the world in this one particular Give me leave to acquaint you that it is a thing of no small importance which you go about I am sworn to keep the peace according to the duty which I do ow to God and to my Land and I will here perform it to the last breath of my Body you shall therefore do wel first to satisfie God and afterwards the Land by what Authority you do this If you do it by an usurped Authority you cannot defend it God who sitteth in the Heavens will call you and all those who have conferred this power on you to give him an account of it Satisfie me in this and I shall answer you for otherwise I should betray the Faith committed to me and the liberties of my people Wherefore consider of it and I shall be willing to answer you For I do professe it is as great a sin to resist a lawfull Authority as to submit unto a Tyrannicall or any other unlawfull Authority wherefore resolve me in this particular and you shall receive my Answer L. President The Court expecteth that you should give them a finall Answer and will adjourn untill Munday next If you cannot satisfie your self although we tell you our authority our authority will satisfie our selves And it is according to the authority of God and the Kingdome and the peace of which you speak shall be preserved in the administration of Justice and that is our present work King I give you this for my answer you have not shown me any lawfull authority which may satisfie any reasonable man L. President It is onely your apprehension we are fully satisfied who are your Judges King It is not my apprehension nor yours which ought to determin this L. President The Court hath heard you and disposed of you accordingly as their discretions have thought expedient The Court adjourneth to the Painted chamber untill Munday at ten of the clock in the morn-ning and from thence hither Some thing that was ominous ought not to be passed by in silence when the Charge was read against the King the silver head of his staff did fall off which he much did wonder at and observing no man so officious to assist him he stooping towards the ground did take it up himself As the King returned looking on the Court he said I fear not thee meaning the sword As he came down the stayres the people who were in the Hall cryed out some of them God save the King but the greater part Justice Justice The second dayes proceeding against the King January 22. c. THe Cryer having thrice pronounced his Oyes and silence cōmanded after that the Judges were called and every one did particularly answer to his Name Silence was again commanded under pain of imprisonment and the Captain of the Guards was ordered to apprehend any that should endeavour to make a tumult At the comming of the King into the Court there was a great shout and the Court commanded the Captain of the Guards to apprehend and imprison those who should make either a noise or tumult The Court being sat the Sollicitor turning to the President said May it please your Lordship my Lord President In the former Court on Saturday in the Name of the Commons of England I exhibited and offered to this Tribunal the charge of high Treasons and other grievous crimes against the Prisoner with which I did charge him In the Name of the People of England and his charge was read and his Answer demanded My Lord It pleased him at that time to return no answer at all but instead of answering he questioned the Authority of the High Court My most humble motion to this High Court in the Name of the People of the Kingdome of England is that the Prisoner may be compelled to give a positive answer either by way of Confession or Negation which if he shall refuse that the subject of his Charge may be taken for granted and the Court proceed according to Justice L. President Sir you may remember that on the last convention of this Court the cause was expounded to you for which you were brought hither and you heard the charge against you read it being a charge of High Treason and other grievous crimes against the Kingdom of England you heard likewise that it was required in the name of the people that you should answer to your charge that there should be a proceeding thereon as should be agreeable unto Justice you were then pleased to move some scruples concerning the authority of this Court and you desired to be satisfied in your knowledge by what authority you were brought hither you severall times did propound your questions and it was often answered to you that it was by authority of the commons of England Assembled in Parliament who did judge it requisite to call you to an account for the great and grievous crimes of which you are accused After that the Court did take into their serious consideration those things which you objected and they are fully satisfied in their authoritie and do conceive it requisite that you should admit it they therefore require that you give a positive and a particular Answer to the charge exhibited against you they do expect that you should either confesse it or deny it If you shall deny it it will be proved in the behalf of the Kingdome the whole World doth approve of their Authority So that the kingdome is satisfied and you ought thereby to be satisfied your self you ought not therefore to waste time but to give your positive answer King It is true that when I was last here I moved that question and indeed if it were onely my businesse in particular I should have satisfied my self with that protestation which I then interposed against the lawfulnesse of this Court and that a King