in any Kings heart And thus his pregnant motives are at last prov'd nothing but a Tympany or a Queen Maries Cushion For in any Kings heart as Kings goe now what shadowie conceit or groundless toy will not create a jealousie That he had design'd to assault the House of Commons taking God to witness he utterly denies yet in his Answer to the City maintaines that any course of violence had bin very justifiable And we may then guess how farr it was from his designe However it discover'd in him an excessive eagerness to be aveng'd on them that cross'd him and that to have his will he stood not to doe things never so much below him What a becomming sight it was to see the King of England one while in the House of Commons by and by in the Guild-Hall among the Liveries and Manufactures prosecuting so greedily the track of five or six fled Subjects himself not the Sollicitor onely but the Pursivant and the Apparitor of his own partial cause And although in his Answers to the Parlament hee hath confess'd first that his manner of prosecution was illegal next that as hee once conceiv'd hec had ground anough to accuse them so at length that hee found as good cause to desert any prosecution of them yet heer he seems to reverse all and against promise takes up his old deserted accusation that he might have something to excuse himself instead of giving due reparation which he always refus'd to give them whom he had so dishonor'd That I went saith he of his going to the House of Commons attended with some Gentlemen Gentlemen indeed the ragged Infantrie of Stewes and Brothels the spawn and shiprack of Taverns and Dicing Houses and then he pleads it was no unwonted thing for the Majesty and safety of a King to be so attended especially in discontented times An illustrious Majestie no doubt so attended a becomming safety for the King of England plac'd in the fidelity of such Guards and Champions Happy times when Braves and Hacksters the onely contented Members of his Goverment were thought the fittest and the faithfullest to defend his Person against the discontents of a Parlament and all good Men. Were those the chos'n ones to preserve reverence to him while he enterd unassur'd and full of suspicions into his great and faithfull Councel Let God then and the World judge whether the cause were not in his own guilty and unwarrantable doings The House of Commons upon several examinations of this business declar'd it sufficiently prov'd that the comming of those soldiers Papists and others with the King was to take away some of thir Members and in case of opposition or denyal to have fal'n upon the House in a hostile manner This the King heer denies adding a fearful imprecation against his own life If he purposed any violence or oppression against the Innocent then saith he let the Enemie persecute my soule and tred my life to the ground and lay my honor in the dust What need then more disputing He appeal'd to Gods Tribunal and behold God hath judg'd and don to him in the sight of all men according to the verdict of his own mouth To be a warning to all Kings hereafter how they use presumptuously the words and protestations of David without the spirit and conscience of David And the Kings admirers may heer see thir madness to mistake this Book for a monument of his worth and wisdom when as indeed it is his Doomsday Booke not like that of William the Norman his Predecessor but the record and memorial of his condemnation and discovers whatever hath befal'n him to have bin hast'nd on from Divine Justice by the rash and inconsiderat appeal of his own lipps But what evasions what pretences though never so unjust and emptie will he refuse in matters more unknown and more involv'd in the mists and intricacies of State who rather then not justifie himself in a thing so generally odious can flatter his integritie with such frivolous excuses against the manifest dissent of all men whether Enemies Neuters or Friends But God and his judgements have not bin mock'd and good men may well perceive what a distance there was ever like to be between him and his Parlament and perhaps between him and all amendment who for one good deed though but consented to askes God forgiveness and from his worst deeds don takes occasion to insist upon his rightecusness IV. Vpon the Insolency of the Tumults WEE have heer I must confess a neat and well-couch'd invective against Tumults expressing a true feare of them in the Author but yet so handsomly compos'd and withall so feelingly that to make a Royal comparison I beleeve Rehoboam the Son of Solomon could not have compos'd it better Yet Rehoboam had more cause to inveigh against them for they had ston'd his Tribute-gatherer and perhaps had as little spar'd his own Person had hee not with all speed betak'n him to his Charret But this King hath stood the worst of them in his own House without danger when his Coach and Horses in a Panic fear have bin to seek which argues that the Tumults at Whitehall were nothing so dangerous as those at Sechem But the matter heer considerable is not whether the King or his Houshold Rhetorician have made a pithy declamation against Tumults but first whether these were Tumults or not next if they were whether the King himself did not cause them Let us examin therfore how things at that time stood The King as before hath bin prov'd having both call'd this Parlament unwillingly and as unwillingly from time to time