men for if there be any defect of the male line the female succeeds and that feeble and weaker sex whom God nature have ordained to be onely particular helps and good Subjects only to keep up the name of a Family must be invested with the highest authority over the choisest and most select spirits of many Nations and all further thoughts of bettering the State of things utterly extinguish'd by a female pretence And which is most desperate by this succession and its plea of the only and absolute right the fundamental liberties of the people are not onely insensibly undermined but absolutely rooted up and that birth-right priviledge of the people their Election and choice then which they have nothing more naturall and which is far more hereditary to them and theirs then by all the Laws of God nature and reason Crowns can be to Kings and their heirs is quite extinguished For pass by the first King who it may be as with us it hath been came in by Conquest you must go back in some Kingdoms five hundred in others a thousand years ere you can but recover the clear notion of a free election wherin the peoples power and priveledge is alone and peculiarly seen and yet that so faintly and hardly extorted from them as great loans of mony from a cruel miser without use or advantage and though Election must be acknowledged at last the first just ground of government yet custom in successions soon wears out its right and transfers it on the next bloud And though in England it appears by the Coronation Oath that there is even in succession a kind of election yet it s so limited in the line that it s as good as nothing and so weak and implicitely manifested that it s but a meer customary Ceremony which always is pursued by the natural title and onely used to deceive the people and as a step to the further confirmation of a more fundamentall and sure right and its easie to demonstrate it for our Kings soon forget it ere they come from Westminster to Whitehall or from the chair of Inauguration to the Presence Chamber In a word what gives all this ground of such an inevitable and successively insensible incroachment on the laws and liberties of Nations but this lineall title whereby the Son without remedy goes on where the Father left off and by a divine pretence seiseth on what by nature is due to the meanest subject as to himself And what makes the present Kings so daring and venturous to raise their own prerogative but this that that they know there can be no alienation of the Crown from his heirs and that they may make it better that is more tyrannicall but surer they cannot And thus there is a constant hope and possibility by continuation and propagation of principles and designs backed with title and authority that what cannot be done in one Kings reign may be done in the next and so on For the minds of Princes are not usually contracted or contented with present enjoyments especially if there be any restraint on their wills or more of heighth or advancement to be attained unto Yea this is one of the main reasons that in our times can be rendred why we have had such uneven actings and such strange alterations in several Kings Raigns the principles and laws the people have been always the same who are capable of small or no variation or change but as higher and supream influences move them of which none hath been so powerfull as Princes who as they are Stars of the first magnitude so of the strongest operations and though the people be compared to the Sea yet as the Sea they have no turbulent motion of their own but what is occasioned by violent and uncertain winds but the great change hath been by the temper and actings of Princes and commonly the next successor hath been the omen and fate of the times if any way good then the Nation smiled and his raign began the Spring if probable there was hopes and yet both these at first promised but at length frustrated and however the beginnings were yet the succession of acts demonstrated how the title was created for untill they have made their succession sure none have been more fair and promising but afterwards both Laws and Liberties like favourites have been advanced ad placitum and what they have got an interest in by nature that by prerogative they have centred in their own proper persons even the most fundamentall priviledges of the people and have only granted Leases unto the people of their own inheritances and dated them not for life which would have been too great a mercy but as long as the Royall pleasure lasts which changes alwayes with advantages Yea by this succession Tyranny is so intailed and all things so necessarily acted as if the Prince were not onely the civil but natural Parent of the people and that Kings had begot the people as so many Bastards to obey as they do beget one lawfully to raign over them It s too well known that good and wise men are the fewest of the sons of men and are commonly pickt out here and there as rich pearls on the shoar of violent torrents but to expect in one Line and Family a succession of good wise and governing men is almost as probable to Christians as to expect Mahomets second coming among the Turks after so many hundred years delusion and although it must be acknowledged that there have been some good Kings yet they have been so few that as their names from the beginning of the world can hardly make up the Dominical letters in the Almanack or possibly supply the Holydayes in the year so a little goodness hath gon far and at the best we shall finde it but comparative good Kings instead of better Governors as some of the Roman Cesars chose those to succeed them who were worse then themselves that they might commend and set off their own Raign though tyrannicall enough in