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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A46843	King Charles I, no such saint, martyr or good Protestant as commonly reputed, but a favourer of Papists and a cruel and oppressive tyrant all plainly proved from undeniable matters of fact : to which are added Dr. Burnet's, now Bishop of Salisbury, and other reasons, against the keeping up any longer the observation of a fast on the 30th of January : as also short answers to these three questions, I, what is the occasion of the clergies pride and lording it over the laity, II, why they and many of the laity cry up this king for a saint, martyr, &c., III, what is the true reason that the generality of the clergy, and many of the laity, both lawyers and others, are constant advocates for kings, tho never so wicked, and sacrificers of the people.	D. J.	1698 (1698)	Wing J7; ESTC R444	18,954	30

King Charles I. No such SAINT MARTYR or GOOD PROTESTANT as commonly reputed BUT A FAVOURER of PAPISTS and a Cruel and Oppressive TYRANT All plainly proved from undeniable Matters of Fact To which are added Dr. Burnet's now Bishop of Salisbury and other Reasons against the keeping up any longer the observation of a Fast on the 30th of January AS ALSO Short Answers to these three Questions I. What is the Occasion of the Clergies Pride and Lording it over the Laity II. Why they and many of the Laity cry up this King for a Saint Martyr c. III. What is the true Reason that the generality of the Clergy and many of the Laity both Lawyers and others are constant Advocates for Kings tho never so wicked and Sacrificers of the People He that ruleth over men must be just ruling in the fear of God 2 Sam. 23.3 And Ahab the Son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him 1 Kings 30. And hath despised in the indignation of his anger the KING and the Priest Lam. 2.6 And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high and the Kings of the earth that are on the earth Isa 24.21 And I will come upon him while he is weary and weakhanded and will make him afraid and all the people that are with him shall flee and I will SMITE the KING ONLY 2 Sam. 17.2 But when his heart was lifted up and his mind was hardned with Pride he was deposed from his Kingly Throne and they took his Glory from him Dan. 5.20 ●or this Melchisedeck King of Salem Priest of the most high God who met Abraham returning from the Slaughter of Kings and blessed him Heb. 7.1 LONDON Printed in the 10th Year of our Redemption from Popery and Slavery 1698. To the good People of England who sincerely love and will maintain the Protestant Religion English Laws Liberties and Properties Honest Countrymen THE design of this Book is twofold First To give many and clear Demonstrations that King Charles the First was no such Saint or Martyr as he has been commonly reputed nor yet a true Protestant but on the contrary a great favourer of Papists and an oppressive Tyrant Secondly To vindicate the just Resistance the Parliament of 1640 and People were constrain'd for their own safety to make I foresee this Treatise will meet with two Objections First That it contradicts the old Maxim De mortuis nihil nisi bonum The second That it treats a crowned Head nay a pious Martyr's too with little respect To the first I answer That bonum here must be understood quasi verum that is do not wrong or belie the Dead for they are not in being to justify their own Innocency otherwise it will not only reflect on profane but sacred History nothing being more common in both than to record the evil Actions even of Princes themselves I find this Maxim sometimes highly insisted on by some of our Clergy and Laity especially in favour of King Charles I. At other times these sort of men make not the least scruple for sinister ends most unjustly to vilify as the greatest Villains imaginable the Parliament of 1640 and those worthy Patriots that join'd with it to prevent the then many apparent inundations of Popery and Arbitrary Power that King his Queen and evil Counsellors were bringing on the three Kingdoms To the second of respecting this crowned Head I must confess I have not treated him as I would a King 〈…〉 for the good of his People according to Law but as a Tyrant who cannot pretend to the least Love or Honour from any of his Subjects except those Papists and others that were his Favorites and were embarked in the same wicked Designs with him esteem it a great Sin to idolize and deify the best Magistrate on Earth but a much greater to adore a bloody and tyrannical Oppressor And if the same men will through custom simplicity or want of information no otherwise consider Kings than in the gaudy name of Majesty and admire them and their doings as if they breathed not the same Breath with other mortal men I thank God I have learnt better and plainly see with what a besotted and degenerated baseness of spirit imbastardized from the antient nobleness of their Ancestors they have not only in a religious but a civil kind of Idolatry idoliz'd this King and ador'd the Image and Memory of him who hath offered at more cunning fetches to undermine the Liberties of England and put Tyranny into an Art than any British King before him To make good my Charge against this Prince I shall first prove that the general course of his Actions c. were directly inconsistent with what a Saint doth and ought to do viz. 1. He was a proud Nimrod a hardened Pharaoh 2. A great Liar if he writ the Book call'd Eicon Basilike for amongst the many false Assertions against and