cannot be judged by any superiour jurisdiction on earth but my own interests are not onely involved in it but the liberties also of the people of England and pretend what you will I doe indeavour more for their liberties then any whatsoever For if Power without laws can make laws and change the Fundamentall laws of the Kingdome I know not what subject in England can be secure of his life or of any thing which he doth call his own Wherefore when I came hither I expected particular reasons that I might understand by what law and what Authority you would proceed against me I should then perceive what most especially I have to say unto you for the affirmative is to be proved which seldome the Negative is capable of but because I cannot perswade you thus I will give you my Reasons as briefly as I can The Reasons for which in conscience and duty which I ow first unto God and afterwards to my people for the preservation of their lives their liberties and their fortunes I believe I cannot answer until I am satisfied of your legality of it All proceedings against any
man whatsoever President Sir I must interrupt you which I would not do but that which you do agreeth not with the proceedings of any Tribunal of Justice you enter into a controversie and dispute against the Authority of this Court before which you appear a prisoner and are accused as a great Delinquent If you will take upon you to controvert the Authority of this Court we cannot give way unto it neither will any tribunal of Justice admit it you ought to submit unto the Court and to give an exact and direct Answer whether you will answer to your charge or not and what is the answer that you make King Sir I know not the formalities of the law I know the law reason although I am no professed Lawyer I know the law as well as any Gentleman in England and I am more eager for the Liberties of the people of England then you are and if I should believe any man without he gives me Reasons for what he saith It would be absurd but I say unto you that the Reason which you give is no wayes satisfactory L. President Sir I must interrupt you for it cannot be permitted to you in this manner to proceed you speak of law and reason it is fit that there should be both law and reason and they are both against you Sir the Vote of the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament is the reason of the Kingdome and they ordained this law according to which you ought to Reign Sir It is not lawfull for you to dispute against our Authority This again hath been told you by the Court Sir Notice will be taken that you contemn the Court and this contempt of yours will be recorded King I know not how a King can be interpreted to be a Delinquent but by any law that I ever heard all men whether Delinquent or what you will may lawfully make objections against their Processe this is that which I require and I again desire that my Reasons may be heard If you deny this you deny Reason L. President Sir you have objected something to the Court I will declare unto you their opinion Sir It is not lawfull for you or any man else to dispute against this Subject It is Decreed you ought not to dispute against the jurisdiction of this Tribunal If you shall yet do it I must intimate unto you that they are above objections They sit here by Authority of the Commons of England and all your Predecessors and you your self are bound to be accountable to them King I deny that shew me one example L. President Sir you ought not to interrupt but attend whilest the Court speaks unto you This Subject is not to be disputed by you neither will the Court permit that you should object against the jurisdiction of it they have considered of their jurisdiction and do approve it King Sir I say that the Commons of England were never a Court of Judicature and I would fain know how they came to be made so now President Sir It is not permitted to you to proceed in those discourses Then the Secretary of the Court did read as followeth Charls Stuart King of England you have been accused in the Name of the People of England of High Treason and other grievous Crimes The Court hath determined that you shall answer to your Charge King I will answer as soon as ever I shall understand by what authority you do these things President If this be all that you will speak Gentlemen you who brought the prisonner hither take him back again King I demand that I may be permitted to exhibite my Reasons why I answer not unto the Charge and give me time to perform this President Sir It is not for prisonners to demand King Prisonners Sir I am no ordinary prisonner President The Court hath considered of their own jurisdiction and they have also confirmed their jurisdiction If you will not answer we will give order that your Default be recorded King You have not yet heard my Reasons President Your Reasons are not to be heard against the Supream Jurisdiction King Shew me that jurisdiction in the world where Reason is not to be heard President Sir We shew it you here the Commons of England the next time you are brought hither you shall understand further of the pleasure of the Court and peradventure their finall sentence King Shew me where the House of Commons was ever a Court of Judicature in that kind President Serjeant take away the Prisonner King Sir Remember that the King is not suffered to declare his Reasons for the Libertie and Immunities of his Subjects President Sir That Freedome of speech is not permitted to you how great a friend you have been to the Laws and the Liberties of the people let England and all the world judge King Sir By your leave I have alwayes loved the Liberty the Immunities and Laws of the subjects If I have defended my self by Arms I have not taken them up against the people but for them President You must obey the Decree of the Court you give no answer to the Charge against you King Well Sir And so was he brought to the House of Sir Robert Cotton and the Court was adjourned to the Painted Chamber untill Wednesday following at twelve of the clock at what houre they intended to adjourn again to Westminster-hall where all whom it doth concern are commanded to be present The third dayes proceedings against the late King at the High Court of Justice Tuesday Jan. 23. 