became moderate towards the Kings interest and fell into a discontented and envious humor against the new Model who were assisted from heaven to do that in one Summer which they had been dallying about some years and had lost more ground then ever they gained striving rather to ballance the Parliaments interest then improve it to a Conquest These Gentlemen with many others being now out of Office in the Army and so remoter from influences which much depended on the Military power and seeing all their former services swallowed up and lost in the present faithfulness and usefulness of this Army joyn in with the Scots party whose condition was much alike as to their overtures and the Scots who were glad of such instruments in our own bosoms strike in with them and lay their heads together how to work upon all tempers and distempers of men that they might either make a new war for themselves to manage or patch up a peace wherein they might be seen to be the eminent instruments thinking that would be most raising and advantagious to themselves it being more taking to the people to be instruments of making any unjust peace then of conquering by just war But the most plausible and teeming Agents they used were some Ministers in London and other places who had by their good Doctrine got into mens affections whom they used as fit bellows for such a flame and the religious vail and peculiar engine was the Covenant which was made use of to serve both ends So that this design hath been well composed and made up of English materials and Scottish spirits who were as the predominant ingredient in a Potion of the most secret and effectual influence The proper subject of these new contrivances were that remnant in the Parliament whom they had observed most immovable in their principles set against the Tyranny of the King and his interest which they knew would be more afterwards then ever hating to be so unfaithful to Gods Providences and their own engagements to this Nation as to sell away their Liberties after a conquest which they might have had in as good terms and with less hazard before the war And because God had kept the Army to the same principles and united them with that honest party they must be the main Butt of all these envenomed arrows which afterwards were shot at Rovers as well as in a level against them This poor Army because they had been too active and had been honored to Conquer that proud and insolent party the bare opposition of whom by the former Armies cost this Nation some millions to little purpose must now be put in their place and accounted the common enemy and the tables were presently turned and new names invented of distinction and disgrace that what they could not effect by force they might by craft which the Scots Commissioners were the great Masters of but that I may go on by degrees as this plot was managed The first work they set about in order to effect their end ' was to get the King into the Scots Army that he might be further out of the sight of the English and to prevent the Army from having the onely glory of doing all that though they had conquered his party they might not have the honor of taking his person I know the Scots deny any capitulation with him and profest they were as men that dreamt but if Martial and Hudson and Ashburnham who were the prime Agents in it or the King himself who swore it oftentimes upon his discontents may be believed as in these secret affairs which concerned themselves they were the best witnesses then it is out of doubt you may see this more full in a little Book Intituled The English Translation of the Scots Declaration against Montross where both Hudsons and the Kings Affidavit about this business are recorded Nay so fond they were of this new design and the Officers of the Army so transported with it that the old General Lesley told Hudson that his Majesty might be sure of his welcome he would willingly meet him half way bare-foot and on his knees rather then to miss his company besides they presently hasted away with him to Newcastle contrary to the advice of our Commissioners then amongst them and the absolute command of our Parliament as if they had got some rich prize and their ultimate end in this war and that they might have no objection of delay the King gave up Newark as a token of his love to them and though by being at Newark he was full half way to the Parliament yet they without stop carry him farther off that they might draw him at a greater distance from us and keep him as a pawn for themselves This transaction how ever guilded over was of a strange and dangerous import in such a juncture of time and shews much of the Scots ends that when he was beaten out of most of his Holds he should take Sanctuary in the Scots Army and they to keep him not onely in the place where they first met him but to convey him away so far from the Parliament and that by the alone authority of their Army which afterwards they condemned in our Army though what they did was upon more special Reasons all the world must needs judge that there was something in it more then ordinary and some great change not in the King who knew his own principles and was too much indeared to them but in the Scots who were so glad of his coming unto them But the truth is by this they thought to undermine the Army and that party they had their eyes on in Parliament to have frustrated all triumphs of our Conquest having got the prime Standard or at least to have so puzled and altered all our affairs that they might be looked upon once more as the first and last causes of our salvation The King was not all this while unmindful of his Interest neither were his Agents idle everywhere for after the Scots had conveyed away Ashburnham and Hudson lest they should discover the secrets and spoil the play The French Embassador and their Agent Montril ply the Kings business with the Scots and improve the interest of that Nation which with Scotland is most powerful all things had been done at that time which was promised in the next Expedition but that some of the wiser and men of greatest interest saw that it was not now time the King was so fast and stiff to his principles that they could make him do nothing in order to the Covenant which must have been their greatest pretence and the thoughts of espousing such an interest so soon and publikely standing for him ere he had given any delusive satisfaction would have been too gross as being a renewing of the old Cause which would make all men suspect the design ere it was ripe or handsomely veil'd and they knew well enough our Army had been all
