and outward Gates enforced the King to shew himself to the People who were come to his rescue as in freedom and to command them to depart And Bothwel thus emboldened got Bowes the Ambassadour to side with them and to urge these Articles from the King Pardon of all former Attempts and Treason by him or his Associates with restoration of all which they heretofore possessed and to abandon the Chancellour the Lord Hume the Master of Glammis and others To all the King signed with witnesses of all manner of men Lords and Ministers thereunto The next Day August 20. the King removes to Falkland Lenox Ochiltry and Crichton of Clany waited on him with directions from Bothwel to see that the King kept to his late Articles in which time Bothwel attained an Assise to purge him of his practicing with Witches the original of his mischief but the King in disdain to be thus misused goes to Sterling and under colour of conâ—orming the Highlanders proâ—ures a Convention of other Lords necessarily frequent and effectual Hamilton Mar Morton Glencarn Montross Lindsey and Levingston two Bishops and two Priors and some Burgesses The King enters them with some business of the Borders but in earnest relates to them the Indignities he had endured by Bothwel which they knew and puts it upon their Honours whether he were bound to the late Conditions so extorted from him in terrour and fear of his life lets them see their own insecurity when himself is over-powred and forced by Villanies as a captive King to submit unto Subjects unjust demands in destruction of his loyal Councellours and eminent Officers They concluded Bothwels Fact treasonable and those Articles void freedom in the King to call his Servants and Councellours about him and resolved to publish by Act his Majesties power as a free Prince to chuse his Councellours and Servants about his Person and that the Conditions signed to Bothwel in August last to be null And being now set upon it two Commissions were sent to him to signifie thus much and of the Kings favour for him to supplicate for pardon before November next and then to depart the Realm till the Kings pleasure Bothwel seemed humble but meets with Athol Montross and a number of men at Sterling to whom the King sends to dissolve his Train and retire home for the King was coming thither with the Lord Home and some Forces were sent before to scoure the way who encountring Montross takes him Prisoner and the Court coming to Edenburgh Bothwel is cited and denounced Rebell again These Troubles were raised by the Lords of Religion but see what the Papists do The Catholick Lords had been cited to the last Parliament in Iuly but failed by some defect in the Libell and so were remitted to the King and Councel which was suspected in favour the Synode of Fife therefore excommunicate Angus Huntley Arrol Home and Chisholm and writ to Edenburgh for them to do so there The King displeased with such Proceedings requires M. Bruce there great Pastor to stay Sentence the Persons neither cited nor subject to Fife Synode and if this be your Order says he for one to excommunicate with their direction for others to do so too who can be sure to eschew trouble But Bruce boldly told the King that the Ministers had their own Reasons and were answerable onely to the General Assembly Well says the King your Discipline hath distasted all men and seeing your practices are without good President I will bethink me of some Remedy The Popish Lords complain to the King at Falaw and humbly crave a legal Trial but were commanded to enter their persons at Perth and abide there till the Trial and lest any jealousie should censure the King as conniving the Abbot of Lunders was sent to the English Ambassadour and to Edenburgh Ministery to tell them the truth and it was time so to do For now such News got wings and Commissioners of all the several Churches from all parts convene and finding the Church of God King and Kingdom in eminent peril they prepare Articles of advice That the Trial of the excommunicate Lords be not prevented but their Day prorogued onely for the conveniency of the Professors of the Religion to be their Accusers for their Treasons committed in the mean time to stand committed their Iury to be nominated by their Accusers the whole Professors of the Gospel that they being excommunicate and so cut off from the Body of the Church of God have no benefit of the Law till they be reconciled to the Church and that such onely as profess the Religion may be a Guard to the King against the Enemies of God the Countrey not brooking them and us together The King startled at their Inscription not owning he said such Convention nor them Commissioners assembling without his consent â—ut vouchsafed to receive them as humble Subjects but not otherwise commissioned And of his own gracious intention told them That the said Lords met him at Falaw and humbly craved a legal Trial to which the Ministers had often solicited and which in honor and justice he with his Councel had granted and considering the time and place Perth not so proper he had resolved it at Linlithgow at the meeting of the Estates and with their advice and that neither Iudges nor Iuries should be other than men indifferent and for his own Guard those whom he called thither should be welcom others should not be so They accused the Lord Home of residing at Court The King told them His Day assigned to satisfie the Ministers was not as yet and if you can accuse him in particular for the present let him answer for himself And so sent them away The Assembly unsatisfied advertise all parts to be in Arms at the Day of Trial which the King timely prohibits without his Warrant They answer that in the cause of God their Defence must not be deficient Which the King inhibits by Proclamation Declaring his course taken for their Trial in July last but hindred by Bothwels Rebellions he now convenes the Estates at Linlithgow for that and other necessities of the Kingdom the Lords themselves earnest Suitors to abide the Law and satisfie the Church and therefore commands the Subjects not to make Convocations but if any meeting were already of that nature then to dissolve and return home under pain of punishment But meet they would with such numbers as shortened the Proceedings and in summe Commissioners were chosen by the Estates to consider of the Popish Lords their Offers and Petitions to try their Accusations and Purgations and what they determine should be valid and effectual as in Parliament or Convention The Commissioners were the Chancellour Mar Montross and Rothes sundry Lords and Lairds and divers of the Ministery named to be admitted to the Conference The 12th of November they meet and conclude That the true Religion established the
Bishop or Knight to cry up and down their Subjects as their coin And as their Soul and Body to God so to the King affections of the Soul and service of the Body And he justified the Bishops late Sermon of the Kings power in Abstracto to be true Divinity But then as to the general so to exhort them how to help such a good King as now they have putting a difference between Power in Divinity and the setled state of this Kingdom For the second fathers of families had Patriam potestatem vitae et Necis for Kings had their original as heirs from them planted in Colonies through the world And all laws allow Parents to dispose of children at pleasure For the last The head judgeth of the Members to cure or cut off But yet these powers are ordained ad correctionem non ad destructionem and as God destroys not but preserves nature so a father to his Children a Head to his Members But then he distinguished the state of Kings in Original and of setled Monarchs For as God in the old Testament spake by Oracles and wrought by Miracles yet after the Church was setled in Christ and a cessation of both he governed by his revealed Will his Words So Kings beginning by Conquest or Election their Wills Lawes and being setled in a civill policie set down their mindes by Statutes and at the desire of the people the King grants them and so he becomes Lex Loquens binding himself by a double Oath Tacitly as King and expresly by his Oath at Coronation a Paction with his People as God with Noah If otherwise he governs them a King turns Tyrant Either govern by Law says the widow to Alexander Aâ—t ne Rex sis There needs no Rebellion against evil Kings for God never leaves them unpunished And concludes That to dispute what God may do is Blasphemy but Quid vult Deus is Divinity so of Kings Sedition in Subjects to dispute a Posse ad Esse He professes Reason for his Actions and Rule for his Laws He dislikes not the Common Law favourable to Kings and extendeth his Prerogative To despise it were to neglect his own Crown The Civil serves more for general learning and most necessary for commerce with Nations as Lex Gentium but though not fit for the general Government of this People yet not to be therefore extinct not to prefer Civil before Common Law but bounded to such Courts and Causes as have been in ancient use as the Courts Ecclesiastical Admiralty of Request reserving Common Law as fundamental Prerogative or Privilege King and Subject or themselves Meum Tunm No Kingdom in the World governed meerly by Civil Law their Municipal Laws always agree with their Customes God governed his People by Laws Ceremonial Moral Iudicial Iudicial onely for a certain people and a certain time Example If Hanging for Theft were turned to treble restitution as in Moses Law What will become of the middle Shires the Irishry and Highlanders If fundamentally be altered Who can discern Meum tuum It would be like the Gregorian Calendar which destroys the old and yet this new troubles all the Debts and Accounts of Traâ—â—ick and Merchandise Nay the King avows by it he knows not his own age for now his birth-day removes ten days nearer him than it was before that change And yet he desires three things to be cleared in the Common Law and by advice of Parliament 1. That it were in English for since it is our Plea against Papists for their language in Gods service an unknown Tongue Moses Law being written in the Fringes of the Priests garments so our Laws that excuse of ignorance may not be for conforming themselves thereunto 2. Our Common Law is unsettled in the text grounded upon Custom or Reports and Cases called Responsa Prudentum Indeed so are all other Laws save in Denmark and Norway where the Letter resolves the circumstances making variations that therefore so many Doctors Comments so many different Opinions the Iudges themselves disclame and recede from the judgment of their Predecessors the Parliament might set down Acts of Confirmation for all times to come and so not to depend on uncertain opinions of Iudges and Reports nay there are contrary Reports and Presidents The same corruption in the Acts of Parliaments which he called Cuffing Statutes and penned in divers senses and some penal which no man can avoid disagreeing from this our time yet no tyrannous or avaritious King would endure 3. For Prohibitions he hath been thought to be an Enemy to them he wishes that each Court might have limits of Iurisdiction certain and then if encroached upon Prohibitions to issue out of the Kings Bench or Chancery and so to keep every River within his proper banks The abuse and over-flowing of Prohibitions brings in most Moulture to their own Mill. The King had taken it in task in two or three several Meetings before and after a large Hearing he told them Ab initio non fuit sic And therefore ordered each Court to contain themselves within their own bounds That the Common Law be sparing of their Prohibitions also and to grant them 1. In a lawfull form but in open Court onely 2. Upon just and mature information of the Cause for as good have no Sentence as not Execution He instanced in a poor Ministers Case thereby enforced to forbear his flock becomes non-resident obtains a Sentence and expecting the fruit is defrauded by Prohibition like CHRIST'S Parable That night shall his soul be taken from him Tortured like Tantalus gaping for the Apple it is pulled away by Prohibition And concludes with the difference of true use and abounding in abuse to be considered The second general Ground Grievances are presented in Parliament as the Representative of the People the highest Court of Iustice but concerns the lower House properly The manner opportune in Parliament or inopportune as private men but then not to be greedily sought for nor taken up in the streets thereby to shew that ye would have a shew made of more abuses than in truth of cause not to multiply them as a noise amongst the People So that at the very beginning of this Session each one multiplied and mustered them as his Spleen pleased He therefore thanks them for that these finding many such Papers stuft up in a Sack rather like Pasquils than Complaints proceeding more from murmuring spirits they made a publick Bone-fire of them all a good effect of an ill cause So to take care to prevent the like lest the lower House become the place for Pasquils and may have such Papers cast in as may contain Treason or Scandal to the King and his Posterity the ancient order was to be openly and avowably presented to the Speaker first He confesses that they are just and faithfull to their Trust to be informed of Grievances and acknowledges that his publick Directions and Commissions may be
name and set the Lieutenant of the Tower is called and brings his Prisoner into the Court to the Bar the High Steward then declares to the People the cause why the King hath assembled those Lords and the Prisoner and perswades him to answer without fear freely and commands the Clerk of the Crown to reade the Indictment unto him and to ask him if he be guilty or not to which he usually answers Not guilty and to be tried by God and his Peers Then the Kings Attorney and Serjeants at Law give Evidence against him whereto when he hath given answer the Lieutenant of the Tower is commanded to return with the Prisoner from the Bar whilest the Lords do secretly confer in the Court together and then the Lords rise out of their places and consult among themselves and what they affirm shall be done upon their Honour without Oath And being so agreed or the greatest number they return and take their places again in Court and the High Steward demands of the youngest Lord first if he that is arreigned be guilty or not and so the next in order and the rest each one answering I or No. Then the Prisoner is sent for to the Bar to whom the High Steward recites the Verdict of the Peers and doth give Iudgment accordingly Stanford Pleas del Coronae lib. 3. Poult 188. The antiquity of this kinde of Trial by their opinion is grounded from Magna Charta but others take it to be more ancient though there inserted Henry 3. but was brought in by the Conquerour being answerable to the Norman and French Laws and agreeable with the Customes Feudal where almost all controversies arising between the Sovereign and his Vassals are tried per judicium parvum suorum And if a Peer upon his Arreignment of Treason do stand mute Iudgment shall be given upon his Indictment and yet shall not be pressed to death but saves the forfeiture of his Lands Statut. Westm. Edw. 4. Dier 205. But if upon Indictment of Felony he may be mute The reason of Magna Charta aforesaid is there expressed where he is indicted at the Kings Suit of Treason or Felony the words being Nec super eum ibimus we will not pass or sit in judgment upon him but by his Peers but if an Appeal of Murther or other Felony be sued by any common person against a Peer he shall be tried by common persons and not by Peers Stan. Pleas lib. 3. Brook Trial 142. But yet this Privilege hath some restraint For an Arch-bishop or Bishop though Lords of Parliament in such cases shall be tried by a Iury of Knights and other substantial persons upon their Oaths because Ecclesiasticks cannot pass in like cases upon Trial of other Peers for they are forbidden by the Common and Ecclesiastick Laws to be Iudges of Life and Death You see the great regard the Law hath to the word of a Peer heretofore upon his honour and yet how many ordinarily break their Oaths in common And thus premised we come to the case of Somerset and his Countess First therefore Sir Thomas Overbury for a time was known to have great interest and strait friendship with the Earl of Somerset both in his meaner fortunes and after in so much that he was in a kinde of oracle of direction unto him and if you will believe his own vaunt being indeed of an insolent and Thrasonical disposition he took upon him that the fortunes reputation and understanding of this Gentleman who is well known to have an able Teacher proceeded from his company and counsel and this friendship rested not onely in conversation and business at Court but likewise in communication of business of State for my Lord of Somerset exercising at that time by his Majesties special favour and trust the Office of Secretary did not forbear to acquaint Overbury with the Kings Packets and Dispatches from all parts of Spain France and the Low-countreys and this not by glympses or now and then rounding in the ear for a favour but in a settled manner Packets were sent sometimes opened by my Lord sometimes unbrokened unto Overbury who perused them copied them registred them made Table-talk of them as he thought good so the time was when Overbury knew more of the secrets of State than the Council-table did nay they were grown to such inwardness as they made a play of all the world besides themselves so as they had cyphers and Iurgons for the King and Queen and great men of the Realm things seldom used but either by Princes or their confederates or at the Court or at the least by such as practice and work against or at least upon Princes But as it is a Principle in Nature that the best things are in their corruption the worst and the sweetest Wine makes the sowrest Vineger so it fell out with them that this excess as I may say of friendship ended in mortal hatred on my Lord of Somerset's part It hath been said that Frost and Fraud ends foul and I may add a third and that is the frienâ—ship of ill men which is truly said to be conspiracy and not friendship for it happened that the Earl of Somerset fell into an unlawfull love towards that unfortunate Lady the Countess of Essex and to proceed to a Marriage with her this Marriage and purpose did Overbury mainly impugn under pretence to do the true part of a Friend for that he accounted her an unworthy woman but the truth is Overbury who to speak plainly had little that was solid for Religion or moral virtue but was wholly possest with ambition and vain-glory was loath to have any partners in the favour of my Lord of Somerset and especially not any of the House of Howards against whom he had professed hatred and opposition And that this is no sinister construction will appear when you shall hear that Overbury made his brags that he had won him the love of the Lady by his Letters and industry so far was he from cases of conscience in this point And certainly howsoever the tragical misery of that poor Gentleman Overbury might somewhat obliterate his faults yet because we are not upon point of civility but to discover the face of Truth for that it is material to the true understanding of the state of this cause Overbury was naught and corrupt in his commendation the Ballads must be mended for that point which paint him out other and partiality must be blamed which now a days favour him in malice to the memory of the ministers of these Times But to proceed when Overbury saw that he was like to be dispossessed of my Lords grace which he had possessed so long and by whose greatness he had promised himself to do wonders and being a man of an unbounded and impudent spirit he began not onely to disswade but to deter him from the love of that Lady and finding him fixed thought to finde a strong Remedy and supposing that
so honest and worthily deserving a Servant and so praiing God to bless this mie cure I bid you heartilie farewell Febr. 9. 1616. New-market James Rex Hereupon there was some appearance of his amendment which the Prince congratulates under his own hand My Lord Chancelour As I was verie sorrie having understood of your dangerous sickness so I do much rejoice of the good appearance of your recovery which Thomas Murrey hath declared unto me and of the affection and caee you have of my person and of mie Estate for which you and yours shall ever find me most willing to give testimonie to the World how much I respect those who are truly affected towards me I hope bie Gods grace to give you particular bie mie self and that God shall give you health and strength of bodie and mind that the King Queen and I with this whole Kingdom may long enjoie the fruit of your long wise and religious experience which wishing from my heart I end New-market Febr. 18. 1616. Yours Charles Pr. These being the last Letters and thus assured of the acknowledgement of his Masters favour toward his merit he takes leave of this Life the fifteenth of March following 14. of Iac. 1616. The Common-pleas or Comunia Placita is the Kings Court or Bancus Communis Anno 2. Edw. 3. cap. II. so called Quia Communia Placita inter subditos or controversies between common persons it was now held in Westminster Hall But in antient times moveable as appears by Magna Charta cap. II. And that upon grant of that Charter the Court of common-pleas was erected and settled and one place certain viz. at Westminster wheresoever the King lay and that after that time all the Writs ran Quod sit coram Iusticiariis meis apud Westmonast Whereas before the party was commanded by them to appear Coram me vel Iustitiaris meis simply without addition of place see Glanvile and Bracton the one writing in Henrie the seconds time before this Court was erected the other in Henrie the thirds time who erected this Court. All Civil causes real and personal are or were in former times in this Court according to the strickt Law of this Realm And by Fortescue cap. 50. it seemeth to have been the only Court for real causes The chief Judge thereof is called Lord Chief Iustice of the Common-pleas accompanied with three or four Assistants or Associates who are created by Letters pattents from the King and are installed as it were upon the Bench by the Lord Chancelour and Lord Chief Iustice of that Court. See Fortescue ca. 51. who sets down all the Circumstances of their admission The rest of the Officers are these the Custos Brevium three Proto-Notaries or principal Notaries called also Pregnotaries Chirographer Filazers in number fourteen Exigenters four Clerk of the Warrants Clerk of the Iuries or Iurata Writs Clerk of the Treasury Clerk of the Kings Silver Clerk of the Essoines Clerk of the Out-laws The Common Law is so antient we know not the commencement Lex Angliae peculiar onely to this Land Of long time following the Conquest ever more quarrelled for enjoyment of antient Liberties until Henrie the third allowed English men English Laws add in his ninth year granted the great Charter which himself infringed and thereupon followed fourty years Barons Warrs as Histories stile them until in his fifty two year that Charter was again reviewed and compiled and solemnly sworn unto by succeeding Sovereigns The ground of which binds the King per Legem terrae and what is this Lexterrae Leges Anglicanae fuerunt approbatae consensu utentium Sacramento Regum confirmatae Lex facit Regem attribuat igitur Rex legi quod Lex attribuit ei viz. dominationem potestatem ubi non Lex ibi non Rex So then Lex fecit Regem Not so neither Kings in England before Lawes but indeed Communis Consuetudo Regni fuit Lex terrae This being the Law without commencement as the Genius to all and Parliaments Statutes Prerogatives of Princes Customes of Counties Cities Burroughs Mannors are but the species of it For general Customs made the Law authorities Parliaments Limits Prerogatives and Customes consonant or disonant to Reason so much for Communis Lex But in practice say some the Chancery is above Law and yet duely examined that also is allowed per Legen terrae as a species of that The reason thus The Common Law grounded upon general Maxims they might be too severe or too relax and therefore necessarily requiring Equity Secundum aequum bonum sanam consâ—ientiam And this Chancelour notwithstanding limitted by Law and erected by Law although it seems above Law For No Judge hath Jurisdiction without some grant or commission out of that Court under the Great Seal which is intrusted to the Chancelor No Judge can hold plea without an Original Writ framed in Chancerie and by his appointment returnable before the Judges and yet all these considered the King the Law the Chancery agree together The Chancerie then must needs be erected subsequent by the common Law to relieve and supply the Law in some cases where the simple subject was cosened by craft ignorance also may offend without malice Moses Law in divers cases Political and Ceremonial he could not decide uncleanness by touching the dead but referred it to God The name of this Officer is Dominus Cancelarius Angliae a a Cancelour do but then quere what he might cancel Some say it is Cancelare Iniquom legem commâ—nnem Iudicare secundum conscientiam but this is an errour will the Law give power to deface her self that made it The Chancelour cannot stay the course of Law but onely injunct the person not to follow the Law not to cancel the Law for notwithstanding this injunction if the party will sit out contempt and proceed at common Law the Judges cannot deny him Indeed rhis Officer hath his name of canceling the Kings Letters pattents so much of honour to the Law as the other way had been dishonourable The nature of Letters pattents bind the King and his Successors and all Subjects though unfit or unjust the Judges of Law are co judge it void but cannot deface it nor the Seal but the Chancelour as a Judge of Law may but not by his absolute authority by his ordinary power and course of common Law is to judge of it and to hold plea of it and to call the party interessed by process of Law and so to repeal it by Judgement and then cancel it which no person can do but And this was done Transversa linea circumducere vel conscindere aliquod Edictum decretum contra Principem aut jus Reipublicae impetrari which cancelling is made with Lines drawn across like Latices and it is said that Judgement seats were of old compassed with Latices or Barrs cross waies to defend the Judges and Officers from the prease of people and yet not to hinder
