that I am in an Error and then surely I shal 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 munday the two and twentieth of January but against Reason I was prohibited to pronounce my Reasons In the year 1648. English style 1649. Vulgar stile The Speech of King Charls upon the Scaffold at the gate of White Hall immediately before the execution Ianuary the thirtieth 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 behinde 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 only about one hour before he came forth he drank one glasse of Claret wine and did eat a crust of bread about twelve of the clock at Noone 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 musquitiers on either side through the banquetting house at the farther end on the out side whereof the Scaffold was erected neer unto the Gate of White hall The Scaffold was hung round with black and the floore was covered with black and 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 The Kings Majesties most Excellent Speech 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 or mine and likewise to the Declarations will find 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 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 finde 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 indeavour to the last gasp the peace of the Kingdome This Sirs I do wish with all my Soul and I do hope there are some who will carry it further that they may indeavour the peace of the Kingdome Now Sirs I must show you both how you are out of the way and I will put you into a way First you are out of the way for certainly all the way in which as yet you have gone as I could ever find out by any thing is in the way of conquest certainly this is an ill way for conquest Sirs in my opinion is never just except there be a good just cause either for matter of wrong or to defend a just Title and if in the prosecution of the quarrell you shall go beyond this it will make that unjust at the end which was just at the beginning But if it be onely matter of conquest therein it is a great robbery as a pirate said to Alexander that he was a great robber and that he himself was but a petty robber and thus Sirs I do think that the way you are in is much out of the way Now Sirs for to put you in the way believe it you will never do right nor will God ever prosper you untill you give God his due and the King his due that is in their course of time my Successors and untill you give the people their due I am as much for them as any of you are You must give God his due by regulating a right 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 only by a Synod
I can The Reasons for which in conscience and duty which I ow first unto God and afterwards to my people for the preservation of their lives their liberties and their fortunes I believe I cannot answer untill I am satisfied of your legality of it All proceeding against any man whatsoever President Sir I must interrupt you which I would not do but that which you do agreeth not with the proceeding of any Tribunal of Justice you enter into a controversie and dispute against the Authority of this Court before which you appeare 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 tribunall 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 and reason and 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 than you are and if I should believe any man without he gives me Reasons what he saith It would be abused but I say unto you that the Reasons 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 spake 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 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 Professe 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 Tribunall If you shall yet do it I must intimate unto you that they are above objections They set here by Authority of the Commons of England and all your Predecessors and you your selfe are bound to be accountable to them King I sdeny that shew me one example L. President Sir you ought not to interrupt but attend whilst the Court speakes 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 Charles Stuard 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 shal 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 speake 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 prisoners to demand King Prisoners Sir I am no ordinary prisoner 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 Supreme 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 and 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 Prisoner 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 Laws of the subjects If I have defended myself 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 hour they intended to adjourn again to Westminster-hal 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 Genrall turning to the L. 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 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 tyrannical 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
most humbly bowed his generious Neck to Go to be cut off by the Vizarded Executioner which was sudainly done at one blow Thus fell King Charles the I. and thus all Britan with him His Majesties Reasons against the pretended Jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice which he hath in tended to have given there on Munday Jan. 26. 1649. Faithfully transcribed from the original coppy of the King SInce I have already made my Protestation not onely against the illegality of this pretended Court but that no power on earth can justly call me who am your King into question as a Delinquent I would no longer have opened my mouth on this Argument but have referred my self to those things which I then spoke if this onely concerned my own particular But the duty which I ow to God to preserve the true liberty of my people doth not permit me at this time I should be silent for how can any free born Subject of England call his life or any thing he doth possess his own if power without law can daily make new and abrogate the old and Fundamentall Laws of this Land which I judge to be the present case Wherefore when I was brought hither I expected that you would have studied to satisfie me in those Fundamentals which do hinder me from puting in my Answer to the pretended charge but since I do observe that nothing which I can alledge can perswade you to it although negatives are not so naturally proved as affirmatives yet I have thought good to declear unto you the Reasons for which I am confident you are not in a capacity to judge me nor the vilest man in England for without showing my Reasons I will not as you be so unreasonable importunate as to exact either belief or obedience from my Subjects Here was I restrained and not