Accusations of the Parliament he begins with this notorious one viz. That he call'd this last Parliament not more by the advice of others than his own choice and inclination when the contrary was well known both by the current of his own Actions and by the Favorites about him For further proof of this let any unbiassed Person but read his Promises Oaths Protestations and solemn Declarations to the Parliament and consider how little of truth was in them how the Parliament in many of their Petitions charged him with the breach of them and he will receive sufficient satisfaction ● He unhallowed and unchristianed the very Duty of Prayer it self by borrowing to a Christian use Prayers offered to a Heathen God What little fear had he of the true all seeing Deity what little reverence of the Holy Ghost whose Office is to dictate and present our Christian Prayers What little care of Truth in his last words or honour to himself or to his Friends or sense of his Afflictions or of that sad hour which was upon him as immediately before his death to pop into the hand of that grave Bishop who attended him as a special Relick of his saintly Exercises a Prayer stolen word for word from the mouth of a Heathen Woman praying to a Heathen God and that in no serious Book but a vain amatorious Poem of Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia a Book in that kind full of Worth and Wit but among religious Thoughts and Duties not worthy to be named nor read at any time without caution much less in time of trouble and affliction to be a Christian's Prayer-Book that thought no better of the living God than of a buzzard Idol by serving him with the polluted trash of Romances and Arcadia's A bold and irreligious affront to the Divine Being And in the 5th Chapter about Triennial Parliaments he hath this passage That the Tumults threatned to abuse all Acts of Grace and turn them into

knows cannot come under any one of these Characters for it is plain that he did not dye for being a Witness or Confessor of the Revealed Truths in God's Word neither did he suffer Afflictions even unto Death for the sake of owning or professing Evangelical Truths No the Parliament did not oppose or prosecute him for being a Protestant but for favouring Papists and subverting in a most arbitrary manner all the Laws and Liberties of England I shall now proceed to shew that this King could not be a firm Protestant His Letter to the Pope printed at large in the Book called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640. and the People of England against King Charles the First and his Adherents in answer to the Letter he received from the Pope is enough to startle any but such as Land 's Protestants He calls the Pope Most Holy Father and tells him I shall never be so extreamly affected to any thing in the World as to endeavour an Alliance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the True Religion with my self Mr. Rushworth hath it in these words Your Holinesses Conjecture of Our Desire to contract an Alliance and Marriage with a Catholick Family and Princess is agreeable both to your Wisdom and Charity for we would never desire so vehemently to be joind in a strict and indissoluble Bond with any mortal whatsoever whose Religion we hated And towards the end of the Letter I entreat your Holiness to believe that I have been always very far from encouraging Novelties or to be a Partisan of any Faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion In another place he protested That he would expose Life and Estate in the Exaltation of the Holy Chair This cannot redound to the honour of a Protestant King for the Holy Chair in its proper sense means nothing but down-right Popery In another place he tells the Pope I will employ my self for the time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith Having resolved in my self to spare nothing in the World and to suffer all manner of Discommodities even to the hazarding my Estate and Life for a thing so pleasing to God This Resolution cannot look like his converting the Pope and others to the Protestant Religion but directly the contrary And in his Reply to the Nuncio upon his delivering the Popes Letter to him which you may read in Cabala or Mysteries of State pag. 214. he says I kiss his Holiness Feet for the Favour and Honour he doth me so much the more esteemed by how much the less deserved of me hitherto and his Holiness shall see what I do hereafter And so did England Scotland and Ireland and the whole world His Bishops and Chaplains pressed Popish Innovations and preached Doctrines of gross Popery And I think my Father will do the like so that his Holiness shall not repent him of what he has done His marrying a violent Papist and making Articles with France in favour of Papists read his Articles at large in the Book called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640. c. His stopping all Prosecution against them His preferring many of them to places of eminent Trusts particularly Weston to be his Lord Treasurer Arundell Weston Gottington and Windebanck who all died Papists His pardoning Mountague his Chaplain for preaching down-right Popery His unlawful corresponding and conspiring with the Irish and French to land Forces against the Parliament He was kind to the Irish Papists And in his third year against the plain advice of Parliament like a kind Pope sold them many Indulgences for money Advised with them on all occasions admitted them to private Consultations with him and his Queen His sending one Dillon a Papist Lord soon after