Criminal Kings Bench and Star-Chamber The Common-pleas is a Branch of the Kings Bench being first in one Court and after the Common-pleas being extracted it was so called as Pleas of private men The other the Exchequer for the Kings Revenue the principal institution thereof and their chief study and as other things come orderly thither so to administer justice Keep you within compass give me my right of private Prerogative I shall acquiesce as for the Prerogative of the Crown it is not for a Lawyers tongue nor lawful to be disputed It is Atheism to dispute what God can do his revealed Will ought to content us so is it contempt in a subject to dispute what a King can or cannot do the Law is his revealed Will. The Kings Bench is the principal Court for Criminal causes and in some respects it deals with Civil causes The Chancery a Court of Equity and deals likewise in Civil The Dispenser of the Kings Conscience following the intention of Law and Iustice not altering Law nor e converso It exceeds all Courts mixing Mercy with Iustice. Other Courts are onely for Law and where the strictness of Law might undo a subject there the Chancery tempers it with Equity and preserves men from destruction The Chancery is undependent of any other Court only under the King Teste me ipso from which no appeal yet am I bound so to maintain others as this not to suffer wrong My Chancelour that now is I found him Keeper of the Seal the same in substance with the other stile He is witness my warrant was to him to go on according to Presidents in time of best Kings and most learned Chancellours The duty of Iudges is to punish such as deprave the Kings Courts and therfore it was an inept Speech in Westminster-Hall to say that a Praemunire lay against the Court of Chancery yet it should not be boundless the King is to correct it and none else and therefore the King was abused in that attempt and now commands that none presume to sue a praemunire against it As all inundations are conceived Prodigious by Astrologers so overflowings of the banks of Iurisdiction is inconvenient and Prodigious to the State Let there be a concordance and musical accord amongst you keep to your Presidents authentick not controverted but approved by common usage of best Kings and most learned Iudges The Star-Chamber Court hath been shaken of late and last year had received a blow if not prevented by a few voices He descants on the name Star a glorious creature next in place to the Angels the Court glorious in substance compounded of four sorts of persons The first two Privy Counsellors and Judges wisdâ—m of State learning in Law The other two sorts Peers and Bishops to give Greatness and Honour to the Court the other of Learning in Divinity and the interest of the good Government of the Church So divine and humane Laws Experience and practice in Government are conjoined in the proceedings of this Court No Kingdom without a Court of Equity either by it self as in England or mixed in their Office that are Iudges of the Law as in Scotland and here in England where the Law determines not cleerly there the Chancery does having equity which belongs to no other Court punishing Attempts other Courts only facts and where the Law punishes facts lightly as in Riots or Combates the Star Chamber punishes in a higher degree as in Combinations Practises Conspiracies so being instituted for good give it the more honour Keep your Courts in harmony Iudges are Brethren the Courts Sisters the Muses to differ breeds contempt to either and disputes against each other turns pleas from Court to Court in circular Motion Ixions wheel the reason of Multitudes of Prohibitions causes are scourged from Court to Court like Tantalus fruit neer the Suiters Lip never to his Taste a delay of Iustice makes causes endless He tells them how he hath laboured to gather Articles an Index expurgatorius of Novelties crept into the Law look to Plowdens Cases and the old Responsa Prudentum if you find it not there then ab initio non fuit sic away withit To the Auditory he hath but little to say As he hath confirmed his Resolution to maintain his Oath the Law and Iustice of the Land So he expects their duty in observance of the Law and divides their submission into three parts First In general to give due reverence to the Law This general he devides also into three Not to sue but upon just cause Be content with Iudgement to acquiesce as he will do equal with theâ—â—eanest Subject Do not complain and importune the King against Iudgement It is better to maintain an unjust Dâ—cree than to question every judgement after Sentence as you come gaping for Iustice be satisfyed with the Iudgement but in Bribes complain boldly if not true from you expect Lex Talionis to accuse an upright Iudge deserves double punishment Secondly In your Pleas prâ—sume not against the Kings Prerogative or honour if you do the Iudges will punish you if they do not I will them and you Plead not new Puritanical strains to make all things popular keep the antient limits of pleas Thirdly change not your Courts as if to mistrust the justness of your cause but submit where you begin So he sums up all The charge to his Self Iudges and Auditory his excuse why he came not till now why now And because of his custome to deliver a charge to the Iudges of circuits He tells them now also As they are Iudges with him in that Court so Iudges under him and his Substitutes in circuits Itinerant to his people a laudable custome to go to the people in their Counties as they come up to them at Westminster-Hall That you go to punish as to prevent offences charge the Iustices of peace their duties take an accompt of them and report their Services to the King for the King hath two offices 1. To direct 2. To take an accompt from them to his Chancellour in writing and so to him Of these two parts the Nisi prius is profit for them and the other necessary for him therefore as Christ said Hoc agite yet illud non omittite and commends the office of Iustice of peace of high honour and repute They are of two sorts good and bad the good he will reward and prefer being as capable of his favour as any about him whomsoever the farther off in distance of place the more desert and his providence must reach to the end of his limits the good are industrious the bad idle contemplative Iustices are of no use And for the number as many hands make light work so too many make slight work As to the charge he will but repeat what he hath said heretofore Lectio lecta placet decies repetita placebit anent Recusants and Papists my greef when they increase there are three sorts of Recusants The first
course but it fell out more fatal to him which lasted to the end and thereby wrought its best use In the midst of sufferings the bread of sorrow tastes better than the Banquet of fools for afflictions brings such mens souls to be Saints at the Mark which otherwise would be overgrown with too much Greatnesse His memorable abilities remain but in few and his compassionate infirmities common to all To expiate which he did as became him to do to the House of Peers prostrate himself and sins which ingenuously he acknowledged promising amendment of his life and made it good to the Worlds eye Those excellent works contrived in his retirement do evidently manifest his wit and worth with much regret to many good men that such an one should be fallen off from the face of State In Bacons place comes Doctor Williams Dean of Westminster by the Title of Keeper of the Great Seal of England the same power and Jurisdiction as the Chancelour see Statute quinto Elizab which was not so besore At first but as Vice-Chancelour Matthew Paris saith Custodiam â—igilli Regii accepit Cancelarii Vices Acturus Officium c. He was also then made Bishop of Lincoln together to make him more capable of the Office brought in sayes one to serve turns which no Lay-Man was bad enough to undertake Former ages held it more consonant to reason to trust the Conscience of the Clergy with the case of the Lay-man they best knowing a Case of Conscience and antiently the Civil Laws were adjudged by the Ministers of the Church and the Chancery and other Courts of Equity then in the charge of a Divine Minister And therefore a mistake in the Record that sets it down as a Wonder for an Arch-bishop of Saint Andrews to be made Chancelour of Scotland by King Charles a thing he saies not known in that Kingdom for three hundred years before for a Clergy man to bear that office But we find Iames Seaton and David Seaton both Arch-bishops of Saint Andrews and Chancelours of Scotland within one hundred years space And many other Arch-bishops and Bishops within three hundred years not only Chancelours but Judges of the Law Master of the Robes and other Offices of Judicature By which means their onely Bishopricks too poor they advanced to degrees of wealth enabling them to erect most of those sumptuous Fabricks of piety and Honour in that Nation and so in England by our Clergy by this man also in some measure So ran the Channel till Bacons father had it from a Bishop and now a Bishop has it again and had King Iames lived to have effected his Desires the Clergy had fixed firm footing in Courts of Judicature out of the rode of the common-Common-Law and this was the true cause of Williams initiation thither his quality thus fitted for the Kings intention He was in truth Chaplain to Buckinghams Mother and let into Court parallel in some degree with Cardinal Richlieus entrance by Queen Mother of France a Man may take view of these conformities not few if you consider proportions what is allowed to the Jesuit must rebate of the Reformed and what this man could not do in competition as the other his aim shewed his will but not the effect But at his entrance into this Trust comes two Bills signed from the King to be made Patents by the Seal the one for a Pension of two thousand pound per annum and the other for the Office of Earl Marshal of England both of them to be conferred upon the Earl of Arundel The first though with some regret in those unseasonable times to receive such large pensions which yet he sealed but took upon him to trench upon the Lord Treasurer Middlesex who willingly gave way to it for which they both had enmity ever after The later he refused upon these Queries 1. Whether in the Delivery of the Staff to the Earl his Majesty did not declare it to him for ease of the other Commissioners that executed it before with him and so to imply no inlargement of power which this Patent doth 2. Whether his Majesty means that this Patent leaping over the powers of the three last Earls Essex Shrewsbury and Somerset should refer only to Arundels own Ancesters Howards and Mowbrays Dukes of Norfolk who claimed that place by Inheritance the usual way and reference of Patents being unto the last and immediate Predecessor and not to the remote whose powers heretofore in these troublesome times were vage uncertain and impossible to be limitted 3. Whether that this Lord should bestow those Offices settled in the Crown as Sir Edward Zouches in Court Sir George Reynolds in the Kings Bench and divers others all which this Great Patent sweeps away being Places of Worth and Dignity 4. Whether my Lord Stewards place shall be for all his power of Judicature is in the Verge either altogether extinguished or at least subordinate to the Office A point considerable because of the Duke of Lenox who was Steward his greatness of Person and neerness of blood to the King And here he claws him 5. Lastly whether that the Offices of the Earl Marshall of England and the Marshall of the Kings house in former times distinct shall be now united to this great Lord A power limitted by no Law or Record but to be searched out from Heralds Chronicles Antiquaries and such absolute Monuments and thereupon this sixty years for Essex his power was cleerly limitted only as Marshall unfit to be revived by the Policy of this State And by these queries the Patent was pared which increased malice to the end of their Days Certainly there is a difference between the Earl Marshal of England and the Marshal of the Kings House See Lambert Archiron or of the High Courts of Justice in England The Marshall of England and the Constable are united in a Court which handleth only Duells out of the Realm and matters within as Combats Blazon Armory but may not meddle with any difference tryable by the Laws of the Land The Marshal of the Kings Houshold is united in a Court with the Steward which holds Plea of Trespass Contracts and Covenants made within the Verge and that by the Laws Articl super Cart. cap. 3 4 5. The honour of Lord Marshal is so antient as Thomas Lord Mowbray by Richard 2. was created Duke of Norfolk and the first Earl Marshal of England anno 1397. And so successively unto Iohn Lord Mowbray who dyed the 15. of Edward 4. anno 1475. and had issue one only Daughter married unto Richard Duke of York second son of Edward the fourth and was by his Father created Duke of Norfolk and Earl Marshall of England murthered in the Tower anno 1483 without issue Then comes Iohn Howard Son of the Daughter and coheir of Thomas Mowbray Duke of Norfolk and was by Richard the third created Duke of Norfolk but not Earl Marshall Nor was his Son Thomas
Hist. Gr. Brit. p. 10. Arch Bishop Whitgift dies The Translation of the Scriptures Gen. 19. Isay 29. Psalm 48. Psalms translated Catechizing commended Hist. of the World pag. 249. Gowries aniversarie day celebrated See 1600. 1608. Hist. gr Br. pa. 12. Comotion of some Commoners Parliaments beginnings Jury were Judges so Lilburn pleaded Parliament of King and Barons onely The Commons taken into Parliament Of the Parliament of England The writ to summon the Peers The writ to summon the Knights and Burgesses Oath of Alleageance Of Supremacy Ecclesiastical matters Lords Privileges Lower House Harmony of all King Queen and Prince ride in triumph First Session of Parliament The Kings speech in Parliament abreviated 2 3. Peace and Unity in Religion and Manners Union with Scotland intended Ambassadours for Peace Co and ch pa. Proclamation to conformity in Church-discipline Assembly of the Church in Scotland in spite of the King Hist. Gr. Brit. p. 27. The Kings second Son Charls created Duke of York Pouder Treason Pouder Treason the story Anno 1605. Fauks his Confâ—ssion of the Design Th. Winter's Confession of the Plot discovery and success The story pâ—t together in brief Second Session of Parliament Three intire subsidies and six fifteens Several Acts. The effect of the Oath of Alleageance Taken by Papists The Popes Bull against the Oath The Kings Apologie and Preface to take the oath Justified by forein Princes Jesuits divide the English into four sects Their opinion refuted See before anno pa. 1542. pa. 9 And Imprisonment as bad Best Counsel to convince them by Preaching Anno 1606. Leptons 〈◊〉 to York 〈◊〉 back King of Dâ—â—mark land◠〈◊〉 Graves-end Princes forâ—â—â—â— their liberties by coming into another Kingdom without leave The Earls of Northumberland and other Lords confederates in the Pouder Treason are committed Of the Star-Chamber beginning and ending The Letter Anno 1607. The union argued The Kings Speech in answer to their Arguments Post-nati confirmed H. G. Bâ— pag 41. Judg Nichols his true justice Gâ—ntry flock to London Proclamation in restraint of new buildings unless of Brick Anno 1608. Hist. Gr. Bâ—it p. 49. L. Treasurer Dorset dies George Spâ—ot a Conspirator with Gowry his story and execution His Coâ—fessions His Trial. Restalrig's Letter to Gowry and after the Treason Other Letters to Gowry as also his 〈…〉 Confesseth the Indictment Jurors names Verdict Sentenced as a Traitor Executed A marvellous sign of guilt Abbot Bishop of Canterbury being present History of the Church of Scotland p. 509. The Kings disbursments already 60000 l. 19000. 17428. 11000. 107428. The Scotish Secretary Balmerino's treacherous Letter to the Pope The occasion 1609. He is sent pâ—isoner to be tryed in Scotland His indictment His confession And sentence Anno 1609. Is reprieved and dies King James a mercifull Prince and restores his son in blood And he a traytor also to King Charles is also pardoned And proves an ungratefull wretch to his blessed Master The Bishops in Scotland inlarged their power Scots Bishops consecrated in England Who ordain others at home Council Table ordered The Earl of Orkney committed High commission-commission-Court The Session seek for grievances Hist Gâ— Bâ— ubique The Kings Speech to both Houses Of his Government Common Law and Civil Prohibitiâ—â—â— 2. Grievancâ—â— how to present them Not to meddle with his Office High Commission 3. The cause of calling the Parliament The quality how to give The quantity His expences Reasons for his liberality Conclusion 1. Religion The Common-wealth Proclâ—mation against â—ncrease of buildings about London Truce between Spain and the Netherlands Siege of Juliers Duke of Guelders and Juliers c. his descent last of the race The Netherlands sometime subjects to Spain Henry the fourth King of France stab'd 60000 l. Parliament dissolved Henry created Prince of Wales their dignities See before Knights Bachelors Anno 1603. Ayd mony H. Gr. Br. pa. 52. False suggestions to be impoysoned Court and ch of King James pa. 84. Hist Gr. Br. pa. 52. Nearer Intention for Prince Henry to match with Spain See after anno 1624. Papists persecuted by Pens Chelsey Coledge founded and why H. Gr. Br. pa. 53. The Kings favorite Mountgomery Hist. Gr. Brit. p. 54. See 1612. Masks and Comedies at Court H. G. Br. pa. 54. Discussed Our Adversary a Poet and play-maker Contribution-money 111046. l Suttons Hospitall founded Absurd Excommunication and unchristian in Scotland The three Earls revolt So was Padie Paulo Popisâ—ly excommunicated Earl of Eglington illegally adopts an Heir to his Honors Arminius Vorstius their Heresies Vorstius his blasphemous Books The Kings message to the States Arminius The States Answer Further accusations And proceedings therein Bookes of Vorstius Heresies The King writes again against them all Vorstius is preferred Professor of Divinity Sir R. Winwoods speech concerning Vorstius His Tenenâ—s Pag. 210 212. 232 237. 308. 441. 271. Pa. 38. 43. Cap. 16. Pa. 999. Conclusion And Protestation States Answer The Kings Declaration against Vorstius See more in the Kings works And against his Bookes Legat and Whithman burnt for Herâ—sie Legats Heresies Whitemans Heresies Adamites Incests Waldâ—nses â—in 〈◊〉 Anno 1612. I may be câ—nsured by some Robert Carr a favorite Hist. Gr. Br. pa. 55. Queen Mary of Scotland her corps inteâ—red at Westminster Anno 1586. Hist Gr. Br. pa. 62. Prince Palatine a suitor to Princess Elizabeth Prince Henryes sickness and death vindicated Hist Gr. Br. pa. 72. Lunary Rainbow His Corps viewed Interred at Westminster His character False suspition of poyson Hist. G. Br. pa. 64. Prince Palatine mâ—ried to Pâ—incâ—ss Elizabeth â—a 65. Sanquair a Scotish Baron hanged for murther Treasurer Salisbury dies His Fatâ—ers descent And preferments Earl of Salisburies preferments His Merits Court and ch King James pa. 12 13. Hist. Gr. Br. pa. .76 Court of Wards how erected and established Court of Wards how erected and established His Offices disposed to others Suffolk Lord Treasurer Rochester Chamberlain Sir W. Cope Master of the Wards and the Favourite made Secretary Sir T. Overbury his story A Friend to Rochester Dâ—sign'd Ambassadour Refuses to go The King wants money Sir Arthur Ingram Court and Ch. pag. 87. E. of Essex and his Countess Car and Overbury their stories intermixt Lady Rich divorced Hist. Gr. Br. pag. 68. Anno 1613 Hist. Gr. Brit. p. 69. â— of Suffolk petitions for his daughters divorce Delegates in commisâ—ion The Countesses Libell against her husband Essex's answer She is to be inspâ—cted by Ladies who repute her a Virgin and so do seven more â—adies Sentence of Nullity Signed by sufficient men Arch-bishop Abbots Arguments against the Nullity Answered The Countess marries Somersct H. Gr. Br. p. 72 Hist. Naâ— ch 28. Overburie designed to be deâ—troyed Earl Northampton dies His preferments to honour Against Duâ—lls Rebellion in Orkney The Earl convicted and executed his descent Oglevy a Jesuit his Examinations Plantations in America Hist. gr Br. p. 75. Cabot Virginia New England Elizabeths Isles Nova Francia Baronets created