suffered to speak any more of Reasons there is no just Processe against any man which deriveth not its authority either from the Law of God or from the municipall Laws of the Land Now I am most sure that the Processe at this day made against me cannot be confirmed by the law of God for on the contrary the necessity of obedience is cleerely confirmed and streightly commanded in the old and new Testament which if it be denyed I am prepared presently to prove it and as for the question now in agitation it is said there Where the word of a King is there is power and who can say unto him what doest thou Eccles 8. v. 4. Then as to the Laws of the land I am as confident that no learned Lawyer will affirm that any charge can be brought against the King since they all go forth under his name and it is one of their axioms that the King cannot do any injury Moreover the law on which you do ground your processe is either old or new if it be old shew that law unto me if it be new tell me what Authority established by the Fundamentall laws of this land did give it birth and when but how the House of Commons can erect a Tribunall of Justice which was never one it self as all Lawyers will confesse with me I leave it to God and to the world to judge and it will seeme most strange to any who ever have heard of the laws of England how they can pretend to make laws without either the King or the House of Peers Neverthelesse it be admited but not granted that a Commission from the people of England is able to confirm your pretended power yet I see nothing that you can show for it for I am confident that you never asked that question of the 10th man in the Kingdome in this method you do a most apparent injury even to the poorest ploughman if you ask not his consent neither can you pretend any coluor to this your pretended Commission if you have not the concurring voyces of at least the greatest part of this Nation of every degree and quality which you are so far from obtaining that I am confident you never so much as sought it You see then that I do not onely speake for my own Right as I am your King but also for the true liberty of all my subjects which confisteth not in dividing the power of Government but in living under such laws and such a Government as may grant them the best security of their lives and the propriety of their goods In this I ought not to be forgetfull neither do I forget the priviledges of both Houses of Parliament which these proceedings do not onely violate but give an occasion of the greatest breaking of the publick faith and such I believe as the like was never heard of before with which I will not at all charge both Houses for the pretended crime which they impose upon me are far before the Treaty at Newport in which when I assented to and did conclude as much as possibly lay in my power and did justly expect the assent of both Houses I was suddenly taken from thence and carried a way as a prisoner and against my will I was hurried hither and since I came to this Court I cannot with all my Indeavours defend the ancient laws and liberties of this Kingdome together with my just priviledges and as much as I can possiblely discern the upper House which is the House of Lords is totally excluded And as for the House of Commons it is to much known that the greater part of them are either imprisoned or affrighted from fitting so that if I had no other Cause this was sufficient enough to make me Protest against the authority of your pretended Tribunall Besides all these things the peace of the Kingdome is not the least part of my cares and what hope can there be of establishing it as long as power reigneth without the Rule of the law changing the whole frame of the Government under which this Kingdome hath flourished these many ages neither will I speak what is likely to follow if these unlawfull proceedings shall yet continue against me for I believe the Commons of England will give you no thankes for this change especially when they shall call into their mindes how happily they heretofore have lived in the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and of the King my Father and in my own Reign before the beginnings 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 appeare that I onely took up Armes to defend the Fundamentall Lawes of this kingdome against those who opposed my power and totally would have subverted the antient Government Having so briefly declared my Reasons to you for which I could nor 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 clear Reasons to convince my Judgment by demonstrating to me
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 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 freedom 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 â—ubject 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 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 shall 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 better 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 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 the Nightcap 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 Gratious 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 finde great Joy and Solace King I go from a corruptible to an incorruptable 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 haire as it should be He then did put off his cloak and his George which he gave to Doctor 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 Executioner 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 stooped 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 signe 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 Illegall proceedings against the honourable Colonell John Penruddock of Comppton in Wiltshire and his Speech Which he delivered the day before he was beheaded in the Castle of Exon being the 16 day of May 1655 to a Gentleman whom he desired to publish them after his death Together with his prayer upon the Scaffold and the last Letter he received from his verteous Lady with his answer to the same Also the speech of that Piously resolved Gentlemen Hugh Grove of Chisenbury in the parish of Enford and County of Wilts Esquire beheaded there the same day Printed by order of the Gent. intrusted 1660. Col. Penruddock being writ to by a friend for an account of his triall writ as followeth SIR THough I received your desires something too late it being but two days before notice given me from the Sheriff of the day of my expiration for I cannot call this an execution it being for such a cause yet in order to your satisfaction I have borrowed so much time from my more serious Meditations as to give you this short account of my Triall wherein you must excuse both the brevity and imperfections it being but the issues of a bad memory UPon Thursday the 19. April 1655. the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer being sate in the Castle of Exon summoned before them my self Mr. Huge Grove Mr. Richard Reeves Mr. Robert Duke Mr. George Duke Mr. Thomas Fitz-James Mr. Francis Jones Mr. Edward Davis Mr. Thomas Poulton and Mr. Francis Bennet Being all called to the Barre we were commanded to hold up our hands and an Indictment of high treason was read against us and being asked whether we would plead guilty or not guilty to the Indictment in the behalf of my self and of the Gentlemen therein charged I spake as followeth Col. Penruddock My Lords though my education hath been such as not to give me those advantages which the knowledge of the Laws would assisted me with