it self and we may without any passion demonstrate that the design by succession hath been rather to keep up the Governors and palliate their vices then ever to maintain or highthen the glory and splendor or carry on the benefit of the Government it Self in the execution of good and righteous Laws But to come nigher home and leave generals granting Succession in it self to be a good title let us view without partiality the succession of the Kings of England whereby they plead their title to the Crown and we shall find in our Histories that nothing hath been more commonly interrupted then a succession of the next Heir and for this seaven or eight hundred years if not more we have not had succession continued in any even line or just right and no title was ever more broken and unjust then of our Kings if they make a Lineall and Hereditary succession the foundation of their right Let us look but
the name of a King being an Infant and his reign may wel be called an Inter-regnum for ere he came to know what government was he was cruelly murthered with his Infant Brother by his Uncle Rich. Duke of Glocester who reigned both for him and afterwards for himself by the name of Richard the Third a bloody and cruel man rather a monster then a Prince his name stincks in the English dialect the shortness of his reign was the happiness of the people for after three yeers usurpation he was slain in the field by the Earl of Richmond who by his valour more then his Title got the Crown by the name of Henry the Seventh this was the best act that was done by him in easing the Kingdom of such a viper In his reign who is the first root of our Kings since the people had more hopes then benefits and were rejoyced and made happy more by expectations then enjoyments of any reall priviledge or liberty For though he took all the ways to secure his title by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth daughter to Edward the Fourth yet many stratagems were laid to disturbe his peace which put him on acts of policy and diligence which he excellently demonstrated to free and extricate himself out of dangers and designs many sad divisions were stil in the Kingdom all men were not pleased either with his title or government and that they might but disturbe him or hazard his Crown they made Stage Kings drest up pretty lads in Princely robes and carried them up and down the Kingdom as puppets for the people to gaze one and admire all this while King Henry had not time to advance his prerogative while he was but securing his Title but after he had done that and now began to look on himself as free from either forraign or home competitors and the coast of State seeming cleer from all thickning weather he thinks of redeeming what he had lost by factions and imployes his wit for bringing down the height of the English Nation and plucking down their courage and was especially saith one jealous over his Nobility as remembring how himself was set up and how much more did this humor encrease in him after he had conflicted with such idols and counterfeits as Lambert Simnel Perkin Warbeck the strangeness of which dangers made him think nothing safe and thinking that the riches of the English occasioned their rebellions he took a course to empty their Coffers into his and the plot whereby he meant to effect it was by taking the advantage of the breach of penal Laws which he both found and made for that purpose his Instruments which for this work were pickt and qualified sufficiently were Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley men learned in the Law and of desperate and subtle heads and forward in executing the Kings commands these two attended by troops of base Informers Promoters Catchpoles Cheaters Knights of the Post c. went up and down the Kingdom cruelly polled and taxed all sorts of people and prosecute in every Shire the most deserving and generous men that the Kingdom in a little time was more beggard then by most of the former Civil wars and all this done by the Kings speciall command and countenance that we may see what was the reason he began not sooner to play Rex want of opportunity and fear of loosing his Crown while he was advancing it but the latter end of his raign was too soon and too long for such actings This King ends his raign with the greatest acts of tyranny he made himself a rich King by beggaring his Subjects after he had freed his own person out of danger he imploys all his wits to enslave the English the fruits both of his title and tyranny we have felt ever sence in these that followed him His son Henry the eighth of that name succeeds him in his first beginnings he seemed to be tenderly affected to the Common-wealth and redressed many grievances especially those which were laid on by his father and executed by Empson and Dudley doing Justice on them for their cruelty and oppression But those affections were too good and too violent to last long the sound of Drums and Trumpets soon quasht them and many encroachments grew on the peoples Liberties many tempestuous storms and controversies there were in this Kings raign but they were more Ecclesiastical then Civil and so more dangerous and strong In a word he was accounted a better Souldier then a Governor and more fit for a General then a King to govern by just and equal Laws the best act he did was the discovery of the wickedness of the Clergy and casting off the Popes Supremacy which yet he took to himself and annexed it to his own Crown as the most of his raign was ful of controversies and tempests so all affairs were managed in a ranting and turbulent maner not with that gravity soberness as becomes civil and prudentiall transactions he was very lascivious and delighted much in variety and changes