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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A92155	Angliæ ruina: or, Englands ruine represented in the barbarous, and sacrilegious outrages of the sectaries of this kingdome, committed upon the lives, consciences and estates of all His Maj: loyal subjects in generall; but more particularly upon the churches, colledges, clergie, and scholars of the same. Containing two briefe catalogues of such heads and fellowes of colledges in the University of Cambridge, and other learned and pious divines, within the city of London, as have been ejected, plundered, imprisoned, or banished, for their constancie in the Protestant religion, and loyalty to their soveraigne. Whereunto is added, a chronologie of the time and place of all the battails, sieges, conflicts, and other remarkable passages which have happened betwixt His Majesty and the Parliament; with a catalogue of such persons of quality, as have been slain on either party, from Novemb. 3. 1640 till the 25. of March, 1647.; Mercurius rusticus	Ryves, Bruno, 1596-1677.; Barwick, John, 1612-1664. Querela Cantabrigiensis.; Griffin, Matthew, 1599?-1665. London. A generall bill of mortality, of the clergie of London, which have beene defunct by reason of the contagious breath of the sectaries of that city, from the yeere 1641. to this present yeere 1647. with the several casualties of the same.	1648 (1648)	Wing R2447; ESTC R204638	175,259	292

blush to make a free and an ingenuous acknowledgement In these severall Relations what to retract or recall of the Rebels cruelties I yet know nothing but what to adde unto them I doe The sixt weeks Mercury told you of the Plundering of Willingbo●ow in Northampton-shire by the Rebels and the taking of Master Iones Vicar of that Towne Prisoner and in tha● account which I there gave of him I left him in Captivitie at North●mpton since that Mercury went abroad some good body finding that Relat●on to come far short of th●t barbarous usage which Master Iones found from the Rebels moved either with detestation of such inhumane cruelt●e not to be bu●yed in oblivion or out of affection to his person murthered by these savage Monsters hath supplyed the former defect and enabled me to bring this Story to its sad conclusion Master Iones was a man very aged being arrived at that Terme which Moses made the usuall boundary of mans life in his life Threescore and ten and had not these bloodthi●stie men shortned his dayes by an untimely death he might have been so strong as to come to fourescore yeares and though age it self be a disease which yet few men that have it are willing to be cur'd of it pleased God to adde a casuall infirmitie to his naturall for some two yeares since by a fall he unhappily broke his leg of which he continued lame to his death When the Rebells those Locusts that devoure all the good things of the Land came to Wellingborow having ransacked the Towne they took many Prisoners and amongst the rest Master Jones all that knew him must beare him record that he was a man of a most unblameable life and conversation an able Scholler and extraordinarily gifted for Preaching of which he gave ample proofe by his Labours diligently bestowed among his Parishioners by the space of forty years having h●m in their power whom they knew to be a great meanes by his Orthodox Preaching to keepe that Towne and some parts thereabouts in Obedience when the rest of the Countrey were in Rebellion against their Soveraigne they neither reverence his Calling nor honour his age nor pittie his infirmitie but abuse him by scosse● and jeeres and compell him to goe on foot a great part of the way lame and weak as he was betweene Wellingborow and Northampton and that he might keepe pace with the rest they compell him to make more speed then his infirmitie could brooke At Wellingborow the Rebells murthered a Barber and stole away his Beare and when they could not force this reverend old man to mend his pace Lieutenant Grimes a desperate Brownist the master of this mis-rule and the chiefe agent in inflicting all this scor●e and tyranny on Master Jones but since a pr●soner in Banbury Castle to see if feare would adde to his strength forceth the Beare upon him which running betweene his legs took him upon her back and laying ande the intractablenesse of its Nature grew patient of her burden and to the astonishment of the beholders carried him quietly so that what was intended as a violence became his ease The Rebels overcome by so unusual an example of kindnesse the savage Bea●e reproving the madnesse of their fury they remove Master Io●es from off the Beare to a Horse but such a Horse as did but vary not better the condition of his transportation One of the rout observed to be extreamely active in all these insolencies and to have a hand in murthering the Barber seeing the tamenesse of the Bear as quiet under Master Iones as if she had bin accustomed to the Saddle prefumes that it was no more but up and ride and presently bestrides the Beare who as if she had been of that race that did revenge the Prophet Elis●as quarrell dismounts the bold Rider and as if she had bin rob'd of her whelps did so mangle rend and tear him with her teeth and pawes that the presumptuous wretch dyed of these hurts suddenly after Stay Reader suspend thy opinion be not too hastie I professe ingenuously the relation seemes at first blush to partake something of the Romanse or at best to be but an imitation of some Popish Legend as if we meant to implo●e the help of seyned miracles to gain credit to a partie but against all this prejudice I must oppose first the Integritic and qualitie of the Relator being beyond all exception and affirms it on his credit Secondly why may not God stop and open the mouth of the Bear now as well as the Lyons heretofore ● to revenge the indignities offered to a Minister under the Gospel by the same creature as those offered to a Prophet under the Law Or lastly why may not the blood of him that owned this Beast be required by this Beast of him that had his hand in shedding it This was not the first time that God gave commission to the Brute to execute his vengeance But I forget my selfe my businesse is to relate things done not to encounter Objections against their probability of doing To goe on therefore Having brought Master Iones to N●●thampton his entertainment there was as bad as his usage in the way thither though it were in the depth of Winter when old age needed good fortifications of Lodging and Dyet against the incursions of Cold and Wet yet they afford him nothing but a hard mat with a little straw under him and to cover him and to keep him warme nothing but one Blanket and his own wearing clothes As for his food they give him the bread of afflict on d●●ying his owne friends leave to supply him with competent dyet to sustaine nature and his growing infirmities yet to shew that Man lives not by bread onely but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God it pleased his good providence to preserve him like the young children in Daniel fed only with Pulse so that he was in good plight and seemed to want nothing though he continued in this distressed condition from Christmas to almost Easter about which time not remorse of conscience for so much cruelty practiced on a decrepid old man but an Orthodox Reverend Divine but importunitie of friends prevailed with the Rebells to release him of his imprisonment in Northampton and to remit him to a neighbour Ministers of his one M. Walters Bachelor in Divinitie Vicar of Doddington neer Wellingborow a very learned and industrious Preacher and permitted him to Officiate in his owne Cure at Easter there being but one Parish Church in the Towne but no lesse then two thousand Communicants Having licence to visit his Charge not awed by that Tyrannous usage which he had undergone Conscience of his duty doth presse him to a punctuall observance of the Orders and Canons of the Church he Celebrates Divine Service according to the Book of Common Prayer preacheth Obedience as boldly as if there had been no Rebells in Northampton-shire administreth the Sacraments with the same

MERCURIVS RUSTICUS THE COVNTRYS COMPLAINT Recovnting the Sad Events of this Unparraleld WARR Angliae Ruina OR ENGLANDS RUINE Represented in the Barbarous and Sacrilegious Outrages of the Sectaries of this Kingdome committed upon the Lives Consciences and Estates of all His Maj Loyal Subjects in generall but more particularly upon the Churches Colledges Clergie and Scholars of the same Containing two briefe Catalogues of such Heads and Fellowes of Colledges in the University of Cambridge and other Learned and Pious Divines within the City of London as have been ejected Plundered Imprisoned or Banished for their Constancie in the Protestant Religion and Loyalty to their Soveraigne Whereunto is added A Chronologie of the time and place of all the Battails Sieges Conflicts and other remarkable passages which have happened betwixt His Majesty and the Parliament with a Catalogue of such Persons of Quality as have been slain on either party from Novemb. 3. 1640 till the 25. of March 1647. AMOS 9. 11. I will raise up the Tabernacle of David that is falne and alose up the breaches thereof and I will raise up his ruines and I will build it as in the dayes of old ANNO 1647. The Preface WHen the sinnes of this Kingdome were ripe for punishment the Divine Justice permitted a great part of it to be besotted with Discontents either wholly causelesse or such as His Maj. was pleased to remeay with Grants so unmeasurably gracious as could not otherwise be justified then by thier importunity that demanded them and His Majesties Royall tendernesse of his Subjects peace and safety These grants were so far from satisfying those whose broken fortunes and boundlesse desires would not permit them to live without a Civill War that they made of them no other use then thereby to strenthen themselves to demand more till at last they broke out into most unnaturall Rebellion The people alwayes apt to cherish murmures and invectives against thier Princes and now grown wanton with the fruits of a long peace incline to Abners mind and thinke the Warre which yet they knew not but a sport Therefore with a great facility they embrace the designe and the baits to cover the Hooks with are the preservation of Religion and the vindication of liberty And howsoever they cannot reconcile their practise with Gods command which under paine of damnation forbids all Subjects to resist their King yet they are so wedded to that interest which they Challenge in Religion and Liberty that for Gods command if they cannot untie the knot they resolve to cut it Doe but assure them that the forbidden fruit will make them as Gods and they will eate it though it be forbidden doe but perswade them that to take up armes against their Soveraigne is the way to secure their Religion and Liberty and they make bold with God for once to choose their owne way for so good an end From so desperate Resolution had they had but Morall justice they might have beene kept back by the improbability of those calumnies whereby His Majestie was traduced as intending to alter Religion and infringe their Liberties Or had Religion to which they doe so Zealously pretend had that potent influence upon them it might have taught them that Religion cannot be defended by transgressing Gods commands which are the Rule of it But if nothing else yet even regard to their owne pretensions the defence of Religion and Liberty should have wrought in them a detestation of Rebellion which is so contrary to both For as an eye had to Gods dominion over us should exact obedience to his commands though never so much to our prejudice So the meditation of his infinite goodnesse ought to win it from us because his commands enjoyne us onely what is for our good if we could see it He would not have forbidden Subjects to defend Religion against their King by force of Armes but that he knew as Rebells can be no friends to Religion so it gaines love admiration by the innocent patience of those that professe it where as Blood-shed