flood of Books that almost tended to an inundation overspread the World and was her great disease Besides the drunken Dropsie witness their monstrous swelling tuns and vessel In lieu of books War brings in barbarism which is the first-born before Plague or Famine These do not always kill but rectifie Full bodies are apt to fall sick and then they must be drawn very low often-times before they come to perfect health These Iudgments have faln heavy upon England we drink the dregs of the Cup one sin is not to be pointed at but all and though it hath been bitter to the taste yet He that knows the nature of the Ingredients may make it wholsom unto those that love him One thing both pitiful and remarkable that hapned in the Palatinate was almost omitted There was a Gentleman whose name was Duncomb that was a Soldier in the Earl of Oxford's company This young man left a Gentlewoman behind him in England to whom he had vowed his heart and promise of marriage but her fortune being not fit for his Father's humor he threatned to dis-inherit him if he married her and the better to alienate him from her he sent him so long a journey hoping time and absence might wear out those impressions that the present fancy had fixed upon him charging him at his departure never to think of her more lest with the thoughts of her he lost him for ever The young man being now long absent from her and having his heart full with the remembrance of her could not contain himself but let her know that no threats or anger of Parents should ever blot her memory out of his thoughts which was illustrated with many expressions of love and affection But the careless man writing at the same time to his Father superscribed his Father's Letter to his Mistris wherein he renounces her and his Mistresses Letter to his Father wherein he admires her The Father swoln with rage and anger against the Son sent him a bitter Letter back again full of menaces and whether that or shame for the mistake that she should see he renounced her whom he profest to love did overcome his Reason is not known but he killed himself to the great grief of all the English there And by this example Parents that are too rigid to their children may see what Murderers they are For it was not the young man's hand but the old man's hard heart that killed him CAROLVS ALBERTVS DE LONGVEVAL COMES DE BVQVOY ET DE GRATZEN BARO DE VAVX ET DE ROSEN BERGHE COMIT HANNONLAE GVBERNATOR B. Moucornet CXCII This was a fair Spring-time the Battail being fought upon the tenth of March and might have inhanced the hopes of a good Autumn But in November following when the Princes of the Union and Spinola were hunting one another among the frosty Hills in the Palatinate the Duke of Bavaria coming with a great Army towards Prague and joyning Bucquoy and Tillie with all their Forces together like cruel Hunters meant either to catch a Prey or be a Prey Anhalt then had not so closed with Count Mansfeldt as to bring him up to him being pufft up with his last Victory and some of his Soldiers being discontented for want of Pay it abated the edge of their Courage yet he got with his Army betwixt the Imperialists and Prague and stood upon the advantage of Ground but all would not do a Hand went out that gave a Period to that Royalty for the Enemy breaking through them forced his way and put the Bohemians into such confusion that happy was he that could escape with his life The Prince of Anhalt and his Lieutenant General Holloc were the first that fled and brought the news of the defeat to the King at Prague who with his Queen astonished with the danger being in a City not very defensible among a wavering People and a Conquering Enemy in the Field took time by the fore-top and in this hurly burly the next morning being the 9 of Nov. left Prague taking with them their most portable things having load enough within them But the Queen the more Gallant and Royal Spirit carried it with most undauntedness the King suffered doubly as he went being blamed for keeping his Soldiers without pay having such a masse of money by him which he was forced to leave behind to his Enemies and the imputation stuck upon him but flying upon the Wings of common Fame I shall not lure it into this Relation as a known Truth But by a sad Accident that some years after happened to this unfortunate King it was obvious that he left not all behind him for going to visit the Bankers of Amsterdam where his Treasure lay brooding and passing in the night over Harlem mere the winds and darkness in a conspiracy made a cross Hoigh to run against the King's and bulged it in the Sea but before it sunk the King and others got to the Mastring Vessel and saved themselves But the Prince his Son being of a pregnant hopeful puberty with too severe a fate was left to the broken Boat which they durst not approach again though they heard his cries so that he was abandoned to be tormented to death which was more grievous than death it self for the Waters being shallow and the Hoigh sinking not far the next day they found him frozen to the Mast embracing it as his last Refuge his Body half above half under the water This Story melting with Pity is here inserted because the glory of this King expires And since there will be occasion to mention him no more because