affront was punctually remembred in the first fight as you shall hear anon Besides this main armie under the Earl of Leicester they had another armie under the command of the Lord Ferrers of whom descended the late Lord of Essex who behaved himself insolently towards the King in destroying his Parks as he marcht c. which in the conclusion cost him dear yet to delude the people the main army bore before them the Kings arms and to shew they were for the King when they had displaced the old Governors of the Kings Castles and Forts and placed in such as they could confide in they gave them an Oath to be true to the King and to keep those Holds to the use and benefit of the King and State yet when the King demanded entrance at one of his Forts wherein they had placed a Governour he was kept out At Sea the Barons of the Cinque-ports seised the Kings ships took great Prizes but they that sate at the Stern upon Land shared in those Prizes as the fame then went By this time the King began to rouze himself and finding nothing now left him but a good Cause and the hearts of his wiser subjects yet by that and these and the assistance of his Brother Richard King of the Romanes in a short space he had raised a considerable Army A King can never be so down but he will rise again with these he marcht and like a snow-ball encreased by motion plundering the Rebels lands as he went to Northampton which was fortified against him by some of the chiefest of the Rebels yet by a furious assault he soon gained it Thence continuing his march into Sussex near Lewes he received a Message from the Earl the tenor wherof was That as for his Majesty they intended no harm against him but onely desired that he would remove his evil Counsellours that did advise his Majesty against them against the honour of the King and welfare of the Kingdome The King in his Answer charges them with Rebellion and disloyalty and commands them to lay down their arms and to return to their obedience that they might be received to mercy but the Earl rejecting the offer * when Subjects have once broken their fealtie and trust to their Soveraign they never dare trust their Soveraign again resolves to give the King battel Near Lewes both Armies meet One wing of the Earls Army was made up of London troops which the Prince being then Generall of the Kings horse observing and remembring not without indignation the abuse offered by the Londoners to the Queen his Mother he claps spurs to his horse and all his Cavalry after him crying Here here my brave Cavaliers are the main contrivers of all Rebellions and mischief Now now if ever charge home and so fell on with that fury that they presently flie the Prince in an eager and hot pursuit does great execution upon them for four miles But this prosperous beginning of the fight on the Kings side was the utter overthrow of the Kings forces for when the Earl perceived that the Prince a young fiery spirit with all the Kings horse was gone so far in pursuit of the Londoners he fell violently on the Kings foot soon routed them took the King his horse being slain under him prisoner The Prince at length retreating when he saw all lost surrendered himself There were taken in this fight besides those royall prisoners the King the Prince the Kings brother and his eldest Sonne above twenty Noblemen that were for the King and slain about * 3400. The Earl having thus gotten a compleat victory forth with endeavours to seise all the Militia and power of the Kingdome for which end he carries the King about with him to countenance his actions but the rest of the royall prisoners he disposes in severall Garisons And now the Earl believes all his own and the people dream of nothing but Peace but alas the warre was not begun till now For when the torn remainder of the loyall army that escaped at Lewes now keeping Garison in Bristow and other noble spirits saw how insolently the Earl dealt with his and their Soveraign in barring him of his liberty c. They soon raised a considerable power under the command of Roger Mortimer Earl of March unto whom many flockt out of Shropshire Cheshire Herefordshire and Worcester that were well affected to the King Moreover the Queen who was a French woman got over beyond Sea to try her friends for their asistance to restore her husband to his former liberty and authority Quod ad laudem magnificentiam Aelionorae Anglorum Reginae libet intexere saith one of that age quod Domino suo Edvardo filio tam strenuè tam viriliter tanquam virago potentissima succurrendis fortiter insudaverit But before these Forces were well united the Rebels Forces were as well divided for debate arising as is usuall in all confederations where all parties must be pleased or else the knot will dissolve between his Excellency the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Glocester because his Excellency minding his own private more than the publick good of his fellow Rebels without any respect had to his adjutants ingrosses all to himself disposes of the royall prisoners at his own pleasure seised on the revenues of the Crown and composition of dilinquents for his own use whereas they had privately agreed before Ea omnia aequâ sorte inter eos dividenda fore In brief he shared all places of power and profit between himself his sonnes and his allies Whereat Glocester as good a man as he stomackt and fell off with his followers to the Prince who by this time disponente Domino clavigero carcerum every thing working for the King had made his escape out of prison at Hereford for being allowed by his keepers to aire himself sometimes on horse back in the town Meadow after he had tyred two or three at length he mounts a speciall flight Nag and putting spurs Custodibus valedixit and came safe to Wigmore Castle where the Lord Mortimer lay with his Forces raised for the King so marcht on with a great prwer taking in as they went some strong Garisons of the Rebels plundered their houses drave their Cattell c. Here the war grew hot each side fortifying towns plundering and driving all round about to store the Garisons Mens houses which were wont to be their own Castles were now made Castles but the owners were least masters all left to the mercy of the rude souldier the poor Countreymans dwelling house pillaged every where and searcht * usque ad lectorum stramentum to the very bedstraw nor onely mens houses but even Gods houses the very Churches were not free from the prophane hands of plunderers the high-wayes lay unoccupied no passing from Town to Town without danger of robbing When the Prince the Earl of Glocester the Earl