they might not want pleas propose the necessity of a personal Treaty with the King to make up all former miscarriages all these like so many twisted cords they thought could never be broken a great part of the City and the then visible power were so courted and the Ministers of London so Coacht up and down the City by the Scots and these Lords and Commons that the Trumpet was blown for a new War all pay hindred from the Army they withdrawing their contributions refusing to lend any more money without they would disband and so vigorously was this design carried on that the City put themselves in a posture of hostility as if the Royal Army were at their Gates and Reformadoes and others duly listed encouraged by money and promises the Army so hated on a sudden that it was dangerous and capital but to mention them with respect at the same time a multitude of Prentices and listed Souldiers came down to Westminster from the City to awe the moderate party and make them to vote in the King to London upon which the Speaker with many honest Members left the House and fled to the Army at Hounslow-Heath who were marching to prevent the design in the City which had proved a bloody and doleful overture if God had not by the wise mediation of some instruments prevented it But that the Scots were the main wheel in this work may be easily known if we remember their converses then in the City and the series of their carriages since in prosecuting the same design for after that issue when the Grandees as Hollis Stapleton and the rest of the eleven Members were upon the Armies charge against them laid aside that they could not act the Scots come forth and act the part in sight themselves by other pretences especially that the world may know how deeply the Scots were interested in the making a new war between the Army and the City thinking it best to begin at the head Let us but view their affections and carriages to our Commissioners in Scotland who were soon after sent to keep up good correspondencies between us they were very much sleighted especially Mr. Marshal that pious and prudent Minister to whom England is much beholding whom they would hardly own or look on or suffer to preach and all because God had made him a happy instrument at that time to prevent that bloody Engagement and had for the present been used to qualifie the spirits of the Ministers and to make all friends a work which was his great honour and the Cities and Kingdoms most seasonable mercy at which nothing but envy malice and a deep engaged spirit could have any exception So zealous have the Scots been for Englands good that they will not let us flourish too much in peace lest we should grow proud and wanton But to go on for if one means fail another may effect all the next weapons the Scots take up are more spirituall and these kept for the last as being of the most keen and prevailing nature and they were the Covenant and Presbyterial Government both good but badly handled to such ends the first being most large they put most weight upon as comprehending the other From both these they drew a necessity of a personal Treaty with the King all which were prosecuted in their seasons It fell out a little before the height of these workings that the King was brought by Coronet Joyce into our Army who though he was sent towards Oxford about another business yet had a mind to visit Holdenby and try a conclusion on the King which he did though without any command from the Army yet with some advantage at present at least of freeing them from fears of his being made use of against them for the Scots with that party in Parliament had intended his surprizal to make a new work for the Army and once more to try a Northern trick in England This accident more incensed their spirits than ever when they thought how they were disappointed in their best laid plots and now they fall pelmel on both Parliament and Army urging Treaties plying the Kingdom with Remonstrances and Declarations which none durst to do but the Scots Commissioners nor they had not our Parliament had a large gift of patience and long-sufferance accompanied with great tenderness of the preservation of the union of the two Nations and they too great a mind to make England Scotland Yet truly they had little reason to envy the Armies enjoying the King but as it gave a check to their designs for they never got any thing by him but repentance which cost them dear to obtain and with some loss of Reputation in the eyes of many dis-ingaged spirits the King striving to drive on his own Interest by every party he converst withal However the Scots thought it a great loss and that which did perplex their Motions therefore first cryed out against the Army for that act as if they had forgotten what their Army did in a far different cause or were not yet got out of their dream of their Armies stated reception of him at Southwell and carrying him to Newcastle but the great cause of the murmur was this That they were afraid that the