Force and Rapine the fruits of Rebellion procure Hatred or Hypocrisie And for Liberty it is for he good of Mankind to forbid the assertion of it by Subjects Armes taken up against their Prince both because that pretence would otherwise be used by those that have a designe to make the abused people their owne slaves and because Rebellion doth more violate the Subjects liberty then is morally possible for the worst Prince in times of peace to doe This truth was knowne before by speculation to a few whose endeavours to infuse it into the distempered peoples minds had the fate of Caffandraes predictions to hit the truth and want belief till these sad times have at last verified it by acostly experience That this may be more universally beneficiall you have too plentifull a harvest of Instances collected in the ensuing Relations wherein may evidently be seene that this War which the multitude was so fond of as the onely meanes to preserve Religion and Liberty hath beene the utter ruine of them both Here you shall find these great pretenders to Religion Suppressing that which themselves confesse to be Divine Truth Debarring poore prisoners the comfort of joyning their prayers together enforcing men to take Oaths of blind obedience to whatsoever they should afterwards command them turning out Clergiemen above all exception and placing most scandalous and insufficient wretches in their roomes darting from their invenomed mouthes most horrid Blasphemies against our Lord and Saviour abusing the service of God and profaning not only the Forme of it the Booke of Common Prayer which now they have utterly extirpated but even Gods owne Word the holy Bible which they pretend to reverence Here shall you behold them not onely like those Canes Sepulchrales violating the bones ashes of the dead to make the world know that they beleeve what some of their fellowes openly professe that of those sometime living Temples of the holy Chost there shall be no Resurrection but exercising their sury on the Churches of God which they have defaced with barbarous rudenesse defiled with more then beastly nastinesse as if contrary to their wont they had studyed the Booke of Maccabes to find out and out-doe the most Heathenish wickednesses therein related they have polluted the very Altar with their whoredomes Nor can these Reformers at whose doore the profanations of the Houses of God must lye make the world beleeve they are in earnest when they plead for Religion whilst they deface and demolish the places where it should be taught and practiced and put out the Eyes of the most flourishing Universities of Christendome Then for the other point the Subjects Liberty the following Narrations will plainly shew that it hath not been spared by those that would be accounted the Champions of it when the violation of it might satisfie either their Lust their Covetousnesse or their Cruelty Their Lust hath prompted them not only to

named Man or Woman that boggl●d at the Common-prayers or refused to receive the Sacrament kneeling the posture which the Church of England walking in the foot-steps of venerable Antiquity hath by Act of Parliam●nt injoyned all those which account it their happinesse to be called her children But since this magnified Reformation was set on foot this Towne as indeed most Corporations as we finde by experience are Nurceries of Faction and Rebellion is so filled with Sectaries especially Brownists and Anabaptists that a third part of the people refuse to communicate in the Church-Lyturgie and halfe refuse to receive the blessed Sacrament unlesse they may receive it in what posture they please to take it They have amongst them two sorts of Anabaptists the one they call the Old men or Aspersi because they were but sprinkled the other they call the New men or the Immersi because they were overwhelmed in their Rebaptization In August 1641. there was an Order published by the House of Commons indeed by some leaders in a Committee for the taking away all Scandalous Pictures out of Churches in which there was more intended by the Authors then at first their instruments understood untill instructed by private information how farre the People were to inlarge the meaning When this Order came forth there was standing in the Chancell a goodly faire Window at the East end untouched from the first foundation of the Church in which was painted the History of Christ from his Conception to his Ascension and to perpetuate the memory of the Benefactors in the vac●nt places there were the Eschochions and Armes of the ancient Nobility and Gentry who had contributed to the building building and beautifying that faire structure In obedience to the Order the Church-wardens tooke downe the pictures of the blessed Virgin and of Christ on the Crosse and supplyed the places with white glasse But the Sectaries who understood the sense of that Order better then the Church-wardens did rest very ill satisfyed with this partiall imperfect Reformation That therefore they might according to the phrase of the times make a Thorough Reformation on the Fist of November in the Evening all the Sectaries assemble together and in a Riotous manner with long Poles and stones beat downe and deface the whole Window This excrcise of an usurped power in the People without the Lawfull Magistrate like that which Andreas Corolostadius put in practice in the Reformation under Luther and was sharply condemned by him and ind●ed gave the unhappy occasion to that Schism● which is hardly made up at this day st●rred the spirit of the Doctor to inveigh the next Lords day against Popular tumultuous Reformations though to the ●etter as being vitiated First by the defect of lawfull Authority which cannot reside in the people Secondly in the intempe●ancy of the prosecution who commonly cast out one Devill by another abolishing Superstition with S. dition This so incensed the Sectaries thus to be opposed in their furious zeale that they threatned the Doctor to ruine him if he preached any more on that subject and to let him see how welcome such doctrine was unto them there was a Carbine discharged at a window of that roome where the Doctors usuall abode was the Bullet passed through the place and in all probability had slain him had not the good Providence of God without which a Sparrow falls not to the ground diverted him unexpectedly from a businesse before knowne to be appointed for that place and houre This designe frustrated about a fortnight after one of these new Proselytes a young Clothier with others poss●ssed with the same frenzy came into the Church immediatly after divine Service was ended layd violent hands upon the Doctor took him by the Throat and would have torne his Surplesse off his back and were so inraged that had not some of his honest peaceable Parishioners come to his rescue they had in all probability indangered his life but whom they could not wound with their hands they cut with their tongues as with a sharpe razor they revile him and call hin Baals Priest and Popish Priest for wearing the Rags of Rome my they cry out against him as a Perjured Person that had violated his faith ingaged in the Protestation to abolish Popery of which in their opinion wearing the Surplesse was a part Many attempts they made upon the Doctor and his Curate affronting them both in officiating Divine service and administration of the Sacraments but they being countenanced by a considerable part in the Towne the Sectaries could not effect what they desired untill at last in the Months of Iune July and August 1642. they were animated by the comming of the Forces raised in Essex Suffolke and Norflok for as they raised each Company it was sent to Chelmesford the common Rendevouz and there stayed untill they were made up three hundred or foure hundred and so sent to London In all the time of their stay there the Doctor lay at the mercy of the Souldiers who egg'd on by the Brownists and Anabaptists of the Towne used his house as their Quarter consumed his provisions for his Family and commanded there as Lords Amongst many Outrages committed by the Souldiers Three are most remarkable First upon a Fast day they send a Command to the Doctor that he should not pray for the Bishops nor so much as make mention of t●em in his lipps nor use the Book of Common Prayer if he did they threaten to pull him out of the Pulpit and teare him in pieces the Doctor not intimidated by their Threat gives order to his Curate to read the Prayers appoynted which accordingly he did The Souldiers right bred being Volunteeres of Colchester and Ipswich and rightly designed too for my Lord Sayes own Regiment fit Souldiers for such a Leader irreverently fit with their Hans en make a noyse to drowne the Curates voyce nay they call to him to come out of his Calves Coope meaning the Reading-deske and make an end of his Pottage the Curate remembring that advice of our Saviour not to cast pearles before Swine nor holy things to doggs gives over ●eading unwilling to expose the holy worship of God to so soule contempt and scorne Having thus silenced the Curate their commanders looking on they violently take the Sacred Bible to teare it but being reproved for it by Sergeant Major Bamfeild then present they exchange the Bible for the Booke of Common Prayer having it in their power in Solemne triumph they carry it into the streets and that which holy Ma●tyrs inspired by the holy Ghost composed and sealed the truth and sanctitie of it with their dearest blood these Savage Miscreants rent in peeces some of the leaves they tread under feet some they cast into the kennell some they p●ssed upon and some they fixed on the end of their Clubbs and Cudgels and in a Triumphant manner marched with them up and down the Towne Secondly about a week after when

Treason and steales the Kings Horses or doth any thing Plunders the Countesse of her Coach horses notwithstanding a Warrant from the Lords House to secure them And when this Warrant was produced to stave off this Parliament Horse-taker he replyed That if the Warrant had been from both Houses he would obey it as comming from the highest Authority in England sure this man was borne with Treason in his month but since it came But from the Lords he did not value it When this Warrant could not prevaile the Countesse obtaines a Warrant from the Earl of Essex to have the Horses restored unto her againe but Master Martin to over-bear all procures an Order from the House of Commons to keepe them This honourable Ladies goods were seized on though licensed to passe by the Lords and searched and allowed by the Custome-house At Pebmarsh in the same County of Essex on the Lords day divers of the Parliament Voluntiers came into the Church while the Parson Master Wiborow was in his prayer before Sermon and placed themselves neere the Pulput and when he was in his Prayer one of them struck divers times with his staffe against the Pulpit to interrupt him and while he was in his Sermon in contempt of the place where they were and the sacred action in doing they were almost as loud as the Preacher to the great disturbance of the Congregation No sooner was the Sermon ended and the Parson come out of the Pulpit as far as the Reading desk but they lay violent hands upon him rent his clothes and threaten to pull him in pieces in the Church With much intreatie they spare him there and permit him to goe into the Church-yard he is no sooner come thither but they assault him more violently then before Master Wiborow seeing the Constable who all this while stood a spectator of his hard usage calls unto him and charges him in the Kings name to keepe the Kings Peace at his request they did a little forbeare him but before he could get halfe wayes home they assault him againe and demand his Booke of Common Prayer which he used in the Church That which was found by the Parish being torne in pieces before which he refusing to deliver up unto them they wreck their fury on him They tugge and ●ale him and vow to kill him unlesse he deliver up the Booke of Common Prayer to their pleasure he stoutly refuseth Hereupon they fall upon him strike up his heeles and take it from