and in this they were so earnest that they would not willingly withdraw whilest it was debated and then they had leave to depart with this Answer That the House of Commons had already endeavoured Relief from the Lords in their Requests and shall so continue till Redress be obtained Such Petitions as these were likewise from the several Classes of the inferiour Tradesmen about London as Porters Water-men and the like and that nothing of testifying an universal Importunity might be left unattempted Women were perswaded to present Petitions to the same effect While the Faction thus boasted in the success of their Arts Good men grieved to see these daily Infamies of the supreme Council of the Nation all whose Secrets were published to the lowest and weakest part of the People and they who clamoured it as a breach of their Priviledge that the King took notice of their Debates now made them the Subjects of Discourse in every Shop and all the corners of the Street where the good and bad were equally censured and the Honour and Life of every Senator exposed to the Verdict of the Rabble No Magistrate did dare to do his Office and all things tended to a manifest Confusion So that many sober Persons did leave the Kingdom as unsase where Factions were more powerful than the Laws And Just Persons chose rather to hear than to see the Miseries and Reproaches of their Country On the other side to make the King more plyable they tempt Him by danger in His most beloved Part the Queen concerning whom they caused a Rumour that they did intend to impeach Her of High Treason This Rumour made the deeper Impression because they had raised most prodigious Slanders which are the first Marks for destruction of Princes on Her and when they had removed all other Counsellors from the King She was famed to be the Rock upon which all hopes of Peace and Safety were split That She commanded no less His Counsels than Affections and that His Weakness was so great as not to consent to or enterprize any thing which She did not first approve That She had perverted Him to Her Religion and formed designs of overthrowing the Protestant Profession These and many other of a portentuous falshood were scattered among the Vulgar who are alwayes most prone to believe the Worst of Great Persons and the uncontrolled Licence of reporting such Calumnies is conceived the first Dawning of Liberty But the Parliament taking notice of the Report sent some of their House to purge themselves from it as an unjust Scandal cast upon them To which the Queen mildly answers That there was a general Report thereof but She never saw any Articles in writing and having no certain Author for either She gave little credit thereto nor will She believe they would lay any Aspersion upon Her who hath been very unapt to misconstrue the actions of any One person and much more the Proceedings of Parliament and shall at all times wish an Happy Vnderstanding between the King and His People But the King knowing how usual it was for the Faction by Tumults and other Practices to transport the Parliament from their Just Intentions in other things and that they might do so in this resolved to send Her into Holland under colour of accompanying their Eldest Daughter newly married to the Prince of Orange but in truth to secure Her so that by the fears of Her danger who was so dear unto Him He might not be forced to any thing contrary to His Honour and Conscience and that Her Affections and Relation to Him might not betray Her Life to the Malice of His Enemies With Her He also sent all the Jewels of the Crown that they might not be the spoils of the Faction but the means of the support of Her Dignity in foreign parts if His Necessities afterwards should not permit Him to provide for Her otherwise Which yet She did not so employ but reserved them for a supply of Ammunition and Arms when His Adversaries had forced Him to a necessary Defence It was said that the Faction knew of this conveyance and might have prevented it but that they thought it for their greater advantage that this Treasure should be so managed that the King in confidence of that assistance might take up Arms to which they were resolved at last to drive Him For they thought their Cause would be better in War than Peace because their present Deliberations were in the sense of the Law actual Rebellions and a longer time would discover those Impostures by which they had deluded the People who would soon leave them as many now did begin to repent of their Madness to the Vengeance which was due to their practices unless they were more firmly united by a communion of guilt in an open assaulting their Lawfull Prince The King hastens the security of the Queen and accompanies Her as far as Dover there to take his farewell of Her a business almost as irksome as death to be separated from a Wife of so great Affections and eminent Endowments and that which made it the more bitter was that the same cause which forced Her Separation from Him set Her at a greater distance from His Religion the only thing wherein their Souls were not united even the Barbarity of His Enemies who professed it yet were so irreconcileable to Vertue that they hated Her for Her Example of Love and Loyalty to Him While He was committing Her to the mercy of the Winds and Waves that She might escape the Cruelty of more unquiet and faithless men they prosecute Him with their distasteful Addresses and at Canterbury present Him with a Bill for taking away Bishops Votes in Parliament Which having been cast out of the House of Peers several times before ought not by the Course and Order of Parliament to have been admitted again the same Session But the Faction had now used their accustomed Engine a Tumult and it was then passed by the Lords and brought hither together with some obscure Threats that if it were not signed the Queen should not be suffered to depart By such impious Violences did they make way for that which they call'd Reformation This His Majesty signs though after it made a part of His penitential Confessions to God in hopes that that Bill being once consented to the Fury of the Faction which with so great Violence pursued an absolute Destruction of the Ecclesiastical Government would be abated as having advanced so far in their design to weaken the King's Power in that House by the loss of so many Voices which would have been alwayes on that side where Equity and Conscience did most appear But He soon found the Demagogues had not so much Ingenuity as to be compounded with and they made this but a step to the overthrow of that which He designed to preserve When His Majesty was come back as far as Greenwich He met with many informations how averse the Faction was
they could to raise Horse and Foot to form an Army equal to their Usurpation which was not difficult for them to do for they being Masters of London whose Multitudes desirous of Novelty were easily amassed for any enterprise especially when the entring into this Warfare might make the Servant freer than his Master for such was the Licence was indulged to those Youths that would serve the Cause 20000 were sooner gathered than the King could get 500. The City also could afford them more Ordnance than the King could promise to Himself common Muskets and to pay their Souldiers besides the vast summs that were gathered for Ireland which though they by their own Act had decreed should not be used for any other enterprise yet now dispence with their Faith and imploy it to make England as miserable as that Island and the Contributions of the deluded souls for this War they seised also upon the Revenues of the King Queen Prince and Bishops and plunder the Houses of those Lords and Gentlemen whom they suspected to be Favourers of the King's Cause And in contemplation of these advantages they promised their credulous party an undoubted Victory and to lead Majesty Captive in Triumph through London within a Month by the Conduct of the Earl of Essex whom they appointed General Thus did they drive that Just and Gracious Prince to seek His Safety by necessary Arms since nothing worse could befall Him after a stout though unhappy Resistance than He was to hope for in a tame Submission to their Violence Therefore though He perfectly abhorred those Sins which are the Consequences of War yet He wanted not Courage to attempt at Victory notwithstanding it seemed almost impossible against so well-appointed an Enemy Therefore with an incredible diligence moving from place to place from York to Nottingham from thence to Shrewsbury and the Confines of Wales by discovering those Abilities with which His Soul was richly fraught unto His deluded Subjects He appeared not only worthy of their Reverence but of their Lives and Fortunes for His Defence and in all places incouraging the Good with His Commendations exciting the Fearful by His Example dissembling the Imperfections of His Friends but alwayes praising their Vertues He so prevailed upon those who were not men of many Times nor by a former Guilt debauch'd to Inhumanity that He had quickly contracted an Army greater than His Enemies expected and which was every day increased by those Lords and Gentlemen who refused to be polluted any longer with the practices of the Faction by sitting among them and being Persons of large Fortunes had raised their Friends and Tenants to succour that Majesty