Army would have made that use of him which the Scots Commissioners and the English Scots intended It will too much lengthen this Narrative to repeat every circumstance about these Transactions the general and moral account I doubt not but will suffice When the Scots saw all this would not do they fall to their pens and shoot up and down their paper pellets against the Army and now flie to the Covenant as their last refuge taxing the Parliament and Army with breach of Covenant all England and Scotland is now filld with nothing else but the cries of breach of Covenant the most hainous and destroying sin of any Nation the Army given out as the Army Royal of Heresies and Schismes names as odious in Ecclesiasticals as Rebelion and Treason in Politicks that no good Christian can think of but abhor And these are so fastened on the army and reflected on the Parliament that all good men that were not very wary and observant looking on them both through this black Glass could not imagine them to be otherwise then Monsters who are incapable of any priviledge in a Commonwealth this Plea hath and doth do the Scots more service than any that ever they made use of because it leaves something alwaies suspicious and doubtful at the best in those which bear the brand of it and wild still prevail on implicite-faith'd men of which the whole world is full The Personal Treaty must be usherd in by this which was nothing else but a way to bring the King into London with Peace Honor and safety and to lessen and mittigate all former actings which the Scots Commissioners prosecute with the greatest violence and are the onely main men in view standing
dawbing there was in that affair some know that will not speak Some of our Commissioners did wish and desire some other terms to be inserted and some explained but it was husht as not being a time to dispute that it would offend the contrivers and retard the issue of affairs the Scots resolving not to move untill they had our consent fast in their net and our charity making us willing to hope they would be honest in their use and interpretation of so sacred a Text. Thus it came out in the Scottish Dialect which was then in fashion in England as the Spanish formerly at Court and yet we were fain to buy the paper and pay the Compilers and I pray God it prove not the costliest sheet that ever was drawn between two Nations yet we now thought our selves well and looked on our affairs as in a very hopeful condition the Scots being of late so high in all honest mens thoughts for their first expedition and being so firmly united against the common enemy sung Requiems to our selves hoping the War would soon be ended by the faithfulness and activity of the Scots Army and that the Royal Standard would fall down at the appearance of such a Covenanting Militia And truly the eyes and hearts of all honest-hearted men were so on them that they thought that God would onely make use of their Arms to effect our happiness their very name now which was formerly in English accounted as a barbarous expression was almost become sacred and spoken of with abundance of devotion But time that brings forth Truth soon discovered them and ere a year past over many men began to be startled and to see day through many little holes and to discover that England was like to pay well for their Charity and Affections yet while we were loving they were designing and making their advantages of our necessities the opening of which is one of the main ends of this Discourse This great Expedition as it drew on much expectation on all sides so it gave them many advantages over us which they carefully improved for they had their own demands both in Treaties and the Covenant they got into our affections and councels and had a predominant influence in all our affairs without suspition and were behind the Screen in all transactions besides they had their stakes in every hedge their Agents in every corner in the Parliament Assembly both the Armies of the Lord of Essex and Sir William Waller where the most of the Field Officers were Scotchmen who were made Lieutenants and Major Generals Colonels and Governors of great Garrisons besides a peculiar standing Army in the North and their Commissioners at London waiting on the design and so handsomly were they placed in all great Offices that the management of all affairs was almost come into the Scots hands and had not God wisely defeated their enterprizes England had been Scotland long ere this of which more anon But that I may quit scores as I go along because the Scots heighten their actings for us in this Expedition and in their Papers speak so largely of their assistance of us against the Royal Party as the greatest act of love and favour that ever was done unto a Nation charging of us with ingratitude and ill requital Let us a little remember that it was a common cause that but the day before as it were we did the like for them we paid them for the meer standing up for their own priviledges that we bought their love at a greater rate then brotherly assistances are used to be sold for and were at all the charges to maintain the Covenant both in England and Scotland And whereas they urge the Kings offers of the four Northern Counties to be annexed to that Crown if they would joyn with him with abundance of large promises In general as it would be worse than inhumanity for them to have engaged against the Parliament who had a but year or two before helpt them and sent them home with money in their purses when they came but about their own business So in particular they knew who were better paymasters the King or the Parliament and though they had not the four Northern Counties made over by the Covenant yet they did not doubt but to work them out and to have them for their Arrears which was more safe