd his close seems to me both monitory and minitory for he gives the Parliament to understand how he was provided and what they were to trust to in telling them aforehand That whatsover opinion other men have of our power our provision of men money and arm are such as may secure us from further violence till it shall please God to open the eyes of our people a very brave invitation to peace with the Sword in his hand to inforce it as he pleased to have it and with an Army of 6000 Horse and 11000 Foot as elsewhere he sayes he had ready to chastise the Rebels But look over to his Chapter upon seizing of the Forts Castles Navy and the Militia there he disclaimes to have had any other arms than those of the Primitive Christians prayers and tears against their Persecutors where he is pleased in a strange contradiction to make that an Argument of his not raising the first War against the Parliament though as it is well known at Edgehill he came with 20000 well armed men into the field with a full resolution to beat the Parliament to fitters how you will peece these contradictions together I leave as a task to you it being beyond my power to reconcile such distant Asseverations Now to his Message of the 5th of Sept. in pursuance of the former he sayes That he never did or ever intended to declare both our Houses of Parliament Traytors or to set up our Standard against them and yet at that instant had proclaimed my Lord of Essex the Earl of Stamford and all their Adherents