of Laws as wives he oftentimes much pleased himself to be in the company and was over-familiar with swaggering and loose fellows and the people ever and anon found the power of his Prerogative at home as his enemies did of his Sword abroad Edward the sixth his onely son succeeds him a Prince that was too good to live long the Phoenix of English Kings had he had time to prosecute his intentions and mature his genius but the Sun in him did shine too bright in the morning God gave England onely the representation of a good King but would not in judgement let us be blest long with him Religion began to revive Liberty to bud forth the people to peep out of their graves of slavery and bondage and to have their blood fresh and blushing in their cheeks but all is presently blasted by his death and the people who have seldom more then hopes for their comforts are now fainting for fear England is benighted and hung with black Queen Mary that Alecto and fury of women succeeds and now both souls and bodies of the people are enslaved and nothing but bone fires made of the flesh and bones of the best Christians But it s too much to name her in the English tongue Queen Elizabeth succeedes her who being prepared for the Crown by suffering came in a most seasonable time both for her self and the people who were made fuel for the flames of her sisters devotion And now England begins to flourish again and to recover its strength many inlargements were granted both to the consciences and estates of the people yet if we speak impartially we were kept further off Rome then royalty yet doubtless she may be Chronicled for the best Princess and her raign the most even and best mannaged with more fruits to the people then any of the former Kings especially if we consider how long she governed this Nation I
their liberties and freedoms in a customary usurpation of succession and lose their Common-wealth for the personall glory of a young Pretender especially when they have fought against the Father and cut him off as a Tyrant endeavour to set up the Son to follow on both the first cause and revenge meerly because he was supposed to be proceeded of his polluted loyns this blindness will be our misery and endear us to a more perfect and more tyrannicall slavery then ever yet England felt But to go on the Reader hath seen what a line we have had in England and how pure a title our Kings have had to their Crowns Le ts now but have patience to view their actings successively and yet shortly and we shall better guess of their right by their raigns for though one would think that they should endeavour to make good a bad title by a good raign yet it hath been far otherwise every man having made his right by force maintained it by tyranny and when they have gotten power never remembered how or to what end they attained it if we look back again and make a new and strict survey of their severall actings in their Government and go over every Kings head since Willam the Conqueror we shall not much mistake if we pass by Turkie Russia the Moors and yet call Englands Kings Tyrants and their Subjects Slaves and however in the theory and System it have been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing Laws yet in the exercise and practique part almost of every Kings Raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute for the Laws and Priviledges which this poor Nation hath enjoyed as they have been but complementally granted for the most part and with much design so they have ever upon any occasion proved but weak and low hedges against the Spring-tides and Land floods of the Prerogative of the Prince which hath always gained more on the priviledges of the people then ever the Sea by all its washing and beatings of its boysterous and unmerciful waves hath gained on the Land for if at any time the poor Commons through much strugling and a good and present necessitous mood of the Prince have got off any present oppressions and forced out the promise for enacting of any good and seasonable Laws yet either the next advantage or at least the next successor hath been sure either to silence or diannul it and incroached upon it and never was Priviledge or good Law enacted or gained to the people but by hard pressure of the Subject and with a predominant ingredient of the Kings advantage and still rather out of courtesie then right We shall finde also that England for three or four hundred years together some lucida intervalla excepted hath been a stage of blood and the astonishment of all Nations in civil wars and that meerly either for the clearing of the title to the Crown which yet at last was onely made lawfull by the prevailing power and as soon made illegall when another side got the better or else by the Subject and Barons taking up arms to defend themselves and make Rampiers if possible against the inundation of Prerogative and rather preserving then obtaining any additions of liberties and yet they were commonly defeated at last for if for the present by some eminent advantage they got a little ground they soon lost it again by royal stratagems and were either forced or complemented into their old miseries with a worse remembrance of former actings But to enter into the particulars of this sad Story All men know or may the tyrannical domination of that first William who behaved himself as a Conqueror indeed and a most perfect tyrant since whom we have never had an English man but one who hath been naturalized by the succession of his Conquest as King of England he presently changed most of our Laws especially those wherein the English liberties were most transparent and preserved and made new Laws and those which he left writ them all in French disweaponed all the Natives sent