and honourable in the mean while they knew they should enjoy them for their Quarters However we must acknowledge their assistance was then seasonable and a favour And yet when we pay well for respects something of thanks may well be spared But to return to our main discourse It is very observable to consider the great difference in their carriages between their first Expedition for themselves and their second upon the score of the Covenant in their first coming they came with Bibles in their hands singing of Psalms and in a very lovely form of godliness and their behaviour generally was not much unsutable but in the second Expedition when they came with the Covenant in their hats and hands there was a sudden visible change both in persons and carriages the constitution of the Army of a more loose temper and Religion marcht in the rear for having us now fast by Covenant and lying under the shelter of so sure a pretence they presently fell to plunder and to challenge all things as their own and as I take it the first night they entred England they slew a thousand sheep though by the Treaty they should have brought in a moneths provision sutable to their Army and so acted as if they had nothing now to look after but an intire communion and mutual injoyment of all things in common with us and though we had Commissioners with them which by the Treaty were to order all things joyntly with them as they were seldome consulted withall so hardly ever obeyed these Gentlemen though tender enough of the English Interest giving way and yeelding to many things being loth to make broils and hinder the main work they so encroached ere they were aware on our priviledges and enjoyments in the North that there was nothing but sad oppressions and violences reigning over the poor Countreys without any redress and after they had warmed themselves with our English refreshments they without any Warrant from the Parliament or Approbation of our Commissioners lay on a universal Sess upon every thing that was of any concernment to the people besides Free-Quarter and particular plunders Thus our Commissioners remained among them rather as spectators of the misery of the people then as Counsellors and in authority with them These things were sad presages and opened many mens eyes in the North to see such sudden changes though the South knew not but they were all Saints It was wisdom then to conceal these things and not give them publick vent lest we should rejoyce our Enemies hoping likewise that it would be but for a while and that
they might be drawn farther South where better means might be had for redress in the mean time the burthen and misery was enough to busie us in patience and prayer yea so high they were grown that I heard a General person say debating about the rights of England and of their power over Englishmen that these distinctions must not be admitted the Covenant had made us one and that we were to be ruled by their Laws as our own I had not inserted these relations but only that we may see what use they made at first and meant to make of the Covenant The series of the actions and carriages of the Army were alwayes proportionable to these principles as if in their first Expedition they came to take our affections in the second to take away our priviledges and possess our inheritances As for their Military actions in prosecution of the War we need make no large Chronicle setting aside their lying before York the battel of Marston-Moor where they were assisted with two distinct English Armies and the taking New-Castle and Carlile in which they served themselves as well as us you may reduce all their services to a preserving their own borders saving their last journey in that Expedition into the South for March I cannot call it being there was no enemy in the way which yet was hardly obtained where though they shamefully left Hereford yet they got Newark and the King to boot of which more anon All the particulars of their strange deportment in the North will require a particular discourse and but burthen this I am sorry we have cause to repeat any thing of their miscarriages neither would I lessen their services but its time now to keep even reckoning and for England to know its own Interest But to go on God having almost beyond the faith of his people and expectation of Politicians blest our New Modell under the Command of that ever to be renowned Lord Fairfax to conquer the Kings Forces at Naseby Langport Cornwall that they had on a sudden beaten all their Field Forces and taken in most of their Garrisons save Oxford Hereford and some few more It put the Scots into new shifts and policies for they had kept their Army as the only reserve and Umpire and seeing things so strangely and without expectation altered by almost a miracle of providence and the main work to be done without them and no Martial work at all left for them on the Royal Party they secretly strive to make some that they might not leave us without doing something They were at a great loss in many regards by these new providences for first all their Commanders who had before the great command of the English Army had happily thrust themselves out of Office proudly slighting the New Model and scorning to stoop to a necessary Reformation and reduction of Officers which the State then saw fit whereby they wanted that influence in the Military part of our affairs which was of most concernment then unto us and we found the misery of it in the Lord General Essex his time by the delayes and neglects of opportunities which wasted our Treasure and gave the King too much ground to have got all and by the way it s not a useless observation seeing it is drawn by providence that God should lay aside and not use the Scots Army nor any of their great Officers in the full conquest