that now laboured under an Eclipse Most men being moved with Pity and Shame to see their Prince whose former Reign had made them wanton in Plenty to be driven from His own Palaces and concluded under a want of Bread to be necessitated to implore their aid for the preservation of His and their Rights So that notwithstanding all the Impostures of the Faction and the Corruptions of the Age there were many great Examples of Loyalty and Vertue Many Noble Persons did almost impoverish themselves to supply the King with Men and Money Some Private men made their way through numerous dangers to joyn with and fight under His Colours Many great Ladies and Vertuous Matrons parted with the Ornaments of their Sex to relieve His wants and some bravely defended their Houses in His Cause when their Lords were otherwhere seeking Honour in His Service Both the Universities freely devoted their Plate to succour their Prince the Supreme Patron and Incourager of all Learning and the Queen pawned Her Jewels to provide necessaries for the Safety of Her Husband Which Duty of Hers though it deserved the Honour of all Ages was branded by the Demagogues with the imputation of Treason This sudden and unexpected growth of the Strength of the King after so many years of Slanders and such industrious Plots to make Him odious and Contemptible raised the admiration of all men and the fears of that credulous Party who had given up their Faith to the Faction when they represented the King guilty of so much Folly and Vice and some corrupted Citizens had represented Him as a Prodigie of both in a Scene at Guild-Hall in London an Art used by Jesuites to impress more deeply a Calumny that they could not imagine any person of Prudence or Conscience would appear in His Service and they expected every day when deserted by all as a Monster He should in Chains deliver Himself up to the Commands of the Parliament Some attributed this strange increase in power to the natural Affection of the English to their Lawfull Sovereign from whom though the Arts and Impulses of Seditious Demagogues may a while estrange and divorce their minds yet their Genius will irresistibly at last force them to their first Love and therefore they urged the saying of that Observing States-man that if the Crown of England were placed but on an Hedge-stake he would be on that side where the Crown was Others referred it to the full evidence of the wickedness of His Adversaries for their Counsels were now discovered and their Ends manifest not to maintain the Common Liberty which was equally hatefull to them as Tyranny when it was not in their hands but to acquire a Grandeur and Power that might secure and administer to their Lusts and it was now every where published what Mr. Hambden Answered to one who inquired What they did expect from the King he replyed That He should commit Himself and all that is His to our Care Others ascribed it to the fears of ruine to those numerous Families and Myriads of people which the change of Government designed by the Parliament must necessarily effect But this though it argued that Cause exceeding bad by which so great a part of a Community is utterly destroyed without any absolute necessity for preserving the whole yet made but an inconsiderable Addition to the King whose greatest Power was built upon Persons of the Noblest Extract and the fairest Estates in England of which they could not easily suspect to be devested without an absolute overthrow of all the Laws of Right and Wrong which nevertheless was to be feared by their invasions on the King's most undoubted Rights For when Majesty it self is assaulted there can be no security for private Fortunes and those that decline upon design from the paths of Equity will never rest till they come to the Extremity of Injustice as these afterwards did Besides those that imputed the speedy amassing of these Forces to the Equity of the King's Cause His most Powerful Eloquence Indefatigable Industry and most Obliging Converse there were another sort that suspending their Judgements till all the Scenes of War were passed resolved all into the Providence of God Who though He were pleased to single Him out of all the Kings of the Earth as the sittest Champion to wrestle
with Adversity and to make Him glorious by Sufferings which being well born truly prove men Great yet would He furnish Him almost by a Miracle likewise with such Advantages in the conduct of which His Prudence and Magnanimity might evidence that He did deserve Prosperity and by clearing up even this way His eminent Vertues warn the following Ages from a Credulity to unquiet Persons since the best of Princes was thus infamously slandered From all these concurring Causes each one in their Way and Order did the King's strength so far increase as that He won many Battels and was not far from Conquest in the Whole War had not God seen fit to afflict this sinful Nation with Numerous and most Impious Tyrants and make us feel that no Oppressions are so unsupportable as those which are imposed by such as have made the highest Pretensions to Liberty of which we had bitter experience after the War was sinished that was now begun For there had been some slight Conflicts e're this in the several Counties betwixt the Commissioners of Array and the Militia with various Successes which require just Volumes and compleat Histories to relate and cannot be comprehended in the short View of the King's Life where it is only intended to speak of those Battels in which the King in Person gave sufficient evidence of His Wisdom and Valour The first of which was at Edge-Hill on Octob. 23. For the King had no sooner gotten a considerable Force though not equal to those of His Enemies but He marched towards London and in His way thither met with Essex's Army that were come from thence to take Him The King having viewed their Army by a Prospective-glass from the top of that Hill and being asked afterwards by His Officers what He meant to do To give them battel said He with a present Courage it is the first time I ever saw the Rebels in a body God and good mens Prayers to Him assist the Justice of My Cause and immediately prepared for the Fight which was acted with such a fury that near 6000 according to the common Account but some say a far less number were slain upon the place Night concluded this Battel which had comprehended the whole War had not the King 's prevailing Horse preferr'd the Spoils to Victory and left the Enemy some advantage to dispute for her But the King had all the fairest marks of her favour For though He had lost His General yet He kept the Field possessed the dead Bodies opened His way toward London and in the sight of some part of the Army of Essex who accounted it a Victory that He was not totally routed and killed took Banbury and entred Triumphantly into Oxford which He had designed for His Winter-quarters with 150 Colours taken in sight And having assured that place He advances towards London whither Essex had gotten before Him and disposed his bassled Regiments within ten miles of the City yet the King fell upon two Regiments of them at Brainford took 500 Prisoners and sunk their Ordnance From thence intending to draw nearer London He had intelligence that the City had poured forth all their Auxiliaries to re-inforce Essex's Troops to which being unwilling to oppose His Souldiers wearied with their March nor thinking it safe to force an Enemy to fight upon Necessity which inspires a more than Ordinary Fury He retreats to Oxford having taught His Enemies that He was not easily to be Overcome For in the management of this Battel He did not only undeceive the abused world of those Slanders which His Enemies had polluted Him with but He exceeded that Opinion His own Party had of His Abilities And though He parted from London altogether unexperienced in Martial affairs yet at Edge-Hill He appeared a most Excellent Commander His Valour was also equal to His Prudence and He could as well endure Labours as despise Dangers And by a communication of toils encouraged His Souldiers to keep the Field all the night when they saw He refused the refreshments of a Bed for He sought no other Shelter from the injuries of the Air than His own Coach These Vertues and this Success made such an impression on the Parliament that though they took all courses to hide the Infamy of their worsted Army yet in more humble Expressions than formerly they Petitioned the King for a Treaty of Peace which His Majesty very earnestly embraced But the Faction who were frighted with these Tendencies to an Accommodation cause some of the City to Petition against it and to make profer of their Lives and Fortunes for the prosecution of the War Encouraged by this they form their Propositions like the Commands of Conquerours and so streighten the Power and Time of their Commissioners that the Treaty at Oxford became fruitless which there had taken up all the King's employment this Winter though abroad His Forces were busie in several Parts of the Nation not without honour Anno 1643. At the Opening of the Spring the Queen comes back to England bringing with Her some considerable Supplies of Men Money and Ammunition and Her coming was entertained with such a Series of Successes that the King that Summer was Master of the North and West except some few Garrisons Which so dismayed the Parliament