the children of the best and most faithful of the Nobility into Normandy as Hostages and the most gallant of the English were transported by him into France to serve his wars that he might extinguish their Families he advanced his Normans into all places of the Nation and kept them as a guard over the English brought in the cruel Forrest Laws and dispeopled for thirty miles together in Hampshire pulling down many Towns and Villages with Churches Chappels and Gentlemens Houses making it a Forrest for wilde beasts which is ever since named the New Forrest but was the old ensign of our misery and slavery he laid on innumerable taxes and made Laws royal very severe and in an unknown Language that the English offending might forfeit their states and lands to him which they often did through ignorance But alas what need I mention these who ever reads but our Histories and the most favorable and fawning Royalist will see more then now can be expressed and yet here is the first fruits of our Kings and of their righteous title whose succession hath been as much in tyranny after him as in title and yet we must by a sacred obligation be bound to maintain with our blood and lives the branches of this rotten root notwithstanding all the providential and divine opportunities of casting off that miserable yoak which our forefathers so sadly groaned under and would have triumphed in the pouring out their blood which they shed freely but to little purpose but to have foreseen their childrens children might have but the hopes of attaining to But although William the first made sure his Conquest to his own person yet by his tyranny he gave ground of designs and hopes of recovery after his death therefore the people who but murmured and mourned in secret formerly consider now their condition and that Robert the right heir was wanting and his second son endeavored to be set up begin to capitulate and repeat their former grievances and to stand upon their terms with the next Successors But William Rufus who longed for the Crown and saw what advantage he had by his brothers absence through the mediation of Lanke-Frank the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a man for his vertue and learning in great esteem with the people got himself to be accepted and crowned King with exclusion of his elder brother by fair promises and engagements to repeal his fathers Laws and of promoting the liberties of the English any probability being then taking to the poor people But no sooner had he got the Crown fastned on his head and defeated his brother in battle but he forgat all his own promises follows directly his fathers steps grows excessive covetous lays on intolerable taxes and merciless exactions returns their longings and hopes after their just libertie into a sad bondage and slavery The poor people having thus
man this is the misery of depending on royal promises and engagements which are usually nothing else but complementall engins to move up the peoples affections while they more easily and insensibly drain out their blood and purses this was the end of this Rough and Lionlike King who reigned nine years and nine months wherein he exacted and consumed more of this Kingdom then all his Predecessors from the Norman had done before him and yet less deserved it then any having neither lived here nor left behind him monument of piety or any publike work or ever shewed love or care to this Common-wealth but onely to get what he could from it we see hitherto what a race of Kings we have had and what cause we have to glory in any thing but their Tombs and yet if we expect better afterwards we shall be as much mistaken of their actings as they were of their right The next that raigned though without any hereditary title was King John Stephens Brother whose government was as unjust as his title for he having by Election out of fear and policy of State got the Crown with expulsion of Arthur the right heir ut supra embarked the State and himself in these miserable incumberances through his violence and oppression as produced desperate effects and made way to those great alterations in the government which followed the whole reign of this King was a perfect tyranny there is in History hardly one good word given him the Barons and Clergy continually opposed him strugling for a confirmation of their long desired liberties but were most commonly either cluded or defeated by promises which were never intended to be performed until at last being more entirely united with the Commons and stoutly resolved and confirmed by an Oath taken at St. Edmunds-Burie in a general Assembly they then swore on the high Altar never to lay down arms if King John refused to confirm and restore unto them these liberties the rights which this Kingdom was formerly blest with and which all the late Kings had cheated them of the King knowing their power and considering their engagements makes use of policy and desired time to answer them entertaining them with smooth and gentle language and courtesie untill he had got strength and then he began anew to try experiments of securing himself and frustrating their desires But the Lords continuing their resolution and knowing nothing was to be obtained but by strong hand assemble themselves with a great Army at Stamford from whence they marched towards the King who was then at Oxford sent him a Schedule of their claimed liberties with an Appendix of their absolute resolutions in case of his denyal this Tyrant having heard them read with much passion replies Why do they not demand the Kingdom as wel and swore he would never grant these liberties whereby himself should be made a servant The Barons upon his Answer being as Daniel saith as hasty as he was averse resolve