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A40615 The full proceedings of the High Court of Iustice against King Charles in Westminster Hall, on Saturday the 20 of January, 1648 together with the Kings reasons and speeches and his deportment on the scaffold before his execution / translated out of the Latine by J.C. ; hereunto is added a parallel of the late wars, being a relation of the five years Civill Wars of King Henry the 3d. with the event of that unnatural war, and by what means the kingdome was settled again. Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649, defendant.; Chamberlayne, Edward, 1616-1703. Present warre parallel'd.; J. C. 1654 (1654) Wing F2353; ESTC R23385 51,660 194

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King my Father and in my own Reign before the beginning of these unhappy tumults and they will have a just cause to doubt if they shall be so happy in any new Government In that time it will most evidently appear that I onely took up Arms to defend the Fundamentall Laws of this Kingdome against those who opposed my power and totally would have subverted the ancient Government Having so briefly declared my Reasons to you for which I could not submit to your pretended Authority without violation of the Trust which God hath committed to me for the safety and liberty of my people I expect from you either clearer Reasons to convince my Judgement by demonstrating to me that I am in an Error and then surely I shall be ready to give you an Answer or else that you suspend your present proceedings This I had determined to have spoken in Westminster Hall on Monday the two and twentieth of January but against Reason I was prohibited to pronounce my Reasons In the year 1648. English style 1649. vulgar style The End The Speech of King Charls upon the Scaffold at the gate of White Hall immediately before the execution January 30. ABout ten in the morning the King was brought from Saint Jameses Court he did walk on foot through the Park with a Regiment of Foot one half before him and the other behind him their Colours flying and their Drums beating his private guard of Partisan with some of his Gentlemen did go immediately bare headed before him and some part of them behind him but those who were next of all unto him behinde were Dr. Juxon and Colonel Thomlinson to the last of whom the care and charge of his Person was committed these two being barehead did talk with him all along the Park and as you go up the stairs into the Gallery and so into the Cabanet chamber where he used to lye in which place he continued at his Devotion and refused to dine because he that morning had taken the Sacrament onely about one hour before he came forth he drank a Glasse of Claret wine and did eat a crust of bread about twelve of the clock at Noon From thence he was accompanied by Doctor Juxon Col. Thomlinson and other Officers formerly appointed to be his Guard and with the private Guard of Partizans with musquetiers on either side through the banquetting house at the farther end on the outside whereof the Scaffold was erected near unto the Gate of White Hall The Scaffold was hung round with black and the floore was covered with black the ax and the Block laid on the middle of the Scaffold There were severall Companies of Foot and Troops of Horse placed on the one side of the Scaffold and the other and multitudes of people that thronged to see so rare a spectacle were very great The King was no sooner come upon the Scaffold but he looked very earnestly on the Block and asked Col. Hacker if there were no higher and then spake thus directing his speech chiefly to Colonel Thomlinson I Shall be very little heard by any of the people I shall therefore speak a word or two to you who are here Indeed I could hold my peace very well if I did not think that my silence would make some men think that I did submit to the guilt as well as to the punishment but I conceive it is my duty First unto God and afterwards to my Countrey to vindicate my self as an honest man a good King and a good Christian I shall begin first with my Innocency Introth I think it not very needfull for me to insist long upon this for all the world knows that I never did begin Warre with the two Houses of Parliament and I call God to witnesse to whom I must shortly make my account that I never did intend to incroach upon their priviledges they began with me It was the Militia they began upon they confessed that the Militia was mine but they thought it fit to have it from me and to be short if any man will look to the Dates of Commissions of their Commissions ormine and likewise to the Declarations will finde clearly that they began those unhappy troubles not I so that as for the guilt of these enormous crimes which are laid upon me I hope in God that God will clear me of them I am in charity I will not and God forbid that I should lay it upon the two-Houses of Parliament there is no necessity of either I hope they are free from the Guilt for I do believe that evill instruments between them and me have been the chief cause of all this bloodshed so that by way of speaking as I find my self clear of this I hope and I pray God that they may too yet for all this God forbid that I should be so ill a Christian as not to say that Gods judgements are just upon me