that very many of them were preparing to quit the Kingdom and had the King followed His own Counsels to march immediately towards London and not been fatally over-born at a Council of War which it is said His Enemies at London did assure their Party would so be first to attempt Gloucester He had in the judgement of all discerning men then finished the War with Glory But here He lay so long till Essex had gotten a Recruit from London and came time enough to relieve the Town though in his return the King necessitated him to fight worsted him near Newbery and so bravely followed him the next day that He forced the Parliaments Horse which were left in the Reer to seek their safety by making their way over a great part of their Foot yet lost on His side much Noble Blood as the Earls of Carnarvan and Sunderland and Viscount Falkland This last was lamented by all being equally dexterous at the Pen and Sword had won some Wreathes in those Controversies that were to be managed by Reason and was eminent in all the Generous parts of Learning above any of his Fortune and Dignity After this Encounter the King returns to Oxford to Consult with those Members of both Houses that had left the Impostures and Tumults at London to joyn with Him for the common benefit who being as to the Peers the far greater and as to the Commons an equal Number with those at Westminster they assumed the Name and Authority of Parliament and deliberated of the ways of Peace and means to prevent the Desolations which the Faction so furiously designed who were now resolving to encrease our Miseries by Calling in the Scots to their
several Messages to the Parliament for a Treaty and offers to come Himself to London if He may have security for Himself and Attendants All which were either not regarded or answered with Reproaches And because the people began to murmur at so great an earnestness of the Faction to continue the Wounds of the Nation open and bleeding since there were many Forts yet held out for the King by Gallant Persons besides the Lord Hopton had an Army yet unbroken and Ormond and Montross had considerable Interests in Ireland and Scotland all which might be perswaded in a Treaty to part with those Arms which could not be taken from them without much blood and it was the common belief that these men sought for Victory not Peace and Liberty which was now tendred therefore to raise suspicions in the Vulgar it is suggested that the Cavaliers who came to Compound would take the advantage of the King's Presence if He were permitted to be there and kindle a new flame and War in the City And that it might be thought they had real grounds for these fears the Disarmed Compounders were commanded to depart above twenty miles from London and to injealous the people more all the transactions of the King in the Irish Pacification were published and amplified with the malicious Slanders and Comments of the implacable and conscious Demagogues that so the terrors of the Vulgar being augmented they might be frighted into a longer patience The King finding these men irreconcileable to Peace and that they had declared against His Coming though without a Caution tryes the Leaders of the English Army but they proved no less pertinacious and were now approaching to besiege Oxford Providence not leaving any more Choice but only shewing Him a way for a present Escape He goes in a Disguise which when Necessity cloathes Royal Persons with seems like an Ominous Cloud before the Setting of the Sun to the Scotish Camp that was now before Newark where the Ambassadour of the King of France who was then in the Leaguer had before covenanted for His Majestie 's Safety and Protection and the Scotish Officers had engaged to secure both Him and as many of His Party as should seek for Shelter with them and to stand to Him with their Lives and Fortunes Anno 1646. The King being come thither May 4. made a great alteration in affairs Newark was surrendred by the King's Command and Sir Thomas Glemham having gallantly defended Oxford till the besiegers offered honourable Conditions delivered up that also But the greatest Change of Counsels were at London where when it was related among whom the King had sought a Sanctuary various and different Discourses were raised Some wondred that His Majesty had sought a Refuge there where the Storm began and how He could apprehend to find Relief from those that were not only the Authors of His Troubles but now the great Advancers of His Overthrow And they conceived no Promises or Oaths can be a sufficient Caution from those People that have been often Persidious Others judged that in those necessities wherein the King was concluded it was as dangerous not to trust as to be deceived no Counsel could be better than to try whether a Confidence in them would make them faithful and whether they would then be honest when they had the Critical Opportunity to testifie to the world that they intended not what they did but what they said That they fought not against Him but for Him But a last sort bewailed both the greatness of the King's Dangers that should make Him seek for Safety in a tempestuous Sea and false bottom as also the debaucheries of the English Genius which was now so corrupted that their Prince was driven to seek an Asylum from their injuries among a people that were infamous and polluted with the Blood of many Kings While others discoursed thus of the King's journey the Parliament heated by the Independents fiercely declared against the Scots who were removing the King to Newcastle and used several methods to make them odious and drive them home For they kept back their Pay that they might exact Free-Quarter from the Country then they did extenuate their Services derogate from their famed Valour upbraid them as Mercenaries threaten to force them out by the Sword All which while the English Presbyterians though they wish'd well to their Brethren yet lest they should seem to indulge the Insolencies of a strange Nation did not dare to plead in their defence But the Scots themselves for a time did justifie their Reception and Preservation of His Majesty by the Laws of Nature Nations and Hospitality which forbid the delivery and betraying of those that have fled to any for Succour The Democratick Faction urged that it was not lawful for the Scots their Hirelings and in their Dominion to receive the King into their Camp without the leave of their Masters and keep Him without their Consent These Debates were used to raise the King's price Which when the Scots were almost assured of to make their ware more valuable they solicite the King in hopes of their Defence to command Montross to depart from his noble Undertakings in Scotland where he had almost recovered the Overthrow Roxbrough and Traquaire had betrayed him unto and was become formidable again as also the Loyal Marquess of Ormond to desist from his gallant Oppositions both of the Irish Rebels and English Forces Which when the King had done being not willing those Gallant Persons should longer Hazard their brave Lives and after both these Excellent Leaders had more in anger than fear parted with their unhappy Arms that they might have a colour of betraying Him whom the General Assembly of Scotland which useth to hatch all the Seditions to the heat and strength of a seeming Authority had forbid to be brought into His Native and Ancient Kingdom as He affectionately call'd it they tender Him the Covenant pretending without that Chain upon Him they did not dare to lead Him into Scotland This His Majesty refused not if they would first loose those Scruples of Church-Government which lay upon His Conscience Therefore to untie those Knots Master Henderson that was then the Oracle of the Kirk and the great Apostle of the Solemn Covenant was employed to converse with Him But the Greatness of the King's Parts and the Goodness of His Cause made all his attempts void for the Papers being published every one yielded the Victory to His Majesty and unfortunate for he returned home and not long after died as some reported of a Grief contracted from the sense of his Injuries to a Prince whom he had found so Excellent While these things were acting at Newcastle the bargain was stroke at London and for 200000 l. His Majesty stripp'd of those Arms He had when He came among them was delivered up as it were to be scourged and crucified to some Commissioners from the Parliament But to Honest their Perfidiousness they add this