those men to effect all their bloody designes in hand against us Sir we will say and we will declare it as those Children in the fiery furnace who refused to worship the Golden Image that Nebuchadonazar had set up That their God was able to deliver them from the danger they were neer unto but if he did not deliver them yet they would not fall down and worship the golden Image We shall make this application of it That though we should not be delivered from those bloody hands and hearts who conspire the overthrow of the Kingdome in generall and of our selves in particular for being actors in this great work of Justice though I say we should perish in the work yet by the grace in the strength of God we are resolved to go on with it And those are the intire resolutions of us all Sir I say for your self that we do heartily wish and desire that God would be pleased to give you a sense of your sins that you may see wherin you have done amisse and that you may cry unto him that God would deliver you from blood guiltinesse A good King David by Name was once guilty of that particular guilt he was otherwise upright saving in the matter of Vriah Truly Sir the History doth represent unto us that he was a repentant King and and he had died for his sinne but that God was pleased to be indulgent to him and to grant him his pardon Thou shalt not die saith the Prophet but the childe shall dye Thou hast given cause to the Enemies of God to blaspheme King I would onely desire to be heard but one word before you give sentence and it is that to satisfie the world when I am dead you would but hear me concerning those great Imputations which you have laid unto my charge President Sir you must now give me leave to proceed for I am not far from your Sentence and your time is now past King I shall desire you that you will take these few words into your consideration For whatsoever sentence you shall pronounce against me in respect of those heavy imputation which I finde you have laid to my charge yet Sir It is most true that President Sir I must put you in mind I must Sir although at this time especially I would not willingly interrupt you in any thing you have to say which is proper for us to admit but Sir you have not owned us as a Court and you look upon us as a sort of people huddled together and we know not what uncivill language we receive from your party King I know nothing of that President You disavow us as a Court and therefore for you to addresse yourself to us whom you do not acknowledge to be a Court for us I say to judge what you shall speak is not to be permitted and the truth is all along from the very first you have been pleased to disavow and disown us The Court needed not to have heard you one word for unlesse they be acknowledged a Court and ingaged it is not proper for you to speak Sir We have given you too large an indulgence of time already and admitted so much delay that we may not admit of any more If it were proper for us we should heare you very freely not decline to hear the most that you could speak to the greatest advantage for your self whether it were totally or but in part excusing those great hainous charges which are laid upon you But I shall trouble you no longer your sins are of so large a dimention that if you do but seriously think of them they will drive you into a sad consideration and we wish that they may improve in you a sad and serious repentance And it is the desire of the Court that you may be so penitent for what you have done a misse that God may at least have mercy on your better part As for the other it is our part and duties to doe that which the law prescribeth we are not now here jus dare but jus dicere we cannot be unmâ—ndfull of what the word of God tels us To acquit the guilty is of an equal abomination as to condemn the Innocent we may not acquit the guilty what sentence the law pronounceth to a traytor a tyrant a murtherer and a publike enemy to the Country that sentence you are now to hear read unto you and that is the Sentence of the Court Hereupon the Lord President commanded the Sentence to be read Whereupon M. King who was Cryer of the Court having commanded silence by his Oyes the Clerk read the sentence which was drawn up in Parchment and did run in these words Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament had appointed them an high Court of Justice for the tryall of Charls Stuart King of England before whom he had been three times convented and at the first time a Charge of High Treason and other Crimes and Misdemeanors was read in the behalf of the Kingdome of England which Charge followeth in these words This Charge being read said the Clerk Charls Stuart was required to give his answer which he refused to do but expressed these passages and many more such as these are in refusing to answer The Clerk having repeated many passages during the time of his triall in which the King shewed an aversenesse to acknowledge the Court did proceed to read the Sentence which was in these words For all which Treasons and Crimes this Court doth adjudge That the said Charls Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murtherer and a publick Enemy shall be put to death by severing his Head from his Body This Sentence being read the Lord President said This Sentence now read and published is the Act Sentence Judgement and resolution of the whole Court Hereupon the Court stood up as assenting to what the President said King Will you hear me one word Sir President Sir you are not to be heard after the Sentence King No Sir President No Sir By your favour Sir Guard withdraw your Prisonner King I may speak after the sentence By your favour Sir I may speak after Sentence ever The Guard drawing to him he said unto them by your favour hold and turning to the President he said the Sentence Sir I say Sir I do but being not permitted to proceed he said I am not suffered to speak expect what Justice other people will have Cryer All manner of persons that have any thing else to do are to depart at this time and to give their attendance in the Painted Chamber to which place this Court doth forthwith adjourn it self Then the Court arose and the Kings guard did bring him to Sir Robert Cottons house and he was afterwards conducted to Saint Jameses The names of those who were present at that High Court of Justice when the Sentence of Death was pronounced against Charls the first Monarck of great Brittain SErjeant Bradshaw President John Lisle