1648. THe Cryer according to the Custome having with his Oyes commanded silence and attention the King being sate Mr. Atturney Generall turning to the Lord President spake in these words May it please your Lordship This is now the third time that by the great grace and favour of this High Court the prisoner hath been brought to the Bar and yet by reason of his refusall to put in his Answer there is yet no issue joyned in the cause My Lord I did at the first exhibit a Charge against him containing the highest practices of Treason that were ever wrought on the Theater of England That a King of England trusted to keep the Lawes of England and who had taken an Oath so to do and had tribute paid him for that end should be guilty of so wicked a design as to subvert our Laws and introduce an arbitrary and tyrannicall Government and set up his Standard of Warre against his Parliament and his people and I did humbly pray in the behalf of the people of England that he might speedily be required to make an answer to his charge But my Lord instead of making an answer he did then dispute the Authority of this Tribunal and your Lordship being pleased to give him a further day to put in his answer which was yesterday I did move again that he might be required to put in a direct and positive answer to his charge either by
appear very plainly to the Court that you have gone upon very erronious principles The kingdome hath felt it to their smart and it will be no comfort to you to think of it for sir you have been heard to let fall such language as if you had not been subject to the law or that the law had not been your superiour The Court is very sensible of it I hope so are all the understanding people of England That the law is your superiour you ought to have ruled according to the law you ought to have done so and your pretence hath been that you have done so But sir the question is who shall be the expositors of the law whether you and your party out of the Courts of Justice shall take upon you to expound the law Or whither the Courts of Justice shall be the expounders themselves nay this soveraign and high Court of Justice the Parliament of England who may be well be obliged to be the highest expounders of the law since they are the sole makers of it Sir for you to set your self with your single judgment or for those who adhear unto you to set themselves against the highest Court of Justice there is no law for it Sir as the law is your superior so truly there is something that is superiour to the law which is the Parent or Author of the law and that is the people of England For as they are those who at first as other countries have done did chose unto themselves this form of Government that justice might be administred and the peace preserved so they gave laws unto their Governours according to which they were to govern and if those laws should have proved inconvenient or prejudiciall to the publick they had a power in them reserved to themselves to alter as they should finde cause It is very true what some of your side have alledged Rex non habet parem in regno This Court will affirm the same in some sense that whilest King you have not your peer for you are major singulis but they will aver again that you are minor universis and the same Author tells you that in exhibitione juris you have no power but they are quasi minimus This we know to be law Rex habet superiorem Deum legem etiam Curiam and so sayes the same Author and he makes bold to proceed further Debent ei fraenum ponere they ought to bridle him We know very well the stories of old we cannot be ignorant of those wars that were called the Barons wars when the Nobility of the land did stand out for the liberty and the propriety of the subject and would not suffer the Kings that did invade their liberties to play the tyrants but did call them to an account for it and did fraenum ponere But sir If the Nobility of the land do forbear to do their duty now and are not so mindfull of their own honour and the kingdoms good as the Barons of England of old have been certainly the Commons of England will not be unmindfull of what is requisite for their preservation and their safety Justitiae fruendi causa Reges constituti sunt By this we learn that the end of having Kings or Governours is for their enjoying of justice that is the end Now sir If the King will go contrary to that end or if any governour will go contrary to the end of his government he must understand that he is but an Officer in trust and that he ought to discharge that trust and order is to be taken for the animadversion and punishment of such an offending Governour Sir This is not a law of yesterday since the time of the division betwixt you and the Parliament but it is a law of old And we know very well both the Authors and the Authorities