and their first contest was with Winds and Tempests which destroying some seattered all the Ships When they met a more dangerous storm fell among the Soldiers and Seamen where small Pay caused less Discipline and a contempt of their General the Lord Wimbleton rendred the attempt upon Cades vain and fruitless This was followed by a Contagion to which some conceive discontented minds make the bodies of men more obnoxious in the Navy which forced it home more empty of Men and less of Reputation The Infection decreasing at London the King performed the Solemnities of His Coronation February 2. with some alterations from those of His Predecessors for in the Civil He omitted the usual Parade of Riding from the Tower through the City to White-Hall to save the Expences that Pomp required for more noble undertakings In the Spiritual there was restored a Clause in the Prayers which had been pretermitted since Henry VI. and was this Let Him obtain favour for this People like Aaron in the Tabernacle Elisha in the waters Zacharias in the Temple give Him Peter 's Key of Discipline Paul 's Doctrine Which though more agreeing to the Principles of Protestantism which acknowledgeth the Power of Princes in their Churches and was therefore omitted in the times of Popery yet was quarrelled at by the Factious party who take advantages of Calumny and Sedition from good as well as bad circumstances and condemned as a new invention of Bishop Laud and made use of to defame both the King and him After this He began a Second Parliament February 2. wherein the Commons voted Him Four Subsidies but the Demagogues intended them as the price of the Duke of Buckingham's blood whom Mr. Cooke and Dr. Turner with so much bitterness inveighed against as passing the modesty of their former dissimulation they taxed the King's Government Sir Dudley Digges Sir John Elliot and others carried up Articles against him to the Lord's House in which to make the Faction more sport the Duke and the Earl of Bristol did mutually impeach each other By these contrasts the Parliament were so highly heated that the Faction thought it fit time to put a Remonstrance in the forge which according to their manner was to be a publick Invective against the Government But the King having notice of it dissolves the Parliament June 18. Anno 1626. and the Bill for the Subsidies never passed This misunderstanding at home produced another War abroad For the King of France taking advantage of these our Domestick embroilments begins a War upon us and seiseth upon the English Merchant Ships in the River of Bourdeaux His pretence was because the King had sent back all the French Servants of the Queen whose insolencies had been intolerable But the world saw the vanity of this pretext in the Example of Lewis himself who had in the like manner dimitted the Spanish attendants of his own Queen and that truly the unhappy Counsels in Parliament had exposed this Just Prince to foreign injuries Which He magnanimously endeavoured to revenge and to recover the goods of His abused Subjects and therefore sent the Fleet designed for Justice upon Spain to seek it first in France But the want of Money made the Preparations slow and therefore the Navy putting out late in the year was by Storms forced to desist the enterprize So that what was the effect only of the malice of His Enemies was imputed by some to a secret Decree of Heaven which obstructed His just undertakings for Glory Anno 1627. The next year the King quickned by the Petitions of the Rochellers who now sued for His Protection as well as by the Justice of His own Cause more early prosecuted His Counsels and sent the Duke of Buckingham to attach the Isle of Rhee which though alarmed to a greater strength by the last year's vain attempt yet had now submitted to the English Valour had not the Duke managed that War more with the Gayeties of a Courtier than the Arts of a Souldier And when it was wisdom to forsake those attempts which former neglects had made impossible being too greedy of Honour and to avoid the imputation on of fear in a safe retreat he loaded his overthrow with a new Ignominy and an heavier loss of men the common fate of those Who seek for glory in the parcels lose it in the gross Which was contrary to the temper of his Master who was so tender of humane blood that therefore He raised no Wars but found them and thought it an opprobrious bargain to purchase the fruitless Laurels or the empty name of Honour with the lives of men but where the Publick Safety required the hazard and loss of some particulars This Expedition being so unhappy and the Miseries of Rochel making them importunate for the King's Assistance His Compassionate Soul was desirous to remove their Dangers but was restrained by that necessitous condition the Faction had concluded Him under To free Himself from which that He might deliver the oppressed He doth pawn His own Lands for 120000 pounds to the City and borrows 30000 pounds more of the East-India Company but this was yet too narrow a Foundation to support the charges of the Fleet and no way so natural to get adequate supplies as by a Parliament which He therefore summons to meet March 17 intending to use all Methods of Complacency to unite the Subjects Affections to Himself Which in the beginning proved successful for the modesty of the Subjects strove with the Piety of the King and both Interests contended to oblige that they might be obliged The Parliament granted the King Anno 1628. five Subsidies and He freely granted their Petition of Right the greatest Condescension that ever any King made wherein He seemed to submit the Royal Scepter to the Popular Fasces and to have given Satisfaction even to Supererogation These auspicious beginnings though full of Joy both to Prince and People were matter of envy to the Faction and therefore to form new Discontents and Jealousies the Demagogues perswaded the Houses that the King 's Grant of their Petition extended beyond their own Hopes and the Limits themselves had set and what He had expresly mentioned and cautioned even to the taking away His Right to Tonnage and Poundage Besides this they were again hammering a Remonstrance to reproach Him and His Ministers of male-administration Which Ingratitude He being not able to endure on June 26. adjourns the Parliament till Octob. 20. and afterward by Proclamation till Jan. 20. following In the interim the King hastens to send succours to Rochel and though the General the Duke of Buckingham was at Portsmouth Assassinated by Felton armed as he professed with the publick hatred yet the Preparations were not slackned the King by His personal industry doing more to the necessary furnishing of the Fleet in ten or twelve dayes than the Duke had done in so many months before But in the mean while Rochel was barricadoed to an impossibility of Relief
necessary Expences of State and Majesty And though it was most just for Him to expect the Peoples Contribution to their own Safety who were never richer than now nor had they ever more Security for their riches than they now had by His Concessions of Liberty yet knowing how powerfull the Faction alwayes was to disturb the Counsels of Parliament He feared that from their Proceedings the Common Enemies would be incouraged as formerly to higher Insolencies and the envious Demagogues would contemn their own safety to ruine His Honour He also accounted it a great unhappiness to be necessitated to maintain His State by extraordinary wayes and therefore refused to renew Privy Seals and Loans the use of which He debarred Himself of in granting the Petition of Right Therefore consults His Atturney-General Noy whether the Prerogative had yet any thing left to save an unwilling people Noy acquaints Him with Ancient Precedents of raising a Tax upon the Nation for setting forth a Navie in case of danger and assures Him of the Legality of the way in proceeding by Writs to that effect Which Counsel being embraced there were Writs directed to the several Counties for such a Contribution that in the whole might build furnish and maintain 47 Ships for the safety of the Kingdom And by these the King soon secured and calmed the Seas but the Faction endeavoured to raise a Tempest at Land Anno 1635. They complained of Invasions on their Spiritual Liberties because the Bishops endeavoured in these years to reduce the Ceremonies of the Church to their primitive Observance of which a long Prosperity had made men negligent and time had done that to the Spiritual Body which it doth to the Natural daily amassed those Corruptions which at length will stand in need of cure Therefore when they took this proper Method of reforming a corrupted State in bringing things back to their Original Institution both His Majesty and they were defamed with designs of Popery This Tax of Ship-money was pretended a breach to their Civil Liberties and contrary to Law because not laid by a Parliament Therefore those who sought the People's favour to alter the present Government by seeming the singular Patrons of their Rights refused to pay the Tax Anno 1636. and stood it out to a Tryal at Law The Just Prince declined not the Tryal and permitted Monarchy and Liberty to plead at the same Bar. All the Judges of the Land did justifie by their Subscriptions that it was legal for the King to levy such a Tax and their Subscriptions were enrolled in all the Courts of Westminster-Hall And when it came to be argued in the Exchequer-Chamber ten of them absolutely declared for it only two Crooke and Hutton openly dissented from that opinion to which they had formerly subscribed not without the ignominy of Levity unbeseeming their places And as the King was thus victorious in the Law so was He at Sea and having curbed the Pirates He also reduced the Hollanders to a precarious use of His Seas Amidst all these Difficulties and Calumnies the King hitherto had so governed that sober men could not pray for nor Heaven grant in Mercy to a People any greater Happiness than what His Reign did afford The British Empire never more flourished with Magnificent Edifices the Trade of the Nation had brought the wealth of the Indies home to our doors Learning and all good Sciences were so cherished that they grew to Admiration and many Arts of the