him by force and so carry it away in triumph M. Blaker by a silenced Minister heretofore preaching at Halstead in the same County told them that to bow at the Name of Jesus was to thrust a spear into Christs side and such Ministers as signed children with the signe of the Crosse did as much as in them lay to send such children unto the Devill When the Earl of Essex and the rest went from Reading to London after the unhappy to say no more surrender to that Towne they left there a Committee consisting of none but City Captains Tradesmen these according to the authority comitted unto them summon al the able men of the Parishes thereabout to appear before them at Reading and assessed them at their pleasure In Marlow they assessed one Master Drue at 1000 l. they fell to 500 l. he refusing to pay was imprisoned but the Prison being most nastic and loathsome denyed the Accommodation of Bedding was forced to pay 300 l. Master Hor●epoole they feased at 200 l. Master Chase a man Plundered before at 40 l. twentie pound was offered but nothing will be abated of thirtie Eliot a Butcher at an hundred pound and imprisoned Cocke a Baker at 20 l. Master Furnace the Vicar not suffered to speak for himselfe because a Malignant at 10 l. and paid seven John Langley 10 l. Thomas Langley 20 l. William Langley 5 l. and Wilmot his servant 5.l John More 80 l. Haskins a Shoomaker 5 l. Cane an Inne-keeper 7 l. Rates so illegall or had they bin legall so unequally proportioned to these mens Estates that had Ship-money been still on foot it would not have drawne so much money out of their purses in fortie or fiftie years as this blew Apron Committee at Reading removed some seven or eight degrees from the Close Committee at Westminster extorted from them at one clap O that wee were but so wise as to compare our Conditions certainly then we could not but acknowledge the just wrath of God upon us for our ingratitude murmuring so much when wee had so little cause and blesse God for the returne of our former Peace though with all its grievances and those maliciously aggravated Master Gues Thorne Bachelor in Divinitie and Parson of S. C●berts in Bedford was upon Sunday in the begi●ning of August last 1642. apprehended in his Parish Church immediately after he came out of the Pulpit ha●ing preached three Sermons in the Towne that day by the Lord Saint-Johns Troopes who lay then in Bedford and in a very boysterous manner carryed away to an Inne in the Towne not permitted to go home to his house to visite his family nor any of his friends suffered to come to him the next day he was carryed away to London where when he had ly●n more then three weekes under the Messengers hands he was brought to his I ryall at the Barre in the Lords House Accusations are framed against him out of Sermons preached nine years before Witnesses are produced to prove the Articles who so well remembred what they were to say that they were faine to read their depositions out of Papers which they brought in their hands Master Thorne gives so full an answer to all the objections that the Lords pronounce themselves satisfied and him innocent onely the Lord Say disputes with him and the Earl of Bullingbrooke grumbles at him At length it is pretended that there is another witnesse in the Country that can say somewhat especially if it be written down in a Paper as it was to his fellow deponents hereupon he is committed to the Fleet there to remaine till that Witnesse can be prevailed with to find leisure to come up About three weekes after the Witnesse appeares and is sworne and contrary to the Rules of that Court is sent to be examined by a Clerke Master Thorne with much adoe obtaines a Copy of his depositions which upon a view containe no new matter but what he had before answered unto cleared hereupon he Petitions again for a sentence he is ordered to attend the House after a chargeable attendance of many dayes with his Keeper he is called the cause reviewed upon the review the Earles of Pembroke Holland Clare and divers others affirme that in their consciences they had acquitted him at the first hearing and now upon the review found nothing to alter their opinion and therefore thought it fit he should be discharged But well f●re a good neighbour at a dead list the Earl

perii It was gathered by many circumstances especially by depositions taken before thc Coroner and by some speeches that fell from their owne mouths that their principall aime at that time was to have murthered the Doctor which 't is probable they had effected had not some honest Inhabitants premonished the Doctor who was at the same time on his way towards the Church intending to have Preached About the same time many of these Murtherers were heard expressing their rancour against the Doctor thus Some said they would chop the Rogue as small as Hearbs to the Pot for suffering Pottage for by that name they usually style the Book of Common Prayer to be read in his Church Others said they would squeeze the Pope out of his belly with such like scurrilous and malicious Language The Sunday sennight after this out-rage being the fifth of March the Doctor perceiving some Separatists at Sermon at Lambeth took occasion to speak as followeth IF ever Schismatiques and foul-mouth'd Separatists were set forth in their native colours the Schismatiques of this age are P●al 50.16 17 18 19 20. What hast thou to doe to declare my Statutes or that thou shouldst take my Covenant in thy mouth seeing thou hatest instruction whatsoever thou pratest of Reformation and castest my words behind thee namely Prov. 14.21 Eccles. 10.20 Rom. 12. 1 2 3 4. Heb. 13 8 9 17. 1 Pet. 2.13 when thou sawest a thmese then thou consentedst with him and hast been partaker with Adulterers Thou givest thy mouth to lying and thy tongue frameth deceit Thou fittest and speakest against thy brother and standerest thins owne mothers sonne For is not this their chanting Language The Prelates of England are all Antichristian The Ministers Baals Priests The Publique Service Idolatrous The Ceremonies Superstitious And the Sacraments corrupted with mans invention I take them at their word If this be true then is the Church of England no true Church of Christ then they which have received all the Religion they have from her are no better then Miscreants Pagans and Infidels in apparent perill of drowning in everlasting perdition because out of the Arke without God in this world because without his Church For as the blessed Martyr St. Cy●●ian soundly argueth against their forefathers the Catharists Deum non potest habere Patrem qui ●t clesiam non habet Matrem And Church they have none for their Mother for they disclaime the true Protestant Church of England and the Popish disclaimes them so they are meere A per se A's Independents like the horli pensiles in Lactantius and Mausolus his Sepulchre in Martial hanging and hovering in the ayre The Scripture sets forth the true visible Church of Christ upon earth under the embleme of a great field a great fl●ore a great house a great sheet a great draw net a great and large foundation c. The Church shadowed out under these similitudes cannot be their Congregation or rather Conventicles For as they brag and commend themselves wanting good neighbours In their Field there are no tares in their floore there is no chasse in their house no vessells of dishonour in their sheet no uncleane beasts in their net no trash on their foundation nothing built but gold silver and precious stones They have not sate with vaine persons nor kept company with dissemblers they have hated the assembly of Malignants and have not acompanied with the ungodly they have not nor will not Christen in the same Font nor sit at the holy Table for to kneele at the Sacrament is Idolarry nor drink spiritually the blood of our Redeemer in the same Chalice with the wicked Get ye packing then out of our Churches with your bags and baggages hoyse up sayle for New England or the Isle of Providence or rather Sir Thomas Mores Eutopia where Pluto's Commoner and Os●rius his Nobleman and Castillio his Courtier and Vegetius his Souldier and Tully his Orator and Aristocles Eelix and the Jewes Ben●ohab and the Manichees Paraslet and the Gnosticks illuminate ones and the Montanists spirituall ones and the Pellagians Perfect ones and the Cathacists pure ones and their precise and holy ones are all met at Prince Arthurs Round Table where every guest like the Table is totus teres alqque totundus There are three heads of Catechisme and grounds of Christianitie The Apostles Creed the Lords Prayer and and Tea Commandements these may be more truely then Gorran his Postills tearmed aurea fundamenta which they goe about to overthrow and cast down and when they have done it no place remaineth for the to build their Synagogues or Maria Rotunda's but the sand in the Saw pit where there Apostle Browne first taught most profoundly The Lords Prayer they have excluded out of their Lyturgie the Apostles Creed out of their Confession and the Ten Commandements by the Antinomians their Disciples out of their rule of life They are too good to say the Lords Prayer better taught then to rehearse the Apostles Creed better liv'd then to hear the Decalogue read at their Service for God can see no sinne in them nor man honestie Tell me ye bastard-brood of Martins is it not sufficient for the conviction of your cauterized consciences that ye wreck your spleene upon the materiall Temples of God by breaking downe Organs burning Rayles and defacing the Monuments ot the dead but will ye go about to destroy the spirituall Temple of the holy Ghost not fearing that dreadfull sentence of the Apostle He that destroyeth the Temple of God kim shall God dstroy Could they not be content to teare the Booke of Common Prayer in pieces and scatter the leaves all about the Church but will they also rend and dilacerate the living members of Christs mysticall body Will they charge the Cannon with murthering shot to destroy and dislipate whole assemblies of Gods Servants met together upon his own day to worship him in his own house Do they that their bare opposition to Popery will save them If that alone would give a man a good title to heaven not onely the Socinians Liberrines Fami●●sts Antinomians and other damnable H●retiques but even the Jewes Turkes would snatch heaven from them and take it by force for these are as vehe●●ent opposers of Popery as they are And howsoever the ●●●nt opposition to Popish Superstition is all the Religi●●●●e of them have yet are they not at so deadly feud with Papists as they would beare the world in hand for they shake hands with them in many of their Tenets and practices both of them condemne our English Lyturgie and professe Recusanci● both of them Idolize their teachers c. Who hath bewitched them that they should beleeve Bedlam shall be so farre enlarged and the spirit of Frenzie possesse Old England that they should have the like successe here as their cozen germans the Anabapticts had at Munster though we envy them not their high preferment in the end After these fits of Convulsion are over