of the common Enemy but while they were lying safe in their Quarters in the North getting in their Sesses God should prosper a poor despised Army and carry them from South to West conquering and to conquer that we may impartially say that they never were instrumental in one battle nor had a hand in the effectual accomplishment of that conquest there is something more in it then hath been taken notice of either by them or us and so much were they affected with the envy of that mercy that it was wonderful to see with what strange made faces they kept dayes of thanksgiving for every Victory which was obtained as ordinary as we had Marches Besides they might well think it mightily reflecting upon them that they should leave the Nation so much indebted to them and do them so little service But what an unexpressible favour God hath shewn to England in that he used our own Army to do the last work after-Ages will better judge if they got so much into our hearts and prevailed by the name of their brotherly assistance and reckoned on so much deserts from us that all our money and respects can never requite what would it have amounted unto if God had made them to do all that work for us The four Northern Counties had been a small testimony of our acknowledgements But that I may avoid tediousness the Scots seeing themselves so defeated and all their old instructions out of date think of a new way either to lengthen the war or slubber over the Peace which they had well contrived by their Commissioners who pretty well knew how to act their parts and had taken a full view of our affairs and having by our respects been admitted to all our Counsels and privy to most of our secrets for so kind we were they did soon cast our water and having had special advantages to view the generality of the people in the Parliament they observed them to consist of different tempers some but loosely principled and inclinable to the Royal Interest others but warily ingaged and almost neuters others very zealous for some express publick and national Government in the Church and capable of their severest notions others who were not much addicted to any seriousness and but a few truly engaged in the English Interest they strike in with the most comprehensive partie and fit baits sutable to them having but one interest to oppose they thought to crush them by strengthning the rest To take the one party which was not quite of Royal principles they deal with Mountril the French Agent to bring the King to their Army that after our Army had conquered him they might make use of him at least to gain breath to some other work That they might take the other party they press Reformation and cry up Presbyterial Government and that this temptation might not miss they closely joyn Royalty and Presbytery together as King James was wont to do Episcopacy and Royalty saying No Bishop no King The Forge wherein they formed all their Engines was the City of London the prime instruments to effect their design were closely some old formal discontented Citizens who had worn out their consciences with telling of money and some back-sliding and rotten Lords and Commons especially those who had been in the Army had lost their places and honor with the Scots Officers as Hollis Stapleton Waller Massey Graves Gentlemen who had their names up for a while among the people in regard of some particular acts in the war untill they
for it whether to regain their lost Honor in delivering up the King at Newcastle and vindicate themselves of these aspersions of selling him for two hundred thousand pound or to make good their secret promises at his departure from them it s no great matter to be informed in but all the world may know they negotiated that affair more like the Kings authorized Commissioners for that purpose then the Commissioners of the Covenant and Nation of Scotland For when the Parliament stood on the way of Propositions wherein the Fundamental principles of both Nations should have been stuck unto and the absolute necessaries of our peace without restriction insisted on nothing would serve the Scots but a Personal Treaty which in effect was no more but this That we must yet be at the Kings mercy for what we had by the sword wrung out of his hands that this was a dangerous design that the Scots had a chief hand in it I shall demonstrate in these particulars For the first That it was not the right way but a by path found out on purpose for to act some other affair by is evident if we consider First that the way of Propositions was judged at the utmost pinch of our affairs to be the safest and fairest by both Nations and though the King often desired it when he had an Army as an argument it would not be granted knowing the influences of Royal aspects and respect 2. Any other way would be most useless for what could not be done by Propositions could not be by a personal presence for those Propositions were not as Ceremonial and State Complements which can be omitted without danger but of that consequence and Fundamentalness to this Nation and so connected together that we could not lose one without hazard of all Besides our affairs were not in that equal ballance at that time we having the King as our prisoner to Treat with him upon equal terms or to admit his person to explain or dash out our demands Yea the way of Propositions was most serious as safe for if the King refused to grant our desires in cold bloud when he had time to peruse them so long and to know his own heart towards them and yet refused to sign them and we durst not recede from them how could we expect by debate and conferences where men are many times surprized and lie under strong influences and have not time of looking so round about them to have got any thing by such a Treaty but these things have been