Many times he does inflict Justice by an unjust Sentence this is ordinary I will onely say that an unjust Sentence * That I suffered to take effect is punished now by an unjust Sentence upon my self This is to shew you as I have said how far I am an innocent man Now for to show you that I am a good Christian I hope there is a good man * who will bear witnesse with me that I have forgiven all the world and even those in particular who have been the chief causers of my Death who they are God knows I do not desire to know I pray God forgive them But this is not all my Charity must go further I wish that they may repent for indeed they have committed a great sin in that particular I pray God with Saint Stephen that this be not laid to their charge nay not onely so but that they may take the right way to the peace of the Kingdome for my charity commands me not onely to forgive particular men but my charity commands me to indevour to the last gasp the peace of the Kingdome This Sirs I do wish with all my Soul and I do hope there are some * who will carry it further that they may indeavour the peace of the Kingdome Now Sirs I must show you both how you are out of the way and I will put you into a way First you are out of the way for certainly all the way in which as yet you have gone as I could ever find out by any thing is in the way of conquest certainly this is an ill way for conquest Sirs in my opinion is never just except there be a good just cause either for matter of wrong or to defend a just Title and if in the prosecution of the quarrell you shall go beyond this it will make that unjust at the end which was just at the beginning But if it be onely matter of conquest therein it is a great robbery as a pirate said to Alexander that he was a great robber and that
man whatsoever President Sir I must interrupt you which I would not do but that which you do agreeth not with the proceedings of any Tribunal of Justice you enter into a controversie and dispute against the Authority of this Court before which you appear a prisoner and are accused as a great Delinquent If you will take upon you to controvert the Authority of this Court we cannot give way unto it neither will any tribunal of Justice admit it you ought to submit unto the Court and to give an exact and direct Answer whether you will answer to your charge or not and what is the answer that you make King Sir I know not the formalities of the law I know the law reason although I am no professed Lawyer I know the law as well as any Gentleman in England and I am more eager for the Liberties of the people of England then you are and if I should believe any man without he gives me Reasons for what he saith It would be absurd but I say unto you that the Reason which you give is no wayes satisfactory L. President Sir I must interrupt you for it cannot be permitted to you in this manner to proceed you speak of law and reason it is fit that there should be both law and reason and they are both against you Sir the Vote of the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament is the reason of the Kingdome and they ordained this law according to which you ought to Reign Sir It is not lawfull for you to dispute against our Authority This again hath been told you by the Court Sir Notice will be taken that you contemn the Court and this contempt of yours will be recorded King I know not how a King can be interpreted to be a Delinquent but by any law that I ever heard all men whether Delinquent or what you will may lawfully make objections against their Processe this is that which I require and I again desire that my Reasons may be heard If you deny this you deny Reason L. President Sir you have objected something to the Court I will declare unto you their opinion Sir It is not lawfull for you or any man else to dispute against this Subject It is Decreed you ought not to dispute against the jurisdiction of this Tribunal If you shall yet do it I must intimate unto you that they are above objections They sit here by Authority of the Commons of England and all your Predecessors and you your self are bound to be accountable to them King I deny that shew me one example L. President Sir you ought not to interrupt but attend whilest the Court speaks unto you This Subject is not to be disputed by you neither will the Court permit that you should object against the jurisdiction of it they have considered of their jurisdiction and do approve it King Sir I say that the Commons of England were never a Court of Judicature and I would fain know how they came to be made so now President Sir It is not permitted to you to proceed in those discourses Then the Secretary of the Court did read as followeth Charls Stuart King of England you have been accused in the Name of the People of England of High Treason and other grievous Crimes The Court hath determined that you shall answer to your Charge King I will answer as soon as ever I shall understand by what authority you do these things President If this be all that you will speak Gentlemen you who brought the prisonner hither take him back again King I demand that I may be permitted to exhibite my Reasons why I answer not unto the Charge and give me time to perform this President Sir It is not for prisonners to demand King Prisonners Sir I am no ordinary prisonner