Proclaimed that thence he might take occasion to blaspheme His Soveraigne for being Proclaimed on Friday the third of March the next day Saturday being the chiefe Market day when the Market was fullest that the newes might be carryed into all parts of the Country and every one learne from so desperate an example to contemne their Soveraignes Commands Fines comes in his Coach to the high Crosse attended by a Troope of Horse and after a Declaration read That the Proclamation published the day before was a Scandalous and Libellous Paper and such as deserved to be burnt by the hand of a publique Hangman he caused the Serjeant that Ploclaimed it to burne it holding Pistolls to his brest and threatning to shoot him if he did not hold them high enough fearing it seemes that so damnable so unpardonable a Treason should want witnesses Lastly As the direct end of their desire to deliver up the Citie to the Kings protection was conscience of dutie to God and their Soveraigne so the reflected end was their owne securitie and quitting themselves of those Oppressions and Grievances under which they suffered And these were many First The often repeated Taxations and Loanes of Money unto the King and Parliament as they were pleased to joyne them upon the thred-bare securitie of the Puplique Faith and if any man refused to lend on that credit which they had banckrupted long before he was threatned with Imprisonment Plundring or which was worse then both sending up to the Parliament And to these may be added the dayly drayning their purses by illegall exactions imployed for repayring the Castle building of Forts and maintaining a Garrison against the King Secondly By urging upon them new and Treasonable Votes and Protestations If not fully in words yet in the the use and interpretation of them directly opposite to the Oath of Allegiance the Oath of the Citie taken by every Citizen when he is elected into the place of a Burgesse in which they sweare in the sixth Article of that Oath not to enter into any Oath or Confederacy against the king contrary to the Lawes of the Land and likewise contrary to the Protestation recommended from the Parliament to the Subjects of this Kingdome The Oath for the tenor of words was this following IA. B. doe protest and vow in the presence of Almightie God that I will to the utmest of my power and to the hazard my t se and fortunes oppose all such Forces as shall attempt any thing against the Citie of Bristol Without the consent of the King and Parliament so to doe In which Protestation they tooke the name of the King in vaine for when they say King and Parliament they meant the two Houses without the King for if actions bee the best interpreters of the Agents words it is more then manifest that by the Protestation they intended to ingage that Citie in Rebellion against the King and that under the tye of Religion And for proofe I offer first their seconding this Protestation with another which spake more plainly wherein they were to protest with their lives and fortunes to resist Prince Rupert the Lord Generall the Earle of Forth the Lord Marquesse Hertford the Earle of Newcastle Sir Ralph Hopton and their Forces and secondly because as before the tendring of this Protestation they had received Colonel Essex to Command there for the Parliament so within 2 few dayes after the first Protestation was tendered they admitted Colonel Popham and Sir Edward Hungerford with their Regiments and afterward Colonel Fines without any oppositiog that so now being backed with so strong a power they might make the latter Protestation the interpreter of the former Upon the Petition of Mistresse Majoresse the Lady Rogers Mistresse Holsworth Miresse Vicaris with other Zealous Sisters to the number of a hundred Thirdly By difarming all such as were any wayes suspected to beare a good and loyall affection to His Majestic unlesse they would take such Protestations as should be tendered to them and having taken away such Armes as they found not satisfied with this they urge on them another Protestation protesting in the sight of God and calling him to witnesse that they had no other Armes concealed in their houses either their owne or ohers and if any man refused to take this Protestation he was instantly imprisomed as an enemy to the State and a man not to be confided in Fourthly The perpetuall scorn and obloquy to which they were exposed reproached every day as they passed the streets with names of Malignants and Papists nay as if they had beene worse then Jewes they spit at them and threaten to take a speedy course with them Fifthly The generall contempt and prophanation of Gods holy Worship and Service rending of Surplices tearing the Booke of Common Prayer breaking downe Organs exterminating the whole Liturgy out of their Congregations and all these Out-rages not only winked at but countenanced and incouraged by Fixes and his fellow Rebells and that they might have Like People Like Priest They discountenance or drive away the Orthodox Ministers and substitute in their places the most infamous notorious Schismaticks that they can pick out of severall Counties as Tumb's of Limster in All-Saints in Master Williamssons Cure an Orthodox and godly man Craddocke Bacon Walter Simonds and one Matthew Hazard whom though f name last yet deserves to have the precedency of all the rest as being a maine Incendia●y in this Rebellion violently egged on by his Wise whose disciple the silly man is this gave occasion of scandall to all pious godly men which honoured the Protestant Religion as it is established and made them even to abhorre the service of the Lord. Lastly because upon the poynt they were confined to Bristol not daring to goe out of the Citie for in all places where the Commands and Ordinances of the two Houses prevailed they had given a List of the names of the Malignants that durst appeare for the King to the end that if any of them came thither they might be apprehended and sent Prisoners to Taunton Barkley Castle or some other Prisons or as Delinquents sent to the Parliament It was no wonder therefore that a Citie thus robb'd of its wealth and libertie groaning under an unsupportable yoke of bondage and ●yranny should endeavour by restoring the King to His Rights to restore themselves to their former freedome which could not be done but by breaking these bonds and easting these cords from them On these weightic motives therefore they enter into a loyall consederacy to deliver up the Citie from its captivity under the Rebels into His Majesties protection and that without shedding of one drop of blood if it were possible but most certaine without any resolution to Massacre the Citizens as hath beene most falsely both Preached and Printed for Master Yeomans and Bowcher both on their Examinations and after their Condemnation both affirmed that their was not any intention of blood-shed and in

be the Kings Servants which that age held for a Crime but to vomite out against him all the indignities and all the wickednesses which Irreligion and Injustice could invent in mad Souldiers do but change Zelous Catholike into Zelous Puritan and no Pencill ever limb'd a Rebell of this present Rebellion so exactly to the life as this And though they have out-done all examples president of Wickednesse Cruelt●e Disloyalt●e Sacriledge and Prophanation as if in them the devill meant to show his Mster-piece raging in them horribly because he knows that he hath but a short time yet to their dishonouring of God thier vilifying his holy worship prophaning his Temples blaspheming the footsteps of his Anoynted affronting and contemning his Priests Minister to their rending tearing trampling underfoot all Ha●owed Ornaments and Utensills provided for the reverend and decent worship of God I know nothing that they have left undone which remaines yet to be added to their accursed impietes So that what the old Eustathians Messalias Pratricelli the rest of those wild Hereticks who placed their Religion in Contempt of Consecrated Churches Temples and Oratories places consecrated and set apart for the publique worship of God durst not do These Schismaticall Rebels having wilfully smothered not only their Consciences but the dictate of common reason putting no diference between Holy Prophane have acted with greednes● whatsoever things they are whereon the Name of God is called whether Persons times or places in the judgment of venerable Antiquity whether Councels Fathers or Historians those things were ever held Sacred Inviolable alwayes habenda cum Discrimine and that extra U●um Sacrum to be regarded with areverentiall and discriminative ufance that is with a select and different respect from other thing of the same kind but not imployed to holy uses Nay the honouring Gods house was ever held an Ingredient of that Petition of the Lords Prayer Sanctisicetur Nomen tuum Hallowed be thy Name What opinion the Ancient Fathers both Greeke and Latine had of such places may be collected from those Magnificent and honourable Names whereby they commended them to the due esteeme of severall Ages in which they lived Some in regard of their use and imployment called them the Lords house some the Patrimony of Christ some the Dowry of the Spouse of Christ some a Consecreated Possession of God and a holy Soyl Others in respect of their Magnificance of Structure and Costlinesse of Oranments called them Royall or Kingly Houses Nay would we but sharpen our Gords at a Philistines Forge or weave the woollen Yearne of the Gentiles with the linnen web of the Christians I meane call is the Testimony and practice of the Heathen in what veneration and esteem they had their Idoll Temples which was in them the dictate of Nature mistaken onely in the object and they would stand up as so many witnesses and cetainly in the day of Judgement shall condemne this Prophane Generation who under an Hypocriticall pretence of worshiping God in Spirit in a true Anabaptisticall fury have layd waste the Sanctuaries of God polluted his Temples and broken down all their carved worke with Axes and Hammers And though these Rebellions Schismaticks have in all place which have been plagued with their presence roared in the midst of our Cogregations set up their Banners for tokens and left some infamous memoriall of their frenzie and hatred of the beautie and magnificence of Gods house and therfore in every place made it thier first businesse as in introduction to the rest to rob and deface Churches and violate the Sepulchres and Monuments of the dead so they have exprest their greatest hatred against the Mother Churches and Cathedrals of this Kingdom because in them the Primitive Order and decency prescribed in the Rubrick of the Book of Common Prayer and ratified by act of Parliament have been best preserved from those Omissions Neglects and Contempts which had almost banished them out of private Parochiall Congregations and rendered them obnoxious to sinister interpretations and suspected of no lesse then Popery Superstition and Innovation in those places wherein they were retained and practised when therefore our Posteritie shall see this Abomination of desolation which these Rebells have brought into these Temples of God and by Tradition hear of those costly utencills and Ornaments which most Sacrilegiously they have carryed out and shall with wonder and astonishment inquire what Lunacy what Frenzy what accursed madnesse possessed the hearts of the men of this present age to lay wast the places where Gods honour dwels where God vouchsafes to meet with his People the People with united devotion to propitiate their God and impiously as much as in them is to turne these Beauties of Holynes into desolate places for Zum Ochim as the prophet speakes and the Satyrs to dance in Esay 13.12 Let them know that the Puritans Brownists and Anabaptists Rebels marching under the banners of a Faction in two pretended Houses of Parliament which yet some have the impundence to call the Great and Highest Court the Supreame Judicature and the most zealous Protections and Assertors of the Established Protestant Religion have brought this desolation upon us And because this Tempest raged first in the East and so spread it selfe into all parts of the Kingdome West North and South I shall in the relation keepe the same Method if so great confusion can be ranged into a Method whereby we shall give as is due Precedency to the famous Metropolitan Church of Canterbury which as it is in respect of her lesser Sisters first in Order and Dignitie so was it then and now shll be the first instance of the Rebells Sacrilege Mercurius Rusticus amp c. I. The Cathedrall Church of Canterbury horribly abused and desaced by the Rebells under the conduct of Col. Sandys and Sir Michael Livesey Together with the-miserable end of the said Colonel at Worcester c. THe Citie of Canterbury the ancient seat of the Kings of Rent while the Saxon Heptarchy flourished in this Island was by King Ethelbert given together with the Royalty thereof to Augustine the first consecrated Archbishop of the English Nation who there fixed his seat for himself his successors for whose sake Gregory the great then Bishop of Rome translated the Metropolitan dignity together with the honour of the Pall from London to Canterbury This City as the rest had its share in that spoyle and devastation which War the Sword in the Innovations of Forraign nations domestick broyls brought upon it the greatest impressions of desolation made on it were in the Danish Warres but the Normans succeding through the pietie of godly religious men residing there and the bounty liberality of the Bishops it did suddenly start up not only into its primitive beuty lustre but out-stripped all other places as in the number sumptuosnesse of private houses so especially in the magnificence and splendor of religious