that acquaint us what the law was in that point on the election of Kings when they took their Oath to be true unto the people and if they did not observe it there were those remedies instituted which are called Parliaments The Parliaments were they that were to adjudge the very words of the Authors the plainenesse and wrongs done by the King and Queen or by their children such wrongs especially when the people could have no where else a remedy Sir this is the Case of the people of England they could not have their remedy else where but in Parliament Sir Parliaments were instituted for that intent it was their main end that the grievances of the people might be redressed and truly if the Kings of England had been rightly mindfull of themselves they were never more in Majesty or State than in the time of the Parliament but how forgetfull some have been Histories have informed us and we our selves have a miserable a lamentable and a sad experience of it Sir by the old Laws of England I speak these things the rather to you because you were pleased to affirm the other day that you thought you had as much knowledge in the law as most Gentlemen of England It is very well Sir and truly sir it is very fit for the Gentlemen of England to understand the laws under which they must live and by which they must be governed And then Sir the scripture saies they that know their Masters will and do it not you know what follows the law is your Master the acts of Parliament the Parliaments were antiently to be kept twice in the year as we finde in our old Author that the Subject upon any occasion might have a remedy and a redresse for his grievance Afterwards by several acts of parliament in the dayes of your Predecessor Edward the third they were to be but once a year What the Intermission of parliaments in your times hath produced is very well known and the sad consequences of it as also what in the interim instead of parliaments there hath been by you by a high and arbitrary hand introduced upon the people But when God by his providence had so farre brought it about that you could no longer decline the calling of a parliament a parliament was called where it may appear what your ends were against your antient and native Kingdom of Scotland but this parliament of England not serving your turn against them you were pleased to dissolve it Not long after another great necessity occasioned the calling of this parliament and what your Designs and Indeavours all along have been for the crushing and confounding of it hath been most notorious to the whol kingdom And truly Sir in that you did strike at all It had been a sure way to have brought about that which this Charge doth lay upon you your intention to subvert the fundamental laws of the land for the great Bulwarks of the peoples liberty is the parliament of England and to subvert and root up that which your aim hath been to do would certainly at one blow have confounded
the liberties and the properties of England Truly Sir It makes me to call to minde I cannot forbear to expresse it for sir we must deale plainly with you according to the merits of your Cause for so is our Commission It makes me I say to call to mind what I have read of a great Roman Emperor a great Roman Tyrant I may call him Caligula by name who wished that the people of Rome had but one neck that at one blow he might cut it off Your proceedings have been something like to this the people of England have been and are no where else to be represented but in parliament and could you have but confounded that you had at one blow cut off the neck of England But God hath reserved better things for us and hath been pleased to break your forces and to overthrow your designes and to bring your person into custody that you might be answerable unto justice Sir we know very well that it is a question which hath been much pressed by your side By what presidents we shall proceed Truly sir for presidents I shall not at this present make any long discourse on that subject howsoever I shall acquaint them that it is no new thing to cite presidents all most out of all Nations where the people when power hath been in their hands have not sticked to call their Kings to an account and where a change of Government hath ensued upon the occasion of the Tyranny and misgovernment of those that have been placed over the people I will not waste time to mention France or Spain or the Empire of Germany or any other country Volumnes may be written of it But truly sir that president of the kingdom of Arragon hath by some of us been thought upon The justice of Arragon is as a man tanquam in medio positus it is placed between the people of that country and the king of Spain so that if wrong be done by the King of Arragon the justice of Arragon hath power to reform that wrong and he is acknowledged the Kings superiour and bring the grand prisoner of the priviledges and liberties of the people he hath prosecuted against the Kings for their misgovernment Sir What the Tribunes were heretofore to Rome and what the Ephori were to the State of Lacedemon we sufficiently know they were as the parliament of England to the English State and though Rome seemed to have lost her liberty when once the Emperours were constituted yet you shall finde some exemplar Acts of justice even done by the Senate of Rome on the great Tyrant of his time Nero who was by them condemned and adjudged unto death But why Sir should I make mention of these Forreign Histories and Examples unto you If we shall look but over