in other Manifestoes more fully spoken unto That the Scots have been the prime instruments in it it s a Record in their own Remonstrances And their carriages too gross in it to be kept private they protested against the Parliaments way of Propositions and when they had nothing against the matter they carp at the method and cry out upon them for not putting the Covenant in the fore front while the Parliament intended nothing but to secure it in the middle and make it the center in which all things should rest and by which they should be determined this was judged a little politick Superstition in the Scots to make the world believe they had the onely care of the Covenant and the Parliament of themselves the high incroachments of these Gentlemen on the priviledges of England and the Parliament though it might give us a full discovery of their designs on us yet it is not to be paralleld by any Ministers of State in the Christian or Heathenish world for still wrapping themselves up in the Covenant they peremptorily take upon them to determine what proposals we shall make concerning our peace and when they have granted the substance will take on them to hold our hands in the writing of them that we must not place a letter or syllable in any order but what these Commissioners would have us nor could we have liberty to point our own words or add an accent without a severe check from them And when we had profest our selves proper Judges of our affairs and not to meddle with any proposals that immediatly concerned their Nation the Scots Commissioners ride post presently to the Isle of Wight and protest against all those things that our Parliament thought most fit for setling the peace of this Nation That all English men may see the aims of that Nation for power and domination in England and I may say it without partiality the Spanish Faction never had more power in the conclave at Rome then the Scots had at that time on the most of the English Nation And so strenously do they follow this affair that a personal Treaty is obtained at last but least it should not have been effected to bring the Parliament low and ballance the Kings power with theirs an universal insurrection is designed in all Counties in England and the Scots to come in on the back that the Army might be divided and broken and the Scots might back their papers with their swords this was the deepest and most dangerous design that ever was set on foot and the greatest power of God was maifested in preventing the efficacy of it which did not onely make a new War but would have utterly undone all former hopes For upon a suddain they revolt in Wales under Poyer Powel and Laughorn get together a great Army in Kent and Essex afterwards in Surry had all been as ready as these Counties and the word so fully given it had been a blow indeed unto this Nation as never was yet given the poor discountenanced Army is now fain to divide and to go into several corners to fight and suppress their new enemies among whom had not God appeared by an extraordinary presence we had not known the wonders we now see That the Scots were the great occasion if not the prime causes of this new and desperate plot will not be very difficult to discover though they seemed to veil it never so secretly for all these things fell out upon their Declarations against the Parliament and Army and were but the result of their transactions with the King and doubtless formed especially in the I le of Wight Their great endeavour as you may observe hath been since the work was done without them to destroy the Army the onely bulwark God hath given us to preserve our selves from the designs of the King and them and to disaffect the people from the Parliaments power and actings many strange things being blown up and down and kindled in the Nation by their Papers to this end it now breaks out into a flame besides all the pretences the new Mutineers make as the utmost of their desires is for the disbanding the Army for a personal Treaty and to suppress Sectaries and though the King lay close all this while and was glad of his Prison while his Agents were so instrumental yet he had his predominant influences and as they raised men he put Commanders
of Estates with whom they left their power which was the only lawful power our Army having beaten Hamilton in England by the invitation of some private men prosecutes the remainder of that Army in Scotland where they make them lay down Arms and come to an agreement and set up the former Committee of Estates then accounted more honest and dissolve that Committee of Estates who sate by the full authority of the Supream power and besides whom all were but private persons this Committee hath ever since called Parliaments ordered all affairs as the Commission of the supream Authority of that Nation and yet they will have us to be no authority though the main of the body of the Commons of England in the same Parliament remain only because they have purged out many and predominant and Malignant humours which disturbed the health and marr'd the beauty of the whole and have cut off some rotten Members which were like to gangrene the Scots themselves also confessing in their Answer to the Armies Remonstrance that there was a party in Parliament which did betray their Trust and is it a destroying of the Authority to remove such a party And who are to be the Judges but these they call the prevailing party Were not the Scots drunk with malice and venome against this Nation they must be ashamed to deny us to be a lawful Authority when they remember themselves who did not only act without King or Parliament but got their Authority by dissolving the only lawful Parliamentary Power and courting the Royall which Committee of Estates was a meer non-entity untill our Army formed them in