Rebells in mind whose possession and house it was did not at all afford it patronage and protection from their accursed rage and madnesse The Rebells under the Conduct of Sir William Waller fate downe before the Citie of Winchester on Tuesday the 12 of December 1642. about twelve of the clock and entred the City that afternoon between two and three being Masters of the City they instantly fall upon the Close under a pretence to learch for Cavaliers They seize upon the Prebends Horses and demand their persons with many threatning words That night they brake into some of the Prebends Houses such houses as they were directed unto by their Brethren the Seditious Schismaticks of the City and Plundered their goods But the Castle not yet surrendred into the Rebels hands something awed their insolency which being the next day delivered up to their power did not only take away the restraint which was upon them but incouraged them without check or controule to rob and defie both God and all good men Wednesday therefore and Wednesday night being spent in Plundring the Citie and Close on Thursday morning between nine and ten of the clock houres set apart for better imployments and therefore purposely in probabilitie chosen by them being resolved to prophane every thing that was C●nonicall violently break open the Cathedrall Church and being c●rred to let in the Tyde they presently open the great West doores where the Barbarous Souldiers stood ready nay greedy to rob God and pollute his Temple The doores being open as if they meant to invade God himselfe as well as his prossession they enter the Church with Colours flying their Drums beating their Matches fired and that all might have their part in so horrid an attempt some of their Troops of Horse also accompanied them in their march and rode up through the body of the Church and Quire untill they came to the Altar there they begin their work they rudely pluck done the Table and break the Rayle And afterwards carrying it to an Ale-house they set it on fire and in that fire burnt the Books of Common Prayer and all the Singing books belonging to the Quire they throw down the Organs and breake the Stories of the Old and New Testament curiously cut out in carved work beautified with Colours and set round about the top of the Stalls of the Quire from hence they turne to the Monuments of the dead some they utterly demolish others they deface They begin with Bishop Fox his Chappell which they utterly deface they break all the glasse Windows of this Chappel not because they had any Pictures in them either of Patriarch Prophet Apo●●le or Saint but because they were of painted coloured-glasse They demolish and over-turne the Monuments of Cardinall Beaufort sonne to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster by Katberine Swinsort Founder of the Hospitall of Saint Crosse neare Winchester who fate Bishop of this see fortie three years They deface the Monument of William of Wainslet Bishop likewise of Winchester Lord Chancellour of England and the Magnificent Founder of Magdalen College in Oxford which Monument in a gratefull pietie being lately beautified by some that have or lately had relation to that foundation made these Rebels more eager upon it to deface it but while that College the unparalleld example of his bountie stands in despight of the malice of these inhumane Rebels William of W●inslet cannot want a more lasting Monument to transmit his memory to posterity from hence they goeito Queen Maries Chappel so called because in it she was married to King Philip of Spaine here they brake the Communion Table in pieces the Velvet Chaire Whereon she fate when she was married They attempted to deface the Monument of the late Lord ●reasurer the Earle of Portland but being in Brasse their violence made finall impression on it therefore they leave that and turne to his Fathers Monument which being of Stone was more obnoxious to their fury here mistaking a Judge for a Bishop led into the error by the resemblance or counterfeit of a square Cap on the head of the Statua they strike off not onely the Cap but the head too of the Statua and so leave it Amongst other Acts of Bountie and Pietie done by Richard Fox the fiftie seventh Bishop of this Sc● he covered the Quire the Presbytery and the ●sles adjoyning with a goodly Vault and new glazed all the windowes of that part of the Church and caused the bones of such Kings Princes and Prelases as had beene buried in this Church and lay dispersed and sca●tered in severall parts of the Cathedrall to be collected and put into severall Chests of Lead with inscriptions on each Chest whose bones lodged in them These Chests to preserve them from rude and prophane hands he caused to be placed on the top of a wall of exquisite workmanship built by him to inclose the Presbytery there never to be removed as a man might thinke but by the last Tr●●pe did rest the bones of many Kings Queens as of Alfredus Edwardus Seni●n ●adredus the brother of Athelstane Edw●●us C●●●tus tus Hardicanutus Emma the Mother and Edward the Confessor her Sonne kinigliss●s the first founder of the Cathedrall of Winchester Egbert who abolishing the Heptarchy of the Saxons was the first English Monarch william Ruf●s and diverse others with these in the Chests were deposited the bones of many G●dly Bishops and Confessors as of Birinus Hedda Swithinus Frithestanus Saint Elphegus the Confessor Stigandus wina and others Had not the barbarous inhumane impietie of these Schismaticks and Rebells ●hewed the contrary we could not have imagined that any thing but the like Pietie that here inshrined them or a Resurrection should ever have disturbed the repose of these venerable yet not Popish Reliques But these Monsters of men to whom nothing is holy nothing is Sacred did not stick to prophane and violate these Cabinets of the dead and to scatter their bones all over the pavement of the Church for on the North side of the Quire they threw down the Chests wherein were deposited the bones of the Bishops the like they did to the bones of William Rufus of Queene Emma of Hardicanutus and Edward the Confessor and were going on to practise the like impietie or the bones of all the rest of the west Saxon Kings But the Out-cry of the people deresting so great inhumanitie caused some of their Commanders more compassionate to these ancient Monuments of the dead then the rest to come in amongst them and to restraine their madnes But that dive●●sh malice which was not permitted to rage and over flow to the spurning trampling on the bones of all did ●atiate itselfe even to a prodigious kind of wantonne●le on those which were already in their power And therefore as it they meant if it had been possible to make these bones contract a Pesthume guile by being now made passive Instruments of more then heathenith

the way as they went While these Gentlemen were in this miserable condition Captaine Pollard not troubled at all for so bloudy a fact barbarously committed by himselfe on an aged Gentleman and a Minster of that Gospel which they falsly pretend to maintaine but indeed deny and blaspheme in all their actions turned aside to whaddon Chase and sported himself in killing some of His Majesties Deere which he carryed along with him to Aylesbury after almost foure houres riding tyred out with tyred Jades and ●ainting with losse of blood the Prisoners were againe commanded to alight at a Town called Whitchurch within two miles of Aylesbury Here they fall on Master Tyringham afresh and Plunder him as eagerly as if he had bin new come into their hands and not touched by them before They pluck off his boots and take from him his Jerkin his Hat and Cap all the fences provided for cold and weather and the usuall fortifications against the injuries of wind and raine and so made a Pat●erne of the man wounded betweene Ierusalem and Iericho they mount him on his Spittle againe and drive on and after an houres riding in cold and darknesse at last they arrived at Aylesbury that night the Chirurgions as soon as they could be found viewed and dressed the wound but concluded unanimously that they must cut off his Arme the next day or else it would Gangreene and infallibly kill him which next day was done accordingly Master Tyringham bore the losse of his Arme with incredible resolution and courage as knowing the Justice of that Cause for which he suffered and as willing to lay downe his Life in testimony of his Loyaltie as his Brother Master Edward Tyringham one of the Gentlemen of the Kings Privy Chamber had done before him who the last Winter being imployed in His Majesties service set on by a Partee of Rebells fought valiantly but oppressed with multitudes received so many wounds that he dyed of them But it hath pleased God so to blesse the means used for this Gentlemans recovery that there are great hopes he will survive these maimes and as himself undauntedly told the Rebells to their faces Live to see them banged Amen In the fourth Weeke of this Mercury you heard of the cruell usage of Master Wiborow Parson of Pebma●sh in the Countie of Essex by the Rebells in those parts how they abused him in the Church beat him in the fields and took from him the Book of common-Common-Prayer having before torne another of his in pieces After this the Brownists and Anabaptists of that place with which that Country swarmes threaten to kill him Master Wiborow not da●ing to trust himselfe amongst these cruel blood-thirsty men to preserve his life was compelled to leave his Cure his Wife and Children some seven moneths since and to put himselfe under the Kings Protection hoping that his absence might be a meanes to secure his Wife and Children and prevaile with these Monsters to permit them to enjoy that which he left behinde him for their sustenance but his absence was so farre from working this good effect in them that they made use of it to eject him out of the possession of the Profits of his Parsonage and his Wife and Children out of their house exposing them harbourlesse to the wide world for taking advantage of his absence they accuse him to the pretended Parliament and frame a Bill of Falshood and Lyes against him thereby to gaine a Sequestration of his Living A businesse not of any great difficultie they being more ready to grant such illegall oppressive ejections then the People to aske them for upon the Accusation John White that fornicating Brownist sitting in the Chair M. Wiborows Living was Sequestred and the Profits of it given to one Burrows though the Cure was never neglected but supplied by M. Wiborows friends to the content and satisfaction of all moderate peaceable men yet though they had rob'd him of his livelyhood and given his Wives and Childrens bread to strangers by most unjust practices yet his hopes were that his poore Wife and Children should enjoy the accommodation of their dwelling in the Parsonage house but such is the implacable crueltie and malice of these Sectaries that on the tenth of June 1643. a Troope of the Rebels came to the Parsonage house and demanded entrance Mistresse Wiborow and her Children being alone in the house she bar'd up the doores against them and for her better safetic retired to an upper roome to which the passage was through a Trap-doore which likewise she made as fast as she could all this fortification could not keep these Rebells out they breake open the doores and make way to the ●oome where Mistresse Wiborow and her Children thought to secure themselves when