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book_n	call_v	church_n	time_n	2,817	5	3.2368	3	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45001	The grounds & reasons of monarchy considered in a review of the Scotch story, gathered out their best authours and records / by J.H.	Hall, John, 1627-1656.	1650 (1650)	Wing H346; ESTC R16160	36,146	138

weaving fine Theories and engaging in School Ciquaneries which was well understood by Henry the fourth who hearing some men celebrate him with these Attributes yea answers he very tartly He is a fine King and writes little Books 'T is true he was a good droll and possibly after Greek Wine somewhat factious But for substantiall and Heroick Wisdome I have not heard any great instances he himself used to brag of his kingcraft which was not to felicifie his People and prosecute the ends of a good King but to scrue up the Prerogative divert Parliaments from the due disquisition and prosecution of their freedoms and to break them up at pleasure and indeed his rendition of the Cautionary Towns of the Low Countreys and that for so small a sum shewed him a person not so quick-sighted and unfit to be overreach'd For his peaceable Reigne Honourable and just Quarrels he wanted not but sloth and cowardize withheld him and indeed the ease and luxury of those times fomented and nourished those lurking and pestilent humours which afterwards so dangerously broke out in his Sons Reign We shall not trouble his ashes with the mention of his Personall faults onely if we may compare Gods Judgements with apparant sinnes we may find the latter end of his life neither fortunate nor comfortable unto him His wife distasted by him and some say languishing of a foul disease his eldest son dying Nimis apertis indiciis of Poyson and that as is feared by a hand too much allied His second with whom he ever had a secret Antipathy scarce returned from a mad and dangerous voyage His daughter all that was left of that sex banish'd with her numerous issue out of her husbands Dominion and living in miserable exile and lastly himself dying of a violent death by poyson in which his Son was more then suspected to have an hand as may be infer'd by Buckinghams Plea that he did it by the Command of the then Prince his own dissolution of the Parliament that took in hand to examine it and lastly his indifferency at Buckinghams death though he pretended all love to him alive as glad to be rid of so dangerous and so considerable a Partner of his guilt yet the Mitred Parasites of those times could say one went to Heaven in Noahs Ark the other in Elisha's chariot he dying of a pretended Feaver she as they said of a dropsie Charles having now obtain'd his Brothers inheritance carried himself in managing of it like one that gain'd it as he did The first of his Acts was that glorious attempt upon the Isle of Rhee The next that Noble and Christianly betraying of Rochell and consequently in a manner the whole Protestant interest in France The middle of his Reign was heightening of Prerogative and Prelacy and conforming our Churches to the pattern of Rome till at last just indignation brought in his Subjects of Scotland into England and so forc'd him to call a Parliament which though he shamelesly say in the first line of the Book call'd his was out of his own inclination to Parliaments yet how well he lik'd them may appear by his first tampering with his own Army in the North to surprize and dissolve them then the Scots who at that time were Court-proof then raising up the Irish Rebellion which hath wasted Millions of lives and lastly open secession from Westminster and hostility against the two Houses which maintain'd a first and second sharp War which had almost ruined the Nation had not Providence in a manner immediately interposed and rescued us to liberty and made us such signall Instruments of his vengeance that all wicked Kings may tremble at the example In a word never was man so resolute and obstinate in a Tyrannie never people more strangely besotted with it to paint the Image of David with his face and Blasphemously paralel him with Christ would make one at first thought think him a Saint But to compare his Protestations and actions his actions of the day his actions of the night his Protestant Religion and his Courting of Pope and obedience to his wife we may justly say he was one of the most consummate in the Arts of Tyranny that ever was And it could be no other then Gods hand that arrested him in the heighth of his Designs and greatnesse and cut off him and his Familie making good his own Imprecations upon his own head Our Scene is again in Scotland who hath accepted his Son whom for distinction sake we will be content to call Charls the Second Certainly these People were strangely blind as to Gods judgement perpetually poured out upon a Familie or else to their own interest to admit the spray of such a stock one that hath so little to commend him and so great improbabilitie for their designs and happiness a Popish or very near it education if not Religion too however for the present he may seem to dissemble it France the Jesuites and his Mother good means of such improvement the dangerous Maxims of his Father besides the revenge he ows his death of which he will never totally acquit the Scots his hate to the whole Nation his sence of Montrosse his death his backwardnesse to come to them till all other means failed both his Forreign begg'd Assistances his Propositions to the Pope and Commissions to Montrosse and lastly his late running away to his old friends in the North so that any man may see this his Compliance to be but Histrionical and forc'd and that as soon as he hath led them into the snare and got power into his own hands so as he may appear in his own visage he will be a scourge upon them for their gross hypocrisie and leave them a sad instance to all Nations how dangerous it is to espouse such an interest which God with so visible and severe a hand fights against carried on by and for the support of a Tyrannizing Nobilitie and Clergie and wherein the poor People are blindly led on by those affrighting but false and ungrounded pretensions of perfidy and perjury and made instrumentall with their own estates and bloud for the enslaving and ruining themselves FINIS