condescended to thir several acts carrying on a disjoynt and privat interest of his own and not enduring to be so cross'd and overswaid especially in the executing of his chief bold est Instrument the Deputy of Ireland first tempts the English Army with no less reward then the spoil of London to come up and destroy the Parlament That being discover'd by some of the Officers who though bad anough yet abhorr'd so foul a deed the K. hard'nd in his purpose tempts them the 2d time at Burrow Bridge promises to pawn his Jewels for them that they should be mett assisted would they but march on w th a gross body of hors under the E. of Newcastle He tempts them yet the third time though after discovery his own abjuration to have ever tempted them as is affirmd in the Declaration of no more addresses Neither this succeeding he turnes him next to the Scotch Army by his own credential Letters giv'n to Oneal and Sr John Hinderson baites his temptation with a richer reward not only to have the sacking of London but four Northern Counties to be made Scottish w th Jewels of great value to be giv'n in pawn thewhile But neither would the Scots for any promise of reward be bought to such an execrable and odious treachery but with much honesty gave notice of
goes on therfore with vehemence to repeat the mischeifs don by these Tumults They first Petition'd then protected dictate next and lastly overaw the Parlament They remov'd obstructions they purg'd the Houses cast out rott'n members If there were a man of iron such as Talus by our Poet Spencer is fain'd to be the page of Justice who with his iron flaile could doe all this and expeditiously without those deceitfull formes and circumstances of Law worse then ceremonies in Religion I say God send it don whether by one Talus or by a thousand But they subdu'd the men of conscience in Parlament back'd and abetted all seditious and schismatical Proposals against government ecclesiastical and civil Now wee may perceave the root of his hatred whence it springs It was not the Kings grace or princely goodness but this iron flaile the People that drove the Bishops out of thir Baronies out of thir Cathedrals out of the Lords House out of thir Copes and Surplices and all those Papistical innovations threw down the High Commission and Star-chamber gave us a Triennial Parlament and what we most desir'd in revenge whereof he now so bitterly enveighs against them these are those seditious and scismatical Proposals then by him condescended to as acts of grace now of another name which declares him touching matters of Church and State to have bin no other man in the deepest of his solitude then he was before at the highest of his Sovrantie But this was not the worst of these Tumults they plaid the hasty midwives and would not stay the ripening but went streight to ripping up and forcibly cut out abortive Votes They would not stay perhaps the Spanish demurring and putting off such wholsome acts and counsels as the Politic Cabin at WhiteHall had no mind to But all this is complain'd heer as don to the Parlament and yet we heard not the Parlament at that time complaine of any violence from the people but from him Wherfore intrudes he to plead the cause of Parlament against the People while the Parlament was pleading thir own cause against him and against him were forc'd to seek refuge of the people 'T is plaine then that those confluxes and resorts interrupted not the Parlament nor by them were thought Tumultuous but by him onely and his Court Faction But what good Man had not rather want any thing he most desir'd for the public good then attain it by such unlawfull and irreligious meanes as much as to say Had not rather sit still and let his Country be Tyranniz'd then that the people finding no other remedie should stand up like Men and demand thir Rights and Liberties This is the artificialest peece of fineness to perswade men into slavery that the wit of Court could have invented But heare how much betterthe Moral of this Lesson would befitt the Teacher What good man had not rather want a boundless and arbitrary power and those fine Flowers of the Crown call'd Prerogatives then for them to use force and perpetual vexation to his faithfull Subjects nay to wade for them through blood and civil warr So that this and the whole bundle of those following sentences may be apply'd better to the convincement of his own violent courses then of those pretended Tumults Who were the chiefe Demagogues to send for those Tumults some alive are not ignorant Setting aside the affrightment of this Goblin word for the King by his leave cannot coine English as he could Money to be current and t is beleev'd this wording was above his known stile and Orthographie and accuses the whole composure to be conscious of som other Author yet if the people were sent for emboldn'd and directed by those Demagogues who saving his Greek were good Patriots and by his own confession Men of some repute for parts and pietie it helps well to assure us there was both urgent cause and the less danger of thir comming Complaints were made yet no redress could be obtain'd The Parlament also complain'd of what danger they sate in from another party and demanded of him a Guard but it was not granted What marvel then if it chear'd them to see some store of thir Friends and in the Roman not the pettifogging sense thir Clients so neer about them a defence due by nature