they came thither three of these Rebels set their Pistolls at her brest threatning to shoot her if she and her Children would not suddenly depart the house and leave it to a new Master Mistresse Wiborow replyed That she would rather be killed within doores then perish without but withall earnestly intreated that she might enjoy so much of her husbands right as his house to shelter her and her Children who poore soules stood about their mother crying and in their naturall oratory craving compassion towards their Mother whom at every word the Rebels threaten to Pistoll but neither the earnest intreaty of the Mother nor the pittifull out-cryes of the Children could prevaile with them they remain as dease men void of all pi●ti● or bowels of compassion ●ay they violently seize on her drag her down the staires and out of the house into the yard the poore Children being almost distracted and at their wits end for feare what would become of their Mother being thus violently drawne out of the house into the yard there she found Mer ton Simpson and Cooke the Sequestrators with other attending there to see this joyfull spectacle a poore oppressed Gentlewoman her small children cruelly cast out of their own habitation by Rebels Traytors As soon as Mistresse Wiborow saw them she presented them with the Kings Proclamation against the Oppression of the Clergie by the intrusion of Factious and Schismaticall persons into the Cures and Revenues of Learned Orthodox Divines by Order of one or both pretended Houses of Parliament contrary to all Law and Justice which she hoped would have found so much obedience and respect as to restore her to her house This was so farre from mollifying these Rebells and Schismatiques that it provoked them to great insolencies at last when Mistresse Wiborow perceived that all her intreaties and her childrens teares prevailed nothing to restore her to her house she intreated the Sequestrators that in case she could not be permitted to dwell in her owne house that yet she might have some other place of accommodation provided to receive her and her children Meriton insolently replyed That he would provide his Tumbrill that is his Dung-ca●t to carry her and

houses amongst which two were most famous far exceeding all the rest viz. Christ-Church Et hujus pertinacissimus amulus as Learned cambden speakes the eager rivall of Christ-Church Saint Augustines This Church by the injury of Sacrilege and time two greedy devourers lyes almost buried in its own Ruines presenting nothing else to the eye of the beholders but a sad spectacle how spacious ample a structure it once was when now a piece of it hath the honour to be stiled though seldome imploy'd as the Kings House But Christ-Church placed as it were in the Navel of the City rayseth it self to so great a Majestie and Statelinesse that Krasmus a man not too much taken with magnificence in this kind I am sure not doting on it sayes that this doth present it self with so Majestick State VI procul etians intuentibus religionem incutiat that it occasions that devotion which should be used there and strikes a sensible impression of Religion in their hearts that behold it though a far off and at a distance This Church built in old time as Beda sayes by the faithfull and beleeving Romans and by King Ethelbert given to Augustine in processe of time needed the like pietie to susport it as at first built it works of that nature in those dayes did not long lye neglected for want of Benefactors Lanfranke therefore the thirtie third Arch-Bishop of this Sea whether more famous for repairing of decayed Churches as this of Canterbury Rochester and S. Albans or his indefatigable pains in correcting the corrupt translations of the Holy Bible scattered every where through the Kingdom in his dayes is uncertain William Corbet or as others will have it Gorbois the thirtie sixth Arch-Bishop of the same Sea reedified the Quire and the upper part of this Church and the pietie of succeeding Bishops built joyned the Nave or body to the Quire and brought it to this magnificence and splendor in which wee now see it But what out forefathers thought Religion to build up we their degenerous posterity think Pietie to pull downe so that while some leading Atheists enemies to God and his Religion and reprobate to every good work are busie to Vote cry down Episcopacy with the Sacred Hierarchy Root Branch their Emissaries incouraged and set on by them first deface these Churches and in the next place will utterly ruine them ' that so the places where God is worshipped being demolished the revenue that maintaines the worship may become a prey to these Sacrilegious Cormorants But my God shall make them like a wheele Now how the Rebells behaved themselves in their first attempt in this kind on the Cathedrall Church of Canterbury under the conduct of Colonel Sandys I cannot better expresse then in the passionate elegancy of Reverend Doctor Pas●e one of the Prebends and at the time Sub-deane of that Church to the Earle of Holland the most ingratefull and most unthankfull of men My ever honoured Lord Did it not conduce unto the Publique I should not preume to interrupt your Lordships weightie affaires but the long experience of your Lordships 〈◊〉 for Religion and vigilancy for your universitie of Cambridge hath assured me of your Lordships Patronage of our whole Church in generall and as the case new stands of this Mother Church in particular 〈◊〉 spected P●… but have found much trouble from the Troopers sent among 〈◊〉 with what barbarousnesse they have 〈◊〉 themselves at Rochester and in other parts of this Countie I leave to the Relation of others and beg your Lordships patience onely to be informed what hath happened here with us and wherein I am more neerly concerned by mine Office in the absence of the Deane Colonel Sandys arriving here with his Troopers on Friday night presently casued a 〈◊〉 Watch and Sentinells to be set both upon the Church and upon our severall honses to the great affright of all the Inhabitants 〈◊〉 this done Serjeant Major Cockaine came to me and in the name of the Parliament demanded to see the Armes of the Church and the store Powder of the countie which I presently shewed him when her possessed himselfe of the Keyes and kept them in his owne custody the next morning wee were excluded the Church might not be permitted to enter for the performance of our Divine Exercises but about eight of the clock Sir Michael Livesey attended with many Souldiers came unto our Officers and commanded them to deliver up t●e keyes of the Church to one of their Company which they did and thereupon bee departed when the Souldiers entring the Church and Quire Giant-like began a fight with God himselfe overthrew the Communion-Table toare the Velvet-Cloth from before it defaced the goodly Screene or Tabernack-worke violated the Monuments of the dead spoyled the Organs brake downe the ancient Rayles and Seats with the brazen Eagle which did support the Bible forced open the Cupboards of the Singing-men rent some of their Surplices Gommes and Bibles and carryed away others mangled all our service-Service-Books and Books of common-Common-Prayer bestrowing tbe whole Pavement with the leaves thereof a misereble spectacle to all good eyes but as if all this had b●ene too little to satisfie the sury of some indiscreet Zealots among them for many did abhorre what was done already they further exercised their malice upon the Arras hanging in the Quire representing the whole Story of our Saviour wherein observing divers figures of Cbrist I tremble to expresse their blasphemies One said That here is Christ and swore that he would stab him Another said here is Christ and swore that he would rip up his bowells which they did accordingly so farre as the figures were capable thereof besides many other villanies And not content therewith finding another statue of christ in the Frontis●iece of the South-Gate they discharged against it fortie shot at the least trium●hing much when they did hit it in the head or face as if they were resolved to crucisie him againe in his Figure whom they could not hurt in truth nor had their fury beeme thus stopped threatning the ruins of the whole Fabrick had not the Colonel with some others come to the reliese and rescue the Tumults appeased they presently d●parted for Dover from whence we expect them this day and are much afraid that as they have already vilisied our persons and offered extreame indignitie to one of our Brethren so they will Plunder our houses at their returne unlesse the care of the Major the Colonel and some Members of the House of Commons Sir Edward Masters and captaine Nut now with us who have promised to present their knowledge to that Honourable House doe prevent the same Your Lordship will be pleased to pardon my hastie expressions which proceed from a grieved heart and I am confident the honourable Houses of Parliament being rightly informed herein will proceed against the like abuses and impieties in other places in the meane time we submit with patience

Religion and Loyaltie shall lift up their hands against their God in Sacrilege and against their Soveraigne in Rebellion Mercurius Rusticus c. II. The Cathedrall Church of Rochester violated the Sacrilege and prophanenesse of the Rebells under command of Sir William Waller and Sir Arthur Hasterig acted on the Cathedrall Church of Chichester c. As when the Spirit brought the Prophet Ezekiel into the Holy Temple he led him from place to place and each place entertained him with greater Abominations than the former so that the farewell to the last Vision and the invitation to the next is Turne thee yet againe and thou shalt see greater Abominations than these So having brought you in the cathedralls of this Kingdome Temples in despite of Atheists Rebells and Anabaptists of God too and having shewed you the Abomination of Desolation in one of them viz. in Canterbury the first instance of their accursed rage and having viewed that I must now lead you on as the Spirit did the Prophet from place to place and the inticement may be the same for though you have seene great prophanations in the former relation Yet you shall see greater abominations than these The next instance of the Rebells prophanenesse which I shall offer unto you is in the Cathedrall of Rochester recompenced for the finalnesse of its Revenue with the honour of its Antiquitie as boasting of Ethelbert King of Kent a common Founder to this Church with those of Canterbury and London The unhappy losse of Earnulphus History the thirtie second Bishop of this See deprives us of that Light which discovered the various condition of this Church how long in the beginning it struggled with its owne povertie and in after-ages with the injuries of Time and Warre remaining some yeares in a kind of Widow hood without the Government and Super-intendency of a Bishop till at last Gundulfus the thirtieth Bishop of this See re-edified this Church from the ground and brought it into that magnificence in which we now see it To which pious worke hee brought so good so vigorous affections that as Malmesbury records of him Praevene●at vivacitas Gundulsi omnium successorum diligeatiam Gundulphus ●lacrity in that work did so prevent the pietie of his successors that he hardly left them any place in this kind wherein to exercise their bountie Little did the over-flowing zeal of our Ancestors to the house of God like that of the old lsraelites pouring out their wealth and precious things to adorne the Tabernacle in so great measure that M●sas was sain to publish a Proclamation to restraine their liberalitie For the stuffe they had was sufficient for the work to make it and too much Exod. 36.6.7 Little I say did they thinke when they did this that what they thus bountifully gave unto God should ever while this Kingdome remained Christian become a prey to those which as Tcr●●llian speakes Gentes agunt Christs nomine have not so much as a forme but the bare usurped name of Christianitie which they fulley and pollute with those worse than heathenish crimes of Sacrilege and Prophanenesse had the ●acrilege lately committed