Ancients buried and forgotten by time were revived again No Subjects under the Sun richer and which was the effect of that none prouder Security increased the Husband-mans stock and Justice preserved his Life none being condemned as to Life but by the lawfull Verdict of those of an equal Condition the Jury of his Peers The poor might Reverence but needed not Fear the Great and the Great though he might despise yet could not injure his more obscure Neighbour And all things were so administred that they seemed to conspire to the Publick good except that they made our Happiness too much the cause of all Civil Commotions and brought our Felicity to that height that by the necessity of humane nature which hath placed all things in motion it must necessarily decline And God provoked by our sins did no longer restrain and obstruct the arts and fury of some wicked men who contemning their present certain enjoyments hoped for more wicked acquisitions in publick Troubles to overwhelm every part of the King's Dominions with a deluge of Blood and Misery and to commence that War which as it was horrid with much slaughter so it was memorable with the Experiences of His Majesties Vertues Confusions like Winds from every Coast at once assaulting and trying His Righteous Soul The first Storm arose from the North and the flame first broke out in Scotland where those Lords who feared they should lose their spoils of Religion and Majesty took all occasions to hasten the publick Misery which at last most heavily lay upon their Country the hands they had strengthened and instructed to fight against their Prince laying a more unsupportable slavery upon them than their most impious Slanders could form in the imaginations of the credulous that they might fear from the King by calumniating the King's Government raising fears of Tyranny and Idolatry forming and spreading seditious Libels The Author or at least the Abettor of one of which was found to be the Lord Balmerino a Traytor by nature being the Son of one who had before merited death for his Treasons to King James yet found that mercy from him as the Son now did from King Charles to have his Life and Estate continued after condemnation Yet this perfidious man interpreted the King's Clemency for his own Vertue and he that had dared such a Crime could not be changed by the Pardon of it and as if he had rather received an Injury than Life he was the most active in the approaching Rebellion Anno 1637. For the Rabble that delights in Tumults were fitted by this and other Boutefeus for any occasion of contemning the King's Authority though His designs that were thus displeasing to the Nobless were evidently for the benefit of the Populacy and at last took fire from the Liturgy something differing from ours lest a full consent might argue a dependency upon the Church of England which some Scotish Bishops had composed and presented to the King for the use of their Church which the King who was desirous that those who were united under His Command might not be divided in Worship confirmed and appointed to be first read July 13. at Edinburgh a City always pregnant with suspicions and false rumours But it was entertained with all the instruments of Fury that were present to a debauched multitude for they flung cudgels and sticks at the Dean of Edinburgh while he was performing his Office and after that was done re-inforc'd their assault upon the Bishops whom the
but in truth because it had so frequent Offices for the King To these were added the Covenant the Fetters of the Scotish Slavery this was to bind the whole Nation to the Interests of the Faction and was used as the Water of Jealousie to discover those whom they did suspect Therefore all the Conspirators of what Sect soever whether Independents or Anabaptists though they refused to take it themselves because it did oblige to the Preservation of the King's Person and Authority yet were as eager Imposers of it as the Presbyterians who in simplicity urged it as the Fundamental Constitution of their Empire upon all who they thought would not prostitute their Souls to their designs or had any thing fit to be made their Spoils And by this only Engine many thousand Persons and Families were miserably ruined especially of the Clergy To oblige more fastly those that had no patience to expect nor hopes to receive any reward for their Service against their Prince in the other life and so would not be satisfied with the shews of Religion but sought more solid encouragements in the spoils of it the Lands of the Bishops were exposed to sale and that at such easie rates as might invite the hazards of the Purchase satiate their boundless Covetousness and ingage them in a pertinacious faith to their Merchants To cement all these distinct Humours in one common pleasure the Archbishop of Canterbury was prepared for a Sacrifice and about this time began his Tryal which continued a whole year being when the Houses were at leisure called by several months and weeks to answer to his Charge that by his frequent passages as a Prisoner he might give a pleasant Diversion to the Rabble who are delighted with the ruines and misfortunes of great Persons and by their injuries and reproaches he might be reduced to such a weakness of Spirit as was not competent with the defence of his Cause But his Cause and his Conscience were impregnable and he overthrew their Slanders though he could not their Power By these Arts and Ways was the Winter spent to prepare for the attempts of the following Summer wherein Anno 1644. though the Parliaments Forces increased by the Scotish Succours had the Success over several bodies of the Royalists yet that small Number that followed the King's Person and were guided by His own Counsels and Example obtained two great Victories For His Majesty having once more provided for the Safety of the Queen in sending Her to Excester there to lay down the burden of Her Love and from thence to seek for Shelter in France taken contrary to their hopes His last farewell of Her and left Oxford strengthned against the Siege which the Earl of Essex and Sir William Waller threatned that place with He with a small party draws out intending to form His Counsels according to the future Occurrences This made the Enemy divide and Essex was designed to reduce the West But Waller with whom usually went Sir Arthur Hesilrigge a Person fitter to raise Seditious Tumults than manage Armies was to hunt the King upon the Mountains of Wales towards which He seemed to direct His course But hearing of the resolutions of these two jealous Generals He wheels about to Oxford and from thence drew the greatest strength of that Garrison and with that falling upon Waller at Cropredy-bridge obtained a great Victory which would have been more prejudicial to the Enemy had not the Tenderness of His Subjects Blood restrained Him from prosecuting His Success to a greater slaughter But contenting Himself to have diverted Injuries from His own breast He only used this Victory for an advantage to Peace which in a Letter from Evesham July 4. He moves the Parliament unto But the unquiet Criminals rendred it vain and fruitless and represented to the People their yet prevailing Forces in the North and their Army in the West which had now taken in some considerable places to their Obedience Therefore to remove their Confidence in Essex's Power the King follows him and so closely pursues him that He drove him up into Cornwall and there did as it were besiege him During which He sent a Letter to him which was seconded by another from the Lords and Gentlemen in His Army to solicite His endeavours for the Peace and Quiet of the bleeding and wasted Kingdom But it met not its desired effect Because that Earl either valued not that solid Glory of being the happy Author of a Nations Settlement or feared that his past Actions had wholly despoiled him of hopes of Security in a return to Obedience or knew that his Authority was not so great to put an Issue to those Crimes which he had led others to commit For every inconsiderable person may be powerfull at Disturbances but to form Peace requires much Wisdom and great Vertues Which last was generally believed for he had found and complained that his Credit declined with the Faction that they were distrustfull lest their own Arts might teach him to have no faith to them because he often solicited them to a composing of the Kingdoms Distractions Therefore making no return to those Letters he provided for his own safety in a Cock-boat and ignominiously deserted his Army of which the Horse taking the advantage of a dark night made their escape but the Commanders of the Foot did capitulate for their Lives and left their Arms Cannon Baggage and Ammunition to the Disposal of the King The speedy and prudent acquisition of these two Victories shewed the King had those Abilities that might have inserted Him in the Catalogue of the Bravest Commanders and had not want of Success in His following Enterprises clouded the Glory of this Summer He had been as eminent among the Masters of War as He was among the Sons of Peace the Honour of which last He most eagerly thirsted as rendering Him most like that Majesty He did represent Therefore after this Victory by a Letter from Tavestock Sept. 8. He re-inforces that from Evesham for an Accord with the Parliament being not transported from His Lenity by the Violence with which Victory uses to hurry humane breasts to an insolence But He knew that Peace though it is profitable to the Conquered yet it is glorious for the Conquerour To busie His Army while He expected their Answer and formed an Association in the Western Counties He sits down before Plymmouth but finding this Message had an equal reception with the former and that the Faction intended not to sacrifice their ill-acquired Power and Usurped Interests to the publick Tranquillity He rises from thence and marches towards London from whence were by this time in the way to meet Him Essex and Waller recruited and joyned with the Earl of Manchester's Forces that were now returned from their Northern Services And at Newbery both sides joyn in an eager Fight which being varied with different successes in the several divisions each party draw off by degrees and neither found