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
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
the City forgetting their late punishment and as men saith mine authour without dread of God or the King drew up in arms again flock to the Earl of Glocester plundered the well affected to the King sequestered their estates brake the prisons chose a new Mayor and Sheriffes made Bulwarks and Barbicans and fortified the City wonderously and were so confident of their strength and cause that they durst bid the King battel appointing Hounsloe-heath for the field The King by a speedy march came to the place at the time appointed but they instead of meeting his Majesty ran about the city in a tumultuous manner Some to Westminster and there plundered the Kings Palace fenestras ostia fregerunt saith M. Weston vix manus à combustione totius Palatii cohibentes brake the doores and windows hardly forbearing to set it all on fire Then the King removed his Camp to the other side of the City and had his head-quarters at Strafford three miles off the City the rest of the Army lay at Ham a village hard by The wiser Citizens foreseeing the danger that hung over them desired a Treaty with the King whereunto though they were unworthy of so much clemency His Majesty was graciously pleased to condescend and upon these easie terms they were again received to mercy Imprimis Salvo in omnibus dicto Killingworthi That the Ordinance of Killingworth should be razed and the Trenches filled up lastly that one thousand marks dammages should be paid down to the Kings brother for his Mannour of Isleworth fired by them long before Also his Majesty for some years following chose the Mayor and Sheriffes himself but toward the latter end of his Reign being fully reconciled he restored them their often forfeited * priviledges Thus after the Almighty whose judgements are unsearchable had suffered crafty seditious spirits to seduce a whole Nation to trample upon his Anointed and to tread his Honour in the very dust for a time yet at length all his enemies are cloathed with shame and upon himself his Crown flourisheth again And now after this furious dreadfull Tempest after so many storms and showres of blood began a joyfull long-expected Calm which that they might enjoy without any intervening of more storms and for the better setling and quieting the Kingdome the King gives expresse command for the razing of divers in-land Castles as Farnham c. That so if another Rebellion should be begotten it might no where find a nurse and then it could not be long lived Also for the more quiet and secure travelling of his Subjects he appoints a Captain in every County who with a Troop of Horse should alway assist the Sheriffe for the taking and punishing all stragling reliques of the late Armies and high-way robbers wherewith the Kingdom did abound at that time no place free from them In some places also Ruricolae saith Rishanger the Countrey people would generally rise against them as against Wolves or Bears and at one time they took and kill'd fifty of them that were got together near St. Albans in Hartfordshire Besides the King Proclamari fecit contra pacem Regni disturbantes set forth a Proclamation against all such as should any way disturb the quiet of the Realm by plundering or stealing c. And that if any man should presume to steal but a Cow or a Sheep vel aliquid aliud saith mine Authour he should be surely put to death These were the petty devises of that age to pump and drain the huge sink of the Kingdome but the Staple policy was by a Forreign expedition like a wide sluce to let out all the filth at once for which purpose therefore among others it was resolved upon that a great Army should be raised under the command of the Prince for a voyage to Palestine And by this course especially did his Majesty soon spend the insolencies of his own and the Rebels Souldiers made Lawlesse by the late unavoidable Liberty of civil Arms And here was an end of this wasting groundles unnatural war wherein the subject having strugled and wrestled with Soveraignty till they had wasted the Kingdome and wearied themselves at last are content to sit down by the losse to let the King have his own Rights again and some of theirs according to the usuall event and issue of such imbroylments FINIS * The Earl of Strafford * Pointing at Doctour Juxon * Turning to some Gentlemen who took his Speech in short writing * Pointing at Dr. Iuxon It is thought to be delivered to the Prince * Antiently called the wood or mad Parliament ordinarily in History stiled iâ—sanum Parlimentum Fabian * Chron. Norwic. * Like the Remonst of Decem. 15. 1641. Matt. West Mat. Paris Mat. West Chron. orig. sub sigillo Nil nisi pro umbra a nominis habebatur Mat. West Mat. West Regist. Roffen M. Westm. Preaching that Religion could never be throughly reformed or the differences fully composed sine gladio materiali and that all that should lose their lives in this cause were Martyrs Rishang Chr. Dunst * Rishanger * Cotton Hollinsh * Rishanger For disswading the King to stand to the aforesaid Ordinance of Parliament Rishanger Dover chron. Dunst * Cambdens Observation in the case of Robert Earl of Essex Equites haec haec seditionum scelerumque omnium capita sunt nunc nunc fortiter adjicite tela * Southwel Rishang * Rishanger Fabian Rishanger a Rishanger b This Lord Henry the Kings Nephew was a valiant Souldier and having found out the L Ferrers at Chesterfield gave him battel and overthrew him and because he had been pardoned once before it was decreed that he should be degraded and depriv'd of the Earldome for ever fined fifty thousand pounds Dictum de Kenelworth 〈…〉 thoâ— pounds * About the end of October the King assembled all the Lords spirituall and temporall Knight of Shires to Northampton where this Decree was confirmed by Act of Parliament The Barons of Cinque Ports seeing the King prosper made their peace with the King Rishanger Fabian * Then did the King command that peace should be proclaimed all the Kingdome over which was received with joyfull acclamations So at a late Dyet or Parliament in Germany after they had undutifully strived with the Emperour and wasted the Empire it was concluded that all should be reduced to the same state as it was in the year 1618.