of Ambassadours privilege 74 Massacre of Protestants in France 83 Episcopacy in Scotland continued â—â— Babâ—ngton's Treason â—14 Queen of Scots her Trial in England 115 sentenced and 〈◊〉 of Execution 121 Secretary Walsingham's Letter concerning the Execution of the Queen of Scotsâ—â—8 â—â—8 The Spanish Nâ—vies Design against England in the year 1588. 141 King James 6. sends Commissioners first and goes over himself to fetch his Queen from Denmark Concernments of France with the murther of Henry 3. 155 Hacket's horrible Tenets arreigned and executed 162 Ministers mad work 194 Digression how far forrein Titles precede in England 211 Digression concerning the power of Witches and Witchcraft 214 Earl Gowry's conspiracy against King James 225 Earl of Essex his Treason against Queen Elizabeth 233 Irish affairs under Lord Blunt Deputy of Ireland 242 English Commissioners in France dispute Precedency 243 These particular Passages of the Second Part may be read by themselves apart INtroduction to the Second Part page 2 Of Knights Batchelors 271 Of the Order of the Garter and Saint George his story 273 Of Earls and their Dignities 274 Of Barons and their Dignities 275 Knights of the Bath their Creation 276 Digression concerning Imperial Rule and Interest of Christian Princes 277 Of War and Conquest of Success their Consequences 281 Sir Walter Raleighs Treason 282 Of Presbyterians Doctrines 289 Conference at Hampton Court 293 Translation of the Bible and singing Psalms 308 Catechising commended 310 Of Parliaments their beginnings 312 King James first Speech in Parliament 319 The Powder Treason 323 The Oath of Supremacy and K. James his Apology to Forein Princes 329 Of Iesuits how to suppress them 331 Libel against the Lord Treasuer Salisbury and His answer 334 King James Speech and answer to the Arguments concerning the Union 338 Sprots Conspiracy with Gowry his arraignment and Execution 342 Lord Balmerino his treacherous Design 348 King James his second Speech in Parliament 353 Duke of Gelders his Descent and Death 361 Prince of Wales their Dignity 362 Of Chelsey Colledge 365 Of Masks and Comedies 366 Suttons Hospital founded 367 Of Vorstius and Arminius their Books and Doctrines 370 Prince Henries Sickness and Death 377 Treasurer Lord Salisbury his Life and Death 381 〈…〉 〈…〉 James 391 Earl of Northampton's Life and Death 393 Of Duels and Combats 394 Of Plantations in America 400 Of Barâ—nes Knights creation 402 King James wants discussed how to be relieved 404 Earl of Somerset his Countess arreigned 414 His Letter to K. James 420 The case of Commendams 424 Difference between the Chancery and Common Pleas and their Dignities 431 King James his Speech in Star-chamber 439 Sir Thomas Lake and his wives story 446 King James journey into Scotland 450 George Villiers a favourite his story 455 Sir Ralegh's Guiana Voyage and Execution 459 A monstrous Murther in Cornwall 463 Barnevelt's Treason and Execution 466 Of Synodes and Councils Synode of Dort 467 〈…〉 〈…〉 of Bohemia 478 Sir Wootton's Embassy into Germany 485 Marriages with forrein Princes unfortunate to England 487 Earl Marshalls of England their Dignities 505 Of Libells and Pasquils 526 Of Knights Templers 527 Preachers ordered their matter and manner 531 King of Spain's Letter to Oâ—vares and his Answer concâ—rning the Princes Match 539 Prince Charls journey into Spain his Treatments and return 542 Spanish Ambassadour accuses the Duke of Buckingham of Treason 562 Prince Charls Marriage with France treated and affected 566 Treasurer Cranfield put out of Office 573 Of Apprentices of London they are no bond-men discussed 574 Cruelty of Amboyna 576 Famous Siege of Breda 579 The INDEX to the second Part. A. QU Ann sent for out of Scotland her Design to seize the Prince p. 272 Her Death and Character 774 Ambassadour French and Spanish quarrel 320 Weston and Conway Ambassadours into Germany 482 Lord Haies Ambassadour into France 428 Lord Rosse Ambassy into Spain 429 Spanish Ambassadour accuses the Duke of Buckingham of Treason the story 562 Assembly of the Scots Kirk in spite of the King 321 475 Aid-money 363 Arminius and Vorstius their Heresies and story 370 Adamites Heresies 375 Abbot Arch-Bishops Arguments against the Nullity of Essex and his Countess answered 391 Kills his Keeper 530 Arreignment of the Earl of Somerset and Countess for impoysoning of Overbury 414 Arreigning of Peers discussed 414 Lady Arabella marries Seymer 423 Marquess D' Ancre murthered in France 549 Abbot Arch-Bishop his Letters concerning the King of Bohemia 481 Earl Arundel Lord Marshal their Dignities 505 Of Apprentices of London no Bond-men 574 Cruelty of the Dutch at Amboyna 576 B. BArons created 271 their Dignities 275 Beaton Arch-Bishop dies in France 271 Batchelour Knights manner of Creation 276 Bible new translated 308 Balmerino Secretary of Scotland his Treason and story pardoned he and his posterity ungratefull 348 Bishops of Scotland enlarge their power 350 Baronet Knights created and discussed 402 Benevolence and means of the Kings supplies discussed 407 Sir Francis Bacon made Lord Chancellour 437 his submission in Parliament and supplication 501 his Character 503 his Encomium of King James 594 Barnevelt in Holland his Treason and execution 465 Blazing Star their effects discussed 471 King and Queen of Bohemia defeated and fly into Holland 485 Breda that famous Siege 579 and lost 589 Briante Botevile and Beauvoir their several Duels and Combats 582 Bolton's contemplation on King James 594 C. KIng and Queen crowned 275 Corâ—nation-oath 276 Conference at hampton-Hampton-court to settle the Discipline of the Church 282 Catechizing commanded 310 Commotion of Commoners 312 Charls Prince created Duke of York 322 High Commission Court 352 356 Chelsey College founded and why 365 Contribution money 367 Car a Favourite and his Countess their story 376 arreigned for impoysoning Overbury 414 the case pleaded 416 condemned reprieved and pardoned 419 his Letter to the King 420 The case of Commendams the Kings right to them pleaded and passages thereupon 424 Lord Chancellour and Lord Cook difference the cause and case 431 the Kings Letters to the Chancellour his sickness and death 432 Common Pleas Court what 434 Chancery Court and power 435 Chancellour Sir Francis Bacon succeeds 437 Church of Scotlands proceedings 475 Cranfield Lord Treasurer 495 questioned in Parliament and put out 572 Calumnies answered 535 Combates at Breda 582 D. DIgression designs for Imperial rule in Christendoâ— 27â— King of Denmark his first arrival to visit the Queen his Sister 333 second arrival 413 E. Dorset Lord Treasurer dies 342 Of Duels 394 Dort Synode 467 Lord Digby Ambassadour to the Empire 495 returns accounts to the Parliament 509 sent into Spain to treat in the Match 524 ordered by Letters how to proceed 536 created Earl of Bristol 539 is to forbear the Espousals 555 takes leave of Spain 556 and is come home to the Parliament 563 Designs at the Siege of Breda 584 E. QUeen Elizabeth not willing to publish her Successour 261 Earls created 274 their Dignities 275 Excommunicatiou absurd in Scotland
limitted And the Discipline erected by the Bishops and Super-intendents which had suffered some Diminution but no Synodical act for abolition should be confirmed And so with prosperous effects the Parliament ended and the King returns to his Sports at Sterlin The Presbyters now took up some colourable fears upon landing of one Amys or Amatus Stuart Lord Aubigny so called from Aubigny a Village in Aquitain a French-man born but of Scots family and kinsman to the King A notorious Guisit and Papist as they would have him The Town Aubigny was by Charles the seventh of France given to Iohn Stuart of the family of Lenox who commanded the Scots there and worsted the English which Town and Title depend ever since on the younger Sons and so on this Man He was sent over by the Guises or rather sent for over by Montross and Arguile to subvert Morton or to break the Truce twixt England and Scotland And no sooner landed but received with all honor and advanced in trust created Earl of Lenox and after created Duke a privy Counsellor of the Bed-chamber and Governour of Dunbarton Castle He was soon accused for engrossing so suddenly so much favour and since it hath been taken up for advantage who ever was like to please the King was thereupon cryed down by the Church for a Papist and so he was presented to Queen Elizabeth a dangerous Man and what mischief an evil favourite might suggest to the Kings maturity fitted to act evil impressions his Mothers Designs troublesome to both Realms more easy and proper for him to execute These in England and somewhat at home both together to wrest him from the King and Bowes is sent from Berwick to charge it home before the King and his Council The Queen of England not liking any so neer the King so much of the French Faction as he and one Monbirneau an Actor in the Massacre of France Bowes ere he entered into his errand required to have Lenox and him dismist the Board which was refused before the cause or crime were charged and bidden to produce his Commission for his peremptory demand which he could not and so was forthwith called home Yet to prevent the prejudice of his anger Alexander Hume is sent after to excuse it to the Queen so to learn the truth of her mistrust She as in such Cases to Messengers so all Princes take as Affronts to themselves and so did She and remits him to Burleigh disdaining to see him her self Burleigh Wisely assured him the Queens affections to his own person as a Protestant and his merits to his Master which she would own in any of his Ministers besides she knew him a good Counsellor for her Kinsman the King but denies you her presence who lookes not upon any Ambassadour from another where her own have been unheard and his Commission demanded without President But these are the fruits said he of your young Kings new Counsellors whose first principles are to discredit your best friends and interess their factions such as the Cosin Guises and a Frenchman or two of theirs sent over for that purpose to hazard ruin to the State if they be let to run on unless the Queens prudence and power prevent And so he parted Morton full of malice retires in discontent to Dalkieth disliking the state and manner of Court Miners for in doubt of some danger to his own person he came not neer the King but as commanded to counsel This distance gave his Enemies cause to fear and to prevent his hatred hasten their resolution to ruin him by the accusation of Iames Stuart sonne to the Lord Ucheltrie a bold-faced young man and had his arrand to charge him home which he did of murthering the late King and thus accused to his face and confined to his lodging he might expect no better than the last act of fate to take away his life and though a Pensioner to England this was done without dread of any But this ill news coming to Queen Elizabeth she Posts away Randolph now Post master of England to remove Lenox and to plead for Morton And in their great Assembly he recounts the Queens favours in freeing the Scots of the French with expence of English blood and treasure when her power could have seized all for her self the King then in his cradle his Regents successively owning these kindnesses till Aubigny and that other came in to ruine Religion and rule the King as their ward producing letters to some purpose which most men thought to be counterfeit and so effected nothing When nothing would serve his turn to turn out favorities Randolph takes upon him to set them by the ears and deals with both factions Lenox and Mortons underhand working jealousies to free themselves by force from eithers fewd which grew high and daingerous offering ayd from England to set things square which he made round These being marched to the Borders and the Scots as for the King prepared to receive them the English faction withdrew then and being discovered many were senâ— to prison and Randolph thus far besides his Commission durst not indure the power of his privilege but slipt away leaving his Nephew and Angus and Mar chief incendiaries to shift after and Morton to his just reward who was forthwith arraigned convict and beheaded for the murther of the Kings father and so confest by him before he dyed with this excuse that in those times of distraction he durst not but to do so The fatall Axe called the maiden himself had Patterned from that at Hallifax in Yorkshire which he had seen and liked the fashion for falling down between two posts executed him sure and sodain His Honour and Title was conferred on Iohn Maxwell He was an able man in what he undertook so that we may say as of Cato In hoc viro tanta vis animi ingeniique fuit ut quocunque loco natus est fortunam sibi ipse facturus fuisse videretur nulla ars neque privatae neque publicae rei gerendae ei defuit urbanas rusticasque res pariter callebat He was slow of speech with a natural composed gravity his countenance Majesticall his actions Princely had not that guilt of too much gathering and griping degraded those excellencies and left him naked to deserve nothing He desired to have a thing which dyed with him the Scots lawes reduced into Methode and it was urged as useless A great question with them to have Order in any thing that had none to serve God their opinion then hath since infected us His great wealth got together was scattered by unfaithful hands and hearts Livor post fata quiescit Discite mortales mortalia temnere illa Quaerere quae miseris non rapit aura levis About this time Ruthen lately created E. Gowry the son of William Ruthen Queen Maries deadly Enemy with other conspirators under pretence of
conserving the peace of Religion to which they were urged by the factious Ministery and which to secure they endeavour to remove Lenox and Arran from the King that was their colour but in their absence they invite the King to Ruthen Castle and their seize him Prisoner with threats of death untill he consented to the imprisoning of Arran banishing of Lenox into France and the return of the fugitive Angus out of England Of this the distressed Queen of Scots Prisoner at Sheffield writes to Queen Elizabeth a long letter full of miserable sadness Exquisitely expressing all her sufferings from the first of her subjects very oft Rebellion against her from which persecution being invited by her Majesty to rest secure upon her Princely succour and defence she is now by length of time drawn on to dispair of release from that hand which lodes her with lingring of a lothed life plainly and justly demonstrates her to be active and passive consenting to all her Mishaps She calls God to witness her Impartial affection to her Person and her innocency from prejudice of her affairs and State Desires justice of God and her and implores the mitigation of her misery and some more freedome though with Imprisonment of her Person Layes all particular differences home to the Conscience of the Queen and signs to her Letter Vostre tres desolei plus proche parente affectionate Seure Mary Reg. Indeed these were sharp and peircing which so much disquieted Queen Elizabeths Conscience that she consults to release her jointly to govern with the King And eight Articles were drawn up even such as they were the world knew she would never refuse for her extremity enforced her to yield to most unreasonable but this was but to spin time till the State could find some other expedients or some exceptions which dayly happened by Examinations Confessions or Suspitions grounded upon slender yet continual attempts of private persons and publique Designes of Forein States for the poor Queens interests which failing for her good she was though innocent sure to smart But because the manner of the Kings restraint in Ruthen is diversly related and which the Kirk justified for their own ends I shall adventure upon the Truth in these particulars hereafter Some of the Lords combining mischief to the King under colour of Religion and Liberty of the Kingdom took occasion and advantage of the Duke of Arrans absence from the Court and detained the King at Ruthen These Conspirators were Iohn Earl of Mar William Earl Gowry Lords Lindsey Boyd Clames and Oliphant Some Abbots and Lairds and stopt the King going to hunting who not being answered to the reason and cause grew in passion which concluded in tears to be thus vilified But it was reproached That better bairns should weep than bearded men This news hastens the Earl of Arran to Court where he was soon secured and bid be patient with safety of his life for his brother William Stuart was wounded by the way and kept Prisoner The like course they take with some Noblemen sent by the Duke of Lenox to enquire of the King Who cried out to them that he was a Captive and desired his good subjects to release him The conspirators excused themselves that their surprize only restrained the King from Arran and from Lenox whose banishment they threatned into France And forcing the King to pacifie the people with a Proclamation That for removing some differences His Majesty interposed himself Mediator and resolved to reside at Perth being his own free and voluntary choice and commanding such as were in Arms upon pretext of his restraint to dissolve within six houres on pain of death The Duke raises Forces but was countermanded by the Kings Letter to depart the Realm within twenty daies yet he retires to Dunbarton where the Noble-men and others flock to defend his Cause These uprores were posted to Queen Elizabeth who sends Sir Henry Cary and Sir Robert Bowes to advise the King to be counselled by the Lords against the Duke and Arran and to restore the Earl of Angus exiled in England since Mortons execution This last was obtained and soon after he was accepted into favour but much ado to incline the King to part with Lenox The Lords carry the King to Edenburgh where the Ministry justifie their act joyfully singing in Procession the 124. Psalm New Israel may say c. And the Assembly then convened ratifie the attempt on the Kings person at Ruthen and published it in all the Churches of the Realm to the regret and grief of all good men to see a bad cause thus coloured over and defended by the Church which made much for their Popedom that by these means of distraction the Lords gave themselves up to be governed by the Others Judgements Many there were that sided herein the most honest refused to subscribe But Arran was detained prisoner till the Duke was gon over Seas to France who fell sick at Sea and had leave to land at Blackness and so to pass by Queen Elizabeths favour though England where his sickness contracted into a Disease of which he died in Paris next year after and confessed the faith of the Church of Scotland which he alwaies maintained though in the Kirks policy he was accounted a Court Papist Two Ambassadors come from France Menvel and la Matt through England with whom was sent Davidson from Qu. Eliz. to undermine their Message being To work the Kings Liberty to confirm him to the French and renew the purpose of Association which was That the Queen of Scots should communicate the Crown with her son and administration of Iustice so that he may be acknowledged a lawful King by all Christian Princes and thereby all domestique factions suppressed This Embassy was voted in the Kirks Assembly to be a special grievance a wicked practice declaming in their Pulpits against la Matt who being a Knight of the Order of St. Esprit wore the badge of the White-Cross upon his Shoulder which they called The badge of Antichrist and him The Ambassadour of the bloody Murtherer meaning the Duke of Guise who sent him thither The King not able to do it otherwaies desired the Magistrates of Edenburgh not to demit them without a Feast at parting which was concluded on the Monday after And all cost prepared in Order thereto When on Sunday the very day before the Kirk proclame in their Pulpits the next day to be kept fast and in malice to the Kings honour therein appointed three Preachers the one succeeding the other to weary the poor peoples attention from Morning till night Thundering Curses Anathema's and Excommunication against all Nobles Magistrates and Others that attended the Ambassadors The good King sees these insolencies but lodges them up in silence till he got power to remedy these wrongs About this time dies Buchanan whose Character is chronicled by the Arch-bishop of Saint Andrews in his History of
Rebellion And therefore Proclaims all their particular proceedings with remonstance of their Misdemeanors and to prevent disorder now and confusion to follow by advise of his Councill discharges the commissioners and dissolves their convention illegal in it self and worse unlawfully executed by them Whom he commands by Name to depart home in 24 hours to attend their flocks and duties in their Ministery And no wayes to return to convene either within or without the Burroughs of Edenburgh under the pain of Rebellion But we tire the reader and yet hereby we may discover what they did in such like many more for to the death they will proceed Hereupon they consult that seing they had been convened by the warrant of Christ to take care of hazard to the Church Et ne quid ecclesia detrimenti caperet They should obey God rather than man And notwithstanding any charge to the contrary to continue together and to send to the Octavians those 8 Councellors of State formerly mentioned that seing at the entrance to their places the Church was in quiet and peace and now to be imbroyled the Enemies to truth overpowring and all by their councels and connivance The event of evil must fall upon them the Contrivers or Connivers The President hastily made answer As they began so let them end the Councills advice neither was desired nor given on either part and therefore would not meddle between the King and them but leave it to his Majesty and Nobles This answer taught them fresh advice to remonstrate to the King himself by Messengers of their own and fearing the effects the Kings anger humbly interceed for surcease of Processe against Master Blake Until his Majesty should be pleased to convoke an Assembly for deciding all controversies to the Kings content To which he consented provided they would passe by the Declinator or at least to declare that it was not a Generall but a particular Declinator used in Blakes case only as being a cause of slander and so appertaining to the judgment of the Church This by the wiser was held fit to be received as an end of contention No! Rather to stand to their tacklings Gods cause Against worldly powers Ravelling into former examples of prevailing against Princes Others argued to try Mastery with Majesty may faile of effects as yet the Court stand in some fear of the Church and to keep up their concept let us take the best conditions we can least our weaknesse appear if we have the worst and so the terror of the Church despised or neglected Much will portends little wit and as it is often seen who gripes at all grasp nought but wind and to levy all their wills is to lose all their wits of which God send them more plenty than appears by their proceedings But not prevailing the King proceeds to proclaim their departure and Blakes appearance as afore ordered The next day sunday solemnized the christning of the Princesse Bows Ambassadour gave Her name from his Queen Elizabeth and the Town of Edenburgh by their Majestrates assisted as other witnesses Yet all that day in the Churches were bitter invectives The Commissioners of the Church presented a Petition to the King and Council That seing the decision of intricate questions could work no good and was subtilly urged to ingender discention between his Majesty and the Church he would be pleased to remit the discision to a lawfull Assembly and not to incroch upon the limitts of Christs Kingdom upon any pretence but to bend his actions against the common Enemie of the Church and state the Papists Then they exhort the Noblemen to give his Majesty faithfull Counsel and not to be subject to the guilt of sin by the craft of such as seek the thraldom of the Gospel who intend to exite their honours to be the Executors of their malitious devises With order to those that presented this Petition that if the same was refused to enjoyn them to protest against the preceeding of the Councel The King rejects it as not worthy of Answer commanding to call Blake to his summons First That he affirmed in Pulpit that the Popish Lords were returned with his Majesties knowledg and further assurance wherein he had detected the treachery of his heart Secondly that he called all Kings the Divells barns and that the Divel was in the court and in the Guiders thereof Thirdly That in his prayers for Queen Ann he had used these words we must pray for her in fashion but we have no cause she will never do us good That he called the Queen of England an Atheist That he had discussed a suspention granted by the Lords of Session in Pulpit and called them Miscreants and Bribers That the Nobillity were degenerate godlesse dissemblers and enimies to the Church That the Council were Holliglasses Cormorants and men of no Religion And that he had convocated divers Noblemen and others within Saint Andrews in June 1594. caused them to take arms in troops of Horse and Foot and thereby usurped the power of King and Council After reading of the summons Robert Pont their Minister protested that the processe in hand should not prejudice the Church To which the King answered that he meant not to meddle with matters of doctrine but to censure the treasonable speeches of a Minister which he and his Councel would judg except that by scripture it could be held forth that Ministers were not subject in these cases to judicatures Blake makes answer that the accusations were false calumnies producing testimonies of two which he alleged should be preferred to aâ—y report whatsoever Next he said That to the first six points the Council were not lawfull Iudges of speeches in Pulpit but the Presbytery where the sermon was uttered And so presents a second Declinator But being put to voyces it was sentenced That the crimes and accusations mentioned in the summons were seditious and treasonable and that the King and Council were competent Judges in all matters criminall or civill as well to Ministers as other subjects The Council dissolved the King willing to conserve peace and amity to the Ministers offered terms of reconciliation and to return Blake to his charge and Pastorage Bruce answered That if it concern'd only Master Blake the offer might be accepted but the liberty of Christs Kingdom being wounded by the Proclamation and by usurping spiritual Iurisdiction of greater consequence then Master Blakes life and twenty more and that if those things were not retreated they would oppose during the last aspiration of breath The King the next morning treated with some of theirs Shewing how far he was from impairing spiritual Jurisdiction that he would amplifie and inlarge the same but said he to discourse of State in Pulpits is intollerable I clame to judg in matters of sedition and civil and criminal causes and of speeches that may import such crimes and if the Pulpit should be a place of privilege under