against the King now complained that the Honour and Safety of Parliaments was indangered by Petitious But all their Tyranny upon the complaining Nation prevailed nothing but to provoke them to a higher Indignation and more frequent Petitions And when they perceived they dealt with men obstinate to their own Interests which were not to be gained but by the Publick ruine they fly from Prayers to Arms and intitle their just War For the Liberty of King and People And in several places as in Kent Essex Suffolk Norfolk Cornwall York-shire Wales and at last in Surrey multitudes take Arms for this Righteous Cause The Navy also fall off and setting Rainsbrough their levelling Admiral on Shore seventeen Ships deliver themselves up to the Prince of Wales The Scots likewise by an Order of their own Parliament send into England to recover the Liberty and Majesty of the King an Army under Hamilton But all was in vain God had decreed other Triumphs for His Majesty and to translate Him to another Kingdom For the English being but tumultuarily raised having no train of Artillery or Ammunition considerable were soon supprest by a veterane Army provided with all necessaries The Scots either through weakness or wickedness of their Commanders who made so disorderly a march that their Van and Rear were forty miles asunder were easily worsted by Cromwell who surprised their main Body and Hamilton was taken Prisoner Cromwell follows the scattered Parties into Scotland where they were likewise assaulted by Argyle a domestick Enemy and forced to submit those Arms the Parliament had put into their hands to the Faction of that false Earl who calls another Parliament from which all were excluded that in the former Voted for the King's Delivery and all the Orders of that Convention made void Cromwell had the Publick Thanks and the Private Faith of Argyle to endeavour as opportunity permitted the extirpation of Monarchy out of Scotland The Navy also deserts the Prince being corrupted by the Earl of Warwick who was appointed for this Service and when he had ingloriously bought off their Faith to their lawfull Prince himself was ignominiously cashiered by the Conspirators These great disappointments and overthrows of just Enterprises men variously attributed to different Causes Some to the Perfidiousness others to the Weakness of those that managed them as also to the Treachery of some Presbyterians who in hatred to the Army first incouraged and then in Jealousie of the Royallists basely deserted them For the Rabbies of the Kirk cursed Hamilton in the beginning of his Enterprise Another sort thought them unhappy because the greatest part of the Undertakers were such that formerly had either fought against the King or else had betrayed Him and God would not now bless their unexpiated Arms. And some to the Fate of the Kingdom which God had decreed to give over to numerous and impious Tyrants because of their unthankfulness and impatience under so Incomparable a Prince But while these things were managed by the Army that were now at a distance and Cromwell's Terrors were greater in Scotland than here the less guilty Parliament-men seriously considering how impatient the People who in London and other places had gotten innumerable Subscriptions to a Petition for a Personal Treaty now were of those Injuries that were done to their Sovereign how hateful themselves grew because they had betrayed and inslaved their own Privileges together with the Liberties of the Subject to an insatiable and Phanatick Army and how an evident Ruine attended even their Conquests of Him whom it was unlawful to assault did at last though too late contrary to the clamours of their Factious and Democratick Members Repeal those Votes which they had formerly made of No more Addresses to the King This being passed in both Houses they afterwards with a strong Consent Vote a Treaty with the King in Honour Freedom and Safety The Factious Party in the Parliament found themselves too few and weak to oppose this impetuous tendency of the Two Houses and the whole Kingdom to Peace But yet they endeavoured to frustrate the labours of their more sincere Members and to bassle the People's just desires of it by imposing many unequal Conditions and obstructive restrictions For they procured that the Treaty should be in the Isle of Wight and not at London that it should be by Commissioners and not immediately with the two Houses as was Petitioned The Propositions that were sent to be Treated were the same which had before been offered to the King at Hampton-Court and were then rejected by Him and also condemned by the Army it self as too unjust The Commissioners were so streightned in Power that it was not lawful for them to soften any one of the Conditions of Peace not to alter the Preface or change the Order of the Propositions nor to debate a Subsequent till the Precedent were agreed on They could conclude nothing they were only to propose the Demands urge Reasons for the Royal Assent receive the King's Answer and refer all in writing to the Parliament whose slow Resolves and the delays of sending were supposed would consume that narrow measure of time which was appointed to debate so many and so different things for they were limited to forty days The Commissioners they sent were Five of the Lord's House and Twelve of the Commoners and with them some of their Presbyterian Ministers who were to press importunately for their Church-Government to clude the King's Arguments for Episcopacy and only to impose not to dispute their own With all these upon so many several and different Propositions some relating to the Law of the Land others to Reason of State and some to the practice of the Apostolical Primitive Churches the King was to deal without publick assistance For though He was permitted the Ministry of some Officers of State Counsellours and Divines yet were they but of private advice and to stand behind the Curtain He only Himself was to speak in the Debate and singly to manage matters of Policy with their most exercised Statists and the points of Divinity with their best-studied Divines The Vulgar to whom the Arts of these men were not so obvious were much pleased with the Name of a Treaty and now hoped to exchange their Servitude under so many importunate Tyrants for the moderate and easie Government of one Lawful King Others that had a clearer insight and observed with what difficulties it was burthened hoped for no benefit from it Because that if His Majesty should I not Consent as they believed He would not then He would be the object of the popular impatience And if He should Consent He that now was thought to be most injuriously dealt with would then be conceived not to deserve the Pity even of His Friends nor could He gain any other thing by His Concessions than to be ruined with more Dishonour So that considering both the inviolable Integrity of His Majesty and the implacable Malice of His Enemies
to frighten the King and Parliament to hearken to their Pretensions of a lesser guilt Others considering their former Crimes and Injuries both to King and People and their damnable blasphemies of the Almighty God did truly judge that their preceding Iniquities had now habituated and temper'd them for the extremest mischiefs and that having proceeded thus far they would think their Safety consisted in an accumulation of their Sins Only they admired that these men would discredit their ancient Arts of pretending to God's Direction in which they could not so easily by every Vulgar judgement be deprehended by boasting of the Concurrence of the People which was too evident a Cheat for not one in a thousand through the whole Nation but did abominate their practices But others more Speculative knew it was the accustomed Method of the Subverters of a lawfull Magistracy and Invaders of a Tyranny first to seek the favour of the Rabble by high pretences of Liberty and Justice and then to boast of it as though they had it and were entrusted by the People to recover what they presented to their hopes and desires and that these men following the same practices would be the greatest Oppressors of those whom they pretended to vindicate The Parliament though hitherto they had been very obsequious to the Army yet the Members now meeting in greater Numbers than usually and preferring the utmost hazards to a Compliance with this Remonstrance laid it aside and fell to debate the King's Concessions which then lay