at Canterbury been applauded by the people to gain whom no arts though never so repugnant ' pugnant either to Religion or common honesty were left unattempted certainly this Church which next stood in their way and immediatly after Canterbury tasted of their fury had beene utterly demolished and offered up a sacrifice to Popularitie But Plundering being then but a stranger in England newly arrived here from desolate Germany especially Plundering of Churches which heretofore were held inviolable Sanctuaries for offenders but much more for their owne innocent ornaments this made a generall out-cry every manderested so soule impietie nay their own partie some of them not yet so deeply leavened with their Anabaptisticall Doctrines nor given up to so reprebate a sense to believe monstrous lyes for truth did not only not approve but sparingly condemne the Fact and the generall vote of the people awakened by Doctor Pask his Letter declared it barbarous and wicked nay the dislike of such proceedings grew to so great a height that some wise men were deceived into an opinion that the Houses would punish the offenders for the present and publish an Order to restrain the like out-rages for the future indeed though some good men Members of both Houses did earnestly desire it yet by experience they quickly found how unequall they were to effect any thing in which they had not the concurrence of the heads of the Faction which ruled in both Houses but much lesse when they rowed against the stream had them for their adversaries The Rebels therefore comming to Rochester brought the same affections along with them which they expressed at Canterbury but in wisedome thought it not safe to give them the same scope here as there for the multitude though mad enough yet were not so mad nor stood yet so prepar'd to approve such heathenish practices by this means the Monuments of the dead which elsewhere they brake up and violated stood untouched Escoucheons and Armes of the Nobilitie and Gentry upbraiding eye-sorcs to broken mean Citizens and vulga● Rebells remained undefaced the Seats Seals of the Quire escaped breaking downe onely those things which were wont to stuffe up Parliament Petitions and were branded by the Leaders of the Faction for Pepery and Innovation in these they took libertie to let loose their wild zeale they brake down the Rayl about the Lords Table or Altar call it which you please and not only so but most basly reviled a now Reverend Prelate who being lately Deane of that Church had for the more uniforme and reverend receiving of the blessed Sacrament set it up with the odious name of Rogue often repeated they seized upon the Velvet covering of the holy Table and in contempt of those holy Mysteries which were Celebrated on the Table removed the Table it selfe into a lower place of the Church in this perfect disciples of that prophane Author of the book called Altare Damascenum Who in the 718P devoutly resolves thus De loco ubi consistat cur solliciti sùm quovis loco utl Angulo extra Tempus Administrationis c●ll●cari ●ossit Concerning the place where the Lords Table shall stand what need we to be sollicitous when out of the time of administration of the Sacrament it may be see aside in any place or obscure corner And to shew what Members they are of the Church of England they strowed the Pavemenet with the torn mangled leaves of the Book of common-Common-Prayer which with the Book of Homilies and the 39 Articles makes up the third Book wherein the Doctrine of the Church of England is fully contained under standing that the Deane that then was was to Preach on Sunday morning Colonel Sandys and Sir John Seatont that false Trayterous Scoe sent unto him to command him to forbeare the wearing of the Surplice and Hood to which

this answer That if they would expect any Sermon from him they must permit him to appeare in such Ornaments as the Church and his degree required and accordingly did so afterwards Sandys and Seaton Comming ming towards the Church and hearing the Organs Seaton started back and in the usuall blessing of some of his Country cryed A Devill these Bag-pipes perhaps he never read so ●arre as Davids Psalmes where-it is written Praise God upon the Strings and Pipe Psal 150.4 or if he had it is more then probable that it had beene all one to him however this served them both as a pre●ence to cloake their Irreligion and refusall to joyne with that true Protestant Congregation While the Rebells were pulling downe the Rayles about the Communion-Table one of the Prebends of the Church Master Larken interposed and attempted to stay their madnesse by reason and perswasion but he quickly found that he did not onely prophane Reason by urging it to Saint pauls absurd unreasonable wicked men men made up of incongruities but that he did it to the hazard of his life for one of the Rebells instead of returning a reasonable answer discharged a Pistoll or Carbine at him to have murdered him at the very Altar but by the good providence of God he mist his marke Thus having done some spoyle that they might render themselves not altogether unprofitable to their partie and not daring for the present to doe any more for feare of losing that party which they hoped to gaine for that season they left the Church but into what further outragious Impicties their Schismaticall fury hath since transported them or what else they have practised on this Church to compleat their Monstrous Reformation is not yet made knowne unto us The third Instance which I shall give of the Rebells Sacrilege and Prophanenesse is in the Cathedrall church of Chichester Successor in the honour of being the feat of the Bishops Residence to Sealsey● for wilfrd Arch-Bishop of Yorke being driven into Exile by ●gfrid King of Northumberland retiring himselfe into Suffex and finding the South Saxons wholely given up to Idolatry his spirit like Saint Pauls at Atbens was stirred with in him and knowing the unprofitable servants doome that buried his Talent he Preached unto them the Gospel of Christ and Edelwalch King of those parts not long before converted to the Faith by the perswasions of wolfbere King of the Mer●ians● willing that the same saving-knowledge which he himself had imbraced should be imparted to his people seconaed the pious endeavours of wilfrid and therefore amongst other acts of bountie he gave the Arch bishop Sea●ey for the place of his ●sfidence Not long after Cedwilla Conquering Edilwatch built here a Monastery to the honour as Mamesbury sayes of S. Peter and erected the Episcopall Chaire where it stood fixt the succession of 22 Bishop or as others say reckoning wilfrid Arch-bishop of Yorke for the first the succession of 23 Bishops from the yeare 711. to the raigne of William the Conquerour 1070. at which time Stiganeus translated his Chaire from Sealesey to Chichester and so became the last Bishop of Scalesey and the first of chichester where the Eepiscopall power did flourish ever since untill now in these last and worst dayes wherein while the heads of a Rebellious Schismaticall Faction Vote down the Sacred Function and Order of Bishops their Emissaries are mad to deface if not utterly to demolish their Churches To this purpose the Rebels under the Conduct of Sir william waller entring the Citie of chichester on innocents day 1642 the next day their first businesse was to Plunder the Cathedrall Church the Marshall therfore and some other Officers having entred the Church went into the Vestry there they seize upon the Vestments and Ornaments of the Church together with the Conseerated Place serving for the Altar Administration of the Lords Supper they left not so much as a Cushion for tht Pulpit nor a Chalice for the Blessed Sacrament the Commanders having in person executed the covetoms part of Sacriledge they leave the destructive spoyling part to be finished by the Common mon Souldiers brake downe the Organs and dashing the Pipes with their Pole-axes scoffingly said Harke how the Organs goe They breake the Rayle about the Communion Table which was done with that fury that the Table it selfe escaped not their madnesse but tasted of the same fare with the Rayl and was broken in pieces by them At the East end of the Quite did hang a very fair Table wherein were written the ●en Commandements with the Pictures of Moles and Aaron on each side of the Table possessed with a zeale but not like that of Moses they pull downe the Table and breake it into small shivers 'T was no wonder that they should break the Commandements in their representation that had before broken them all over in their Substance and Sanction they force open all the locks either of doores or desks wherein the Singing-men layd up their Common-Prayer Books their Singing-Books their Gowns and Surplices they sent the Books in pieces and scatter the torne leaves all over the Church even to the covering of the Pavement but against the Gownes and Surplices their anger was not so hot these were not amongst the Anathemata but might be reserved to seculiar uses in the South crosse I le on the one side the History of the Churches Foundation was very artificially pourtrayed with the Pictures of the Kings of England on the other side over against them are the Pictures of the Bishops as well of Scalsey as Chichester began by Robert Sherborn the 37 Bishop of that See and the Series brought down by him to his own times at his own Charges who as he made that of the Psalmist Dil●xi decorum domus tui domins Lord I have loved the beautie of thy house his Imprease and Motto so he made it his worke and endeavour These Monuments they deface and mangle with their hands and swords as high as they could reach and to shew their love and Zeale to the Protestant Religion established in the Church of England one of those Misereants picked out the eyes of King Edward the sixt's Picture saying That all this mischiefe came from him when he established the Books of common-Common-Prayer On the Tuesday following they had a solemne Thanks giving for their successe in gaining that Citie Men of cauterized Consciences and given upto a Reproba●tesense thus not onely to take the Name of God in vaine but damnably to Blaspheme it as if he were the Patron of Rapine Blood and Sacrilege After the Sermon was ended as men not inspired by the holy Spirit of which they so much boast but possessed and transported by a Batchanalian fury they ran up and downe the Church with their swords drawne defacing the Monuments of the dead hacking and hewing the Seats and Stalls scratching and scraping the painted walls Sir William Waller and the rest of the Commanders standing