his Actions afterwards never mounted up one Story high Take this brief Character of him He was a comely Personage for body of a good stature his complexion of a duskish melancholy the constitution of his mind rather fitted for those little besoignes of Accounts and Reckonings than any vigorous or masculine heat to solder up the crackt Title of a Crown He was a handsom well-built but slight Edifice set on an ill Foundation that could not stand long The King of great Britain that the Bohemians built upon was not of so firm a temper as to support a Fortress weakly made that must endure the Rigorous Shock of War which made it at the first or second Assault thus totter and fall The two English Ambassadors Weston and Conwey which our King sent to mediate for the Bohemians could make little use of their Oratory being scattered with the rest in the Cloud of this Confusion But they brought the King and Queen to Limburgh the first days journey and after they were gone towards the Netherlands the Ambassadors procured a safe Conduct from the Duke of Bavaria to return to Prague But there they could find no words so prevalent and penetrable as the steel of a Conquering Enemy and so they returned home re infecta no wiser than they went out This Defeat coming to
tidings and setled us in the fruition of all good things He whose depth of Knowledge as well as Conscience deserves the Title of Fidei defensor whose numerous Issue makes Foreign Princes study to keep their own not look abroad He that hath shut the back-door of the Kingdom and placed two Lions a red and a yellow to secure it who would have us live under our own Olive that we may laetari benefacere That none will wonder at the Want or startle at the supply but such as study to serve their own turns and believe nothing but what they find written in the stories of their own ignorance Among which those are to be reckon'd who hearing of an Order to bind up the printed Proclamations in a book that the better notice may be taken of the things contained in them have raised a bruit that it was intended this Parliament to make Proclamations equal to the Laws which never entred into the Kings heart who is so far from governing by will and power that he will yield to any motion from them wherein they shall hold a just Diameter and proportion among themselves and observe those Duties due to a great and gracious King Thus these Lords did please themselves and the King by striving to keep the people in the milky way of Obedience which they had long suckt in and found the sweet of it tending to nourishment not yet meeting any Callous or Brawny-constitution which must harden them by degrees nor yet finding their own Tempers grown Robust enough by so harsh a diet as afterwards they met with They therefore are willing to go on in the way pointed out to them as Pupils follow their Masters minding rather the smoothness of the Tract they saw than the roughness of the end Yet some of them whose hopes were not so high mounted and their spirits more spoke plainly That the whole wealth of England would not serve the Kings vast Bounty therefore it was a vain thing to give him that would give it away again That Gold and Silver in Edenburgh now in our Solomons time are like the stones in the streets never so much glittering there like a perpetual spring-time Besides they look upon the Kings incroachments upon the publick liberty by undermining the Laws taking notice of some expressions that fell from him publickly at his dinner in derogation of the Common Law extolling highly the Civil Law before it and approving a Book lately written by Doctor Cowell a Civilian against it Which netled our great Lawyers that had not some of them been raised so high that they could not with that Court-gag look downwards it had bred a contest The High-Commission also began now to swell into a Grievance which the Parliament complained of Seldom is Authority and Power exercised with Moderation Every man must conform to the Episcopal way and quit his hold in Opinion or safety That Court was the Touch stone to try whether men were metal for their stamp and if they were not soft enough to take such impressions as were put upon them they were made malleable there or else they could not pass current This was the beginning of that mischief which when it came to a full ripeness made such a bloody Tincture in both Kingdoms as never will be got out of the Bishops Lawn sleeves And though these Apples of strife thrown in the way did a little retard the course in hand yet they carried not the prize For the King according to his old wont like a cunning Hunter when they began to run counter called them off and at White-hall by one of his Lectures he strives to bring them into the way again By laying himself open as in a Glass wherein if they could not see his heart they might scent out his meaning and so follow the chace which was to be pursued He tells them though the Kings heart be in the hands of the Lord yet he will set it before the eyes of the people Assuring them that he never meant to govern by any Law but the Law of the Land though it be disputed among them as if he had an intention to alter the Law and govern by the absolute Power of a King He knew said he the Power of Kings resembling it to the Power Divine