the Tweede we shall finde examples enough in your native Kingdome of Scotland If we look on your first king Forgusius he was an elective King he died and left two sons both in their minority The elder brother afterwards giving small hopes to the people that he would govern them well so because he endeavoured to have supplant his Uncle who was chosen by the people to govern them in his minority he was rejected by the people for it and the younger brother was chosen c. Sir I will not take upon me to expresse what your Histories do at large declare you know very well that you are the hundred and nineth King of Scotland to mention all the Kings which the people of that kingdome according to their power and priviledge have made bold to deale withall either to banish imprison or put to death would be too long a story for this time and place Reges say your own Authors we created Kings at first Leges c. we imposed Laws upon them and as they were chosen by the Suffrages of the people at the first so upon the same occasion by the same Suffrages they may be taken down again and of this I may be bold to say that no Kingdome in the world hath yielded a more plentifull experience than your native Kingdome of Scotland on the deposition and the punishment of their transgressing Kings I need not go far for an Example your Grandmother was set aside and your father an Infant crown'd This State hath done the like in England The Parliament and people of England have made bold to call their King to an account therein frequent Examples of it in the Saxons time the time before the Conquest and since the Conquest there have not wanted some presidents King Edward the second King Richard the second were so dealt with by the Parliament and were both deposed and deprived and truly Sir whosoever shall look into their stories shall not find the Articles that are charged upon them to come near to the height and the Capitalnesse of the crimes that are laid to your charge nothing near Sir you were pleased the other day to alledge your Descent and I did not contradict it but take all together if you go higher than the Conquest you shall find that for almost a thousand years these things have been and if you come down since the Conquest you are the four and twentieth King from William called the Conquerour and you shall find one half of them to come meerely from the State and not meerely upon the point of Descent This were easie to be instanced The time must not be lost that way I shall onely represent what a grave and learned Judge said in his time who was well known unto you the words are since printed for posterity That although there were such a thing as a Descent many times yet the Kings of England ever held the greatest assurance of their Titles when it was declared by Parliament And Sir your Oath and the manner of your Coronation doth planly shew that the Kings of England although its true by the Law the next person in bloud is designed yet if there were a just cause to refuse him the people of England might do it For there is a Contract and a bargain made betwixt the King and his people and your Oath is taken and certainly Sir the Bond is reciprocall for as you are Liege Lord so are they Liege Subjects and we know very well that Legantis est duplex the one is a Bond of perfection that is due from the Soveraign the other is a Bond of Subjection which is due from the Subject for if this Bond be once broken farewell Soveraignty Subjectio trahit c. These things may not be denyed for I speak it the rather and I pray God it may work upon your heart that you may be sensible of your miscarriages for whether you have been as you ought to be a Protector of England or a destroyer of England let all England judge or all the world that hath beheld it and though Sir you have it by inheritance in the way that is spoken of yet it cannot be denyed but
King my Father and in my own Reign before the beginning of these unhappy tumults and they will have a just cause to doubt if they shall be so happy in any new Government In that time it will most evidently appear that I onely took up Arms to defend the Fundamentall Laws of this Kingdome against those who opposed my power and totally would have subverted the ancient Government Having so briefly declared my Reasons to you for which I could not submit to your pretended Authority without violation of the Trust which God hath committed to me for the safety and liberty of my people I expect from you either clearer Reasons to convince my Judgement by demonstrating to me that I am in an Error and then surely I shall be ready to give you an Answer or else that you suspend your present proceedings This I had determined to have spoken in Westminster Hall on Monday the two and twentieth of January but against Reason I was prohibited to pronounce my Reasons In the year 1648. English style 1649. vulgar style The End The Speech of King Charls upon the Scaffold at the gate of White Hall immediately before the execution January 30. ABout ten in the morning the King was brought from Saint Jameses Court he did walk on foot through the Park with a Regiment of Foot one half before him and the other behind him their Colours flying and their Drums beating his private guard of Partisan with some of his Gentlemen did go immediately bare headed before him and some part of them behind him but those who were next of all unto him behinde were Dr. Juxon and Colonel Thomlinson to the last of whom the care and charge of his Person was committed these two being barehead did talk