annexed to the Imperial Crown of the Realm Thus oblig'd to their duty they chuse a Speaker whom they accompany to the King whose Election they desire him to ratifie whom the King usually is pleased with which done the Speaker in his own and the House of Commons name gives thanks and beseeches That the Lower House may use their Privileges and freedom of debating That if any therein shall happen to be more earnest in his own opinion his Majesty will vouchsafe not to take it ill nor be angry and that they may have access to the Kings Majesty or Higher House as oft as matters require which leave being granted they are dismissed Both Houses have free liberty to debate of matters propounded by the King or touching making or abrogating Laws and to determine to commit to writing what is to be transmitted to each other by Messenger whereto if upon debate had there ensue an assent by Votes the consent is noted upon the top of the Bill in this form amongst the Lords Les Seigneurs ont assentes among the Commons Les Communes ont assentes but if they differ both Houses not seldom meet or else principal persons chosen out of them to confer together in a commodious place for their meeting in the Painted Chamber there the Commons standing and uncovered with great observance receive the Lords covered and sitting and there they confer if they discord that business comes to nothing but if they agree they present it to the King which if he allows he writes Le Roy le veult and so as by a Soul infused into a Body it receives life and becomes an effectual Law forthwith to be promulgated to the People but when the King refuses to approve it he writes on the top of the Leaf Le Roy s' avisera sometimes he denies it in terminis and thereupon are reputed dasht The sacred matters the King permits not to be handled by Parliaments but Synods unless it may be for the force of Laws from Parliamentary Authority which they cannot so fully obtain from their divine verity The Deans Arch-Deacons Procuratours for the Chapters as also for every Arch-Deaconry the former being delegated by the Suffrages of the Prebendaries these of the Ministers meet in a place assigned to debate touching them where having first chosen a Prolocutor in the name of the Clergy they determine concerning Heads of Religion Ceremonies and other matters belonging to the Church as also granting of Subsidies to the King whose Results notwithstanding are not obtruded on the Seculars to be observed with the Authority of Laws untill as above-said they be allowed by assent of King and both Houses being provided That Civil hands should not intermeddle in these affairs Our Chronicles tell us That Queen Elizabeth expostulates with the Parliament for that they had appointed a Fast without her advice and were not restored to her favour but upon obtaining of Pardon Both Houses have respectively their peculiar Privileges To the higher House not onely to give counsels and to assist in making Laws but likewise to exercise the power of Iudicature and so of imposing Oaths in the more weighty causes as corruption of Iudges and Magistrates and in last Appeals which yet to bring back to examen without the Kings permission and Patent the Lawyers say is praeter-legal nor do they so unless the Judges of Law sitting by The House of Commons have Privileges of supplicating and craving Right or else the Accusers part never challenged to it self the Office of Judg save within their own Walls and on their proper Members and that extended no farther than penalty of Imprisonment or Mulct never having any right of pressing an Oath and therefore in a Statute the House of Commons say That seeing Parliamentary Iudicature belongs to the King and Lords and not to the Commons that they might not be obliged contrary to Custom to give Iudgment If any doubt touching the Election of their Members it was heretofore determined by the Lords House or by the Judg of the Kings Chancery If any of them had departed from the Houses without the Kings leave and both Houses also he was convened before the Kings Council-table or Kings Bench to undergo the penalty and was not punished at the discretion of his own House of Commons But they have Privilege first to debate and determine of levying money among the People This was the temperament of King Parliament and People in proper parts not harming each other for the Kings supreme Authority and Sword is as a sufficient power to vindicate the Laws from the Factions of the Grands and popular Tumults whilest in the mean time the Lords with that chief Authority wherewith they are vested of Iudicature and Legislation put a curb on one hand to the Kings Tyranny if he extravagate on the other to the tumultuating populace and in semblable manner the People by that their power of accusing whom they please and of granting or denying moneys are in a sufficient capacity to retrench the licentiousness of the Nobility and of the Kings Counsellours and break the Kings impetuous incroching on the publick The Laws have exceedingly provided That the freedom of voting and debating be not hindered through fear of insolent persons therefore none may come into either of their Houses with a Sword or armed The Members and their Servants not to be arrested for Debt or offences though of a mean alloy and if any so attached he may not be free but by a Writ out of the Chancery Seldom and that upon weighty cause would Kings create offence to so venerable an Assembly however it hath so faln out that excellent Princes upon too great provocations have reprehended the Senate and punisht some Offenders convening them before the Judges of the Kingdom imprisoned fined and put to death sometimes Thus by past stood the state of Parliaments when the King came in and calls one in March the King Queen and Prince some days before rode from the Tower to his Palace of White-hall in such Triumph as the several Pageants at each convenient place with excellent Oratory assured them the affections and duty of his Subjects as they did some days afterwards when the like occasion presented them in state to this Parliament And as usual with all Sovereigns his Predecessours themselves or Chancellour sweetens the Members with some Rhetorical Oration to the purpose of calling that Assembly and this the King undertakes now as best able of any Prince his Predecessours or any other Assistant for wit or wisdom to compare with him and therein he lays open his heart to both Houses in a very long Speech But because it is in print and bound with the Volume of his Works I shall adventure to abreviate here for some light to the Reader in this History which follows But then in this as in other his most eloquent and gracefull Speeches hereafter where you meet with any of his
to turn Martial his Apostrophe upon me Tu male jam recitas incipit esse tuus And first he discovers his real constitution and thankfulness in three Forms and Reasons of his Convention of them In the first he renders to them the Representatives of his People his Princely thanks for their affection in receiving him in his Right to the Crown The other two he describes by the effect of his Actions and shews them the blessing of his Person in their outward Peace with his Neighbours with whom he found this State imbroiled Secondly Peace within issuing not onely by his lineal descent from Henry 7. in the union of the two Houses of Lancaster and York but also the union of these two Kingdoms illustrated in the conformities of Religion Language and Manners in their security of salvation encompassed with a Wall of Water and therefore Quae Deus conjunxit nemo separet And he being the Husband Head and Shepherd advises them to a joyfull Union by comparison of this blessing in the Union of the petty Principalities heretofore of this Nation into one Kingdom as also the composure of divers Duchies in the entire Monarchy of France those being happy though conjoyned by the Spear of Bellona but we the greater blessing being bound up by the Wedding-Ring of Astrea having an appearance of perpetuity in the blessing of hâ—s hopefull Issue and his profession of true Religion which he distinguishes from the Catholick Papist and also from another Sect rather than a Religion which he calls a Puritan Novellist differing from Truth in a confused Form of policy and parity insufferable He acknowledgeth the Roman-Church to be our Mother-Church defiled with some Infirmities as the Iews Church before Christ Crucified But as not wishing a sick man dead but his body to be purged Excusable in the Laicks either as well minded subjects inured thereto by birth and custom of Age or young by evil Education and therefore not to punish their Bodies for the Errors of their Mindes As for their Clericks their doctrine and practice insufferable The Arrogancie of the Popes Supremacie in the One and Murthering Kings in the other Otherwise he doth reverence Antiquity in the points of Ecclesiasticall Policie and so cleers himself from Heresie in Faith or Schism in Government But with this Caution to all as he is a friend to their Persons so an Enemy to their Errors Advising the Bishops by their Exemplary Life to convince the others doctrine The third Reason of calling this Parliament in the action of his thankfullness is first in making Some Laws by preserving the weal of the Kingdom and in discretion of not making too many because In corruptissima Republica plurimae Leges Secondly in execution of them by the Iudges and Magistrates whom he advises not to utter their affections in that Office of Hate to a Foe or Love to a Friend fear to offend the Great or pitty to the misery of the meaner but to be blind in distinction of Persons Handless for bribes and therefore describes them three principall qualities Knowledge to discern Courage and Sincerity to execute And thus having told them the three causes tending only to his thankfullness but in divers forms The first by Word the Other by Actions he concludes himself to be Inutilis servus His felicity consistâ—ng in their prosperity and gives them his Apologie for three things expected from him by so many advancement of Honor preferment of credit and reward in Land In all he hath been reasonable and honorable for refreshing some persons that were Members of a Multitude and if his infirmity hath exceeded He blames the Importunity of Suters which experience time and labour shall recover to teach his Subjects not to crave nor he to grant The Parliament unused to Princely Eloquence and Learning withall contracted their dutyfull affections to his Eminent virtues and willingly understood the Kings ayme to unite also the two Kingdomes which was soon put forward by proclamation of his Title of Great Britain our coins all Ensignes of honor quartering this Conjunction of crosses Red cross for England and Saint Andrews white for Scotland And the Parliament by act Commissionate eight Lords and twenty Commons to treat with other Commissioners Scotchmen for the honour and profit of both Nations The King thus far setled with his Parliament and people not without wonder of all our Neighbour Nations having lain at watch for conveniencie and honor to piece with so potent a Prince the advantages alike to either They came almost together The Constable of Castile from Spain and another from the Arch-Duke Rory Duke of Solia from France to treat of Peace Barnevelt from the Netherlands Solia was a gallant Man an excellent Courtier as they are all His business needed no other policy of State but to congratulate the Kings peacable and happy Possession for they had a Leiger in Scotland that came in with the King But the other two were Enemies and were to treat for establishing a firm Peace which was granted and do doubt they might make up of their Masters bounty to be so soon dispatcht for France mightily opposed and with little cunning of our Counsel the Spaniards dealt their golden Pistols to hit the mark And as they lay equally ready so their desires for Convoy hither came together and had order accordingly Sir Robert Mansell Vice-Admiral for the Narrow-Seas attended at Graveling for the Spaniard And his Vice-Admiral of the Fleet Sir Ierom Turner at Calais for the French who coming first disputed the choice and desired the Admirals ship but being told that he was commanded by Commission for the Other Monsieur in much disdain put himself in the French Passage-boat and in a brave bore his flag on the Top. Mansel commands Turner to shoot a warning and after to hit who took in his flag but complained at Court where his faction was powerfull yet the Justice and honor of that old Custom and Authority maintains his Act against them all being in himself besides a gallant brave Commander The Puritan was much troubled to be ranked with the Papist in the Kings Parliament Speech and to be termed so and somewhat they said too saucy and therfore were to expect more cause to chaw the cud for the King proclames all Conformity to the form of Gods Service established in Doctrine and Discipline to Gods Word and the Primitive Church that the Conference of late at Hampton Court concluded no cause of alteration notwithstanding the fiery pretended Zelots renewed the Question in Parliament and had been satisfied by the Kings Speeches and otherwise that particular and personal abuses are remediable other ways than by general alteration That all shall conform and have warning till the last of November next oâ— otherwise to dispose of themselves or Families to other meet persons in their places July 1604. These men were now stark mad and intelligence hereof they send to their dear
his supply All eys of forein statutes are upon this affair Either they are unwilling to help him or his state desperate not to be repaired or that they part in disgrace with the King or he in distast with the Parliament our reputations were bred abroad and at home the abilities of retribution to Neighbour Princes of good or harm works much respect A King contemned brings War too late then to be supported things foreseen are soon remedied Meddle not with too much business at once qui trop embrasse rien estreint And recommends to them necessary things Religion Papists increase as if some New plot the feminine sort so proud that as men say they are not to be medled with It is surer to remove the Materials of fire then to quench it Nam levius laedit quicquid praevidimus ante He means not stronger Lawes but better Execution Nor does blood and too much severity severe persecution makes but the gallantness of many mens spirits more than justness of the cause to take a pride to die in repute of Martyrs To clear some obscure doubts in taking the oath of Allegeance who ought to be pressed therewith Let all Recusants be presented without exception and brought under the law To wink at faults is neither Honor nor Mercy in a King but to forgive after Tryal may be Mercy dividing them in two Rancks Old Papists Queen Maries Priests and those that never drank other than what they suckt of their Mothers milk Secondly Or such as do become Apostates from our Religion upon discontent or idle humour new form as a new fashion he pities the first if good and quiet Subjects and may be civil and conversable But for the other Apostates they must expect no favour but Justice and so that these Papists be no longer concealed In the Common-wealth He recommends the framing some New statutes for preservatives of Wood which was the worse liked of you the last Session because I put you upon it then so necessary as not to be without it It concerns their Esse the most Necessary Elements Fire and Fuell Their Bene Esse decay of Wood decay of Shipping The security of this land is from the Sea as a wall and by the Sea wealth Out-going and In-coming of commodities If you will add pleasure Hawking and Hunting some of them may be of his minde in that too and preferre Game almost destroyed He thought them but little for their last law annent Partridges and Phesants that every Farmer may destroy them in his own ground So that if my brede fly over the hedg to his close they are at his pleasure the onely remedy to cast a Roof over all my ground or put his Vervels on all Partridges as on his Hawks so to be known by his Army And for their law against stealing of Dear or Conies After their tedious discourse and prohibition they conclude with restriction onely to stealers in the Night Like the Lacedemonian Law against theft not forbidding it but to do it cunningly whereupon the foolish Boy suffered the Fox to gnaw his heart through his breast Like the lesson of the Canon Si non castè tamen cautè Exclaims also against the Gentlemen that hunt not for sport but ravenly with Nets and Guns destroy the Game And ends as he began the mirror of his heart 1. Which may be abused with a false light to mistake or misunderstand him 2. Not to soil it with foul breath and unclean hands not apt to pervert his words with corrupt affections like the toll of a Bell to some mens fancying what it tincketh that he thinketh 3. Glass is brittle if it fall to the ground it breaks to contemn his heads is not to conform to him But he hopes with Gods blessing all things will end well so farewell And for this the Kings good Counsel to his Law-makers they rewarded him with one Subsidy and one fifteen which came to one hundred and six thousand one hundred sixty and six pounds These times of plenty intice the Gentry to spend at London where the concourse of people raised the house rents Prices Markets and robbed the Countrey of their commerce in the Neighbourhood of the wealthy House-keepers for refreshing the poor discharging that burthen which it brought upon the Commons as hath been said To restrain them another Proclamation forbids all new buildings within two miles of London This and other the like Inconveniences not giving leasure to the Parliament to advise upon remedy the Council-Table took care to rectifie And therefore hereabouts began the frequent necessity of publishing Proclamations which were cunningly carped at by such as could not endure that any Commands should come forth without license of the Lower-house And not only now and heretofore but from time to time during this Kings Reign the new buildings increasing in and about London were endeavoured to be suppressed the chief Justice Popham and all other succeeding resolved in opinion their great Nusance to the whole Kingdom like the spleen in Man which in measure as it over-grows the Body wasts the Countrey must diminish if the City and Suburbs so increase not bringing wealth but misery surcharge to them and the Court and therefore at Christmass the Gentry were commanded into their Countrey to keep Hospitality then and after Peace and plenty with us taught our Neighbours to court their own necessities into a blessing also and humbled the High-spirited Monarch of Spain to descend to a Treaty for a Truce with his Rebell-Subjects held so in former dayes the United provinces of the Netherlands which in much policie he soon concluded not with very religious resolve on either part longto continue for the Dukedome of Cleve descending to nice point of dissention between two neighbor Princes Pretenders Brandneburg and Newburg The house of Austria quarrells his Interest also and got hold of the strong Town of Iuliers The French K. evermore near at hand to draw back any advance to the swelling greatness of Spain was a ready friend to assist the Dutch who liked no such Neighborhood and K. Iames not unwilling to adjoyn his countenance and forces out of the General Interest of all states to ballance the over-powring of Neighbor Nations he being always more ambitious of hindring them for invading one the other than under any pretence of Title or revenge apt to question or conquer upon any others possession and all three not staying any further dispute or delay of a Treaty therein with a threefold Bond of an Army besieges the Town and with little difficulty took it for the right owner But what other Interest King Iames had in this quarrel I know not unless upon the old score of affection to a kinsman of the Scots and a suffering Prince The Duke of Guelders and Iuliers of whom this Duke was descended had been ancient and Magnanimous Kings of Saxonick-frizeland for many ages The younger Brothers of that