For as God can create and destroy make and unmake at his pleasure so Kings can give life and death judg all and be judged of none They can exalt low things and abase high things making the subjects like men at Chess a pawn to take a Bishop or a Knight But he left out the power of a Pawn to take a Queen or check a King And when he had raised the Kings power to the height with Vos dii estis he brings them down again with They shall die like men And that all Kings who are not Tyrants or perjur'd will bound themselves within the limits of their Laws and they that perswade them the contrary are Vipers and Pests both against them and the Common-wealth Yet as it is Blasphemy to dispute what God may do so it is Sedition in Subjects to dispute what a King may do in the height of his power And as he will not have his subjects discourse of what he may do so he will do nothing but what shall be consonant to Law and Reason Then he strives to mitigate the sharpness of the words dropt from him at his Table to the disparagement of the Common Law and assures them though he likes the Civil Law very well as being Lex Gentium which maintains intercourse with foreign Nations and sitted to the Ecclesiastical Courts Court of Admiralty and Courts of Request yet he is so far from disavowing the Common Law that he protests if he were to chuse a new Law for this Kingdom he would prefer it before any other National Law yea the Law of Moses nay without blasphemy the very Law of God Then he recalls himself and tells them That though for this Nation he had preferred the Common Law to the Law of God yet it is inferiour to the Iudicial Law For no Book or Law is free from corruption but the Book and Law of God And therefore he could wish that three things specially were purged out of Common Law First That it were written in the vulgar Tongue and made plain to the peoples understanding that they might know what to obey that the Lawyers in the Law like the Romish Priests in the Gospel might not keep the people in ignorance Secondly That the Common Law might have a setled Text in all Cases for being grounded upon old Customs Reports and Cases of former Iudges called Responsa prudentum which are not binding for divers times Iudges disclaim them and recede from the Iudgment of their Predecessors it were good upon mature deliberation that the Exposition of the Law were set down by Act of Parliament that the people might know what to depend upon Thirdly There is in
so spacious that her said Servants and Family may enter and stay therein In which there shall be an ordinary and publique door for them and another inward door by which the Infanta may have a passage into the said Chappel where she and others as above said may be present at Divine Offices 9. That the Chappel Church and Oratory may be beautified with decent Ornaments of Altar and other things necessary for Divine Service which is to be celebrated in them according to the custom of the Ho. Ro. Church and that it shall be lawful for the said Servants and others to go to the said Chappel and Church at all hours as to them shall seem expedient 10. That the care and custody of the said Chappel and Church shall be committed to such as the Lady Infanta shall appoint to whom it shall be lawful to appoint Keepers that no body may enter into them to do any undecent thing 11. That to the administration of the Sacraments and to serve in Chappel and Church aforesaid there shall be so many Priests and Assistants as to the Infanta shall seem fit and the election of them shall belong to the Lady Infanta and the Catholike King her Brother Provided that they be none of the Vassals of the King of Great Britain and if they be his will and consent is to be first obtained 12. That there be one Superiour Minister or Bishop with necessary Authority upon all occasions which shall happen belonging to Religion and for want of a Bishop that his Vicar may have his Authority and jurisdiction 13. That this Bishop or Superiour Minister may correct amend or chastize all Roman Catholiks who shall offend and shall exercise upon them all Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and moreover also the Lady Infanta shall have power to put them out of her service when soever it shall seem expedient to her 13. That it may be lawful for the Lady Infanta and her Servants to procure from Rome Dispensations Indulgences Jubilees and all Graces as shall seem fit to their Religion and Consciences and to get and make use of any Catholike Books whatsoever 15. That the Servants of the Family of the Lady Infanta who shall come into England shall take the Oath of Allegiance to the King of Great Britain provided that there be no clause therein which shall be contrary to their Consciences and the Roman Catholike Religion and if they happen to be Vassals to the King of Great Britain they shall take the same Oath that the Spaniard doth 16. That the Laws which are or shall be in England against Religion shall not take hold of the said Servants And onely the foresaid Superiour Ecclesiastical Catholike may proceed against Ecclesiastical persons as hath been accustomed by Catholikes And if any Secular Judge shall apprehend any Ecclesiastical Person for any offence he shall forthwith cause him to be delivered to the aforesaid Superiour