that Estate All that ever hath been acted in England need no other demonstrations to make them legal if examples may be arguments than the Scottish pattern but these pleas are grown too common and stale to have any efficacy on discerning and impartial spirits and if the Scots be admitted once as competent Judges of the Authority of our Parliament we may be sure they will judge according to their own sence and interest we have reason to bless God we have yet power to maintain our just Authority only we must observe to what end these men meddle so much in our affairs who have enough to reform at home and how unsutable is it to our carriages as to their Kingdom When did England ever send Commissioners into Scotland to tamper with parties or to print Declarations against any of their proceedings to divide the people from them when did we take upon us to say that Scotland did do ill in dissolving and annihilating the acts of a whole Parliament and by force set themselves in their places we know not their reasons of State as to their special actings neither care we to pry into them its fit they should be their own Judges and take their own advantages for their safety and security neither would England ever have been angry for their taking a King in among them or askt them why they did so if they had not proclaimed him K. of England also and agreed with him about imposing him on us especially when he is the common Enemy to both Nations I will add no more to this let actions speak if judgement belongs to them Justice and vengeance I am sure belongs to God who will judge his people and discover and punish the Tyrannical Government of men for the base and deceitful intentions of plausible and designing Neighbors We are now come to the last and most fiery Dart which is shot against us especially the Army which amounts to no less than a charge of Heresie and Schisme words of the saddest import to terrifie Christian spirits which is as bad and worse in a Church sence than Treason and Rebellion in the States for as they have used all mediums both Ecclesiastical and Civil that might hinder or destroy this Parliament and Army so they have invented all sorts of names which might make them odious in the eies of good and honest men to effect which no terms could be more proper and effectual than these something must needs be therefore spoken as to the charge and then of the application I am no pleader for any that are justly branded with these characters I have learnt the Doctrine of the Gospel better than to be an Heretick and have tasted so much of Gospel-love that I abhor to be a Schismatick but as these are names of the ugliest visage in Religion so they ought to be most warily and with great demonstration fixt on any who profess Religion or that are not obstinately opposite to all wayes of sound Doctrine and peace but when such horrid and black marks are fastned on men at a distance from converse and out of politick and particular ends it commonly either makes Hereticks or forces them to be Schismaticks ne'r to look after cōmunion with that party It would be wel ere men make use of such names they knew how to define them what a Heretick what a Schismatick is hath took up many debates among learned men when a man is proper to be called a Heretick not every error is Heresie nor every withdrawing from some particular acts a Schisme but we need not wade further into this controversie the Scots Heresie is not to take the Covenant and their Schism is not to follow the rules of the Kirk of Scotland for else we bless God setting aside some particular private desperadoes we have their marks we hold to the fundamentals both of Doctrine and Discipline though we cannot yet see all the particularities of either as we long after but especially we must confess we want eyes to see into the divine right of a Scotish Uniformity As for the Army on whom they lay the weight of both these expressions which they epitomize in the word Sectaries I shall not undertake to clear every particular person from many errors but this I must say if they have miscarried I hope they have repented and for the most of the Officers they have publikely profest their hatred of any that can really be called by such names It s true they had long since some subtle and windy spirits who vapoured in some high notions and for the present took frothy and active fancies among them but as they soon vanished so since they have seen much of the vanity and unsavouriness of such opinions and it hath been a cause of great humiliation among them and like the shaking of well planted trees it hath strengthned many of them more in the root and I hope these delusions of some among them hath but furbished and brightned the understanding of others who kept always the root of the matter in life and vigour in their hearts Yet if things were sifted to the bottome the Scots were great occasions if not causes of such opinions among them For they who minded nothing but their own design did so imprison and circumscribe all Religion in the Northern Model and