be answerable to the beauty of the Structure it selfe Bishop Grandesson bestowed upon it Vessels of Gold and Vessells of Silver Bookes and all other kinds of rich furniture Copid lmmensd Immensi pretii in execeding great measure of execeding great price All which with many other things of necessary use and Publique Ornament became a prey to the Schismaticall Rebells whose sinne was so much the greater because being neither imaged by Opposition nor made insolent by conqucst Apologies that may possibly be taken up for other Rebells in other places as chichester and winchester but which was a maine aggravation of their crime Citezens within their own wall in coole blood not provoked spoyle and lay wast their Mother-Church for after this Citie now most unworthy of those priviledges and honorary rewards once purchased by their Loyaltic now forfeited by ingratitude and rebellion had once shut up their Gates against their Kings it was not long before they shut up the Gates 1ike wife of God's house denying all accusse to devout persons there to make their Prayers and Supplications so neare bordering upon Rebellon against the King is Atheisme and Contempt of God for having demanded the Keyes of the Cathedral and taken them into their own custody they presently interdict divine Service to be celcbrated so that for the space of three quarters of a yeare the Holy L turgy lay totally filenced Nor was the restrainr upon the Reading Deske only the Pulpit was made inacceslible to all Orthdex Loyall Minister and was open only to Factions Schismaticall Preachers whose Doctrine was Rebellion and their Exhortation Treason that so the people might hear nothing but what might som●n● their disloyaltic and confirm them in their unnaturall revolt from their dutie and obedience Having the Church in their possession in a most Puritanicall beastly manner they make it a common Jakes for the Exonerations of Nature sparing no place neither the Altar nor the Pulpit though this last finds a better place in their cstimation then the former yet prophaned it was may so prophaned that it remains a doubt yet undetermined ned which prophaned it most in their kinds either the common Souldiers or their Lecturers Over the Communion Table in fair letters of gold was written the holy blessed Name of Jesus this they expunge as Superstitious and execrable On each side of the Commandements the Pictures of Moses and Aaron were drawn in full proportion these they deface they teare the Books of common-Common-Prayers to pieces and as if this had bin too finall a contempt and despite done to that forme of Gods holy worship they use them as if they had been a second sacrifice of Curious Arts and burne them at the Alter with exceeding great Exultation and exprestions of joy They made the Church their Store-house where they kept their Ammunition and Powder and planted a Court of Guard to attend it who used the Church with the same reverence that they would an Ale-house and defiled it with tipling and taking Tobacco they broke and defaced all the glasse windows of the Church which cannot be repaired for many hundred pounds and left all those ancient Monuments being painted glasse and containing matter of Story only a miserable spectacle of commiseration to all well-affected hearts that behold them They strook off the heads of all the Statues on all monuments in the Church esperally they deface the Bishops Tombs leaving one without ahead another without a Nose one without a hand and another without an arme A sad ●mbleme of that Trunke of Baiscopacy which the accursed Atheists of these times have fancied to themselves and endeavoured a poore deformed mangled mutilated thing having neither head of Pretetion nor face of honour nor arme nor hand nor finger of power and jurisdiction they pluck down and deface the Statue of an ancient Queen the wife of Edward the Confessor the first Founder of this Church mistaking it for the Statua of the blessed Virgin Mary the Mother of God So she was stiled by the haly Catholique Church many ycares before it was in danger to be voted Blasphemy in that Committee where learned Miles Corbet sate in the Chaire They brake downe the Organs and taking two or three hundred Pipes with them in a most scornefull contemptuous manner went up and downe the streets piping with them and meeting with some of the Choristers of the Church whose Surplices they had stolne before and imployed them to base servile offices scostingly told them Boyes we have ' povled your trade you must goe and sing hot Pudding Pies By the absolutenesse of their power they send forth their Warrants to take away the Lead off a Conduit and a great Cistern that stood in the middest of the Close giving plentifull supplyes of water to many hundreds of Inhabitants and by vertue of the same warrant they give their agents power to take a great quantitie of Timber which was layd up and designed for the repairing of the Church such Timber as that it will be a very hard matter to procure the like all Timber not being sit for that use and with these a great stock of Lead out of the common Store-house reserved there for the same purpose which warrants were accordingly put in execution to the full They did enter into a Consustation about taking downe the Bells and all the Lead that covered the Church to convert them into warlike Ammunition the Bells might be cast into Cannon the Lead into Bullets both would serve towards the effecting their Trayterous designes They took downe the Gates of the Close which the Deane and Chapter bad set up and kept locked every night for their securitie which Gares they imployed to help forward and strengthen their Fortifications They lay intollerable Taxes on most of the Members of the Church and whosoever refused to submit to those most unjust illegall Impositions were threstned to have their houses Plundered and their persons sent on shipboard where they must expect usage as bad as at Argier or the Gallies Doctor Burnell grave Learned man and Canon of that Church refusing to submit to their Taxations they gave command though he were at that time sick and contiued not only to his Chamber but to his bed to take him in the night and bring him away to Prison though they brought him in his bed but upon much importunitie some of the best ●anke of the Citizens being tendered his securitie to render himselfe a true prisoner for that time they 〈◊〉 him For the like re●usall they tooke Doctor Hutchenson another Canon of the Church a man of a weake and infirme body but of a vigorous knowing Soule and violently carryed him towards the Ship there to imprison him by the way as they carryed him along he was not only by the permistion but by the incouragement of those that led him Captive blasted and abused and howted at by the boyes and exposed to the affionts and revilings of the base insolent multitude at

twelve of the clock at night they seized on Master 〈◊〉 in his bed and another Canon of that Church being almost fourseore and ten yeares of age and for the like refusall because he would not disburse such sums as they demanded for the maintenance of this horrid Rebellion they carry him first to the prison and from thence to the Ship In the way to the Prison they throw dirt in his face and beat the good old man●o cruelly that his roaring and out-cryes were heard and pittied by all his neighbours and at last not able to indu●e byreason of his extream old age the barbarous usage of the Rebells he was forced to redeem his libertie at eight hundred pounds and now having dispossessed the owners the Rebels find new imployments for the Canons houses some of them they convert into Prisons and in an Apish imitation call them by the names of Newgate Kings-Bench Marshalsey others they imploy as Hospitalls for sick or maimed Souldiers Some they use as Slaughter-houses aud Shambles and for the Bishops Palace they might have called it their Smith-field for in and about it they kept their fat Oxen and sheepe and all their Plundered Provision These houses though fouly abused yet doe still stand as to upbraid the Rebels injustice and oppression so to give entertainment to their own Masters or their successours unlesse some men possessed with worse devils then ruled in these children of disobedience shall to their just damnation alienate them from their Originall use but other houses belonging to the Church they set on fire and burn down to the ground for they burnt downe the Guild Hall in Saint Sidwels belonging to the Dean and Chapter and as many houses more of the ancient Inheritance and Revenues as were worth 100 〈◊〉 per annum making likewise great havock and spoyle of their Woods and Timber maliciously intending to disable them from re-edifying what they had most barbarously burnt downe Mercurius Rustius c. V. The Cathedrall Church of Peterborough robb'd desac'd and spoyl'd by Cromwel and his Schismaticall Adherents c. COuld we sooner have produced a certain and full relation of the observable circumstances about the ruines and desolations of the sometimes flourishing though now demolished Cathedrall of Peterborough the same might justly have challenged to have been inserted before this time and place both in respect of the dignitie of the Ancient Religious and Royall Founders the same of the irreligious and unworthy defacers the admirable vicissisude of its owne condition and reasons of its Fatall doom having suffered not so much by the sury of the Danes be●●use a rich Monastery as by the zeale of Cromwel because an Episcopall See and it his knowledge reached so high for that it had beene so much and often honoured by the Princes of this Nation in severall ages When Peada the first Christian King of the Mercians to propagate the faith of Christ layd the foundation but had a sudden period put to his life and pious intentions by his unnaturall and wicked mother Wolpher his brother albeit at the first averse yet afterwards a convert to Christianitie to expiate the murther of his two sonnes whom he had cruelly put to death for imbracing the Gospel before him by the help of his brother Ethelred and his sisters K mburga and Kinswith having finished that worke in the yeare of our Lord 633. consecrated it to the memory of Saint Peter whence the place ever since hath been stiled ●eterborough which before was called Medeswel-hamsted or Medeshamsted and it continued for the space of two hundred and fourteen yeares in such glory that in the judgement of our Learned Antiquary Monesterium suit longè Celebratissimum till the Dan●s mastacred the Monks and destroyed that place of devotion which was after an 108. yeares restored to its former state by Ethelwould Bishop of Winchester assisted by King Edgar and Adulph his Chancellour about the yeares of our Lord 960. in which it remainded untill covetous Sacrilege began to get the upper hand of well-meaning charitie in his reigne who was as fitly as truly said to have had Ingentes virtutes ●es minora vitia though at the undoing of its Kindred this had least reason to complaine being then advanced to a Bishops See But this third woe hath so much disfigured that Majestie which till then this building retained in its fore-front this Cromwel hath so farre our-vied in acts of Pietie his Precedent that Cromwel in Henry the eighth's time this place hath now suffered in so great a manner for its l●yaltic as that we know not where to enter upon the narration of the same except at the great West-window where his Souldiers made their first breach and entrance which was adorned with such variety of Ecclesiasticall History as will evidence them to be deformers of that through Reformation in our blessed Queenes time of happy memory whom notwithstanding they so highly cryed up From thence they presently hurried to the Quire where as soone as they had broken open the doores they according to their trade and custome in other places tell on tearing in pieces the Books of Divine Service and Sacred Anthems yea which may seem more strange they were so hot against Preaching or hearing Sermons that all the se●ts of the Auditors were plucked up and the Pulpit the place of the Divine Oracle and the Booke-seat pulled downe with that black-mouthed cry Downe with that throne of A●tichrist downe with it even to the ground And when their zeale had driven them to that height of impietie that some standers by could not behold it without great reluctancy which moved one of them to request cromwell that he would please to stay his Souldiers from further defacing and ruining that place all the satisfaction he could get was but a provocation to further mischief replying That his gods were a pulling down and when the other answered That the God he served was beyond the 〈◊〉 of Souldiers Cromwel told them That they did G●d good service in that action as if even in these days were fulfilled that Prophesie of our Saviour Job 16.2 The time is comming whosoever doth the greatest Mischrese will thinke he serve●h God But observe the wages that Divine Justice repayed one of them for their worke which may restifie how he accepted of the same When they had demolished the ●uire the East-end was the next they aimed at where one espying in the roof right over the 〈◊〉 Table our Saviour pourtrayed comming in glory with his holy Angels and at the soure corners four Evangelists none of which they will endure as knowing how opposite they are unto them he charged his Musket to shatter them down but by the rebound of his own shot was struck blind If he did his God good thereby he did himselfe and ill turne his wickednesse falling on his own pate He lay a long while in a wofull condition and never recovered his former sight His life by Gods mercy