a chief Rebel with Letters into Ireland and his dispatching a Commission under the great Seal of Scotland at that time in his own Custody that they should forthwith as formerly had been agreed cause all the Irish to rise in Arms. Read the Commission at large in the Book before mentioned His causing ten thousand Popish Irish Soldiers to be ordered for England by the Earl of Glamorgan do all shew he had more confidence in Popish Irish than in his Protestant English Subjects A rare Protestant I profess These with his betraying the Protestants of the Palatinate Isle of Rhee and Rochel and the poor Protestants of Ireland to the number of 154000 shew the slender affection he had for the Protestant Interest either at home or abroad From such a merciless Protestant Good Lord for ever deliver these Kingdoms Read his Letters to the Rochellers and their Remonstrance upon his betraying them both printed in the Book called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640. and you will have little cause to admire this Martyr And also the Sheet called Murder will out printed in the same Book which makes it appear he had a hand in the horrid Irish Rebellion In the next place I shall plainly make it appear beyond all doubt that this King was an oppressive Tyrant and should I proceed on this melancholy Subject so largely as with the greatest truth and matters of Fact I might I should have cause to cry out with the Poet Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem Many Instances of his Arbitrary and Illegal Government being printed in the Book called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640 c. and also the following Papers which set this King out to the life viz. The Pope's Letter to King Charles I. and King Charles 's Answer His Articles of Marriage with France His Declaration of Sports on the Lord's Day His Letters of Assurance to the Protestants of Rochel and their Remonstrance on his deceiving them His Commission to the Irish Rebels and Rorie Macquire and Philem Oneal 's Declaration thereupon K. Charles II. Letter to the Court of Claims in Ireland in behalf of the Marquess of Antrim for acting by King Charles I. Order King Charles 's Prayer taken out of Pembrook 's Arcadia An Abridgment of the Articles of Peace that King Charles I. made with the Irish Rebels Lord Anglesey 's Memorandum and Walker 's Reasons against Eikon Basilike I shall now content my self with enumerating a few more Instances of his grievous oppressing the People of England as a Tyrant viz. By his raising without Act of Parliament 200000 l. on the poor Merchants for Ship-money Coat and Conduct money His great Minions and Favorites inventing new methods of Monopolies without ever acquainting the Parliament to enable him in a full time of Peace to live without a Parliament as he did about 11 Years together Compulsive Knighthoods the seizing not of one Naboth's Vineyard but of whole Inheritances under the pretence of Forest or Crown-lands Corruption and Bribery compounded for with Impunities granted for the future Arbitrary and excessive Fines on those People that stood in the gap against his Tyranny besides the barbarous Slashings Whippings Pillorings and horrible Imprisonments for

Papist Queen and France how could poor England think of being happy or free from Popery and its natural Consequence Tyranny That instead of praying for his People as a good King should do he pray'd to be delivered from them as from wild Beasts Inundations and raging Seas that had overborn all Loyalty that is would not let him be according to his Will a great Tyrant Modesty Laws Justice and Religion God save the People from such Intercessors That the petitioning for removal of Evil Counsellors and redressing Grievances in Church and State was to him an intolerable Oppression His sending an Agent to Denmark with Letters to that King requiring Aid against the Parliament besides the 8000 Irish raised by Strafford which with a Scotch and French Army were to join the English he then had He encouraged the Scots by telling them what Money and Horse he was to have from Denmark yielding to the hireling Army of Scotland rather than to the reasonable Requests of his Parliament His stopping and way-laying both by Sea and Land to his utmost power those Provisions and Supplies which the Parliament sent to relieve the miserable Protestants of Ireland clearly demonstrates he was desirous of having them sacrificed to his Irish Friends who were bloody Cut-throats Ireland being as Ephraim the strength of his Head Scotland as Judah was his Law-giver but over England as over Edom he meant to cast his Shoe His being so false in all his Treaties as to follow his grand Maxim viz. Always to put something into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and so make them signify nothing a way of treating that no way became a Crown'd Head much less an honest pious Prince who ought to be sincere in all his Undertakings That was so full of Revenge upon the Parliament that he sent his violent Queen who with the greatest willingness went to Holland where she by his order pawn'd and set to sale the Crown Jewels a Crime heretofore counted treasonable for no other use but to raise an Army of Horse and Foot with Arms c. a very pious Design to bring in a wicked parcel of Foreigners to cut his English Subjects Throats This was a Martyr with a witness by whom the Nation had been swallowed up with Blood and Ruin had not his Strength fail'd him more than his Will His admiring those Ministers that strengthened his Hands and hardened his Heart