to seaze on his Castles and Possessions and repairing to London being welcomed by the Citizens who had too long groaned under the same tyranny they get a great access of strength by new confederates and renew their spirits oaths for the thorow prosecution of the war the King seeing himself in a strait which by no ordinary strength he could evade by gentle and teeming Messages sent to the Barons he obtained a Conference in a Medow called Running-mead between Windsor and Staâ—es where armed multitudes came from all places crying nothing but Liberty Liberty so sweet was that tone to them then After many hard Conferences the King seeing it no time to dally that they would not trust him with any complemental expressions whom they looked on as formerly perjured grants their desires not only saith Speed for Liberties specified in Magna Charta Charta Forrestae but also for a kind of sway in the Government by five and twenty selected Peers who were to be as a check over the King and his chief Justiciar and all his Officers to whom any appeal might be made in case of breach of any article or priviledge confirmed by that Charter And now one would think the people were secure enough but though they seem now to have the livery yet they had not the seisin for presently the King having got now credit by the largeness of his grants gets liberty with less suspicion to undo all and in a short time pretending these grants to be acts of force having got power renounceth his engagement by them and afterwards repeals them and dispoiled all these of their lands and possessions who had any hand or heart in procuring the former grants and by new and additionall Laws made them more perfect slaves then ever they were before untill at last he was poysoned by a Monk instead of being deposed But though he be dead yet the miseries of this Nation ended not with him for his son Henry the third who succeeded him though he could not at first follow on his Fathers designs being an Infant yet at last did not onely imitate but outstrip him yet the English Nation who are much given to credulity and apt to be won by fair and plausible promises notwithstanding all the fathers iniquity imbrace the son having taken an oath of him to restore and confirm the liberties they propounded to his father which he had often granted and as often broken but for all his first oath they were fain not onely to remember him of it by petitions but oftentimes by arms and strength And though there was in this Kings Raign twenty one Parliaments called and many great Subsidies granted in confirmation of their liberties yet every Parliament was no sooner dissolved but the ingagement ceased a hint of two or three special Parliaments and their success will not be amiss to be set down in this place This King not being able to suppress the Barons and people by his own strength they having gotten not onely heart but power sends to forraign Nations for aid and entertains Poictovines Italians Almains Provincioes to subdue his own people and set them in great places which dangerous and desperate design the Barons much resenting raised their spirits and ingaged them in opposition to his Government and set them on with more courage to look after their liberties therefore they several times stand up against the violence of Prerogative but what through want of strength or caution they were commonly disappointed yet rather if we may speak truly from the unfaithfulness of the King then any other defect except it were their easiness to believe Kings when their Prerogative and the peoples liberties came in competition for after they had many times got or rather extorted many promises and confirmed them by oaths the best humane security they were put to new designs through either the suspention or breach of them witness these Instances after many foiles and tedious and various delusions by this King whose
his losses with a thorough subjection of their persons and suppression of their liberties I need relate no more of this King nor make observations the Reader will be amazed at the repetition he at least 20 times gave his promise for the confirmation execution of these just decrees contained in Magna Charta and as many times was perjured notwithstanding all the solemnities both Civil Moral and Ecclesiastical used in the acts of ratification this may learn us how to trust the most positive Engagements of Princes which cross their own interest and what to think of that word and promise they call Royall this King reigned fifty six years the longest of any King of England But we have had too much of the story of him as he had too long a time to rule considering his temper and design It s well if we can be wary for the future and be more cautious then to trust the most promising and insinuating Princes with our liberties and priviledges which can be no longer expected to be preserved by them then they may serve as footstools to advance them in the Throne of absolute Majesty But no more of this King never were there more hard strivings and wrestlings between tyranny and liberty with such bad success to the people I onely conclude his raign with the exhortation of the Psalmist Psal. 146. 