their view Chancells were so divided from the body of the Church and thereupon so called And the Lord Chancelour and Lord Keeper have one power by Stat. anno 5. Eliz. So then you see how and for what he hath his name And though his Authority be highest yet it is given to him by the Law and proceedeth in course of Law not according to conscience but Law That all Justice runs from the Supreme power so by the Chancelour to all Jurisdiction A man complains of wrong or sues for right in Chancery from which Bill of complaint issues a precept commanding the Defendent to appear at a Day So then a man may not be sued before he have a Writ or Breve from the Chancelour a singular regard to the meanest The very Writs of Chancerie are prescribed by Law and a form registred in Chancery and if not accordingly issued out the Judges will reject them called in Law Abating of the Writ His Authority to judge is of two sorts by common Law or Positive Law Potentia Ordinata Processe pleading judgement Potentia Absoluta by Processe according to the Law of Nature viz. to send for the party to answer upon Oath to examine if he will not answer yet the Chancelour cannot condemn him in the cause for obstinacy Potentia Ordinata mispleading on either part may mar the matter and the judgement must be according to Law however the Equity of the case fall out But if the pleading be by Absolute Power though the party misplead if the matter be good the Iudgement must be by equity and not as the pleading be either formal good or bad or as the law will in the case The Question followes whether that conscience whereby the Chancelour be simpliciter and to be simplex conscientia or Regulata Viz. To be ordered by course of Court former Presidents and if no Presidents whether Reason in codem respectu may take cognisance of the cause viz. A rich Father to suffer an honest son to beg or a rich son contrario the Chancelour cannot Hereupon we may conclude that his Authority judicial both Ordinata and Absoluta Potestas are limitted by the Law of the Land For in the Ordinary he is tyed to the strict rule of Law and by the Absolute he is ruled though not by the course of law yet he is to deal per regulatam conscientiam but in any case not to contradict what Law hath allowed But to conclude his Absoluta Potestas by what means he should find out truth Truly it is without limitation only to be referred to his own Gifts and the grace of God that gives Wisdom Sir Francis Bacon succeeded Elsemere Lord Chancelour though a wonder to some so mean a Man to so much preferment he was then Atturney General and as others by that placc and in the usual way of preferment time beyond memory come to high Office of Indicature either there or to other Benches and so did he But his Mis-deeds afterwards turned him out of all and he dyed poor and private See Anno 1621. And as his Genesis of preferment came to the chair of State so the Exodus of the Treasurer Suffolk in his Office brought him to the Star-Chamber and the Glory of the new Chancelour Chair-man there to sit in censure upon him and so to set out himself in his Matchless Eloquence which he did then by Sentence as the Mouth of the Court as all others had done Their abilities affording them several waies and manners in that Court more particular as their Qualities concern them to distinguish So here also the Chief Iustice Cook newly revived from the sad condition of former disgrace for his too narrow inquisition upon the faults and fall of Somerset He now finding the Fate of Court-policy final in this Lord and his malice at Liberty to speak what he list Parrallels this Lords Crimes with other such corrupt Treasurers raking Presidents of all former Predecessors Even from Randolphus de Britton who was sentenced to lose all lands and goods but was restored to him and fined 3000. 1. for misusing K. H. 3. Treasure Such another was Treasurer of Ireland Petrus de Rivallis and of great command also high Chamberlain of England to Edw. 1. his Offences were Bribes of all men poor and rich Religiosis quam de Laicis fined and ransomed So did the Abbot and Moncks at Westminster took out of that Kings Treasury there ad inestimabile Damnum Regis Regni For which these privileged pretenders could not be exempt from Tryal and the Temporalities of the Abby seized for satisfaction till which time of payment they suffered Imprisonment Nay Walter de Langton Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield scapes not Edw. 2. This Treasurer took bribes then though small but a hundred pound of the Earl of Monteallo ut amicus in agendis negotiis versus dominum Regem lets him escape Prison to do his buâ—inesse and given of free Will and ex curialitate sua yet in those dayes it amounted to Extortion But he had Additionalls having indicted Iohn de Eugam of Tresgass for the Mannor of Fisby to which the King had title and imprisoned him and when another Mannor was conveyed to the Bishop for Courtesies done diversas curialitates Eugam was set at liberty but it seems the Bishops plea would not serve his turn That the King would rather punish by Imprisonment than fine And those good times accounted it Bribery Again the Bayliff of Oxford was committed for arrears of one hundred pound in his accompt and the Mannor of Calcat conveyed to the Bishop for satisfaction yet because he was of pure Devotion discharged by the Bishop these cases all three were condemned of Extortion and Bribery and the Bishop soundly paid for it by his purse and imprisonment In Edw. 3. He imprisoned William Lord Latimer with punishment and fine being in Commission to pay off the Kings debts he compounded for eighty per centum and 30. for 40. by which saies the Record he turned it upon the King to be a Bankrupt Compounder So did the Baron Nevil bought the Kings debts of the Army and though he pleaded that they forgave him the Remainder freely yet was he fined Such like as these were brought Examples to raise the Offence of this Lord Treasurer of himself as of high birth so most Noble and without doubt disdaining to commit base crimes but whether the guilt of Sir Iohn Dingly one of the Tellers in Exchequer an intimate Servant to the Secrecies of Suffolks Countess or some necessity to make bold to borrow such sums as his Fabrick Awdle-End had need of Or the vain and monstrous expence heretofore of that family All that could be besides the necessity of Court-Fate cast in his dish was the imbezeling the monies lately paid by the States of the Netherlands for redemption of the cautionary Towns Flushing and Bril and he fined thirty thousand pounds and Dingly two thousand pounds the
from Sea and got in for safety within the Mole Mansel having trained his men in the execution of their several Duâ—â—es and likewise appointed a Squadron of Boats with small Shot to rescue the Vessels of Execution both in the Advancement and Retreat The 21. of May the Vessels of Execution were all advanced but by reason of contrary windes were presently commanded to retire The next two nights being likewise in readiness they were becalmed and could execute nothing The fourth night with a fair Gale being advanced again and the Fire-ships almost recovered the Mouth of the Mole the winde turned to the opposite point of the Compass The Boats performed their Direction in towing the Ships but considering that by continuance of this course they should expose our principal men to hazard by the Ordnance and small Shot that played upon them they debate therefore amongst themselves what to do Captain Hughes that commanded one of the Brigandines replied Go on and give attempt by the Boats which they did crying out King Iames and fearless of danger even in the mouth of the Cannon and small Shot which showred like Hail upon them the English fired the Enemies Ships in sundry places and maintained the fight to the delight of their fellow-shipping that were lookers on so long as powder remained striving in the end who should have the honour to come off last which was left to the Captain Hughâ—s and so retired only with the loss only of 20 men and leaving the fire flaming up in 7 several places The cowardly Turks who before durâ—â— not shew themselves to these weak forces but from the Walls and tops of houses so soon as the English were retyred opened their ports and sallied out a thousand and so by help of Multitudes and a sudden shore of rain and a calm the fire was extinguished making some of their Ships unserviceable In which time of Service only one Frygat came out of the Moal which was forced back upon the Shore sunck one of their best men of War being manned with one hundred thirty Turks and twelve Christians whereof twelve onely escaped And took also a Fly-boat which the Pyrates had formerly taken from the Christians which was sold to Leghorn her merchandize to be exchanged for Pyrats goods and some money above two thousand pound Sterling The Turks manned out 3. Gallies to rescue her but were beaten by the help of the 3. Brigandines sent out to her succour Ten daies together the English attended opportunity to send in the Ships with the fire-Works to finish the former service done by the Boats but not a breath of Wind happened fitting for the Work So that in this time the Pyrates had boomed up the Moles with Masts and Raffs and set a double Guard upon all their Shipsâ— planted more Ordnance manned out twenty Boats to guarâ—â—â—he Booms and sent out Gallies and Boats for Intelligence hereof East and West-ward to all Ships abroad not to come in during the English abode which made Mansel retire with all his Ships and Merchants assisting him into the Road of Alegant where he received Order from hence over land to return home and to intrust four of the Kings ships into the hands of Captain Rogers and not long after the Plague and infection possessing his Fleet he was forced to return home without any other assistance The time come and Parliament sit in Ianuary The King enters them thus My Lords and you the Commons CUi multiloquio non de est peccatum In my last Parliament I made long Speeches to the lower House I have piped to you and you have not danced I have mourned and ye have not lamented And wills them to apply it to themselves not to spend long Speches That a Parliament is composed of a Head and a Body the Monarch and Estates first a Monarch then after a Parliament No Parliaments but in Monarchies for in Venice and Netherlands there 's none and Parliaments duties is to treat of Difficulties and to Counsel their King To make Laws for the Common-wealth and the Lower House to petition the King with knowledge of their grievances but not to meddle with the Kings Prerogative They are to supply his necessities and he in recompence distributes his Justice and mercy It is the Kings Office to make good Laws whose fundamental is the peoples ill manners and so at this time new abuses and incroaching Crafts The Religious Laws are enough consisting only of Perswasion and Compulsion and Gods blessing Priests Puritans and Sectaries errours of the right and left hand are forward enough their way Let Bishops be as bold by good examples and preaching but compulsion binds the conscience There is talk of the Match with Spain However he will never proceed but to Gods glory and Subjects content And for their supply of his Necessities tells them of their eighteen years peace and plenty and yet he hath received far less assistance than any King since the Conquest Queen Elizabeth had communibus annis above one hundred thousand pounds a year in subsidies and he had in all his time but four subsidies and six fifteens and it is ten years since he had any that he hath been sparing to trouble them or to spend himself abated in his Houshold in his Navies and Munition changed an old Admiral for a young Man whose honesty and care hath lessned that charge Tells them he is not the Cause of Dissentions in Christendom but rather sent Doncaster to appease them at the charge of three thousand five hundred pounds His son-in-Son-in-Law sent indeed for his advice and accepts the Crown three daies after which the King never approved of for three reasons 1. Religion not as the Jesuits to dispose and overthrow Kingdoms but with our Saviour to uphold 2. He was no judge and ignorant of those laws Quis te judicem fecit 3. That he treated a Peace and will not be party yet he left not to preserve his Childrens patrimony and accounts to them his Receipts for that purpose and how disposed He borrowed of his Brother of Denmark 7500.l And of his own added 2500 And sent this to his Son  And to the Princes to hearten them 30000 Total 40000l That had the Princes done their parts his handful of men had not failed and now he must be fain to perswade unless a strong hand assist and purposes to provide a strong Army next Summer and desires them to consider his necessities qui cito bis dat And shews his equity to them in course of Law never obstructing Juâ—gement by message or Sentence Wâ—shes them to consider advance of Trade and why his Mint hath stood still theâ—e nine years confesses his Royal heart liberal in Granâ—s but being informed he will amend any grievance but yet he tells them that who ever hastens after grievances and neglects all other business of greater moment hath the Spirit of Saâ—an for himself will reform any errour and desires
aids Navaâ— Spain interessed Asâ—iâ—ts France with more money 101560 071165 020000 033333. 226058. Crowns And the Dutch 125000. 260000. 385000. Florins See after She raises her Custom-Farm She ballancâ—â—h her neighbour interests The Assembly petition the King His Answer and advice to suppress â—eâ—dâ— Huntley and Murray quarrel Another of the Kers Witches accuse Bothwel who is committed to Prison and escapes Archbish. of St. Andrews dieâ— and abused by the Ministery Secretary Walsingham dies his Character And so does Randolph 18. times Embassadour abroad And the â— of Shrewsburyâ—dies An Epitaph Irish Rebells Essex expedition into France with 4000. Hackets horrible Tenents and Treasons Mad-headed Hypocrites Anno 1591. His disciples apprehended his blaspemy and execution puny Jesuits Their Seminaries Confirmed by the Pope Botâ—wels Treason to seize the King and Court The manner theâ—eof Fire the Qâ— lodgingâ— and 〈◊〉 Huntley and Murray fall into the mischief The Sheriff killed Anno 1592. Murray miserably slain The cause of Murrays death put upon others Murry lamented Huntley is at Liberty Uchiltry abused The Chuâ—ch interfeers the State Affairs And Articles agreed Bothwells other attempts at Faulkland is defeated and flies to England Lindsey Lord Spinie is susspected and becomes a companion of Bothwells A love trick of a Woman Faction against the Chancellour Clanhattons against Huntly Angus committed Ker his Comâ—mission to Spain Plots of Papists The French King relieved by Q. Eliz. Turns Papist Duke of Parma dies The Queens message by L. Burroughs The Kings Answer the Ambassadours reply Anno 1593. Church Assembly Munday Market to be altered Bothwel seises the King at Holy rood-house And enforces Articles The King complains of Bothwels insolencies The Lords râ—sent it and send to him Denounced Rebell Proceedings against Popish Lords by the Ministers The King displeased with the Assembly Their farther proceedings in Tumult Commissioners to try the Popish Lords and conclude these Articles Maxwells and Johnstons fewds The Kinds sad condition Popish Lords come not in Pr. Henry born in Feb. Lord Zowch Ambassadour from England and Ministers assist Bothwels attempt and so do Arguile and Arrol Anno 1594. The King pleads to the people after Sermon for assistance Bothwel dissipated Colvil Ambassadour to England complains of Zowch The Queens â—nswer Papists banished Remonstrance of the Assembly against Papists And the Remedies The Solemnities of the Princes Baptism named Henry Fredâ—rick At the Chaple The King sends to England for money Bothwel and the Popish Lords join in Rebellion Arguile and Athol against Huntley and Arrol Arguile discomfited The K. comes to the Good-speed they are banished Bothwel flies into France and dies at Naples some years after Assemblie of the Church in Scotland Answer the K. Articles Anno 1595. Q. Anns Design to seize the Prince The Kings letter to Mar. The Chancelor sick and why The Kings letter to him full of grace Chancellour dies his character The King assigns Commissioners of his Treasury Papists private plots Devising sundry other Titles to both Crowns of E. of Essex Of Spains Pâ—actice to impoyson Q. Eliz. by Loper Cullen York and Willians and other fugitive trayâ—ors Ant Perez infected Essex Spanish deâ—ignes invasion of Scotland or England Spaniards pooâ— successe upon England Sr. W. Raleghs Guiana voyage and other attempts in the weâ—â— Indies Anno 1596. Armstrong taken prisoner in a treaty of the Borderers Backlugh complains to the Lo. Scroop Backlughs designe to take the Castle of Carlile And frees Armstrong Bows the Ambassador complains hereof the Qâ—een offended Backlugh commiâ—â—ed â—â—bellion in the Orcades Assemblies make things worse Policie to call home the Popish Lords Mr. Bruce an enemy to Huntley The Popish Lords return home upon Conditions Princess Elizabeth born August 16. 1596. Ministers make work The Counâ—il of the Church and the Kings Councel confer The King is offended with them Their complaints Which the K. answers The Minister Blake his muteny and story Blakes râ—monstance Blake brought to his Answer The Ministsters factious courses The King by proclamation dissolves their Assembly The Ministers Counterappose the King The Commissioners of the Church petition the K. Is rejected Articles against Blake His answer The King treats witâ— them Both partâ—eâ— bandie A Dangerous tumult The King and Council retire from danger Proclaim Mad preaching Their letter to Lord Hamelton to be Their head Hamelton comes to the King proceedings against those disorders Citizens brought to submit Is rejected And humbly propose Queen Elizabeths letter to the King The Kingâ— mercâ— The Octavians yield up their office The Northern Ministers are Courted Their answer The King writes to Huntley Twelve Articles from the King to the Assembly Submitted unto in effect And all ends in content Bishop 〈◊〉 death and â—haracter The Netherlands called to account 400001 per annum in ten years 4000001 dept Irisâ—â— rebells increasing Norris goes over assistant Callis taken by the Spaniard the English Navy Publick form of prayer for success of the Navy Take Cadiz Called Cales voyage Digression how farr foreign titles preceed at home In England At Rome Genoa Venice and Scots The Popish Lords submit to the Church Proclamation against Gaurdon a Jesuite Barcklayes de sign discovered he drownes himself Blake the Minister 〈◊〉 out of all Excellent reformation in the Vniversity Witches discovered Margaret Atkin 〈◊〉 Digresses concerning witches and witchcraft Maintainers Several Authors in this subject Expedition of Earl of Essex to the Isles of Azores Essex and Ralagh differ Come home and quarel at Court A Parliament at Edenburgh Ministers voice in Parliament Bruce refuseth imposition of hands but at last is so admitted The King sends Ambassadors to the German Princes Their Answer France craves aid of England against Spain and comes to a Treaty France and Spain dispute precedency and make peace Disputes of peace or war with England Queen Elizabeth strikes Essex His angry letters 〈…〉 King of 〈◊〉 dies One Squire impoysons the Queens saddle Tomas falsâ—accusation of K. James to Q. Elizabeth K. James his prudence to suppress false rumours Ashfield surprized Prisoner to Barwick Colvil Recants his treatise against the Kings title The Kings Basilicon doron the occasion of it in publick The new year altered from 25. of March to 18. Ianuary The state of Bishopricks at that time Irish Rebellion with Tirone Essex and Caecils Intelligence with King Iames. Caecil Essex Gowries conspiracie See anno 1608. Court and châ— of King James paâ— 8 Hist Gr Br Pa 12. Vide ante 1568. et 1582. Earl Gowry retires home The manner of the conspiracie 4. of August Hendersons Examination and confession Alexander treats with the King The King takes to Henderson Alexander 〈◊〉 with the King The King cries Treason John Ramsey comes up and Sir Thomas Erskin follows Ramsey wounds Alexander Henderson slips away Earl Gowry comes up to the fray Gowry astonished is killed by Ramsey Others hurt The Lords and company come in Gowries Spels of Enchantment Two other brothers William and Patrick beyond
whose former fewds had made but suspitious and so he wearied with doing evil returns into France to settle their Solemn League He gone Henry the eight sends home the Queen and Angus and having this while composed his French Quarrels with a Defensitive Amity against all Tourney rendred to the French and Overtures of a Match between the Dolphin and Henries Sister and not a word for the poor Scots that had lost their King in the French Dispute only interceding for a Cessation of Arms with the English and so accepted for Henries conveniency of Princely Interview with Louis The while supporting Angus and his Faction their own Civil Dissentions sufficient to busie themselves and to keep matters in much disorder the policy of England and France both to weaken the Scots power for eithers prey which being suspected by Albany now in France and the violent Fewds beginning fresh at home after five years absence he gets loose of the English Ships that lay wait in his way and Lands in Scotland The Governour come he sets things strait again which by his absence were made awry forces Angus into France many suffer besides others more factious fly into England and pretend the Dukes sudden return was to ingage that Nation against Henry who in rage sends to the Governour to be gone to his French Friends or to expect blowes and was answered as peremptorily That in case of War he knew better to defend than the other to fight King Henry in fury sets fines on some Scots here and after banishes all and presently pursues with invasions upon their Nation by Sea and Land And over to England comes the Emperour instigating the King to fall out with France the like Empirick Balm the French apply to cure the wounds of the Scots Commonwealth which prevailed so far that both Armies meet but the Scots would not fight the English fire all before them and the Governour not affected with the Scots falshood returns back to France for ever Angus gets home again countenanced by Henry assumes the person of the King now thirteen years old concludes a lasting Peace with England and proposes a Marriage between the young King and the Princess Mary which Henry in heart desired untill he heard of the French King Prisoner at Pavia by the Emperour so the match was put off upon pretence for the Emperours consent her neerest Kinsman The Queen displeased with her Husbands Supremacy over her Self and Son and both agreed to dislike each others Bed for it was fatal to her as to her Brother Henry to love change in And forthwith followed Divisions of Religion in Scotland also with Disputes and Arguments for Toleration excellently urged in â—avour of the Reformed but the Catholique Clergy prevailed and the Inquisition erected to force the other with Fire and Fagot The first that suffered in suspition of those attempts were the Hameltons of Kin to the Crown which wrought factions to such height as that King Henry takes heart begins by Incursions where the English were soundly beaten And then in Revenge Howard stiled the Old Earl of Norfolk is sent with formidable Forces 40000. to 30000. if the sums are not mistaken either party so numerous as to eat up all and starve themselves But upon some distrust of success the Earl retreats The Scots pursue this advantage And the next Spring mutiny among themselves and at Salloway Moss the English gave them a mighty defeat which so astonished King Iames that with wondrous regret he forced death over hastily to seize him at the instant when his Queen was delivered of a Daughter the only issue remaining to succeed him in his Throne And with he begins our History The Life and Death of his Daughter Mary Queen of Scotland taking up the Remain of Henry the eighth who lived not long after leaving his three children succeeding Sovereigns yet thought him not worthy memory by any Monument Edward the sixth whose short raign and youth supported by a wise Council held up what was left him by Succession Untill the Soveraignty fell to his Sister with alteration of all and hazard of all she being imbarqued in body and business to a Strangers Supremacy but not lasting long time Was left to a Virgin to recover desperate dangers Ecclesiashick and Civil with various Designs Impressions and Operations upon her Neighbour States imbroyled with her jealousies to infamy of destruction in the blood of Q. Mary of Scotland her neerest kinswoman and pretended Competitor in the Crown untill at last in Gods due time the Sovereignty fell to a Foreiner King Iames with re-union of the antient Title of Britain Elizabeth indeed succeeded in the Inheritance begotten by H. 8. upon Ann Bullen after his divorce from Katharine his Brothers widow by whom he had Q. Mary and that mariage dispensed with by the Pope Hence did arise a question Whether the Divorce was legal or Elizabeth legitimate when Adam was created Eve was taken out of him and made Woman a fit Instrument for prolification and Society And both married in Paradice God the Father being the Priest and the Angels Witnesses for which cause A man shall leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife They begat Sons and Daughters which were Brothers and Sisters and married one the other without contradiction untill the Flood nay after the Flood untill Moses writ And these Marriages were not against the Moral Law written in their hearts which being much obliterated in the faculties of the Soul by reason of Adams transgression when Moses writ the Law of Nature or Law of Reason it was therefore twice written in Tables of Stone that by reading those Precepts which were much defaced within man might repair in some measure those Laws almost blotted out by sin And so by reading get them into his Understanding Will and Memory Mans Knowledge comming most naturally by Sense Moses did not onely write this Morall Law in Stone but gave many positive Laws for the Pedagogie of the Iews untill Christ as the Ceremonial and Iudicial The Iudicial Lawes amongst other things did forbid Marriages in cases of blood and affinity and these continued until Christs time and no longer unless there were a Moral Equity in them which Morality is onely inter Ascendentes descendentes where there is a kind of Paternity and Fiâ—â—ation for Filius non portabit iniquitatem Patris and for that sin Iacob cursed Reuben for ascending his Fathers bed This ground being truly laid it was conceived there is no Law of God in force but that which is between Ascendents and Descendents It is true every Church hath made Laws to bind people in their Churches but it was insisted upon only in this That the Moral Law doth not forbid and the Ceremonial and Iudicial Laws are now abrogated In Sir Giles Allingtons case not long since who married his Sisters Daughter there was a sin against the Moral Law and so they were divorced But it was said in that case that