both from whom it was offer'd and to whom as due as to thir Parents though the Court storm'd and fretted to see such honour giv'n to them who were then best Fathers of the Common-wealth And both the Parlament and people complain'd and demanded Justice for those assaults if not murders don at his own dores by that crew of Rufflers but he in stead of doing Justice on them justifi'd and abetted them in what they did as in his public Answer to a Petition from the City may be read Neither is it slightly to be pass'd over that in the very place where blood was first drawn in this cause as the beginning of all that follow'd there was his own blood shed by the Executioner According to that sentence of Divine justice In the place where Dogs lick'd the blood of Naboth shall Dogs lick thy blood eev'n thine From hence he takes occasion to excuse that improvident and fatal error of his absenting from the Parlament When he found that no Declaration of the Bishops could take place against those Tumults Was that worth his considering that foolish and self-undoing Declaration of twelve Cypher Bishops who were immediatly appeacht of Treason for that audacious Declaring The Bishops peradventure were now and then pulld by the Rochers and deserv'd another kind of pulling but what amounted this to the feare of his own person in the streets Did he not the very next day after his irruption into the House of Commons then which nothing had more exasperated the people goe in his Coach unguarded into the City did hee receave the least affront much less violence in any of the Streets but rather humble demeanours and supplications Hence may be gather'd that however in his own guiltiness hee might have justly fear'd yet that hee knew the people so full of aw and reverence to his Person as to dare commit himself single among the thickest of them at a time when he had most provok'd them Besides in Scot-Land they had handl'd the Bishops in a more robustious manner Edinburrow had bin full of Tumults two Armies from thence had enterd England against him yet after all this he was not fearfull but very forward to take so long a journey to Edinburrow which argues first as did also his rendition afterward to the Scotch Army that to England he continu'd still as he was indeed a stranger and full of diffidence to the Scots onely a native King in his confidence though not in his dealing towards them It shews us next beyond doubting that all this his feare of Tumults was but a meer colour and occasion tak'n of his resolved absence from the Parlament for some other end not
stirr'd him so vehemently to have Sir John Hotham punisht and not at all that we heare to have him repent it had a strange operation to be call'd a sorrow for his sin Hee who would perswade us of his sorrow for the sins of other men as they are sins not as they are sin'd against himself must give us first some testimony of a sorrow for his own sins and next for such sins of other men as cannot be suppos'd a direct injury to himself But such compunction in the King no man hath yet observ'd and till then his sorrow for Sir John Hothams sin will be call'd no other then the resentment of his repulse and his labour to have the sinner onely punish'd will be call'd by a right name his revenge And the hand of that cloud which cast all soon after into darkness and disorder was his own hand For assembling the Inhabitants of York-shire and other Counties Horse and Foot first under colour of a new Guard to his Person soon after being suppli'd with ammunition from Holland bought with the Crown Jewels he begins an op'n Warr by laying Seige to Hull Which Town was not his own but the Kingdoms and the Armes there public Armes bought with the public Mony or not his own Yet had they bin his own by as good right as the privat House and Armes of any man are his own to use either of them in a way not privat but suspicious to the Common-wealth no Law permitts But the King had no proprietie at all either in Hull or in the Magazin So that the following Maxims which he cites of bold and disloyall undertakers may belong more justly to whom he least meant them After this he againe relapses into the praise of his patience at Hull and by his overtalking of it seems to doubt either his own conscience or the hardness of other mens beleif To me the more he praises it in himself the more he seems to suspect that in very deed it was not in him and that the lookers on so likewise thought Thus much of what he suffer'd by Hotham and with what patience now of what Hotham suffer'd as he judges for opposing him He could not but observe how God not long after pleaded and aveng'd his cause Most men are too apt and commonly the worst of men so to interpret and expound the judgements of God and all other events of providence or chance as makes most to the justifying of thir own cause though never so evill and at tribute all to the particular favour of God towards them Thus when Saul heard that David was in Keilah God saith he hath deliver'd him into my hands for he is shut in But how farr that King was deceav'd in his thought that God was favouring to his cause that story unfolds and how little reason this King had to impute the death of Hotham to Gods avengement of his repuls at Hull may easily be seen For while Hotham continu'd faithfull to his trust no man more safe more successfull more in reputation then hee But from the time he first sought to make