is the intrinsical value and expediency of this Government and some little comparison with others but herein we shall be short and onely so far as concerns this And indeed it is a businesse so ticklish that even Mr. Hobs in his de Cive though he assured himself that the rest of his Book which is principally erected to the assertion of Monarchy is demonstrated yet he doubts whether the Arguments which he brings to this businesse be so firm or no And Malvezzi contrarily remonstrates in his discourses upon Tacitus that Optimacies are clearly better then Monarchies as to all advantages And indeed if we look on their Arguments they are either Flourishes or meerly Conceptions such are the reference and perfection of an Unity which must needs work better and more naturally as one simple cause besides that it stills and restrains all other claims then many co-ordinate whereas they never consider that though among many joynt Causes there may be some jarring yet like crosse wheels in an Engine they tend to the regulation of the whole What violent mischiefs are brought in by the contentions of Pretenders Ambiguities of Titles and lawlesse ambition of Aspirers whereas in a setled Republick all this is clear and in case any particular man aspire they know whom to joyn against and punish as a Common Enemy As for that which alledges the advantage of secresie in businesse it carries not much with it in regard that under that even most pernicious designs may be carryed on and for wholsome counsels Bating some more nice Transactions it matters not how much they be tost among those who are so much entrusted and concerned in them all crosse Designs being never in probability so feeble and ineffectuall as when there are many eyes to over look them and voyces to decry them As for that expedition in which they say Monarchs are so happy it may as well further a bad intention as give effect to a just Councell it depending on the judgement of a single man to whose will and ends all must refer whereas a select number of Entrusted persons may hasten every opportunity with a just slownesse as well as they though indeed unlesse it be in some Military Criticall minuts I see not such an excellency in the swiftnesse of heady dispatch precipitation in Councels being so dangerous and Ominous As for what concerns private Suitors they may as if not more speedily and effectually be answered in staid Re-publicks as in the Court of a King where Bribery and unworthy Favourites do not what is just but what is desired With these and many others as considerable which partly willingly and partly in this penury of Books forgettingly I passe do they intend to strengthen this fantasticall and airie building but as sly Controverters many times leave out the principall Text or Argument because should it be produced it could not be so easily answered so these men tell us all the advantages of Monarchy supposing them still well setled and under men virtuous but you shall never hear them talk of it in Statu corrupto under lewd Kings and unsetled Laws they never let fall a word of the dangers of Inter-reigns the minorities and vices of Princes Misgovernments evil Councels Ambitions Ambiguities of Titles and the Animosities and Calamities that follow them the necessary Injustices and Oppressions by which Monarchs using the peoples wealth and bloud against them hold them fast in their seats and by some suspension of Divine Justice die not violently Whereas other Governments established against all these evils being ever of vigour and just age setled in their own right freed from pretences served by experienced and engaged Councels and as nothing under the Moon is perfect sometimes gaining and advantag'd in their Controversies which have not seldome as we may see in old Rome brought forth good Laws and Augmentations of Freedome whereas once declining from their purity and vigour and which is the effect of that ravisht by an Invader they languish in a brutish servitude Monarchy being truly a disease of Government and like Slaves stupid with harshnesse and continuance of Slavery wax old under it till they either arrive at that period which God prescribes to all people and Governments or else better Stars and Nephews awaken them out of that Lethargy and restore them to their Pristine Liberty and its Daughter happinesse But this is but to converse in Notions wandring and ill abstract from things let us now descend into practicall observation and clearly manifest out of the whole Series of Time and Actions what circumstances and events have either ushered or dog'd one race of Kings That if there were all the justice in the world that the Government of a Nation should be entailed upon one Family yet certainly we could not grant it to such an one whose Criminall lives and formidable deaths have been evidences of Gods wrath upon it for so many Generations And since no Countrey that I know yields such an illustrious example of this as Scotland does and it may be a charity to bring into the way such as are misled I have pitched upon the Scottish History wherein as I have onely consulted their own Authours as my fittest witnesses in this case So have I not as a just History but as far as concerns this purpose faithfully and as far as the thing would permit without glosses represented it so that any calm understanding may deduce that the vengeance which at the present is levell'd against the Nation is but an attendant of this new introduc'd Person and that he himself though for the present he seems a Clog among his Frogs and suffer them to play about him yet God will suffer him if the English Army prevent not to turn Stork and devour them while their cries shall not be heard as those that in dispight of the warning of Providence and light of their own reasons for their own corrupt Interest greedy Ambition brought these miseries upon themselves THE INSTANCE Out of the Scottish History Which is the Second Part. ANd now we come to our main businesse which is the review of Story wherein we may find such a direct and uninterrupted Series such mutuall Endearments between Prince and People and so many of them crowned with happy Reigns and quiet Deaths two together scarce dying naturally that we may conclude that they have not onely the most reason but a great deal of excellent Interest who Espouse the Person and Quarrell of the hopefull descendant of such a Family nor shall we be so injurious to the glory of a Nation proud with a Catalogue of Names and Kings as to expunge a great part of their number though some who have done it affirm There can be no probability that they had any other being then what Hector Boyes and the black Book of Pasley out of which Buchanan had most of his materials bestow on them there being no mention of the name of Scot in any Authentick