some time resented with tears threatning revenge which to avoid they fly to England where Ruthen dies The Noise hereof in the Town caused the Provost to ring the Common Bell or sonner le Tocsen as the French speak assembling 500. and come up to the Court but the King told them all was well The King to strengthen himself after this Action inclined to the Religion and subscribed to a Proclamation that all Bishops Abbats and other Papists should avoid the Town which they did and commands the Provost and those of Lieth and Conogate to be in arms with advice also to other Lords to hasten to him with force And now comes Murray and other banished Lords being sent for as the Covenant against Rizio was subscribed convoyed by Hume with 1000. horse The Earls Cathness Athole Sutherland with all the Bishops being departed the Town In comes the other new faction of Lords and in Council advise the Queen to be satisfied with Rizio's death and take it as good service the Queen dissembling her passion got the remove of all the men in Arms out of the Court and so with some domestiques in the night drew the easy King to fly with her to Dunbar sending for all the Lords to attend in five daies The Religion by these factions ever-more get advantage which otherwise this Parliament now sitting might have lessned being most Papists for a dozen wooden Altars were prepared to be set up in St. Giles Church The Queen now assisted with Bothwell Huntley and others with Proclamation before them march with a thousand back to Edenburgh from whence the united Lords but divided in opinions depart and disperse and Knox we easily believe was not left behind And much troubled were he and his that the King by his Proclamation now excused himself from the Murther of Rizio who offended all men their own words the fact being done for his Honour if he had wisdome to see it and so lost his Credit and Friends by his Inconstancy and trâ—ly it was rumoured and some writ so that Knox had a hand in it Divers Lords were put to the Horn their Lands escheated and many of them executed but Arguile and Murray received into favour and both factions somewhat pieced and reconciled The King and his Father neglected and Bothwell preferred very highly The Ministers Supplicate for their Stipends complaining very humbly not usual of the Officers and Collectors and for redress desire Mandatory Letters for Restitution and to stop it in the Queens Exchequer till farther Order In all she promised very gratious relief The 19. of Iune 1566. the Queen at Edenburgh was delivered of a Son with exceeding joy and great happiness to all the Kingdome and the several assemblies followed assisted by Murray and Arguile wherein Paul Messans formerly excommunicate about his Bastard as aforesaid and now returned out of England was to be received into the Church again Knox invited him home and presuming of his free pardon and forgiveness sent his Apostolique Letters to accompany him to the Assembly and tells them in the words of St. Paul concerning the excommunicate incestuous person It is sufficient that he was rebuked of many c. For this cause I write that I might know your obedience in all things and to whom you forgive I forgive also c. But notwithstanding this Apostolick Command his Repentance is prescribed much like a Penance Presenting himself in Sackcloth bare of Bonnet and bare of Shoon for an hour at the Entry of Saint Giles Church in Edenburgh at seven hours in the Morn till Prayers psalm and Text and then upon the Stool all Sermon and so for three several Church-daies and confesses his Repentance And in this manner also in Iedwart and Dundee which after all performed and received a Repentant He complaining of this rigour and shame without taking leave of any retires back again into England The Bishop of Galloway the Earl of Huntleys Brother being called to Council could not brook his former title of Super-Intendent as he was stiled and thereof formerly well pleased but must be called Bishop of Galloway In August one Harris that had been of the Queens Chapel but lately of the reformed Religion and got into E. Ruthens service having acted in the Murther of Rizio was thereof convict hanged and quartered The King condemned of all and neglected of the Queen wrote to the Pope and to Spain complaining of the Queens ill Government of the Catholiques which she intercepted and resented to his ruin For Bothwel to bring on his Design aimed to be Principal and to effect his Greatness thought good to procure Morton to be called home but not to Court where he might look on and not be seen free from fear and danger and though a Kins-man to the King yet his Power was lessened to nothing Most writers complain of these times and some of them like Noahs blessed Sons overspread with the Mantle of silence the nakedness of these unnatural actions of such as we ought to ow duty and piety unto pittying the Errors of Princes Their excellent endowments of Nature and Morality not to be exampled and yet Shipwrackt in mis-governing I cannot search into all the Causes which drew on these lamentable events Secret Lothings in Wedlock which who knows but the Actors dislike hatred freedom revenge seconded with false shews of Reason and Colour of Law and Justice what will it not do Her Husband had dragged Rizio from her affection and favour to death He was not crowned but made publique by Her Proclamation not acknowledged by Parliament and in law but a Private Man and her Subject and so lyable to judgment But his powerful kindred and Friends prevent that attempt Secret Justice is Justice formalities are for common Causes and the Princes power may dispence with forms in case of necessity or convenience and so he became an object of wicked mens malice And now had Knox procured though heretofore he cunningly refused as fearing prevention or false play when now not overlooked he to his purpose got the Churches of Geneva Bern and Basil with others reformed in Germany and France to send to the Kirk of Scotland the sum of their several Confessions of faith he alleging the dissonant opinions of Scotland which occasioned an Assembly of Knox and his Confidents who having a confused irregulation without any positive Articles concluded as the most cunning way to assent to all without exceptions and so returned answer as if in Spirit to jump in faith and discipline who never could agree amongst themselves in either At this time the Kirks saies so Bothwell was wounded in chace of the Theeves at Liddisdale whom the Queen visited and thereof in grief took sickness in extremity but say they by binding Cords about her shacle bones knees and great Toes a pretty cure for our Mountebanks It seems an od fit of the Mother she revived prayed in English and commends the
hands of the Earls of Huntley and Arguile and sent to Q. Eliz. as an undeniable Truth dated Decem. 1567. which I have seen Hereupon the Confederates to acquit Bothwell of the Murder consent to the general apprehending all such as were suspected and Bothwel in particular accused by the Earl of Lenox the late Kings Father his Case is pleaded by Morton and he cleered by Sentence of the Judges And now Bothwell fitted with honour to a capacity of Mariage the Confederates gaining many Lords to their design set their hands to an Instrument for that purpose and altogether implore the Queen to mary Bothwell which being done and their turns served Then they increase a violent suspition and vent it abroad of the Queens guilt and consent with Bothwell and so conspire her deposing and his distruction Murray most suspected for the great Villany which followed intreats for leave to travel into France as weary of these Disquiets and to colour his knavery commits his whole Estate in trust to the Queen and Bothwell No sooner gone but all the Confederates take Arms publishing That Bothwell now Duke of Orkney intended to surprize the Prince and captivate the Queen who get forces and proclame them Rebels and march to Seaton and thereabout The Armies face each other of equal strength The French Embassadour mediates for Peace but to no purpose and so retires into Edenburgh The Lords to add Justice to their Cause which seemed horâ—id against their Comfortless and distressed Queen satisfie the people that were racked into fears and jealousies how to distinguish these distempers in State They caused therefore their Ensigns with this device The late King wounded and dead the Prince James kneeling by his hands heaved up towards Heaven with part of the Psalm Iudge and revenge my Cause O Lord. Then out comes Bothwel and to avoid the blood of many offers his own in combate against any Iames Murray the younger Brother accepts the Challenge but he is refused as not equal in honour The elder Brother William Laird of Tyllyburn and then Lord Lindsey desired the Combate To whom Morton sends the warlike Sword of Earl Archibald commonly called Bell the Cat and a Buckler with these he presents himself between the Armies and Bothwel there before But the Queen forbad them In fine the Lords increasing numbers being neer home Edenburgh and the Hamiltons failing the Queens forces Bothwel takes time to fly being under-hand advised by Morton his pretended back-friend which he did least if taken Prisoner he might be to unravel all these Treacheries And now absent it would increase belief of his and the Queens guilt in the late Murther of the King He gone and â—he worsted in fight and without any defence renders her self into Edenburgh Castle for thatnight and the next day she is carried Prisoner to a Castle in the Isle of Lochlevin under the strickt custody of Murrays Mother the Harlot of Iames 5. insulting over the poor imprisoned boasting her self the lawful Wife of Iames 5. and her Son to be his lawful Off-spring Bothâ—ell under hand sends to Balfore Governor of the Castle for a Silver Cabinet of the Q. which was delivered to the Messenger but discovered to the Lords who surprized it and so the secret Letters opened all their actions In this hurray of affairs the Ministers never idle break down the Abbies and all the figures of painting and sculpture in the rich Chapel of Holy-rood At last comes the Hamiltons with forces in sight of Edenburgh to recover all assisted with Arguile the Earls of Huntley Caithness Rothess Crawford and 15. Lords besides others of Geâ—try The other Lords move the general Assembly of Miniâ—ters now as alwaies in uprores convened in Iune to write to the Enemy And besides those Letters who more busie to accompany them and go on the Errand but the Ministery that meanâ— nothing less than peace Knox Dowglas Roe and Crage making such demands for themselves and more maintenance for the Ministery That the Cure would be far worser than the Disease These Peace-making Ambassadors but more military minded return with their message bad enough to be bid welcom which they also heighten for their own purpose and join altogether in 8. Articles That the former Parliament 24. of August 1560. and all the Acts for Religion should be made good and defended as lawful That the thirds of Tyths and larger proportion of Benefices for the Ministers For reception of youths into Schools and Universities by probate to be reformed Crimes against God to be punished The Murther of the King to be prosecuted The Prince protected The Covenant promoted Popery suppressed by arms if need were That all successive Kings and Princes at Coronation to be sworn to the Religion Queen Elizabeth detesting these unbridled insolencies of Subjects whom she termed Perfidious Ingrateful Cruel Rebels sends Sir Nicholas Throgmorton to expostulate with the Confederates to restore the Queen from imprisonment and preserve the Prince into England They all assemble Rebels seldom consent in unanimity but resolve Not to admit Ambassadours of England nor Le Croc. and Ville du Roy out of France to see the Queen Lethington the cunning Secretary and his faction advise for her restoring he Murther of the King to be answered the Prince provided for Bothwel divorced and Religion published Others would banish her perpetually into England or France and those Princes to undertake her Renunciation of Regency to her Son and certain Lords Others are for her Tryal Condemnation and perpetual custody and to set up her Son The last and most villains would have her deprived of Princely Authority life and all and this Knoâ— and other Ministeâ—s thundered out in Pulpits Throgmorton disputes her Cause alleging what the Word of God and all National Lawes do decree concerning the sacred power of Soveraigns and earthly duty of Subjects They reply with Buchanans damnable doctrine de Iuâ—e regni apud Scotâ—s Murray and he Contrivers of that Tractate contrary to the whole Histories of Scotland to create and depose their Princes They excuse their non-admission of the English Ambassadours address to Her with the denying of the French who seemed to be satisfied And in conclusion frame a Declaration in writing without subscription of any which they exhibite to Throgmorton in answer of all In effect To no other intent they shut her up but to sequester her from Bothwels person whom they pretend she dotes upon to their râ—in and so whilst she cools towards him her anger may abate from them with which result and no more he takes leave and returns home to England They work upon her restraint and miserable Imprisonment first in fair way to resign her Regency and to incline her they loosen her to a little freedom the better to shew her the means to escape away but increasing threats if she refuse to arraign her for Incontinency Murther and Tyranny At last they compel
had a father whose blood calls for revenge you shall die minting to the K. heart with the dagger The King amazed deals gently with his fury excuses himself from the guilt of his death by his then Infancie advising him not to lay violent hands on the sacred person of his Annoynted Soveraign especially in a cause of his innocencie pleading the lawes of God and Man and his merits by restoring your brother in blood and honors by breeding your Sister the neerest in the Queens affection and by his reception of his Bedchamber withall promising pardon of all that is past And which wrought so much upon Alexander for the present that he leaves the King in custody of Henderson until he returns from his brother having taken oath of the King not to stir nor cry out and so locks them in Alexander gone Henderson trembles with reverence of his Soveraign and craves pardon the King works upon his passion and asks him what he was who answered a servant of the Earls and wilt thou kill me he replyed with an oath himself would sooner die Presently Alexander enters with a Garter in his hand and saies Sir there is no remedy by God you must dye and strives to bind him Nay saies the King I was born free and will not be bound and struggling together Alexander got the Kings head under his arm and his hand upon his mouth which the King bit by the thumb and dragging him to the window bade Henderson open it The King cried out into a back Court where the Duke the Earl of Mar and others were in pursute of him who was rumoured to be gone out the back way into the Park At the cry of Treason and known to be the King they hastened to the Chamber where he dined but no entrance was found The while Iohn Ramsey formerly the Kings Page and now Groom of the Bed-chamber with Sir Thomas Erskin also sought counter to get up by the Turn-Pike back-stairs directed thither by a Boy of the House who saw Alexander ascend that way and forcing one Door findes them panting Ramsey casts off his Hawk from his fist draws out his Fauchion and wounds him deadly in the belly being bid to strike low for the King found him armed with a Male. And the instant comes in Sir Thomas Erskin Doctor Herres and one Wilson and by them was the body dispatcht whilest Henderson slipt away When they soon suspected by the noise of unlocking Doors that Gowry himself might assail them advising the King to withdraw into the Lobby they cast the Kings Coat upon the dead body The Earl enters by his double Keys with seven servants the fore-way and his Case of Rapiers his usual Weapon ready drawn to whom Erskin earnestly said to divert him from his purpose What do you mean my Lord The King is killed and points to his brothers covered body bleeding on the ground At which Gowry stops sinking the points of his weapons when suddenly Herres assails him with his rusty sword Ramsey steps in and strikes him to the heart not so soon but that the Earl thrust him into the thigh assisted by Cranston who hurt Erskin and Herres in the hand and they him through his body who lived onely long enough to be hanged and quartered And forthwith came up all the Lords the Court and Townsmen After thanks to God for this mercy they surveyed Gowries body which did not bleed untill a Parchment was taken out of his bosom with Characters and these Letters which put together made TETRAGRAMMATON having been told His Bloud should not spill whilest he had that Spell Being thus deceived by the Devil he thought he should not die untill he had power and rule which he had of the King and so suffered by the Sword There remained in Scotland one younger son two other brothers being fled of that House then a childe and was from that time imprisoned by Act of Parliament and so continued afterwards in the Tower of London untill this Kings death and the grace of the late King Charls restored him to liberty with a small Pension which kept him like a Gentleman to these times but now failing he walks the streets poor but well experienced in Chymical Physick and in other parts of Learning which he got whilest he lost his liberty Not long after Herres well rewarded dies Ramsey hath the honour of Knighthood with additional bearing of his Coat of Arms A Hand holding forth a Dagger mounted proper peircing a bloudy Heart the point crowned Emperial with this Motto Haec dextra vindex Principis Patriae Not without increase of Wealth and Honour to his Death Sir Thomas Erskin afterwards created Earl of Kelly and by degrees Knight of the Gartâ—r Captain of the Kings Guard and Groom of the Stool Henderson had a large Pension confirmed by Act of Parliament and died not long since The Commemoration hereof was advisedly seâ—tled by Act of Parliament the Anniversary Feast-day of the fifth of August solemnized to Gods glory during this Kings life and Narratives in print in Scotland and England of all these circumstances which I have to produce as also several Examinations taken at Fawkland this year viz. Iames Weyms of Bogye William Rynde and Andrew Henderson the very man assigned to murder the King whose Examination onely I thought good to insert Fawkland 20th August 1600. In presence of the Lord Chancellour Lord Treasurer Advocate Controuler Sir George Hewme and Sir Iames Methold viz. That the Earl Gowry at St. Iohnstons appointed this Deponent Henderson over night to ride with his Brothers Alexander and Andrew Ruthen to Falkland the next morn who came all together thither at seven of the clock Alexander presently spake with the King in private as he gat on hors-back and instantly commanded this Deponent to ride with all possible speed to the Earl whom he found at St. Iohnstons in his chamber at ten of the clock and told him that the King would be there by noon The Earl presently with-draws into his Cabinet demands How his Majesty took with his Brother This Deponent said Very well for the King clipt him about the shoulder The Earl asked if there were many with the King and what special persons He answered The usual number and the Duke of Lenox And that within an hour after the Earl commanded this Deponent to put on his secret plate-sleeves saying He had an High-land man to take That about one a clock the Earl being at Dinner Andrew Ruthen came from Alexander and whispered to the Earl and presently after came Alexander and William Bloir and took the Earl from his Dinner and sent for his Gantlet and Steel-Bonnet and then the King came in That Alexander bids this Deponent fetch the Keys of the chambers from William Reynd and so both went up the stairs but afterwards Thomas Cranston required this Deponent to come to the
upon two foundations one must fail and distract the other therefore the more certain To surprize the Queen the rest would follow The manner thus Certain select persons well known at Court for access should distribute themselves into the Present Guard-Chamber Hall and utter Court and Gate And in each of these places one principal person to guide the assistants Their distribution Sir Iohn Davers to the Presence and Guard-Chamber to seize the Halberds of the Guard Davis to the Hall Blunt to the Gate These in readiness by a signall Essex should remove from his house and well attended or to meet him should with correspondence of the setters and some tumult and confusion effect their design Thus the plot-form the second act to their Tragedy that Essex should prostrate him self at the Queens feet desire removall of evil Counselors who possessed her Majesty and State Then to summon a Parliament alter Government and confirm conditions to themselves In this consult Essex inclined most for possessing London as a surer ground to that of the Court also Being wedded to his false overweening opinion of the people and Citizens and their number Suspecting belike the instinct loyalty of many of his Train when the fury should be over and he perhaps left in the lurch with the fewest of his friends The true Nature of usurping Rebells to â—rust more to the main of Multitude than of qualitie especially Essex who had gotten I know not how nor by what merit the specious Mark of a Patriot proper to infuse and mint jealousies into the heads of the more unworthy and less prudent and these he could easily stirr up by Emissaries who lye at watch to bo utefeux it and inflame mens minds to disperse abroad unshrowded sparks of discord and that way to convert a Kingdom into a flame But this Counsel was afterwards refined by Essex Cuffe and Blunt To assemble a Troop to come sodainly from the Mews in scattered Numbers and unite in a moment at the Court Gate And as good Common-wealths men lest their new contrivements should want Ministers they would supply in a readiness of their own for Counselors and Servants to the Queen in place of such evil ones the beaten path of Traytors as they thought fit to remove which should be their plausible pretext to their own practices and a general ground to the common people The day drawing nigh but not assigned being left to my Lord the Curse of the Psalmist interposed like the untimely fruit of the woman brought forth before it came to perfection For many that knew of the plot diligent with too much resort at Essex house brought forth mutterings of somewhat which states soon discover The afternoon 7. February before the next day of Rebellion was sent to Essex house Secretary Herbert to summon him before the Council sitting at Salisbury Court at the Lord Treasurer Buckhursts which he excused not to do under colour of being ill And suspecting the discovery of his Trains and doubting delays resolved upon his enterprize the next day Sunday But then upon advertizement of doubling the Court Guards and allarum there he determined on his former conceipt of being the peoples darling and the Minion of London upon confidence of Sir Thomas Smith the City Sheriff Giving out that Evening that he was sent for to Counsel to be betrayde by an Ambuscado of Musketeers upon the water by the devise of the Lord Cobham and Sir Walter Ralegh to murther him by the way This mean design the best he had took fire like a squib the Messages and warning to his chief confidents all that night and next morning And his servant Temple took up his Tale and told it to the City And to colour it the more watch and ward was up all night to open his gates to all comers in so that the morning hastens Mannors Earl of Rutland Southampton Lord Sands Sir Henry Parker called Lord Mounteagle with some Number of Knights and Gentlemen and being Sunday it gave occasion to others to come to his Sermon whom he carressed with his Cap in his hand telling them his former tale But to his more confidents That he was sure of the City and that strength which the Queen could not oppose nor his Enemies withstand his revenge Alwaies with this caution to his Gate-Keepers to suffer none to return out to tel News Sunday at 10. a clock the Queen had intelligence and yet was willing to cast water on this fire ere it should flame to a Rebellion her authority before her force she sent the Lord Keeper Earl of Worcester the Controuler of hir Houshold the Lord chief Justice who finding the Gates shut after some stay were let in by the wicket but all their servants kept out except the bearer of the Seal the Court full of Company with Essex and his Lords to whom the Lord Keeper said That the Queen sent them to understand the reason of their Assembly that if they had cause of griefs against any persons whatsoever they should have hearing and justice Essex told them aloud That his life was sought to be murthered in his bed and had been perfidiously dealt withall The Chief Justice answered If any such matter were attempted or intended it were fit for him to declare it and to be assured of their faithfull relation and so He should not fail of her Majesties Princely Indifferency and Iustice. Southampton objected the assault upon him by the Lord Gray to which the Chief Justice said that justice had been done and the party in prison The Keeper required Essex to impart his griefs if not openly yet privately and promised satisfaction Upon this arose a high clamour of the multitude Away my Lord they abuse you they destroy you they undoe you you lose time The Lord Keeper putting on his hat commanded them all upon their Allegiance to lay down their weapons and depart When Essex and all the rest clapt on their Caps and going into the House the Lords followed him as to have private conference and fearing the Multitude who â—ryed out kill them shop them up keep them pledges â—â—st the great seal out at window And accordingly he gave them in custody principally to Sir Iohn Davis and one Owen Salisbury a seditious notorious robber guarding them with Muskets fired and cockt and left the charge of his house to Sir Gilly Merrick bidding the Lord Keeper to have patience whilst he would take order with the Maior and Sheriffs for the City and be with them again within an hour So goes forth with his Number 200. men entered Ludgate and with a fearfull timorous discomposed tale repeated That he should have been murthered and so passing through Cheap-side unto Sir Thomas Smiths house in Philpot-lane who was at Church where he shifts into a dry shirt the passion of fear firing him into a hot sweat The people flocking and gazing as he went To whom