Ecclesiastick who shall proceed against him according to the Canon-Law 17. That the Lawes made against Catholikes in England or in any other Kingdom of the King of Great Britain shall not extend to the Children of this Marriage and though they be Catholikes they shall not lose the Right of Succession to the Kingdom and Dominions of Great Britain 18. That the Nurses which shall give suck to the Children of the Lady Infanta whether they be of the Kingdom of Great Britain or of any other Nation whatsoever shall be chosen by the Lady Infanta as she pleaseth and shall be accounted of her Family and enjoy the priviledges thereof 19. That the Bishop Ecclesiastical Persons and Religious of the Family of the Lady Infanta shall wear the Vestment and Habit of his dignity profession and Religion after the custom of Rome 20. For security that the said Matrimony be not dissolved for any cause whatsoever The King of Great Britain and Prince Charles are equally to pass the Word and Honour of a King and moreover that they will perform whatsoever shall be propounded by the Catholike King for further confirmation if it may be done decently and fitly 21. That the Sons and Daughters which shall be born of this Marriage shall be brought up in the company of the most Excellent Infanta at least until the Age of Ten years and shall freely enjoy the Right of Succession to the Kingdoms as aforesaid 22. That whensoever any place of either Man-servant or Maid-servant which the Lady Infanta shall bring with her nominated by the Catholike King her Brother shall happen to be void whether by death or by other Cause or accident all the said Servants of her Family are to be supplied by the Catholike King as aforesaid 23. For security that whatsoever is Capitulated may be fulfilled The King of Great Britain and Prince Charles are to be bound by Oath and all the King's Council shall Confirm the said Treaty under their hands Moreover the said King and Prince are to give their Faiths in the Word of a King to endeavour if possible that whatsoever is Capitulated may be established by Parliament 24. That conformable to this Treaty all these things proposed are to be allowed and approved of by the Pope that he may give an Apostolical Benediction and a Dispensation necessary to effect the Marriage But though our King and Prince subscribed these Articles as they were sent to them by the Earl of Bristol in this manner Hos supra memoratos Articulos omnes ac singulos approbamus et quicquid in iis ex nostra parte seu nostro nomine conventum est ratum atque gratum habemus approving and expressing them to be very acceptable unto them And after they had wrought the King to sign these large immunities to the Papists viz. Quod Regnorum suorum Romano Catholici persecutionem nullam patientur molestiáve officientur Religionis suae causa vel ob exercitium illorum ejusdem sacramentorum modò iis utantur absque scandalo quod intelligi debet inter privatos parietes nec juramentis aut sub alio praetextu qualicunque ordinem Religionis spectante vexabuntur That the Roman Catholikes should not be interrupted in the exercise of their Religion doing it privately without Scandal nor be vext with any oaths in order to the same What rested but a closing of both Parties Yet all would not do for the Spaniard never intended the Match at all as is evident by a Letter of the King of Spain's written to his Favourite the Conde of Olivares dated the Fifth of November 1622. found among the Lord Cottington's Papers THe King my Father declared at his Death That his intent never was to marry my Sister the Infanta Donna Maria with the Prince of Wales which your Unkle Don Baltazer understood and so treated this Match ever with intention to delay it notwithstanding it is now so far advanced that considering all the aversness of the Infanta to it it is time to seek some means to divert the Treaty
the Mosell but the Prince to divert the Enemies intelligence upon the sixteenth of September drew two miles back from Coblentz and past the Rhine in Punts a kind of Liter advancing forward on the other side of the River three English miles that night to a Village called Hembach where the Foot stayed till the Horse past the River And this sudden change of resolution was one of Prince Henry's Master-pieces for he knew from Collen Spinola would have intelligence by Curriers which way the bent of their march tended and they had the Mosell in their eye all the way but the Rhine in intention In the Halt before Coblentz one bullet among others from the Town past between General Vere and the Earl of Essex standing together and hit a Gentleman called Flood on the elbow The cause of shooting from thence as was conceived proceeded from a Skirmish the night before that happened betwixt some English and the Country People of an adjoyning Village on the Mosell for Captain Fairfax being sent with a Squadron to them in a peaceable manner to desire the accommodation of bread and wine for Money the Bores shot at him and hurt some of his men but he stoutly advancing to them they took their Boats and hasted down to Coblentz Some of the Bores were reported to be slain for which Fairfax upon the Prince's complaint was committed to give the Country satisfaction but the next day released MAURITS PRINS VAN ORANJE