President The Court hath considered of their own jurisdiction and they have also confirmed their jurisdiction If you will not answer we will give order that your Default be recorded King You have not yet heard my Reasons President Your Reasons are not to be heard against the Supream Jurisdiction King Shew me that jurisdiction in the world where Reason is not to be heard President Sir We shew it you here the Commons of England the next time you are brought hither you shall understand further of the pleasure of the Court and peradventure their finall sentence King Shew me where the House of Commons was ever a Court of Judicature in that kind President Serjeant take away the Prisonner King Sir Remember that the King is not suffered to declare his Reasons for the Libertie and Immunities of his Subjects President Sir That Freedome of speech is not permitted to you how great a friend you have been to the Laws and the Liberties of the people let England and all the world judge King Sir By your leave I have alwayes loved the Liberty the Immunities and Laws of the subjects If I have defended my self by Arms I have not taken them up against the people but for them President You must obey the Decree of the Court you give no answer to the Charge against you King Well Sir And so was he brought to the House of Sir Robert Cotton and the Court was adjourned to the Painted Chamber untill Wednesday following at twelve of the clock at what houre they intended to adjourn again to Westminster-hall where all whom it doth concern are commanded to be present The third dayes proceedings against the late King at the High Court of Justice Tuesday Jan. 23. 1648. THe Cryer according to the Custome having with his Oyes commanded silence and attention the King being sate Mr. Atturney Generall turning to the Lord President spake in these words May it please your Lordship This is now the third time that by the great grace and favour of this High Court the prisoner hath been brought to the Bar and yet by reason of his refusall to put in his Answer there is yet no issue joyned in the cause My Lord I did at the first exhibit a Charge against him containing the highest practices of Treason that were ever wrought on the Theater of England That a King of England trusted to keep the Lawes of England and who had taken an Oath so to do and had tribute paid him for that end should be guilty of so wicked a design as to subvert our Laws and introduce an arbitrary and tyrannicall Government and set up his Standard of Warre against his Parliament and his people and I did humbly pray in the behalf of the people of England that he might speedily be required to make an answer to his charge But my Lord instead of making an answer he did then dispute the Authority of this Tribunal and your Lordship being pleased to give him a further day to put in his answer which was yesterday I did move again that he might be required to put in a direct and positive answer to his charge either by
he himself was but a petty robber and thus Sirs I do think that the way you are in is much out of the way Now Sirs for to put you in the way believe it you will never do right nor will God ever prosper you untill you give God his due and the King his due that is in their course of time my Successors and untill you give the people their due I am as much for them as any of you are You must give God his due by regulating aright his Church according to his Scripture your church is now out of order for to set you particularly in a way now I cannot but onely by a Synod of the whole Nation who being freely called and freely debating amongst themselves may by Gods blessing settle the Church when every opinion is freely and clearly discussed For the King indeed I will not much insist Then turning to a Gentleman whose cloak he observed to touch the edge of the Ax he said unto him Hurt not the Ax meaning by blunting the the edge thereof for that he said might hurt him Having made this short digression he proceeded For the King the laws of the land will clearly instruct you what you have to do but because it concerns my own particular I onely do give you but a touch of it As for the People truly I desire their liberty and freedome as much as any whosoever but I must tell you that their liberty and freedome consists in having of government by those laws by which their lives and their goods may be most their own It is not for them to have a share in Government that is nothing Sirs appertaining unto them A Subject and a Sovereign are clean different things and therefore untill that be done I mean untill the people be put into that liberty which I speak of certainly they will never enjoy themselves Sirs It was for this that now I am come here If I would have given way to an arbitrary power to have all laws changed according to the power of the sword I needed not to have come hither and therefore I tell you and I pray God that it be not laid to your charge that I am the martyr of the people In troth Sirs I shall not hold you much longer I shal onely say this unto you that in truth I could have desired some little longer time because I had a desire to put this that I have said into a little more order and to have a little better digested it than I have now done and therefore I hope you will excuse me I have delivered my