his peace with the King and to betray into his hands that Town into which before he had deny'd him entrance nothing prosper'd with him Certainly had God purpos'd him such an end for his opposition to the King he would not have deferr'd to punish him till then when of an Enemy he was chang'd to be the Kings Friend nor have made his repentance and amendment the occasion of his ruin How much more likely is it since he fell into the act of disloyalty to his charge that the judgement of God concurr'd with the punishment of man and justly cut him off for revolting to the King To give the World an example that glorious deeds don to ambitious ends find reward answerable not to thir outward seeming but to thir inward ambition In the mean while what thanks he had from the King for revolting to his cause and what good opinion for dying in his service they who have ventur'd like him or intend may heer take notice Hee proceeds to declare not onely in general wherfore Gods judgement was upon Hotham but undertakes by fansies and allusions to give a criticism upon every particular That his head was divided from his body because his heart was divided from the King two heads cut off in one family for affronting the head of the Common-wealth the eldest son being infected with the sin of his Father against the Father of his Countrie These petty glosses and conceits on the high and secret judgements of God besides the boldness of unwarrantable commenting are so weake and shallow and so like the quibbl's of a Court Sermon that we may safely reck'n them either fetcht from such a pattern or that the hand of some houshold preist foisted them in least the World should forget how much he was a Disciple of those Cymbal Doctors But that argument by which the Author would commend them to us discredits them the more For if they be so obvious to every fancy the more likely to be erroneous and to misconceive the mind of those high secrecies wherof they presume to determin For God judges not by human fansy But however God judg'd Hotham yet he had the Kings pitty but marke the reason how preposterous so farr he had his pitty as he thought he at first acted more against the light of his conscience then many other men in the same cause Questionless they who act against conscience whether at the barr of human or Divine Justice are pittied least of all These are the common grounds and verdicts of Nature wherof when he who hath the judging of a Whole Nation is found destitute under such a Governour that Nation must needs be miserable By the way he jerkes at some mens reforming to models of Religion and that they think all is gold of pietie that doth but glister with a shew of Zeale We know his meaning and apprehend how little hope there could be of him from such language as this But are sure that the pietie of his prelatic modell glister'd more upon the posts and pillars which thir Zeale and fervencie guilded over then in the true workes of spiritual edification He is sorry that Hotham felt the Justice of others and fell not rather into the hands of his mercy But to cleare that he should have shewn us what mercy he had ever vs'd to such as fell into his hands before rather then what mercy he intended to such as never could come to aske it VVhatever mercy one man might have expected t is too well known the whole Nation found none though they besought it oft'n and so humbly but had bin swallow'd up in blood and ruin to set his privat will above the Parlament had not his strength faild him Yet ctemenoy he counts a debt which he ought to pay to those that crave it since we pay not any thing to God for his mercy but
Plenty and Religion as all Nations either admir'd or envi'd For the Justice we had let the Counsel-Table Starr-Chamber High Commission speak the praise of it not forgetting the unprincely usage and as farr as might be the abolishing of Parlaments the displacing of honest Judges the sale of Offices Bribery and Exaction not found out to be punish'd but to be shar'd in with impunity for the time to come Who can number the extortions the oppressions the public robberies and rapines committed on the Subject both by Sea and Land under various pretences Thir possessions also tak'n from them one while as Forrest Land another while as Crown-Land nor were thir Goods exempted no not the Bullion in the Mint Piracy was become a project own'd and authoriz'd against the Subject For the peace we had what peace was that which drew out the English to a needless and disshonourable voyage against the Spaniard at Cales Or that which lent our shipping to a treacherous and Antichristian Warr against the poore Protestants of Rochell our suppliants What peace was that which fell to rob the French by Sea to the imbarring of all our Merchants in that Kingdom which brought forth that unblest expedition to the I le of Rhee doubtfull whether more calamitous in the success or in the designe betraying all the flowre of our military youth and best Commanders to a shamefull surprisal and execution This was the peace we had and the peace we gave whether to freinds or to foes abroad And if at home any peace were intended us what meant those Irish billeted Souldiers in all parts of the Kingdom and the designe of German Horse to fubdue us in our peacefull Houses For our Religion where was there a more ignorant profane and vitious Clergy learned in nothing but the antiquitie of thir pride thir covetousnes