before them This free and stout Carriage of theirs was much resented by the Souldiers who stormed at the contempt of those whose Grandeur depended upon their Arms. And lest they should miscarry in their Chief Design and lose the Sacrifice to their Ambition they immediately sent a Party of their Army into the Isle of Wight to secure the King these laying hold upon Him with a most Insolent Rudeness not permitting the delay of a Breakfast forced Him from the Island into Hurst Castle an unwholesome and sordid place The other part of their Army they cause to march towards London with all the imaginable signs of terrour as if they went to sack and plunder an Enemies Town When they had entred they were quartered in those Houses of the King and Nobility which were nearest the Parliament-House hoping by the greatness and nearness of the danger so to affright those Members who were not so wicked as to comply with them that they should voluntarily withdraw and hiding themselves leave the possession to their own scanty Party For then the Violence would seem less and give more Authority to their unjust Decrees But the honest Members were more in love with Justice and therefore not terrified with the Menaces and Clamours of the Souldiers but as inspired with some unaccustomed Courage at this time and thinking themselves guarded by the Priviledges of Parliament with a greater boldness than usually they did upon just designs they appear in the House Where the Commoners re-assuming the consideration of the King's Concessions continued that Debate till past Midnight the Factious Party and the Creatures of the Army still raising new Doubts and Scruples multiplying Cavils and by tedious harangues wasting the time that the more Just Party which consisted most of Gentlemen of Fortunes not accustomed to such Watchings and Fastings might be wearied out and leave them to their own Resolves and also that they might give time to the whole Army to march into the City that Night Among the rest Sir Henry Vane who was born to disquiet the world and to be a firebrand of Communities yet still carrying his designs of Confusion under a feigned meekness and simplicity of the Gospel This Man in the Isle of Wight had perswaded the King not to be prodigal in His Concessions that He had already yielded more than was fit for them to ask or Him to grant and undertook to make it evident to the whole world yet now did most fiercely and perfidiously inveigh against the Concessions as designed by the King under the species of Peace to ruine the Parliament and Common-wealth Yet at last notwithstanding those Terrours without and Troubles within the House came to this Resolve that The Kings Concessions were a sufficient ground for Peace Which was carried by Two Hundred Voices and there were searce Sixty Dissenters The next day the same Resolve was passed by the Lords in the very same terms not one dissenting Who immediately adjourned for a week to wait whether this fury of the Army would spend it self after so generous an opposition And the House of Commons sent some of their own Members to acquaint the Lord Fairfax and his Officers of this their Vote This free and publick detestation of the Crime that was designed did extremely enrage the Projectors of it and the Democratick Party in the House mingled Threatnings with their Advices For One of the Chiefs of the Faction could not forbear to assure them that If they continued in this their Resolve they should never after have Liberty of meeting there again Which accordingly was executed for the next day they were to meet there the Colonels had placed a guard of two Regiments of Foot and one of Horse upon the House of Commons who strictly keeping all the Avenues thereto that none might enter without their Licence laid hold upon Forty Members that were Persons of the most known Integrity and highest Resolution they denied admission to One hundred and fifty more and suffered none to enter of whose servile compliance they were not well assured Some that had escaped their observation and got into the House by tickets as from Friends or Servants they invite forth whom being once without doors they violently force away while they in vain pleaded the Privileges of Parliament The imprisoned Members they vex and torture with great Indignities exposing them to the mockeries and insolencies of the Common Souldiers although there were among them many that had before Commanded Armies Brigades and Regiments in the Parliament's cause against the King and others that had been most importunate assertors of their first injustice to their Prince Those that beheld these vicissitudes wondred and acknowledged the just Judgement of God that had thus visibly and properly punished the Injustice of these men against their Lawful Sovereign by the ministry of their own more vile and mercenary Souldiers and did thus upbraid them with the falseness of their Principles by which they acted against the King the very same now serving to honest this violence that was committed on them for both equally pretended to a Necessity of Reformation and Self-preservation Others were inquisitive for the faith of these men who taking up Arms for the Sacred Privileges of Parliament had now left nothing but the Walls of that House For the Number that would serve them was not equal to the Name of a Parliament being scarce the eighth part of that Convention and not much above Forty in
had composed and used this motive because it was a small matter He answered Though it seem to you a small thing it is not so to Me I had rather give you one of the Flowers of My Crown than permit your Children to be corrupted in the least point of their Religion Thus though He could not infuse Spiritual Graces into the minds of His Subjects yet He would manage their Reason by Pious Arts and what the Example of a King which through the Corruptions of men is more efficacious to Impiety than to Vertue could not do that His Law should and He would restrain those Vices which He could not extirpate Religion was never used by Him to veil Injustice for this was peculiar to His Adversaries His Justice who when they were plotting such acts as Hell would blush at they would fawn and smile on Heaven and they used it as those subtle Surprisers in War who wear their Enemies Colours till they be admitted to butcher them within their own Fortresses But His Majesty consulted the Peace of His Conscience not only in Piety to God but also in Justice to Men. He was as a Magistrate should be a speaking Law It was His usual saying Let Me stand or fall by My own Counsels I will ever with Job rather chuse Misery than Sin He first submitted His Counsels to the Censure of the Lawyers before they were brought forth to Execution Those Acts of which the Faction made most noise were delivered by the Judges to be within the Sphere of the Prerogative The causes of the Revenue were as freely debated as private Pleas and sometimes decreed to be not good which can never happen under a bad Prince The Justice of His Times shewed that of His Breast wherein the Laws were feared and not Men. None were forced to purchase their Liberty with the diminution of their Estates or the loss of their Credit Every one had both security and safety for His Life Fortune and Dignity and it was not then thought as afterwards to be a part of Wisdom to provide against Dangers by obscurity and Privacies His Favours in bestowing Great Offices never secured the Receivers from the force of the Law but Equity overcame His Indulgences For He knew that Vnjust Princes become Odious to them that made them so He submitted the Lord Keeper Coventrey to an Examination when a querulous person had accused him of Bribery He sharply reproved one whom He had made Lord Treasurer when he was petitioned against by an Hampshire Knight on whose Estate being held by Lease from the Crown that Treasurer had a design and He secured the Petitioner in his Right The greatest Officer of His Court did not dare to do any the least of those injuries which the most Contemptible Member of the House of Commons would with a daily Insolency act upon His weaker Neighbour In the Civil Discords He bewailed nothing more than that the Sword of Justice could not correct the illegal Furies of that of War Though by His Concessions and Grants He diminished His Power yet He thought it a Compensation to let the World see He was willing to make it impossible for Monarchy to have an unjust Instrument and to secure Posterity from Evil Kings Although He proved to a Leading Lord of the Faction That a People being too cautious to bind their King by Laws from doing Ill do likewise fetter Him from doing Good and their fears of Mischief do destroy their hopes of Benefit And that such is the weakness of Humanity that he which is intrusted only to Good may pervert that Power to the extremest Ills. And indeed there is no security for a Community to feel nothing in Government besides the Advantages of it but in the Benignity of Providence and the Justice of the Prince both which we enjoyed while we enjoyed Him Though He was thus in Love with Justice yet He suffered not that to leven His Nature to Severity and Rigour His Clemency but tempered it with Clemency especially when His Goodness could possibly find out such an Interpretation for the Offence that it struck more at His Peculiar than the Publick Interest