3. O put not your confidence in Princes surely men of high degree are a lye King Henry is by this time layd in his grave and one would think Magna Charta buried with him His Son Edward who was his right-hand in his wars against the Barons and the principal Agent in their ruine succeeds him in the throne and instead of lessening goes on and makes an higher improvement of that royalty which his Father left him having in his own person got the victory over the Peoples Libertyes in his Fathers time and having wonne or worne out the greatest of those which opposed and being long experienced in the world so secured and advanced the Prerogative that as one sayth he seemed to be the first conqueror after the Conqueror that got the domination of this State in so absolute and eminent a manner as by his government appears He layd unsupportable Taxes both on the Clergy and Laity even unto Fiveteens and halfs of their Estates As for Tenths that was comparatively accounted easy the Barons and People for a long time durst not move for removal of greivances untill that the King being always in wars in France Flanders Wales and Scotland and so needed continually vast sums of mony called a Parliament wherein he demanded a great treasure of mony from the People that he might give them somewhat in lieu of their expences confirmed the two great Charters on the Petition of the Barons and People and so stopped their mouths and this he did as often as he had extraordinary occasions for mony But like all other royall promises they were performed by leasure Never was Royalty more Majestick and glorious then in this Kings raign and the people less able to oppose he was always so watchful and eager to enlarge his own power I shall end his raign also with what Daniel that impartiall and witty Historian saith of him He was more for the greatness of the Kingdom then the quiet of it and never King before or since except our last Charls shed so much Christian bloud within this Isle of Britain and was the cause of more in that following and not one grain of benefit procured unto the people by all their expences on him which was but to make themselves more perfect slayes The next King was Edward the Second his Son who though more vicious then the Father yet not more tyrannicall he gave more advantage to the people thorough his lewd life and unmartiall nature to seek the confirmation and establishment of Magna Charta and other good Laws which were utterly supprest and darkened in his Fathers reign This Prince gave himself over to all wicked courses and surrendred his Judgement and the management of all affairs of State unto evill and corrupt Counsellors especially to one Peirce Gaveston who had both his ear and heart unto whom he was so much endeared that he ventured the loss of Kingdom and all the hearts of his Subjects for his company and preservation and though the Barons had by often Petitions and earnest sollicitations prevailed with the King to banish him yet he soon after sent for him home and laid him more nigh his bosom then before on this the Barons raise an army against the King and send him word that unless he would observe the late Articles which they had formerly by much ado got him to sign in Parliament and put from him Pierce Gaveston they would rise in Arms against him as a perjured Prince the King whom they found was apt to be terrified yeilds again to his banishment with this clause that if he were found again within the Kingdom he should be condemned to death as an enemy of the State All places were now dangerous to Gaveston both Ireland where he formerly was protected France also too hot for him in this extremity finding no security anywhere else he again adventures on England and puts himself once again into the Kings bosom a Sanctuary which he thought would not be polluted with blood and there he is received with as great joy as ever man could be the Lords with more violence prosecute their suite to the King for delivering up or removing him once more but to no purpose they therefore set forwards with an Army say siege to the Castle wherein Gaveston was took him and notwithstanding the Kings earnest sollicitation for his life they condemned him to the block and took off his head this obstacle being removed out of the way the Lords having now the better end of the staff make advantages of it for demanding the confirmation and execution of all those Articles formerly granted threatning the King that if he would not consent to it they would force him by a strong hand with this message they had their swords also drawn and march towards London A Parliament is called where the King after a submission by the Lords to him for that act done against Gaveston contrary to his consent and will grants the Articles and pardon to them But the King goes on his old way adheres to wicked counsel waving the grave advice of his Parliament and is ruled by the two Spencers who acted with mighty strain of injustice which caused the Lords again to take up arms and stand for their Liberties but are through the revolt of some and the treachery of others overthrown at Burton upon Trent and two and twenty Noblemen the greatest Peers in the Realm executed in several places for nothing but opposing his evil Counsellors this was the first blood of Nobility that ever was shed in this manner in England since William the first which being so
much opened veines for more to follow and now the beam of power being turned regality weighs down all But by degrees through the continuation of his ill government whereby he daily lost the peoples hearts the Lords get an Army and take the King prisoner and by generall consent in Parliament deposed him as a tyrant and elected his son Edward the third to succeed and his son was crowned before his eyes Thus ended his raign but not his life Poor England which had laboured so long and successively under so many tyrants and had contested so long with Royalty for their dearly purchased liberties might now hopefully expect at least a dawning of Reformation especially when they had got so much power as to depose Authority and began as it were on a new account and the truth is affairs were now promising and distempers seemed to wear away with the former Governor yet the condition of the Kingdom had but a new face on it and