with him all along the Park and as you go up the stairs into the Gallery and so into the Cabanet chamber where he used to lye in which place he continued at his Devotion and refused to dine because he that morning had taken the Sacrament onely about one hour before he came forth he drank a Glasse of Claret wine and did eat a crust of bread about twelve of the clock at Noon From thence he was accompanied by Doctor Juxon Col. Thomlinson and other Officers formerly appointed to be his Guard and with the private Guard of Partizans with musquetiers on either side through the banquetting house at the farther end on the outside whereof the Scaffold was erected near unto the Gate of White Hall The Scaffold was hung round with black and the floore was covered with black the ax and the Block laid on the middle of the Scaffold There were severall Companies of Foot and Troops of Horse placed on the one side of the Scaffold and the other and multitudes of people that thronged to see so rare a spectacle were very great The King was no sooner come upon the Scaffold but he looked very earnestly on the Block and asked Col. Hacker if there were no higher and then spake thus directing his speech chiefly to Colonel Thomlinson I Shall be very little heard by any of the people I shall therefore speak a word or two to you who are here Indeed I could hold my peace very well if I did not think that my silence would make some men think that I did submit to the guilt as well as to the punishment but I conceive it is my duty First unto God and afterwards to my Countrey to vindicate my self as an honest man a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with my Innocency Introth I think it not very needfull for me to insist long upon this for all the world knows that I never did begin Warre with the two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witnesse to whom I must shortly make my account that I never did intend to incroach upon their priviledges they began with me It was the Militia they began upon they confessed that the Militia was mine but they thought it fit to have it from me and to be short if any man will look to the Dates of Commissions of their Commissions ormine and likewise to the Declarations will finde clearly that they began those unhappy troubles not I so that as for the guilt of these enormous crimes which are laid upon me I hope in God that God will clear me of them I am in charity I will not and God forbid that I should lay it upon the two-Houses of Parliament there is no necessity of either I hope they are free from the Guilt for I do believe that evill instruments between them and me have been the chief cause of all this bloodshed so that by way of speaking as I find my self clear of this I hope and I pray God that they may too yet for all this God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that Gods judgements are just upon me Many times he does inflict Justice by an unjust Sentence this is ordinary I will onely say that an unjust Sentence * That I suffered to take effect is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon my self This is to shew you as I have said how far I am an innocent man Now for to show you that I am a good Christian I hope there is a good man * who will bear witnesse with me that I have forgiven all the world and even those in particular who have been the chief causers of my Death who they are God knows I do not desire to know I pray God forgive them But this is not all my Charity must go further I wish that they may repent for indeed they have committed a great sin in that particular I pray God with Saint Stephen that this be not laid to their charge nay not onely so but that they may take the right way to the peace of the Kingdome for my charity commands me not onely to forgive particular men but my charity commands me to indevour to the last gasp the peace of the Kingdome This Sirs I do wish with all my Soul and I do hope there are some * who will carry it further that they may indeavour the peace of the Kingdome Now Sirs I must show you both how you are out of the way and I will put you into a way First you are out of the way for certainly all the way in which as yet you have gone as I could ever find out by any thing is in the way of conquest certainly this is an ill way for conquest Sirs in my opinion is never just except there be a good just cause either for matter of wrong or to defend a just Title and if in the prosecution of the quarrell you shall go beyond this it will make that unjust at the end which was just at the beginning But if it be onely matter of conquest therein it is a great robbery as a pirate said to Alexander that he was a great robber and that
he himself was but a petty robber and thus Sirs I do think that the way you are in is much out of the way Now Sirs for to put you in the way believe it you will never do right nor will God ever prosper you untill you give God his due and the King his due that is in their course of time my Successors and untill you give the people their due I am as much for them as any of you are You must give God his due by regulating aright his Church according to his Scripture your church is now out of order for to set you particularly in a way now I cannot but onely by a Synod of the whole Nation who being freely called and freely debating amongst themselves may by Gods blessing settle the Church when every opinion is freely and clearly discussed For the King indeed I will not much insist Then turning to a Gentleman whose cloak he observed to touch