He seemed almost stupid in the Opinion of Cholerick Spirits as to a sense of His own Injuries when there was no fear lest His Mercy should thereby increase the Miseries of His People And He was so ambitious of the Glory of Moderation that He would acquire it it in despight of the Malignity of the times For the Exercise of this Vertue depends not only on the temper of the Prince but the frame of the People must contribute to it because when the Reverence of Majesty and fear of the Laws are proscribed sharper Methods are required to form Obedience Yet He was unwilling to cut off till He had tryed by Mercy to amend even guilty Souls Thus He strove to oblige the Lord Balmerino to peaceful practices by continuing that Life which had been employed in Sedition and forfeited to the Law Soon after His coming into the Isle of Wight by which time He had experienced the numerous Frauds and implacable Malice of His Enemies being attended on by Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Hammond for they were the earliest in their Duties at that time a Discourse passed betwixt His Majesty and the Governour wherein there was mention made of the fears of the Faction that the King could never forgive them To which the King immediately replyes I tell thee Governour I can forgive them with as good an appetite as ever I eat My Dinner after an hunting and that I assure you was not a small one yet I will not make My self a better Christian than I am for I think if they were Kings I could not do it so easily This shewed how prone His Soul was to Mercy and found not any obstruction but what arose from a sense of Royal Magnanimity He sooner offered and gave life to His captive Enemies than their Spirits debauched by Rebellion would require it and He was sparing of that blood of which their fury made them Prodigal No man fell in battel whom He could save He chose rather to enjoy any Victory by Peace and therefore continually sollicited for it when He seemed least to need it than make one triumph a step to another and though He was passionate to put all in Safety yet He affected rather to end the War by Treaty than by Conquest The Prisoners He took He used like deluded men and oftner remembred that God had made them His Subjects than that the Faction had transformed them to Rebels He provided for them while in His Power and not to let them languish in Prison sent them by Passes to their own homes only ingaging them by Oath to no more injuries against that Sovereign whom they had felt to be Gracious for so He used those that were taken at Brainford But yet the Casuists of the Cause would soon dispense with their Faith and send them forth to die
in contracting a new guilt Those whom the fury of War had left gasping in the Field and fainting under their wounds He commends in His Warrants as in that to the Major of Newbury to the care of the Neighbourhood either tenderly to recover or decently bury and His Commands were as well for those that sought to murther Him as those that were wounded in His Defence This made the Impudence and Falshood of Bradshaw more portentous when in his Speech of the Assassination he belch'd out those Comparisons of Caligula and Nero the first would kill numbers of Senators to make himself Sport and the last thought it just enough that Paetus Thraseas should die because he look'd like a School-master But this Prince's Anger was without Danger to any His Admonitions were frequent Corrections seldom but Revenge never He grieved when His Pity had not Power or Skill to save Offenders and then He punished the bad but yet gave them space to repent and make their Execution as near as He could like a natural Death to translate them from hence to a place where they could not Sin He had nothing of the Beast in Him which Machiavel requires in such Princes as make Success the only end of their Counsels and consult a prosperous Grandeur more than an unspotted Conscience He scorned to abuse the Character of God upon Him by turning a Fox to dissemble and abhorred to think that He whom Heaven had made above other men should degenerate to the Cruelty of a Lion He sooner parted with Mortality than Mercy for He ended His dayes with a Prayer for His Enemies and laboured to make His Clemency immortal by commanding the practice of it to His Son None of His Vertues were in the Confines of Vice and therefore this Admirable Clemency proceeded not from a defect of Spirit as His Detractors imputed it His Fortitude and the Vulgar who mistake Cruelty for Valour imagined but like the Bowels of the Supremest Mercy which are incircled with an Infinite Power so this Pity to guilty and frail men was attended with an Incomparable Fortitude For this Vertue consisting in despising Dangers and Enemies in those Causes that render Death comely and glorious the King gave several Evidences of a Contempt of all Power beneath that of Heaven When the Lord Rey first acquainted Him with the Conspiracy of Ramsey and Hamilton He was upon a Remove to Theobalds where the Marquess was to wait upon Him as Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber who having some notice given him of the Discovery besought His Majesty to spare his attendance till he could clear his innocence and return the Treason upon the Accuser The King answered that He would therefore make him wait to let him see He did as little fear his strength as distrust his Loyalty for He knew he durst not attempt His Life because He was resolved to sell it so dear And to make good His Confidence He made him ride alone with Him in His Coach to Theobalds and lie in His Chamber that Night while the sollicitous Court admired and even censured His Magnanimity for it went beyond His pattern and did more than that Emperour who was styled the Delight of Mankind who being informed of a Conspiracy against him invited the two Chiefs of it to accompany him to the Spectacula and caused them both to sit next on each side to him in the Theatre and to give them more advantage for their design put the swords of the Gladiators under colour of enquiring their judgements concerning their sharpness into their hands to shew how little dread he had of their fury But the British Prince's Magnanimity exceeded that of the Excellent Roman's as much as the privacies of a Bed-chamber and the darkness of Night make up a fitter Scene for the Assassination of a beloved Soveraign than a publick Theatre As He never provoked War so He never feared it and when the miserable Necessity lay upon Him to take up Arms to preserve Himself from an unjust Violence He shewed as much if not more Valour than those can boast of that with equal force finished Wars with Conquest in the success of these Fortune the Vanity of an Enemy and the assistances of Friends may challenge a part of the Praise but in that none but His own brave Soul had the Glory For to attempt at Victory against an Enemy that had almost more Forts and Garrisons than He had Families to joyn with Him that with Cannon out-vied the Number of His Muskets that had gotten from Him a Navy which His Care had made the most formidable in the World and not left Him the command of a Cock-boat that were prodigal with the Treasure of a Nation and His Revenues when He begged for a subsistence was such a Courage that would have made that Senate of Gallant Persons who were the most competent Judges of Valour and never censured Vertue by the Success but thanked their Imprudent Consul for not despairing of the Commonwealth when he gathered up those broken Legions which his Rashness had obtruded to an Overthrow to have decreed a Triumph for CHARLES had His life been an Honour to that Age or could those Generations have reckoned Him among their great Examples Most men indeed thought the King's side most glorious yet they concluded the other more terrible those that minded their Duty were in the Royal Camp but such as cared for Safety took part with the Faction or at least did not oppose them As He first entred the War so did He continue in it His Moderation alwayes moved Him to desire Peace and His Fortitude made them sometimes sue for it His Adversaries never prevailed upon His Fears but upon the Treachery and Covetousness of some of His Party who could not endure an Honourable Want and on such their Gold was stronger than their Iron on Him and He was rather Betrayed than Overcome His Greatness of Mind forsook Him not with His Fortune Arms and Liberty it being Natural and not built upon them this made Him tenacious of Majesty when His Power was gone For when Whaley that had the Command of the Guards upon Him while He was in the Army insolently intruded into His Presence to hear His Discourse with a Foreign Minister of State and being bold in his Power and Office refused to obey the Command for a greater Distance the King caned him to an Observance When the Parricides sent their party of Soldiers to force Him from the Isle of Wight to the Slaughter Cobbet that commanded them thrust himself into the Coach with Him but the King sensible that the nearness of such a Villain was like a Contagion to Majesty with His Hand forced him away to herd among his bloody fellows His Spirit alwayes kept above the barbarous Malice of His Enemies and of their rudest Injuries would seem unsensible He told a faithfull Servant of His that the Conspirators had kept Him for two Moneths under a want of Linen and