grievances were rather not aggravated or multiplied then any whit removed and oppressions may be rather said to be changed from one shoulder to another then abolished Prince Edward who succeeded who was crowned in his fathers life had observance enough to remember his fate and was much warned by it both to prevent and suppress insurrections knowing by experience the full state of the controversie and therefore began his Government very fairely and with much applause onely to prevent factions and sidings he privately caused his father the deposed King to be cruelly murdered and so sate more securely though with more guilt upon the Throne his raign was fifty years odd months the longest next Hen. the third he spent most of his time in the wars of France to regain his titile to that Crown which the poor Subject felt in their estate and families and it was a happiness say some that he was so much abroad for when ever he came home as he wanted money to supply his expences so the people got ground to urge their Priviledges Magna Charta was at least twelve times ratified in this Kings Raign and so often broken yet because he goes under the name of the best Prince that raigned so long and so well let the Reader take but an Instance or two concerning his engagements to perform the grand Charter This King in the first Parliament made the fifteenth year of his raign had granted the enacting of divers wholsom and seasonable Laws which he willed and ingaged unto for him and his heirs that they should be firmly kept and remain inviolable for ever for the ratification of Magna Charta and other good Laws formerly enacted and that all the Officers of State as Chancellor Treasurer Barons of the Exchequer Judges c. should at that present in Parliament and for ever after take a solemn oath before their admission to their Offices to keep and maintain the point of the great Charter and the Charter of the Forrest c. But no sooner was the Parliament dissolved but the very same year he publikely revoked these Statutes pretending that they were contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Realm and to his Prerogative and Rights Royal c. wherefore we are willing saith he providently to revoke these things we have so improvidently done because saith he marke the dissimulation of Princes even in Parliaments We never really consented to the making of such Statutes but as then it behoved Vs We dissembled in the Premises by Protestations of revocation if indeed they should proceed to secure the dangers which by denying the same we feared to come with many more such passages and yet this King is the Phoenix of our more antient Monarchs but the Reader may still learn what the best of our Princes have been and what weak assurances any ingagements from them are where power is wanting from them and advantages present to them Another instance of his actings we may take up from the successe of his first siege of Tourney in France having laid on heavy and excessive taxes to maintain that war and the people seeing no fruits of all promises for executing the Articles of Magna Charta they refuse to pay any more without more faithfull performance of his Vows and solemn engagements to them whereby he wanting mony was fain to quit the place and return for England full of revengefull thoughts and in much fury breaths out destruction to all the refusers But the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury told him publikely but plainly that he had oftentimes as well as his Father offered manifest violences to the Liberties of the English Nation comprehended in that grand Charter and if he expected Subsidies from the people he must more carefully maintain their priviledges so justly due But the King vexed with such language both storms against the Arch-Bishop and as much as possibly he then could sought the ruine of all that had made any refusall of payment of these taxes although he had not in any manner performed his own promises Yet I will end his raign because he hath a name of a good King though as Speed saith by the Generall vote of Historians he committed many foul errors in his government with a good act he did at the fiftieth yeer of his age which he kept as his Jubilee he called a Parliament and there freely heard the grievances of the people and redressed many especially a Petition of the Commons against the doublings of Lawyers he caused the pleas which were before in French to be made in English a necessary Law saith Speed if it had been as carefully observed especially if he had ordered saith he that the same should not have been written in French That the Subject might understand the Law by which he holds what he hath and is to know what he doth But all this is not for nothing for as he imparted grace unto his people saith the same Auther for so all acts of Justice are termed whâ—n granted by Kings so he took a care to replenish his own purse by it that the poor Commons obtain not any thing which they pay not too dearly for Here ends the Life of the best reputed Prince and yet you see wherein his excellency lay the best happiness the people had in his raign was that they had more engagements for their liberties with more cost and the remembrances and sense of the goodness of them more fresh and sweet by the often repetition of them but for execution or addition to them they were as far to seek as in former times And if it do possibly happen that in one Kings raign either through the goodness of his nature or rather want of advantages there be an intermission of oppressions for that is the utmost to be expected yet the next King will be sure to make it up and if they give the people a little breath it s but that they may sow for the next to reap or as they do with men on