Benssheim Spinola finding himself deluded on one side of the Rhine past the River Main with all his Horse and four thousand Foot intending to snap them on the other but the stream being too high his Waggons with Munition took wet and some Field-peices miscarried which could not be recovered with the loss of some of his men which disasters happening they admonished him to a retreat otherwise in all probability he had cut off those Forces before they could have joyned with the Princes of the Union The 24 of September Prince Henry with his Horse and General Vere with the Foot past the River Main at a Ford not far from Frankford the Foot for the most part marching up to the middle through the stream and that night they stood in Arms having two Alarums of Spinola's approach not hearing yet he was retired The next day they had a long march to recover Darmstat one half of which Town belongs to the King of Bohemia the other part to the Landsgrave of Hessen There Prince Henry and the Dutch Companies left the English and returned into the Netherlands again and fifteen hundred German Horse commanded by Colonel Megan met them by order from the Princes of the Union The 27 of September they came to Beinsheim being the first intire Town in the Palatinate they arrived at and upon the first of October past over the Rhine by Worms upon a Bridge of Boats and that day were met by the Marquess of Ansbach and some others of the Princes of the Union who stayed to see them march by wondering at the gallantry of such Foot who were with them the meanest of the people After two days rest the Princes with part of their Army being 4000 Horse and 6000 Foot joyned with the English and together marched towards Altzi a Town in the Palatinate that the Enemy had taken in which they intended to surprize But hearing by their Scouts that the Enemy had quitted the Town as not tenable and that Spinola with his whole Army was marching towards them they faced about to make his way the shorter and within three hours their Scouts and the Enemies were in Skirmish but the German Princes not having their whole Army were not forward to engage Spinola seeing them march towards him being as weary as they took the advantage of a Hill and forced their Horse with his Cannon to retreat but the Princes drew their Cannon up another Hill on the right hand of the Enemy there being a large bottom and a hill of Vineyards betwixt the two Armies which were not visible but from thence for the one Hill drowned the other to them in the bottom As soon as they saw how the Enemy strove to secure himself and that he was loth to come on they judged their strength not to be great and therefore took a resolution to set upon them The Dutch in curtesie yielded the Vanguard to the English which before they stood upon as a Punctilio of honor The English General drew out of every Division fourscore Musqueteers to give the On-set who were incouraged by that Reverend Divine Doctor Burges of whom mention is formerly made who accompanied the General from England and was an instrument of much good to that Regiment though they needed no incouragement at that time being spirits willingly prepared for such enterprises AMBROSIVS SPINOLA DVX S. SEVERINO PRINC SARLVAL MARCH BENAFRO The next day they marched to Quarters again where the Soldiers found the Country Roots Fruits and Wine in the Must no good preservatives But after they had stayed by it seven or eight days Spinola led them a dance for digestion pretending for Keisars Luther a Town in the borders of the Palatinate which made the Princes advance their whole body to attend him but as they drew near he retreated so that they sported with one another as children at Seek and Find though neither of their Armies could be much pleased with the sharp frosty nights those desolate and naked Hills exposed them to upon the top of one of them the English Commanders one night burnt a great many of their Wagons to warm them the Frost was so violent and the Soldiers lay in heaps upon the ground close together like sheep cover'd as it were with a sheet of snow Yet they spent the time thus till their Stoves summon'd them to warmer lodging And the English Regiment was disposed into three principal Garrisons General Vere commanded in Manheim Sir Gerard Herbert in Heidelburgh and Serjeant-Major Burrows in Frankindale imprisoning themselves in Walls while the Enemy romed round about them and they had only power to preserve themselves For the Princes of the Unions Forces were garrison'd in their several Countries I have the more particularly described this Expedition because I was an eye-witness of what passed and if we had not had an allay of Dutch dulness the Spaniard could not have carved to himself so great a share in that Country and their opposers had not mouldred away their Forces as they did afterwards which makes this Relation harsh and unpleasing But there was a Divine Fate attended not only this Country but all Germany For the Almighty Wisdom that is the Author of all Revolutions in the World hath his set times for changes which often tends to the imbettering of it For all the Northern Conquests of the Goths Huns Vandals Scyths and other baâ—barous Nations were to corroborate the Southern bodies wasted with Ease and Luxury And now in Germany a