conscience I pray God that you do take those courses that are most for the good of the Kingdome and your own salvations Doct. Juxon Will your Majesty although the affection of your Majesty to Religion is very well known yet to satisfie expectation be pleased to speak something for the satisfaction of the world King I thank you very heartily my Lord because I had almost forgotten it In troth Sirs my Conscience in Religion I think is already very well known to all the world and therefore I declare before you all that I die a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England as I found it left by my Father and this honest man * I think will witnesse it Then turning to the Officers he said Sirs excuse me for this same I have a good cause and I have a gratious God I will say no more Then turning to Colonel Hacker he said Take care they do not put me to pain and Sir this if it please you but then a Gentleman one Mr. Clerk comming neer the Ax the King said take heed of the Ax pray take heed of the Ax Then the King turning to the Executioner said I shall say but very short prayers and when I stretch forth my hands Then the King called to Doctor Juxon for his Night-cap and having put it on he said to the Executioner Will my hair trouble you who desired him to put it all under his Cap which the King did accordingly by the assistance of the Executioner and the Bishop the King then turning to Doctor Juxon said I have a good Cause and a gracious God on my side Doctor Juxon There is but one stage more This stage is turbulent indeed and troublesome but very short and which in an instant will lead you a most long way from earth to Heaven where you shall find great Joy and Solace King I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown where can be no trouble none at all Doctor Juxon You shall exchange a temporall Crown for an eternall one it is a good change The King then said unto the Executioner Is my hair as it should be He then did put off his cloak and his George which he gave to Doctour Juxon saying Remember He immediately afterwards did put off his Doublet and did put on his cloak again and looking on the Block he said unto the Exkcutioner you should make it to be steddie Execut It is so King It might have been something higher Execut It cannot be made higher now King When I shall stretch forth my hands in this manner then After that when standing he had spoke two or three words unto himself with his hands and eyes lifted up towards Heaven immediately stooping down he laid his neck upon the Block and when the Executioner had again put all his hair under his cap. The King said Stay till I give the Sign Execut So I do if it please your Majesty and after a very little respite the King did stretch forth his hands and immediately the Executioner at one blow did sever his head from his Body Sic transit gloria Mundi The present Warre parralel'd Or A brief Relation of the five years Civil Warres of Henry the the third King of England with the event and issue of that unnaturall War and by what course the Kingdome was then settled again HEnry the third of of that Name a man more pious than prudent a better man than King swayed the Scepter of this Kingdome 56. years The former part of his Reign was very calm the latter as tempestuous The main Tempest was thus raised the King for many years during that high calm had sequestered himself wholly to his harmlesse sports and recreations and intrusted the whole managery of the State to his officers Ministers These taking advantage of his Majesties carelesnesse the main fault of this King insensibly suck'd and drained the Revenues of Crown and Kingdome till the King awakened by extream necessity began to enquire not how he came in for his necessities would not permit that but how he might get out The best way that his evil Counsellours could find to relieve their Master and save themselves was the ordinary way of supply in Parliament declined to have recourse to Monopolies Patents and other extraordinary and illegal Taxations But praeter naturall courses are never
affront was punctually remembred in the first fight as you shall hear anon Besides this main armie under the Earl of Leicester they had another armie under the command of the Lord Ferrers of whom descended the late Lord of Essex who behaved himself insolently towards the King in destroying his Parks as he marcht c. which in the conclusion cost him dear yet to delude the people the main army bore before them the Kings arms and to shew they were for the King when they had displaced the old Governors of the Kings Castles and Forts and placed in such as they could confide in they gave them an Oath to be true to the King and to keep those Holds to the use and benefit of the King and State yet when the King demanded entrance at one of his Forts wherein they had placed a Governour he was kept out At Sea the Barons of the Cinque-ports seised the Kings ships took great Prizes but they that sate at the Stern upon Land shared in those Prizes as the fame then went By this time the King began to rouze himself and finding nothing now left him but a good Cause and the hearts of his wiser subjects yet by that and these and the assistance of his Brother Richard King of the Romanes in a short space he had raised a considerable Army A King can never be so down