the edge of the Ax he said unto him Hurt not the Ax meaning by blunting the the edge thereof for that he said might hurt him Having made this short digression he proceeded For the King the laws of the land will clearly instruct you what you have to do but because it concerns my own particular I onely do give you but a touch of it As for the People truly I desire their liberty and freedome as much as any whosoever but I must tell you that their liberty and freedome consists in having of government by those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own It is not for them to have a share in Government that is nothing Sirs appertaining unto them A Subject and a Sovereign are clean different things and therefore untill that be done I mean untill the people be put into that liberty which I speak of certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sirs It was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an arbitrary power to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword I needed not to have come hither and therefore I tell you and I pray God that it be not laid to your charge that I am the martyr of the people In troth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer I shal onely say this unto you that in truth I could have desired some little longer time because I had a desire to put this that I have said into a little more order and to have a little better digested it than I have now done and therefore I hope you will excuse me I have delivered my conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are most for the good of the Kingdome and your own salvations Doct. Juxon Will your Majesty although the affection of your Majesty to Religion is very well known yet to satisfie expectation be pleased to speak something for the satisfaction of the world King I thank you very heartily my Lord because I had almost forgotten it In troth Sirs my Conscience in Religion I think is already very well known to all the world and therefore I declare before you all that I die a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left by my Father and this honest man * I think will witnesse it Then turning to the Officers he said Sirs excuse me for this same I have a good cause and I have a gratious God I will say no more Then turning to Colonel Hacker he said Take care they do not put me to pain and Sir this if it please you but then a Gentleman one Mr. Clerk comming neer the Ax the King said take heed of the Ax pray take heed of the Ax Then the King turning to the Executioner said I shall say but very short prayers and when I stretch forth my hands Then the King called to Doctor Juxon for his Night-cap and having put it on he said to the Executioner Will my hair trouble you who desired him to put it all under his Cap which the King did accordingly by the assistance of the Executioner and the Bishop the King then turning to Doctor Juxon said I have a good Cause and a gracious God on my side Doctor Juxon There is but one stage more This stage is turbulent indeed and troublesome but very short and which in an instant will lead you a most long way from earth to Heaven where you shall find great Joy and Solace King I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where can be no trouble none at all Doctor Juxon You shall exchange a temporall Crown for an eternall one it is a good change The King then said unto the Executioner Is my hair as it should be He then did put off his cloak and his George which he gave to Doctour Juxon saying Remember He immediately afterwards did put off his Doublet and did put on his cloak again and looking on the Block he said unto the Exkcutioner you should make it to be steddie Execut It is so King It might have been something higher Execut It cannot be made higher now King When I shall stretch forth my hands in this manner then After that when standing he had spoke two or three words unto himself with his hands and eyes lifted up towards Heaven immediately stooping down he laid his neck upon the Block and when the Executioner had again put all his hair under his cap. The King said Stay till I give the Sign Execut So I do if it please your Majesty and after a very little respite the King did stretch forth his hands and immediately the Executioner at one blow did sever his head from his Body Sic transit gloria Mundi The present Warre parralel'd Or A brief Relation of the five years Civil Warres of Henry the the third King of England with the event and issue of that unnaturall War and by what course the Kingdome was then settled again HEnry the third of of that Name a man more pious than prudent a better man than King swayed the Scepter of this Kingdome 56. years The former part of his Reign was very calm the latter as tempestuous The main Tempest was thus raised the King for many years during that high calm had sequestered himself wholly to his harmlesse sports and recreations and intrusted the whole managery of the State to his officers Ministers These taking advantage of his Majesties carelesnesse the main fault of this King insensibly suck'd and drained the Revenues of Crown and Kingdome till the King awakened by extream necessity began to enquire not how he came in for his necessities would not permit that but how he might get out The best way that his evil Counsellours could find to relieve their Master and save themselves was the ordinary way of supply in Parliament declined to have recourse to Monopolies Patents and other extraordinary and illegal Taxations But praeter naturall courses are never