and applauded him in his wilful ways against the Good of his People to whom he was a Constantine They were as dear and pleasing to him as Amaziah the Priest of Bethel was to Jeroboam for they had learnt not to prophesy against Bethel for it is the King's Chappel the King's Court But his hating those good and pious Ministers the Parliament sent him proceeded from their telling him plain Truths what was his Duty and Interest and preaching up Repentance for what he had done His most wrongfully pretending that he must kill or be killed is so notoriously false that nothing can be clearer it being very manifest that never was King less in danger of any violence from his Subjects till he unsheath'd his Sword against them Nay long after that time when he had spilt the Blood of thousands they had still his Person in a foolish veneration His own Letters taken at the Battel of Naseby were of great importance to let the People see what Faith there was in all his Promises and solemn Protestations they discovered his good Affection to Papists and Irish Rebels the strict Intelligence he held the pernicious and dishonourable Peace he made with them not sollicited but rather solliciting which by all Invocations that were holy he had in publick abjured See the Articles of Peace abridged in the Defence of the Parliament of 1640 c. These Letters revealed his Endeavours to bring in Foreign Forces Irish French Dutch Lorainers and our old Invaders the Danes upon England These were visible to all men under his own hand and were ordered by the Parliament to be printed for publick Information These his own Letters discovering his Grand Mystery of Iniquity this holy Man was not a little concern'd at their being made publick for they pull'd off his Mask and shew'd the World what sort of a Man he was Having I hope beyond all doubt given clear Demonstrations that King Charles the First could be no Saint Martyr nor a true Protestant but on the contrary a favourer of Popery a wicked and oppressive Tyrant I have little or no occasion to proceed to my second Proposition which was to vindicate the Parliament of 1640 and all those Noble Patriots that joined with it against that King and his Evil Counsellors however I shall briefly defend them from the impudent Charge of Rebels tho I am heartily sorry that the ignorance of some prejudice and self-interest of others should give the least occasion for this Defence especially in these our days when God be praised Men can speak and write English Truths without being hang'd for them as in the late wicked Reigns when Villains declared it for Law that Scribere was Agere In prosecution of this Defence I shall shew you 1. Who did rise and oppose this Prince and his Evil Counsellors 2. What were the Reasons that induced so great an Opposition 1. The Parliament and their Adherents consisted of the best of the Nobility and Gentry Men eminent for Piety and Justice viz. The Earls of Bedford Manchester and Essex c. Lords Paget Mandeville Wharton Hollis Brook c. Commoners Sir Thomas Fairfax Mr. Hambden Mr. Pymm Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Strode Sir John Elliot Sir John Heveningham Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston Sir John Strangeways Sir William Earl c. and many more too many to be herein mentioned It was also evident that the most worthy of the Nobility Gentry and Commonalty of the Kingdom did most heartily engage with them in this most Righteous Work of delivering England and tho by Blood yet God gave them success against that Tyrant 2. For what Reasons did the Parliament and People presume to resist the Lord 's Anointed I answer let those that desire satisfaction in this point but read over carefully and impartially this small Book and that called A Defence of the Parliament of 1640. c. and they will have no cause to enquire further so many real matters of Fact being therein contained almost enough to convince even Thomas a Didimus But to be short they were necessitated thereunto being in the greatest danger of losing the Protestant Religion their Laws their Lives and Liberties Was it not high time to stand up when all that was dear to Free-born Englishmen was at stake Was not the King a great favourer of Papists and lover of Tyranny Was he not ruled by his violent Popish Queen a wicked corrupt and Arbitrary Nobility Gentry and Clergy many of them of mean fortunes that were unhappy for Himself but more

unhappy for his Kingdom And were such persons as these fit to be trusted by the people Men that laboured all they could to make the King a powerful Tyrant and his Subjects a miserable enslaved people Besides could rational men think it safe to permit such a King and his Evil Counsellors to carry on those their Arbitrary Designs apparently destructive to the happiness and welfare of England If they had permitted these Evils to come upon them they ought not only to be beg'd for Fools or Madmen but deserved to lose the privileges of a Free People But God be praised for inspiring and assisting them with greater Wisdom and Courage than foolishly and tamely to suffer their Religion Laws and Liberties to become a Sacrifice to that Tyrant or his Crew His governing ad Libitum Regis by his own arbitrary Lust and Will and not per Legem Terrae and calling but three Parliaments in all his Reign which to the sorrow of England was almost twenty four years must naturally create enemies against him To conclude this Head His whole Reign was such a continued piece of Popish Tyranny and Oppression that the people of England with the greatest