passe upon me The Jury found me guilty if I should go about to make a defence now it would signifie no more then as if my friends should petition for my pardon after I am excuted could have offered you articles here but I thought them inconsistenâ— with this Court. When I look upon my offence as to the Protectour I conclude myself a dead man but when I reflect upon the favour he hath shewed to others of my condition and the hopes I have of your intercession me thinks I feel my spirits renewed again My Lords death is a debt due from Nature has now the keeping the bond and has put it in suit by his Attorny if he please to forbear the serving me with an execution and let me keep it a little longer I will pay him the interest of thanks for it as as long as I live and engage my posterity and a numerous allyance to be bound for me So the Lord direct you all for the best If I have found favour I shall thank you if not I shall forgive you This being done Serjeant Glyn after a most bitter and nonsensicall speech gave sentence against us viz to be drawn hanged and quartred A prety exchange for unworthy Crooks Articles for life liberty and estate which I can prove and will die upon My triall held at least five hours This is as much as at present I can remember of it excuse the errours One of the Jury being asked by a Gent. why he found me guilty answered He was resolved to hang me before he did see me I observe treason in this age to be an individuum vagum like the wind in the Gospel which bloweth where it listeth for that shall be treason in me to day which shall be none in another to morrow as it pleaseth Mr Attorny The Judges are sworn to do justice according to the Laws of the Land and therefore have miserably perjured themselves in condemning me contrary to Law And not so contented must cause the Jury so wise they were through their false and unjust directions to destroy their own rights and properties and set up a new Arbitrary and Tyrannicall government The Judges would not give me their advice in point of Law as was their duty because they said they were parties yet could sit still on the Bench in their Robes to countenance and approve of my Sentence No man can be a Judge where he is a Party in the same cause therefore my tryall was contrary to Law The Judges being parties ought not to sit upon the bench but stand by therefore my triall was illegall the rest being no Judges but the Protectours immediate servants so could not be my Judges in case of High Treason for none but the sworn Judges of the Land are capable of it by Law One thing of Colonel Dove the reverend Sheriff of Wilts who that the Jury might be sufficiently incensed complaining of the many incivilities he pretended were offered him by our party being upon his Oath said that one of our men did run him through the side with a Carbine Surely it was a very small one for the wound was not discernable A great deal of paines every man in his place took for the carrying on their Masters work Be mercifull unto me O Lord be mercifull unto me under the shadow of they wings will I hide my selfe till this Tyranny be overpast Glory be to God on High in earth peace good will towards men and so have mercy on me O Lord. JOHNN PENRVDDOCK Mrs. Penruddock's last letter to her honourable and dear Husband My dear heart MY sad parting was so far from making me forget you that I scarce thought on my self since but wholy upon you Those dear embraces which I yet feel and shall never loose being the faithfull testimonies of an indulgent husband have charmed my soul to such a reverence of your remembrance that were it possible I would with my own blood cement your dead limbs to life again and with reverence think it no sin to rob heaven a little while longer of a Martyr Oh my dear you must now pardon my passion this being my last oh fatall word that ever you will receive from me And know that untill the last minuit that I can imagine you shall live I will sacrifice the prayers of a Christian and the grones of an afflicted wife And when you are not which sure by sympathie I shall know I shall wish my own dissolution with you that so we may go hand in hand to heaven T is to late to tell you what I have or rather have not done for you how turned out of doores because I came to beg mercy the Lord lay not your blood to their charge I would fain discourse longer with you but Passion begins to drawn my Reason and will rob me of my devoire which is all I have left to serve you Adieu therefore ten thousand times my dearest dear and since I must never see you more take this prayer May your Faith be so strengthened that your Constancy may continue and then I know that heaven will receive you whether grief and love will in a short time I hope translate May the 3. at 11 at clock at night My dear Your sad but constant wife even to love your ashes when dead Arundel Penruddock Your children beg your blessing and present their duties to you The last letter from the honourable Colonel Penruddock in answer to his vertuous Lady MY DEAREST HEART I Even now received thy farewell letter each word whereof represents unto me a most lively Embleme of your affection drawn with thy own hand in water colours to the figure of a deaths head My dear I imbrace it as coming first from God and then from Man for what is there done in this City that the Lord hath not permitted I look upon every line of thine as so many threads twisted together in to that of my life which being now woven my meditations tells me will make a fit remnant for my winding sheet Upon the reading thereof I may say with the Prophet I should have utterly fainted but that I believe verily too see the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living As this is mine my dear so let it be thy consolation When I think what a wife and what children I go from and look no further I begin to cry O wretched man that I am But when my thoughts soar higher and fix them selves upon those things which are above where I shall find God my Creatour to my Father and his Son my Redeemer to my Brother for so they have vouchsafed to term themselves then I lay aside those relations and do of all love my dear desire thee not to look towards my grave where my Body lies but toward the heaven where I hope my Soul shall gain a Mansion in my Fathers house I do stedfastly believe that God hath heard the prayers of my friends and