but he will rise again with these he marcht and like a snow-ball encreased by motion plundering the Rebels lands as he went to Northampton which was fortified against him by some of the chiefest of the Rebels yet by a furious assault he soon gained it Thence continuing his march into Sussex near Lewes he received a Message from the Earl the tenor wherof was That as for his Majesty they intended no harm against him but onely desired that he would remove his evil Counsellours that did advise his Majesty against them against the honour of the King and welfare of the Kingdome The King in his Answer charges them with Rebellion and disloyalty and commands them to lay down their arms and to return to their obedience that they might be received to mercy but the Earl rejecting the offer * when Subjects have once broken their fealtie and trust to their Soveraign they never dare trust their Soveraign again resolves to give the King battel Near Lewes both Armies meet One wing of the Earls Army was made up of London troops which the Prince being then Generall of the Kings horse observing and remembring not without indignation the abuse offered by the Londoners to the Queen his Mother he claps spurs to his horse and all his Cavalry after him crying Here here my brave Cavaliers are the main contrivers of all Rebellions and mischief Now now if ever charge home and so fell on with that fury that they presently flie the Prince in an eager and hot pursuit does great execution upon them for four miles But this prosperous beginning of the fight on the Kings side was the utter overthrow of the Kings forces for when the Earl perceived that the Prince a young fiery spirit with all the Kings horse was gone so far in pursuit of the Londoners he fell violently on the Kings foot soon routed them took the King his horse being slain under him prisoner The Prince at length retreating when he saw all lost surrendered himself There were taken in this fight besides those royall prisoners the King the Prince the Kings brother and his eldest Sonne above twenty Noblemen that were for the King and slain about * 3400. The Earl having thus gotten a compleat victory forth with endeavours to seise all the Militia and power of the Kingdome for which end he carries the King about with him to countenance his actions but the rest of the royall prisoners he disposes in severall Garisons And now the Earl believes all his own and the people dream of nothing but Peace but alas the warre was not begun till now For when the torn remainder of the loyall army that escaped at Lewes now keeping Garison in Bristow and other noble spirits saw how insolently the Earl dealt with his and their Soveraign in barring him of his liberty c. They soon raised a considerable power under the command of Roger Mortimer Earl of March unto whom many flockt out of Shropshire Cheshire Herefordshire and Worcester that were well affected to the King Moreover the Queen who was a French woman got over beyond Sea to try her friends for their asistance to restore her husband to his former liberty and authority Quod ad laudem magnificentiam Aelionorae Anglorum Reginae libet intexere saith one of that age quod Domino suo Edvardo filio tam strenuè tam viriliter tanquam virago potentissima succurrendis fortiter insudaverit But before these Forces were well united the Rebels Forces were as well divided for debate arising as is usuall in all confederations where all parties must be pleased or else the knot will dissolve between his Excellency the Earl of Leicester and the Earl of Glocester because his Excellency minding his own private more than the publick good of his fellow Rebels without any respect had to his adjutants ingrosses all to himself disposes of the royall prisoners at his own pleasure seised on the revenues of the Crown and composition of dilinquents for his own use whereas they had privately agreed before Ea omnia aequâ sorte inter eos dividenda fore In brief he shared all places of power and profit between himself his sonnes and his allies Whereat Glocester as good a man as he stomackt and fell off with his followers to the Prince who by this time disponente Domino clavigero carcerum every thing working for the King had made his escape out of prison at Hereford for being allowed by his keepers to aire himself sometimes on horse back in the town Meadow after he had tyred two or three at length he mounts a speciall flight Nag and putting spurs Custodibus valedixit and came safe to Wigmore Castle where the Lord Mortimer lay with his Forces raised for the King so marcht on with a great prwer taking in as they went some strong Garisons of the Rebels plundered their houses drave their Cattell c. Here the war grew hot each side fortifying towns plundering and driving all round about to store the Garisons Mens houses which were wont to be their own Castles were now made Castles but the owners were least masters all left to the mercy of the rude souldier the poor Countreymans dwelling house pillaged every where and searcht * usque ad lectorum stramentum to the very bedstraw nor onely mens houses but even Gods houses the very Churches were not free from the prophane hands of plunderers the high-wayes lay unoccupied no passing from Town to Town without danger of robbing When the Prince the Earl of Glocester the Earl