chearfulness ran the hazard of their Lives and Fortunes to free themselves and posterity from them both and I challenge the greatest Advocates for this pretended Saint and Martyr to disprove the least matter in this Book laid to his charge nay I 'll go farther I challenge them to give me or any one else a satisfactory account of one good Act he ever did for the glory of God or the good of his three Kingdoms except constrained by his people thereunto For a conclusion of this Discourse I shall make a few Remarques which I hope if well observed may be very useful not only to this present age but to posterity 1. I shall give a short Answer to this Question Why do the generality of the Clergy and Laity so much adore and idolize all Monarchs whether good or bad above the People The Reason is plain The People have nothing material in a Monarchical Government to bestow upon these Court Parasites for the Kings have the disposal of the Bishopricks Deanaries Prebendaries Archdeaconries and most other great Livings and also most of the Temporal beneficial Places as Chancellors Judges and other great Offices from such a sort of men as these nothing but Court-Doctrines can be expected for they are well assured should they preach or write for the Rights or Privileges of the People in Arbitrary Reigns it would be the ready way to dash all their hopes of preferment into pieces And here I cannot but make a melancholy Observation as to the Clergy in general of the late Reigns viz. That by all I could hear or read they have been so far from being Christian Advocates for the Rights and Privileges of millions of people that they have in a most wicked manner promoted and preached up those Doctrines that plainly tended to make them miserable and lasting Slaves Indeed I must confess some few of them have signalized themselves for the good of the People and against Popery Particularly that incomparable Phoenix of our Age Mr. SAMVEL JOHNSON a person that by his sensible Conversation and his golden Works hath done more service to rescue England from Popery and Slavery and secure English mens Rights and Privileges than most if not all the Bishops and Clergy-men ever did since the Reformation His Works are so excellent and highly valuable that they will preserve his Fame long after he is dead and will make good that Motto Vivit post funera virtus And I could wish the Nobility and Gentry would encourage by subscriptions some Bookseller or Printer to reprint all this great Man's Works in one Folio that the Divine and Noble Truths therein contained might be handed down for the publick good to posterity I am extreamly well pleased that our Gracious King WILLIAM hath in some measure tho not so much nor so soon as I could wish tho he had merited more than others rewarded his inhumane sufferings and eminent services for these Kingdoms I would never have a good man have the least cause to say Virtus laudatur alget and that Aude aliquid brevibus gyaris aut carcere dignum Si vis esse aliquid Was the right way to preferment 2. What occasions the Clergy's usurping one Province more than belongs to them viz. the Law when God knows they have work enough to preach the Gospel as they ought to do that their Flocks might be well fed with the Milk of God's Word 1. Want of that true Piety that would keep them closer to their duties to God and men 2. As I hinted before they pick up scraps of Law to make Princes great that they may get promotion thereby tho to the sacrificing of their Country Lastly The imprudent familiarity the Nobility and Gentry have with them many of whom are poor ignorant impious and scandalous fellows that arise from being Parish Boys c. which makes them so proud as to strut and lord it over the People to a prodigious degree I would by no means be thought by this to be an enemy to pious good Clergy-men that as Christian Ministers discharge their duties for I solemnly profess I have the highest value and esteem for all such holy men And I observed in my Travels in Holland that the Dutch did highly respect their Ministers whom I must really confess I believe to be famous for good Lives and Conversations far beyond the generality of the English Clergy Yet they kept these good men at a due distance not suffering any of their Ministers to be seen at any time in an Ale-house Tavern or in a Coffee-house except on their Travels where refreshments must be had to support nature And if any of them shall transgress in this matter they immediately forfeit their reputation and esteem with the people And if they should in their Pulpits presume to meddle with State-affairs and the Magistrates hear of it they send them a pair of Shoos and order them to be gone If Mountague Sybthorp and Manwaring of old Pelling Sherlock Cartwright White Lake Watson Crew Thompson Collier Snet Cook Hawkins Hicks Wilson Long Thompson of Bristol Hollingworth Milbourn Birch and a great many more of the same stamp in the late Reigns had been dealt with according to their deserts I know what would justly have become of most of them 'T is observed that the People of England are famous for punishing little Rogues such as Pick-pockets c. but carelesly and imprudently pass by those Clergymen and Lawyers that have to the greatest degree robb'd them of their undoubted Birthrights and greatest Privileges by whole-sale and endeavoured to establish a Government over them as absolute as the Grand Seignior's 3. I shall take notice of the Observation of the 30th of January in that solemn manner as now kept and if I make some close Remarks thereon I hope