I could tell you of some souldiers which are turned out of his troup for defending those conditions of ours but let that pass and hence forward instead of life liberty and estate which were the Articles agreed upon let drawing hanging and quartring bear the Denomination of Captain Crooks Articles However I thank the Protectour for granting me this honourable Death I should now give you an accompt of my Faith But truly gentlemen this poor Nation is rent into so many several opinions that it is impossible for me to give you mine without displeasing some of you However if any be so criticall as to inquire of what Faith I die I shall refer him to the Apostles Athanasius and the Nicene Creed and to the testimony of this Reverend gentleman Dr. Short to whom I have unbosomed my self and if this do not satisfie look in the thirty nine Articles of the Catholick Church of England to them I have subscribed and do own them as authentick Having now given you an account concerning my self I hold my selfe obliged in duty to some of my friends to take off a suspicion which lyes upon them I mean as to some persons of Honour which upon my examination I was charged to have held correspondency with The Marquesse of Hartford the Marquesse of Winchester and my Lord of Pembrook were the persons nominated to me I did then acquit them and do now second it with this protestation That I never held any correspondence with either or any of them in relation to this particular businesse or indeed to any thing which concerned the Protectour or his Government As for the Marquesse of Winchester I saw him some twelve years since and not later and if I should see him here present I believe I should not know him And for the Earle of Pembrook he was not a man likely to whom I should discover my thoughts because he is a man of a contrary judgment I was examined likwise concerning my Brother Freke my Cousin Hastings Mr Dorrington and others It is probable their estates may make them lyable to this my condition but I do here so far acquit them as to give the world this farther protestation that I am confident they are as innocent in this businesse as the youngest child here I have no more to say to you now but to let you know that I am in charity with all men I thank God I both can and do forgive my greatest persecutors and all that ever had any hand in my death I have offered the Protectour as good security for my future demeanour as I suppose he could have expected if he had thought fit to have given me my life certainly I should not have been so ungratefull as to have imployed it against him I do humbely submit to Gods pleasure knowing that the issues of life and death are in his hand My bloud is but a small sacrifice if it had been saved I am so much a Gentleman as to have given thanks to him that had preserved it and so much a Christian as to forgive them which take it But seeing God by his providence hath called me to lay it down I willingly submit to it though terrible to nature but blessed be my Saviour who hath taking out the sting so that I look upon it without terrour Death is a debt and a due debt and it hath pleased God to make me so good a Husband that I am come to pay it before it is due I am not a shamed of the cause for which I die but rather rejoyce that I am thought worthy to suffer in the defence cause of Gods true Church my lawfull King the liberty of the subject and Priviliege of Parliaments Therefore I hope none of mine alliance friends will be ashamed of it it is so far from pulling down my Family that I look upon it as the raising it one story higher Neither was I so prodigall of nature as to throw away my life but have used though none but honourable and honest means to preserve it These unhappy times indeed have been very fatall to my family two of my Brothers already slain and my self going to the slaughter it is Gods will and I humbly submit to that providence I must render an acknowledgment of the great civilities that I have received from this City of Exon and some persons of quality and for their plentiful provision made for the prisoners I thank Mr. Sheriff for his favour towards us in particular to my self and I desire him to present my due respects to the Protectour and though he had no mercy for my self yet that he would have respect to my family I am now striping off my cloaths to fight a duell with death I conceive no other duell lawfull but my Saviour hath puld out the sting of this mine enemy by making himself a sacrifice for me And truly I do not think that man deserving one drop of his bloud that will not spend all for him in so good a cause The truth is Gentlemen in this age Treason is an Individuum vagum like the wind in the Gospell it bloweth where it listeth So now treason is what they please and lighteth upon whom they will Indeed no man except he will be a Traitour can avoid this Censure of Treason I know not to what end it may come but I pray God my own and my brothers bloud that is now to die with me may be the last upon this score Now Gentlemen you may see what a condition you are in without a King you have no law to protect you no rule to walk by when you performe your duty to God your King and Countrey you displease the Arbitrary power now set up I cannot call it government I shall leave you to peruse my triall and there you shall see what a condition this poor Nation is brought into and no question will be utterly destroyed if not restored by Loyal Subjects to its old and glorious Government I Pray God he lay not his Judgement upon England for their sluggishnesse in doing their duty and readiness to put their hands in their bosomes or rather taking part with the Enemy of Truth The Lord open their eyes that they may be no longer lead or drawn into such snares else the Child unborn will curse the day of their Parents birth God Almighty preserve my lawful King Charles the second from the hands of his Enemies and breake down the wall of Pride and Rebellion which so long hath kept him from his just Rights God perserve his Royal Mother and all his Majesties Royall Brethren and incline their hearts to seek after him God incline the hearts of all true English men to stand up as one Man to bring in the King and Redeem themselves and this poor Kingdome out of its more then Egyptian slavery As I have now put off these garments of cloth so I hope I have put off my garments of sin and have put on the