And so it was in his Mothers time and without consent of Parliament else it would seem a League of the People And in his time when it came to be Ratifyed least it should appear In odium Tertii it was by Him left out in respect of his Title to England 3. Who is so ignorant as can not see the profit and commodity to England by this Union is there not Gain by Wales is not Scotland greater Lands Seas and Persons added to Greatness certainly Two made One makes them Greater and Stronger He desires Union for the Empire of England and for their security to condescend to reasonable Restrictions And he will never say what he will not promise nor promise what he will not swear nor swear what he will not perform And so dismisses them But although the Parliament could not be drawn to it presently yet not long after it wrought upon the Judges of this Kingdom that the chief Justice Coke confirmed the Post-Nati in Calvins Case and Title And adjudged for him also by that reverend States-man Chancelor Elsmere and all the Iudges likewise in the Exchequer Chamber whose opinions do much confound our Adversary bewailing the Cause That of such stuffe Judges are made who can modell their Presidents to any shape And yet all that this Session could be drawn to do was to repeal the Laws of Hostility between both Nations and so confirmed in Scotland from the fourth of Henry 5. of England and from 1 Iames 1. of Scotland Some excellent Acts were concluded this Session which I refer to the statutes in print But because the Judges in that time are complained of as too partiall for the Kings commands Let me aeternize the memory of Judge Nichols of the common pleas His Predecessor in his Circuite Assize for the County of Northampton had reprieved a Felon indicted before him and found guilty by the Jury and condemned but reprieved by him upon some observation of the weakness of the Evidence This Iudge dying Nichols appointed for that Circuite continues the Prisoners reprieve And the complaint came to the King who urgeth the Judg by letters for Execution which yet he refused His just excuse was That if his Predecessor who heard the Evidence thought good in Iustice to grant his reprieve It became not his Conscience now to condemn him seeing he never heard the Evidence at all And that it was part of his Oath to do right notwithstanding the Kings letters 18. Edward 3. This man therefore the King owned to be a wise learned and just Judge for though he might perhaps have given just Iudgment it could not be true Iustice. Licet aequum statuerit hand aequum fuerit Heretofore Proclamations had been by Queen Elizabeth and King Iames against the excessive repair of persons of quality out of the Country to London by neglecting their duties at home in their respective service to the Common weal the decay of Hospitable Neighborhood and relief of the poor Besides the more room made for them crowded the Mechanick and Trades-men into narrow habitations and dear rents pestering most houses with Inmates Infections and sickness the Country Towns and Burroughs unpeopled trade decayed But these commands not obeyed The wisdom of State was assured that the cause taken away the effects would follow The restraint of New-buildings might necessitate the Gentry to keep to the Country for want of lodgings at easie rates in London And such as should be were prescribed heretofore a form of Brick upright to save Timber so much wanting and to beautifie the streets incroached upon with bay windows and eaves hanging over that even joyned with the opposite Neighbour upon old or new foundations a Custome of freedom in after times of loose liberty which destroys the beauty of buildings And now necessity enforcing a farther Obedience this proclamation hath these Limitations No new buildings in London or two miles about but upon old foundations And such as have been erected within five years last past contrary to former Proclamations which were to be pulled down shall nevertheless be disposed by Officers appointed for tenements to the poor or for their benefit and hereafter offending to be pull'd down No House to be divided hereafter into several Tenements nor any Inmates received to make another family These prohibitions were referred to the Aldermen and Iustices of Peace and this was in October 1607. When the plague ceased and the fresh gang of the Countrey came huddling to keep Christmass at London Our Caluminator that swells his Book with malitious observations and false quotations refers this to 7. Iac. 1609. and belyes the restriction to be pulled down though says he not taken notice of in seven years after for this Proclamation commands the Aldermen and Iustices in their diligent view perambulation and inquiry to certifie the Kings Council every Term or their neglect to be censured punished and removed from the Peace as unworthy Whereby says he many not heeding the Proclamation laid out their whole Estates upon little Hovels and building fair houses upon new foundations must either purchase them anew or pull them down and both to their ruine Name me one that was repurchased Indeed such as offended in this last were to be fined or pulled down And truly the commands were so necessary so wholesome so beautifull and so exemplarily publick that very few offended and such as did deserved due punishment yet this is scored upon the King as a Crime in State which he foresaw would come to pass as now in these days we finde the effects to be pitied the very ruine of this City and Suburbs The Lord Treasurer Dorset died suddenly at the Council-table his Disease an Apoplexy which gave way to Cecil Earl of Salisbury to succeed him Treasurer this Dorset was Thomas Sackvile Son and Heir of Sir Richard Sackvile of Buckhurst who came from the Temple a Barrester and was created Baron Buckhurst by Queen Elizabeth and by King Iames Earl of Dorset 1605. and Knight of the Garter About this time a further discovery was made in Scotland concerning the truth of Gowry's Treason by Attainder of another of the Conspiratours The Treason was attempted the fourth of August 1600. as before remembered and though there followed sundry Suspitions and Examinations of several persons supposed Abettors and Contrivers then yet it lay undiscovered tanquam e post liminio untill this time eight years after by the circumspection principally of the Earl of Dunbar a man of as great wisdom as those times and that Nation could boast of upon the person of one George Sprot Notary publick at Aymouth in Scotland from some words of his sparingly and unawares expressed and some Papers found in his house whereof being examined with little ado he confessed and was condemned and executed at Edenburgh 12. August 1608. A Relation I conceive not common but in my hands to be produced and written by that learned Gentleman
Sovereigns choice Service And yet this Man â—ot long after proved the Contriver and the most malicious Prosecutor of such conspiracies as may be said to be the forerunners of that Kings miserable and final destruction I cannot learn whether he be living in this sin and so as yet spared for Gods mercy or unrepentant dead to his Judgments sure and suddain But to our business in Scotland In the next Assembly at Glascow the Bishops took upon them to inlarge their own authority in the Administration of all Church affairs And yet not willing to make any change though by the Kings command without brotherly approbation of the Ministers They assemble together and consent unto Articles of Government and power of the Bishops In which Assembly the Popish Lords supplicate for absolution and to subscribe to the confession of faith Huntley did so and returned to his own County Arroll went about it too but suddainly fell into such confused terror as offering violence upon his own person he was spared by his intercession of tears and prayers not to be forced against the reluctancy of his Conscience who in truth of all that sect shewed evermore much of tender minde to endeavour satisfaction to himself and so received more civility from the Church ever after Angus was most averse and had leave to banish himself into France where he died at Paris some years after There had been a good progress in Scotland for quieting the Clergie and renewing the repute of the prelacie And therefore the Arch-Bishop of Glascow with the Bishops of Brigen and Galloway having audience of the King in relation to the affairs of the Church of Scotland Told them with what care and charge he had repossessed the Bishopricks out of the hands of the Laity and other sacreligious pretenders and settled them upon reverend Men as he hoped worthy of their places But since he could not consecrate them Bishops nor they assume that honor to themselves and that in Scotland there was not a sufficient Number to enter charge by Consecration he had therefore called them into England that being here consecrated themselves they might give ordination at home and so the Presbyters mouths stopped For they had maliciously and falsely reported that the King took upon him to create Bishops and bestow spiritual Offices which he never did always acknowledging that Authority to belong to Christ alone and whom he had authorized with his own power One thing admitted dispute The Arch-Bishops of Canterbury and York always pretended Jurisdiction over Scotland and so now this consecration might be taken as a voluntary subjection to this Church But therefore London Ely and Bath performed it to them and they ordained others at home And carried back Directions for a High Commission Court also for ordering of causes Ecclesiastical which were approved by their Clergie and put into obedience From these good Men The King fished out the behaviours of his Council there and therefore to settle them in terms of honor and state at their Table they were to convene twice a week and None to stay in the Room but Counsellors nor any solicitations there But being come instantly to take their places sitting not standing unless they pleaded for themselves and then to rise and stand at the end of the Table for they were wont to quarrel and to cuff cross the board No Counsellor to be absent four days without leave of the rest Each single Counsellor to be Justice of Peace in all the Kingdom to preserve respect to their places they should not trample the streets on foot but in Coach or Horse-back with footcloths This brought some esteem to that Board who before were bearded by every Kirk-Iohn or Lay-Elder And after this posture of Governing Patrick Stewart Earl of the Isles Orkney and Yetland was sent for to humble himself to imprisonment A Custom also which was setled in the Council to command any Malignant to be in Ward by such a day or else to be horned Rebell This great man at home is there humbled before the Bishop of Orkney and is by him examined so soon is the Kings ordinance obeyed His Crimes grew up from his poverty made so by his own riot and prodigality which now he seeks to repair by shifts of Tyranny over the people under his Command and being by the Bishop reported so to the Council he was committed to Prison untill the pleasure of the King deals further in Mercy or Justice But to exercise that Nation by degrees of punishment he was afterwards released and returned home to better behaviour wherein he became for the future so faultie that two years after he was executed We have hinted heretofore the Kings business at home which in truth was his wisdom to wade through To suppress the trayterous designes of the Papists and to settle the fiery dispositions of the Schismaticks for the first their own violent progression in their late Pouder-plot drew upon them publick lawes of chastisement But these Other alas their Motion now not so violent yet perpetual the more warily to be dealt with And because no disputes Arguments nor Policies could reduce them therefore the spiritual High-Commission-Court took some course moderately to regulate their Insolencies Busie this Parliament had been in disputes of the Common and Civil Laws The first strained to such a necessitary power as in short event would mightily qualifie the other to nothing Besides this Session sate long and supplyed not the Kings wants wasting time as ever sithence in seeking Grievances To palliate the Lower-House some Messages had informed his necessary expences and to both Houses the new Treasurer late Earl of Salisbury opened the emptiness of his Office And at last the King speaks for himself at a Meeting at White-Hall He spake well and now prolix which yet I must present thus long Perfect Speâ—ches open the times and truth to posterity against our Carping Adversary I need not quote his pages take his whole History passionately and partially distempered throughout The King forgets not their late loving duties and therefore recompenseth them with a rare present a Chrystall Mirror the heart of their King which though it be in Manu Domini so will he set it in oculis populi The principal things says he agitated in this Parliament were three First Your support to me Secondly My relief to you But the third How I would govern as to former constitutions or by absolute power He begins with the last That Monarchy is the supremest thing upon Earth illustrated by three similitudes First out of Gods word You are Gods Secondly out of Philosophie Parens patriae Thirdly out of Policie the Head of this Microcosm Man For the first The attributes of God Creation Destruction Reparation to judge and not be judged and to have power of Soul and Body so of Kings and can make of Subjects as at Chesse a pawn to take a
an ordinary fate which often accompanies them to bear the burden of their masters mistakes which yet was but an experiment proper enough for the L. Chamberlain Rochester to put in practice whose creature he was But we may not forget our good Lord of Essex our digression most necessary to his story which was thus There was amongst other persons of Honour and quality in Court a young Lady of great birth and beauty Frances the Daughter of Thomas Howard Earl of Suffolk married in under-age unto the Earl of Essex now become a forward stripling she two and twenty and he three and twenty years of him common fame had an opinion grounded upon his own suspition of his insufficiency to content a Wife And the effects of this Narration with the sequel of his life and conversation with his second Wife is so notorious as might spare me and the Reader our several labours for any other convincing arguments But with the first when both were of years to expect the blessing of the Marriage-bed he was always observed to avoid the company of Ladies and so much to neglect his own that to wish a Maid into a mischief was to commend her to grumbling Essex as they stiled him and increased the jealousie of such men whose interests were to observe him that he preferred the occasion himself for a Separation and which indeed from publick fame begat private disputation amongst Civilians of the legality thereof wherein those Lawyers are boundless This Case followed the heels of a former Divorce fresh in memory between the Lord Rich and his fair Lady by mutual consent but because Mountjoy Earl of Devonshire married her whilest her Lord lived the King was so much displeased as it broke the Earl's heart for his Majesty told him that he had purchased a fair Wife with a foul Soul But this of Essex was a different Example when you seek to parallel them together And therefore we may with more charity to truth not admit such hasty credit as to believe that now the Kings delight was onely for the love of the Viscount who is supposed to be in love with the Countess of Essex and upon no other score to command the Bishops to sue out a Divorce from her Husband which in truth was done with ample Reasons and legal Geremontes And because the Nullity gave freedom to either and so the means of her after-marriage with Rochester the sad occasions of all the sequel mishaps I have with some diligence laboured out the truth precisely and punctually as it was acted and proceeded by Commission Delegative not easily now otherwise to be brought to light which the Historian passes over briefly as unwilling to spend time to set down truths when it makes not for his turn for this Author had been Essex his Man and turn'd away by his Lady Upon Petition of the Earl of Suffolk and his Daughter Frances to the King That whereas his Daughter Frances Countess of Essex had been married many years unto Robert Earl of Essex in hope of comfortable effects to them both that contrariwise by reason of certain latent and secret imperfections and impediments of the said Earl disabling him in the rights of Marriage and most unwillingly discovered to him by his Daughter which longer by him to conceal without remedy of Law and the practice of all Christian policy in like cases might prove very prejudicial And therefore prays To commit the cause of Nullity of Matrimony which she is forced to prosecute against the said Earl to some grave and worthy persons by Commission under the great Seal of England as is usâ—ally c. Which accordingly was granted unto four Bishops two Privy Counsell ours learned in the Law and unto four other Civil Lawyers with clause to proceed cum omni qua poterint celeritate expeditione summarie ac de plano sine strepitu ac figur a judicii sola rei facti veritate inspecta mera aequitate attenta And with this clause also Quorum vos praefati Rev. Patrem Cant. Archiepiscopum Reverend Patrem Lond. Episcopum Iul. Caesar. Mil. aut duos vestrum in ferenda sententia inâ—eresse volumus But for some Exceptions concerning the Quorum by the Commissioners in the words Sententia esse not interesse A second Commission was granted and adjoyned two Bishops more with this Quorum Quorum ex vobis praefat Reverend Patrem George Cant. Archiepisc. Ioh. Lond. Episc. Tho. Wint. Episc. Lancelot Eliens Episc. Richard Covent Lich. Episc. Ioh. Ross. Episcop Iul. Caesar. Mil. Tho. Parry Mil. in ferenda Sententia nos esse volumus Upon this the Countess procures Process against the Earl to answer her in a Cause of Nullity of Matrimony The Earl appears before the Commissioners by his Proctor and she gives in her Libell viz. That the Earl and the Lady six years since in January Anno Domini 1606. were married her age then thirteen and he fourteen and now she is two and twenty and he three and twenty years old That for three years since the Marriage and he then eighteen years old they both did co-habit as married folk in one bed naked and alone endeavouring to have carnal knowledg each of others body Notwithstanding the Earl neither did nor could ever know her carnally he being before and since possessed with perpetual incurable impediment and impotency at least in respect of her That the Lady was and is apt and fit without any defect and is yet a Virgin and carnally unknown by any man That the Earl hath confessed oftentimes to persons of great credit and his nearest Friends that he was never able carnally to know her though he had often attempted and â—sed his utmost endeavours And therefore prayeth the Commissioners upon due proof hereof to proneunce for the invalidity and nullity of the Marriage The Earl by his Proctor denies the said Contents Contestatio lit is negative His Answer is required by Oath by second Process where in open Court his Oath was administred with so great care and effectual words to minde him of all circumstance as the like hath been seldom observed The Earl viva voce confesseth the Marriage and circumstance as in the Libell and were not absent above three Moneths the one from the other in any of the said three years That for one whole year of the three he did attempt divers times carnally to know her but the other two years he lay in bed with her nightly but found no motion to copulation with her That in the first year she shewed willingness and readiness therito That he did never carnally know but did not finde any impediment in her self but was not able to penetrate or enjoy her And believeth that before and after the Marriage he found in himself ability to other women and hath sometime felt motion that way But being asked whether he found in himself a perpetual and incurable impediment