this while in action and yet in the eyes and hearts of the people for their rare services and that their spirits would fain be at the main person to end the war whom the Scots had unworthily conveyed from them and they might well imagine that our Army could easilier beat the Scots out of England then the King into the Scots Army Yet when he went from them he was laden with as many promises as he could carry or well believe which was too well performed afterwards though privately of which more hereafter some of their great men told him he had done too much to be presently stood for ere they had worn out the thoughts of his miscarriages by their new strategems on these they were then pleased to call his enemies others told him that they could do him more service in his absence from them and with less suspition neither could the King have gone away with comfort nor they with that quietness had not they promised to make up all at last for besides the shifting off the burden from themselves in regard of maintenance they had the advantage of freer actings from him by how much they had so orderly given him up to the charity of the English Parliament 2. Great things lay visible to any Observer as to that transaction first that it was too costly for them to maintain him alone when they saw they could make no present use of him 3. That they could not part with their former engagement to the King without new promises in a more hopeful way of accomplishment and some of their Grandees at that time were for a present appearance and the Army was dealt withall to that purpose and the Regiments that were engaged I could relate and tell you how forward David Lesley himself was in that business and how far the Lords Calander Lanerick Sinclare yea and Lowden also acted in that affair but wiser and more concerned men knew the Kings temper and how little they had from him to satisfie their best and most followed men and what it was to fight so soon in a new mask for the old Cause and what need they had of two hundred thousand pounds at present to pay themselves and their Army that they changed the Case and gave up that person to us to look after which they could get then no more by The King who was no fool as to Politicks was not much discontented at his removal but looked upon it as his usual ghuesse and progress for he saw the Scots were too far engaged to England on the one way as he was on the other against both to expect a sudden opposition but he contented himself to think that he had laid a good foundation for their future designs and had both gained and engaged his formerly most opposite party And you shall finde that the Kings party did more storm at his giving up then the King himself who knew both his design and their promises they curse the Scots and fall on them as those that sold their King and betrayed their Trust but he knew that he was not sold but bought and as his necessities did drive him to come to them whom he perfectly hated so their necessities made them give him up and renew their first promises to be performed in a more convenient way they not finding mediums as yet so proportioned and fitted to their main end But it hath been thought with much seriousness by many that could the Scots have prevailed on him to have taken the Covenant they would have made a greater Cheat of him then ever they can now hope to make of Charls their Second Argyle who was their main man in his surrender to his praise be it spoken though he hath since opened his heart parted very fairly and with much complement from his Majesty and told him that he could be a better friend to him at a distance then in their quarters and whereas he could have now but one wheel moving for him if he staid he should hereafter have many Yet that I may not diminish any thing from them they were very zealous in pressing on him the Covenant and some other acts which was well done and indeed they had no other visible way without shame to make their best market by him and the King knew them so well that he would often tell them They loved him onely for themselves and yet he expected no more from them then that they might serve themselves by him Many particular discontents there were between them in their debates which the King would often put up and remember onely when he knew their full minde of delivering him up to the Parliament of England he laboured twice to escape from them which whether it were to try what they would do further for him or what he could do by himself I know not but he was prevented and not onely kept more safe but secured that future actions should manifest their real intentions But however the King is now delivered up to our Commissioners who was very cheery whether because he was freed from a Scottish bondage or was comforted with new hopes through their close Protestations I will not dispute but certainly he was no way danted or melancholy in sight he now saw himself the special Umpire of all affairs and the great prize of all Parties and therefore intended to let them try out among themselves their own differences and rejoyced in our divisions that he might raign But though the King was thus made ours after many disputes of the propriety of each Nation yet the Scots Army must have something else which they valued more then his personal presence viz. that English two hundred thousand pounds which was rather as a gratuity then pay all things considered and yet was gladly given to fore-speak a Peace ere they would march and yet to their Commendation they did keep their Articles upon reception of their money and I have nothing to say to dispraise their peaceable departure onely for the honor of England it may be well considered what a fruitful and blessed Nation we are in our societies and converses that whereas they came in with between two or three thousand Scots Naggs they marched out of England with about sixty Troopes of as gallant horse as ever any Army in Christendom was furnished withall and every Captain besides the extraordinaries of Colonels had his two or three led horses of as great value as some would judge their patrimony to be in Scotland were they equally divided by a sterling account But yet England have much to bless God they went away with no more then they did But still to the design This Army went into Scotland not to be disbanded after their pay but as into their Winter Quarters which though their march was at almost the end of our Winter yet but the middle of theirs and they were designed to go aside and lie out of sight untill things were prepared in the