of my life Such stuff as this makes up the matter as they would make us believe but in truth he threatened Somerset with some discovery which was construed to be secrets of Love or State or both Not without monstrous defaming her honour by Message and writing filthy base woman they were best look to stand fast which begat fury in her and subtilty in Somerset least Overburies Malice should break forth to both their sufferings and so trouble their whole fortunes To prevent mischief to the One and continual defame to the other combining with the rest It was resolved by her to destroy him which she first intended by assassination and dealt with one Sir David Wood an ill-looked red-bearded Scot whom Overbury had prevented of a suit valued 2000l But his cowardice not conscience fearing to ingage she and they plotted the impoisoining of him in prison as the story intends to discover in particular This Spring seizes Northampton for death He was brother unto the late Duke of Norfolk who suffered for his Attempts of Marriage with the Queen of Scots as before remembred then a Prisoner here in England which might be some motive for the King to consider the advance of this Man and that Family which he did by preferring the Dukes second Son to be Earl of Suffolk 1603. and by restoring the Dukes Graâ—dchild Thomas Earl of Arundel 1604. as aforesaid and by particular preferments of this Henry who was more wedded to his book than to the Bed for he dyed a Bachelour He was accompted wise and learned a cunning States-man and for all these abilities out of the Kings great affection to Letters especially being concentured in a Noble person at his first accession hether he the rather advanced him in succeeding Creations as Baron of Marnhill Earl of Northampton then Privy Councellour Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports Lord Privy Seal and Knight of the Garter and elected Chancelour of the University of Cambridge He had plentiful for his single Life and to spare for his friends In his expence not over frugal maintaining his Port the most remarkable like the antient Nobility in his family and dependents of any Lord then or since his time He assisted his Nephew the Earl of Suffolk by his designning and large contribution to that excellent Fabrick Awdleend He built that Noble Structure at Charing-Cross Northamp House presented it a New years gift to his Cosin German the â— Walden Suffolks eldest Son And yet left his other Cosin the E. of Arundel the rest of his estate so to appear to the World his equal distribution to such even kindred He was pious and gave good testimony thereof in his life built that handsome Covent at Greenwich and indued it with Revenue for ever for maintenance of decayed Gentlemen Bachelours a competent number and for Widdows also considerable He died in April Anno 1614. full of years and honour and suspected more Catholick than some will think reasonable though in the form of a Church Papist as some lately do publish and to be a Setter in the monstrous Murther of Sir Thomas Overbury though the Lieutenant of the Tower Yelvis in his Examinations and Confessions cleered him which suspition is since grounded upon the interpretation of his Familiar Epistles to the Earl of Somerset and indeed but bruited since his death And where no proofs precede we may be sparing to not him so Noble a Person with that or any other Infamy About these times the humours of young Gallants not brooking the peaceable conditions of our Kingdomes and neighbour Nations took upon themselves to quarrel with each other and to fight it out in Duels upon slight occasions and very frequent which induced his Majesty to publish a severe Edict against private Combates and Combatants their Seconds Accomplices and Adherents for prevention of those heavy events whereto worthy familics become obnoxious by the odious and enormous impieties inevitably subsequent thereupon Intending by that time that the most proper Remedies have qualified the distemper of il-disposed minds and that audacious spirits have smarted for incompetent desires the false colours and pretences of erring Custome have both been counterpleaded and corrected by reforming severity By that time I say that Passion hath been put into the right course of submitting to discretion and caution hath wrought it self at leasure into as constant a form and habit of conforming to obedience as self-will took in former times to plant false principles the greater part will easily discern That there is greater reason to reprove those that offer Challenges of madness than to tax those of Cowardice that abstain out of duty And therefore those that should conceive themselves to be behind in the least respect of point of honour should repair to the Marshalls Court who were instructed and prepared as well for the cleansing of all green wounds as the healing of old Ulcers that shall appear to them Hereupon occassion was soon given and taken in a Duel of Priest and Wright for writing and carrying the challenge and an information against them in Star Chamber by a charge of Sir Francis Bacon Atturney General and though the persons were but mean yet they served for example to the great the Dog to be beaten before the Lion the one a Barber Surgeon the other a Butcher This eloquent Oratour divided his charge into four branches 1. The nature and greatness of the Mischief 2. The Causes and Remedies 3. The Iustice of the Law of England which saies he some think defective herein 4. The capacity of this Court where the Remedy is best to be found 1. For the first when Revenge is extorted out of the Magistrates hands into private men presuming to give Laws to themselves It may grow from quarrels to banding so to trooping then to tumult and commotion from private persons to families and alliances and so to national quarrel and subject the State to inflamations and convulsions and herein Offences of presumption are the greatest and this to be done by the aurorae filii sons of the morning young men full of hope and towardness 2. The Causes no doubt a false imagination of honour and credit bewitching Duels Species falsa against Religion Law and virtue That men now adaies had lost the true Notion of fortitude and valor the one Fortitude distinguishing the grounds of quarrels whether they be just and worthy a mans life being to be sacrificed to honourable services good causes and Noble Adventures Expence of blood is as the expence of money not to be profuse in either upon vain occasion For the Remedies Four things may be effectual for repressing the depraved custome of Combates First The State to abolish it for then every particular person thinks himself thereby acquitted his reputation when he sees it an insult against Sovereign power Like unto the Edict of Charls the ninth of France against Duels That the King himself took upon him the honour of all
May it please your Majesty BY this Gentleman your Majesties Lieutenant I understand of some halt you made and the cause of it at such time as he offered to your Majesty my Letters but soon after your Majesty could resolve your self and behold me nothing so diffident of you but in humble language petitioning your favour for I am in hope that my condition is not capable of so much more misery as I need make my passage to you by such way of intercession This which follows after I offer your Majesty though not as to your self for upon less motive you can finde favour for me Now I need onely move not plead before your Majesty as my case doth stand for what I seek to have done follows upon what you have already done as a consequence and succeeding growth of your own act But to the effect that your Majesty may see that there is enough to answer those if any such there be as do go about to pervert the exercise of your Power and to turn it from its own clear excellency for to minister unto their passions I have presumed to this end to awake your Majesties own conceit upon this subject which can gather to it self better and more able defences in my behalf upon this view for though the Acts of your Mercy which are not communicable nor the causes of them with others as derived from those secâ—â— motives which are onely sensible and privy to your own heart and admit of no search or discovery to any general satisfaction and that under this protection I might guard my particular sufficiently yet my case needs not hide it self but attend the dispute with any that would put upon it a monstrous and heavy shape though that I must acknowledg that both Life and Estate are forfeited to you by Law yet so forfeited that the same Law gives you the same power to preserve as it doth to punish whereby your Majesties higher Prerogative doth not wrestle with it nor do you infringe those grounds by which you have ever governed so as the resistance is not great that your Majesty hath for to give Life and which is less in the gift of Estate for that the Law casts wholly upon your self and yields it as fit matter for exercise of your goodness Once it was your Majesties gift to me so it may be better not taken than a second time given for it is common to all men for to avoid to take that which hath been once their own And I may say farther that Law hath not been so severe upon the ruine of innocent posterity nor yet cancelled nor cut off the merits of Ancestors before the politick hand of State had contrived it into these several forms as fitted to their ends and government To this I may add that that whereupon I was judged even the crime it self might have been none if your Majesties hand had not once touched upon it by which all access unto your favour was quite taken from me Yet as it did at length appear I fell rather for want of well defending than by the violence or force of any proofs for I so far for sook my self and my cause as that it may be a question whether I was more condemned for that or for the matter it self which was the subject of that days controversie Then thus far nothing hath appeared wherein your Majesty hath extended for me your power beyond the reasonable bound neither doth any thing stand so in the way of your future proceedings but rather make easie your Majesties favour for my relief What may then be the cause that malice can pitch upon wherefore your Majesty should not proceed to accomplish your own work Aspersions are taken away by your Majesties letting me loose to the utmost power of Law with the lives of so many offenders which yieldeth the world subjects of sorrow rather than appetite to more bloud but truth and innocency protect themselves in poor men much more in Kings Neither ever was there such aspersion God knows in any possibility towards your Majesty but among those who would create those pretences to mislead your Majesty and thereby make me miserable If not this whereof the virtue and use was in the former time and now determined there is not any but your pleasure It is true I am forfeited to your Majesty but not against you by any treasonable or unfaithfull act besides there is to be yielded a distinction of men as in faults in which I am of both under the nearest degrees of exception Yet your Majesty hath pardoned Life and Estate to Traitors and to strangers sometimes the one sometimes the other nay to some concerned in this business wherein I suffer you have pardoned more unto them than I desire who as it is reputed if they had come to the test had proved Copper and should have drunk of the bitter cup as well as others But I do not by this envy your favours to any persons nor seek I to draw them into the yoak with my self but applaud your Majesties goodness being in that respect in a nearer possibility to come at me Besides this to Elvish your Majesty hath given Estate which is a greater gift than Life because it extends to posterity who was the worst deserver in this business an unoffended instrument might have prevented all after-mischief who for his own ends suffered it and by the like arts afterwards betraid it To this I may add Tresham in the Powder Treason upon whose Successors I do not cast any of his infamy yet he preserved himself to posterity so as what he or others sucâ— as he have defrauded by the arts of Law and whom their own unfaithfulness made safe I have much ado to hold by ingenuity and confidence How may it be because I distrusted not your Majesty or because it returned in your power from whom I had it is it in danger to be broken or dismembred Let me hope that there is nothing which by favour may be excused or by industry might have been avoided that will fail me where your Majesty is to determine It is not I that thus put your Majesty in minde oportunely it is he that was your creature it is Somerset with all your honours and envious greatness that is now in question Kings themselves are protected from the breach of Law by being favourites and Gods Anointed which gives your Majesty like privilege over yours as I took from Doctor Dun in his Sermon that the goodness of God is not so much acknowledged by us in being our Creator as in being our Redeemer nor in that he hath chosen us as that nothing can take us out of his hand which in your Majesties remembrance let me challenge and hope for for the first accesses of favour they may be ascribed unto ones own pleasing themselves but that appears to be for our sakes and for our good when the same forsakes not our civil desires
ordinary custome lately entertained boldly to dispute the high points of his prerogative in a popular and unlawful way of Argument not heretofore usual Making them senceable how weak and impertinent the pretence of their Oath was in a case of this nature as if the Founders of their Oath His Predcessors were so intent in their zeal to be uncharitable to make a weapon to wound their Successors being an ordinary course to put off Hearings and Determinings amongst private persons Termly And commands them peremptorily not to proceed further in that Plea till his return to London there to receive his further pleasure by himself Your Oath being only for avoiding importunites to the Prince of Suiters in their own particular The King come to London convenes them all to the Council Table and himself takes in sunder the parts of the Iudges Letter and their Errours in proceeding both in matter and manner In matter by way of omission as commission When the Counseller shall presume to argue his Supremacy at the Bar and they not reprove his Insolency Himself observing since his comming to this Grown the popular Sort of Lawyers most affrontingly in all Parliaments have troden upon his Preâ—ogative though neither Law nor Lawyer can be respected if the King be not reverenced And therefore it became the Iudges to bridle their impudencies in their several Benches especially the Courts of Common-Law who had incroached upon all other Courts High Commission Councils in Wales and at York and Courts of Requests For the Commission in Matter whereas their Letter excepted against his Majesties command to be against the Law and their Oath He tells them deferring upon just and necessary cause is not denying or delaying of Instice but rather wisdom and maturity Nothing more proper than to cousult with the King where it concerns the Crown As for the Manner The Kings absence before the Argument and yet his resolved return speedily and the case though lately argued could not receive Iudgement till Easter Term after as the Iudges confessed And for them to say that the case was private interest of party and party One of the Parties is a Bishop that pleads for the Commendam onely by vertue of his Majesties Prerogative And that they could not prove any Solicitation of either Parties for expedition And for the form of the Letter it was undecent besides to proceed and to return a bare Certificate without giving reasons therefore Upon this all the Iudges fell down on their knees acknowledging their Errour and craving Pardon But for the Matter the Chief Iustice Cook entered into a Defence That the stay by his Majesty was a delay of Iustice and therefore against Law and their Oath that as they meant to handle the Pleading it should not concern the King's Prerogative To which the King told him That for them to discern the concernment of his Prerogative without consult with him was preposterous And for those of Law and Oath he had said sufficient before Therefore he required the Lord Chancellour's opinion herein whether against Law and their Oath The Chancellour excused himself as to that of Law referring it to the opinion of the King's Council whereupon the Atturney General Bacon said That to put off the Day was no Delay of Justice nor endangered their Oath for the King's Reasons were onely that it concerned his Prerogative and required therefore a stay for a small time and advised the Judges whether this refusal of their did not rather endanger their Oath which was To counsel the King when they are called but to counsel after the matter is past was a simple refusal to give him Counsel at all And all the rest of the Council concluded with him The Chief Justice Cook excepted That the King's Council should plead against the Iudges being their duties to plead before them not against them Whereunto the Attourney replied That the King's Council were by Oath and Office not onely to plead proceed and declare against the greatest Subject but also against any body of Subjects or persons nay were they Iudges or Courts or House of Commons in Parliament and concluded That the Iudges challenge was a wrong to their Places and appealed to the King who was firm for them The Chief Justice replied He would not dispute it with his Majesty The King replied Nor with my Council So then whether you do well or ill it may not be disputed The Chancellour gave his opinion with the King and his Council Hereupon the positive Question was put by all the Lords Whether in a Case depending which the King might conceive himself concerned in power or profit and requiring to consult with them they ought not to stay proceedings All the Judges submitted thereto onely the Chief Justice excepted saying When that Case should be then he would do his duty But the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas said For his part He would always trust the justice of the King's command But the Day drawing nigh the next Saturday for arguing the Commendams the King desired the Judges to express Whether they would then argue upon the Kings general power of granting Commendams yea or no. They all concluded Not to draw into doubt his power but to insist upon the point of Lapse which they conceived to be of a form different from former Commendams and concluded to correct the insolencies of bold arguing the Prerogative Judge Doderidge concluded for the King That the Church was void and in his gift and might give a Commendam to a Bishop either before or after Consecration during Life or years The Judges being gone the privy Council resolved that the Kings desire was not against the Judges Oath nor against the Common Law to require and all of them subscribed to the same This Dispute was publiquely scanned and censured in favour of the Judges and on the contrary for the King but the truth I have really extracted out of the Records of the Council Table That you may thereby see the true scope of those times The State of Spain having little to do in Martial affairs K. Philip the third now in peace thought to spend some time in Treatiâ—s wherin he seldom failed of advantage The late French King Henry the fourth had 3. daughters the one maried to the Duke of Savoy which the Spaniard misliking to have those Neighbours lately so great Enemies now to be linkt in love without his Interest conceived it good policy to indeer the young King Lewis of France in a cross Match to his Daughter Infanta Anna and to marry his son Philip to the Princess Elizabeth the second daughter of Henry the fourth And thus those cross Nuptials might seem to cement the affections of the three States lately so imbroyled in War which no doubt either of them had good cause to accept though it was said S. P. Q. R. Spain Pope Queen-Regent had the chief hand to undo the young King For the Father Henry the fourth had made
the Lawyers in the House to make a good Commentary upon it For so did the Puritan Ministers in Scotland bring all kind of Causes within compass of their jurisâ—iction saying that it was the Churches Office to judge of slander and there could no crime or fault be committed but there was a slander in it either against God their King or their Neighbour and by that means they looked into themselves the cognizance of all Causes or like Bellarmines Distinction of the Popes power over Kings in ordine ad spiritualia whereby he gives him all Temporall Jurisdiction over them But to give you a direct answer to the matters of War for which you are so earnest We confesse we rather expected you should have given us thanks for the so long maintaining a settled Peace in all our Dominions when as all our Neighbours about are in miserable combustion of War but dulce bellum inexpertis and we indeed find by experience that a number of our Subjects are so pampered with Peace as they are desirous of change though they know not what It is true that we have professed and in that mind with Gods grace we will both live and die that we will labour by all means possible either by Treaty or force to restore our Children to their antient dignity and Inheritance and whatsoever Christian Princes and Potentates will set themselves against it we will not spare any lawful means to bring ouâ— so just and honourable purpose to a good end Neither shall the Match of our Son or any other worldly respects be preferred to this our Resolution For by our credit and intervention with the King of Spain and the Arch-Dutchess and her Husband now with God we preserved the Lower Palatinate one whole year from any further conquering in it which in any eight dayes space in that time might have easily been swallowed up by Spinola's Army without any resistance and in no better case was it now at our Ambassadour the Lord Digby's coming through Heidleburgh if we had not extraordinarily succoured it But because we conceive that ye couple this War of the Palatinate with the cause of Religion we must a little unfold your eyes herein The beginning of this miserable War which hath set all Christendome on fire was not for Religion but only caused by Our Son in law his hasty and rash Resolution following evil Counsel to take to himself the Crown of Bohemia and that this is true himself wrote Letters to Us at that time desiring Us to give assurance both to the French King and to the State of Venice that his accepting of the Crown of Bohemia had no reference to the cause of Religion but only by reason of his right of Election as he called it And we would be sorry that that aspersion should come upon our Religion as to make it a good pretext for disthroning of Kings and usurping their Crowns And we would be loath that our people here should be taught that doctrine No let Us not so far wrong the Jesuits as to rob them of their sweet Positions and practice in this point And upon the other part we assure our selves so far of your charitable thoughts of us that we would never have constantly denyed our Son in Law both the title and assistance in that point if we had been well-perswaded of the justice of his quarrel But to conclude this unjust usurpation of the Crown of Bohemia and Hungaria from the Emperour hath given the Pope and all that party too fair a ground and opened them too wide a Gate for curbing and oppressing of many thousands of our Religion in divers parts of Christendom And whereas you excuse your touching upon the King of Spain upon occasion of the incidents by you repeated in that place and yet affirm it is without any touch to his Honor. We cannot wonder enough that ye are so forgetful both of your words and writs for in your former Petition you plainly affirm that he affects the Temporal Monarchy of the whole Earth then which there can be no more malice uttered against any great King to make all other Princes and Potentates both envy and hate him But if you list it may be easily tryed whether that speech touched him in honour or not if we shall ask him the question Whether he means to assume to himself that Title or no For every King can best judge of his own Honour we omit the particular Ejaculations of some foul-mouthed Oratours in the House against the honour of his Crown and State And touching your excuse of not determining any thing concerning the Match of our dearest Son but only to tell your opinion and lay it down at our feet First we desire to know how you could have presumed to determine in that point without committing of High Treason And next you cannot deny but your talking of his Match after that manner was a direct breach of our Commandment and Declaration out of our own Mouth at the first sitting down of this Parliament where we plainly professed that we were in Treaty of his Match with Spain and wished you to have that confidence in our Religion and Wisdom that we would so mannage it as our Religion should receivt no prejudice by it And the same we now repeat unto you professing that we are so far ingaged in that Match as we cannot in honour go back except the King of Spain perform not such things as we expect at his hands and therefore we are sorry that ye should shew to have so great distrust in us or to conceive that we should be cold in our Religion otherwise we cannot imagine how our former Publick Declaration should not have stopped your Mouths in this point And as to your Request that we would now receive your former Petition We wonder what could make you presume that we would not receive it whereas in our former letter we plainly declared the contrary unto you and therefore we have justly rejected that suit of yours For what have you left un-attempted in the highest points of Sovereignty in that petition of yours except the striking of Coin for it contains the violation of Leagues the particular way how to govern a War and the Mariage of our dearest Son both Negative with Spain nay with any Popish Princess and also Affirmatively as to the matching with one of our Religion which we confess is a strain beyond any Providence or Wisdom God hath given to us as things now stand These are unfit things to be handled in Parliament except your King should require it of you For who can have wisdome to judge of things of that nature but such as are dayly acquainted with the particulars of Treaties and of the variable or fixed connexion of Affairs of State together with the knowledge of the secret ways ends and intentions of Princes in their several Negotiations otherwise a small mistaking in matters of this Nature may produce more effects than can