and superstition whose unsincere and levenous Doctrine corrupting the people first taught them loosness then bondage loosning them from all sound knowledge and strictness of life the more to fit them for the bondage of Tyranny and superstition So that what was left us for other Nations not to pitty rather then admire or envy all those seaventeen yeares no wise man could see For wealth and plenty in a land where Justice raignes not is no argument of a flourishing State but of a neerness rather to ruin or commotion These were not some miscariages onely of Goverment which might escape but a universal distemper and reducement of law to arbitrary power not through the evil counsels of some men but through the constant cours practise of al that were in highest favour whose worst actions frequently avowing he took upon himself and what faults did not yet seem in public to be originally his such care he took by professing and proclaiming op'nly as made them all at length his own adopted sins The persons also when he could no longer protect he esteem'd and favour'd to the end but never otherwise then by constraint yeilded any of them to due punishment thereby manifesting that what they did was by his own Autority and approbation Yet heer he asks whose innocent blood he hath shed What widdows or Orphans teares can witness against him After the suspected Poysoning of his Father not inquir'd into but smother'd up and him protected and advanc'd to the very half of his Kingdom who was accus'd in Parlament to be Author of the fact with much more evidence then Duke Dudley that fals Protector is accus'd upon record to have poison'd Edward the sixt after all his rage and persecution after so many Yeares of cruel Warr on his People in three Kingdoms Whence the Author of Truths manifest a Scotchman not unacquainted with affaires positively affirmes That there hath bin more Christian blood shed by the Commission approbation and connivance of King Charles and his Father James in the latter end of thir raigne then in the Ten Roman Persecutions Not to speake of those many whippings Pillories and other corporal inflictions wherwith his raign also before this Warr was not unbloodie some have dy'd in Prison under cruel restraint others in Banishment whose lives were shortn'd through the rigour of that persecution wherwith so many yeares he infested the true Church And those six Members all men judg'd to have escap'd no less then capital danger whom he so greedily pursuing into the House of Commons had not there the forbearance to conceal how much it troubl'd him That the Birds were flowne If som Vultur in the Mountains could have op'nd his beak intelligibly and spoke what fitter words could he have utter'd at the loss of his prey The Tyrant Nero though not yet deserving that name sett his hand so unwillingly to the execution of a condemned Person as to wish He had not known letters Certainly for a King himself to charge his Subjects with high treason and so vehemently to prosecute them in his own cause as to doe the Office of a Searcher argu'd in him no great aversation from shedding blood were it but to satisfie his anger and that revenge was no unpleasing morsel to him wherof he himself thought not much to be so diligently his own Caterer But we insist rather upon what was actual then what was probable He now falls to examin the causes of this Warr as a difficulty which he had long studied to find out It was not saith he my withdrawing from White Hall for no account in reason could be giv'n of those Tumults where an orderly Guard was granted But if it be a most certain truth that the Parlament could never yet obtain of him any Guard fit to be confided in then by his own confession some account of those pretended Tumults may in reason be giv'n and both concerning them and the Guards anough hath bin said alreadie Whom did he protect against the Justice of Parlament Whom did he not to his utmost power Endeavouring to have rescu'd Strafford from thir Justice though with the destruction of them and the City to that end expressly commanding the admittance of new Soldiers into the Tower rais'd by Suckling and other Conspirators under pretence for the Portugall though that Embassador beeing sent to utterly deny'd to know of any such Commission from his Maister And yet that listing continu'd Not to repeat his other Plot of bringing up the two Armies But what can be disputed with such a King in whose mouth and opinion the Parlament it self was never but a Faction and thir Justice no Justice but The dictates and overswaying insolence of Tumults and Rabbles and under that excuse avouches himself op'nly the generall Patron of most notorious Delinquents and approves their flight out of the Land whose crimes were such as that the justest and the fairest tryal would have soonest condemn'd them to death But did not Catiline plead in like manner against the Roman Senat and the injustice of thir trial and the justice of his flight from Rome Coesar also then hatching Tyranny injected
doe such a business then they themselves who complain most But he must chew such Morsels as Propositions ere he let them down So let him but if the Kingdom shall tast nothing but after his chewing what does he make of the Kingdom but a great baby The streitness of his conscience will not give him leave to swallow down such Camels of sacrilege and injustice as others doe This is the Pharisee up and down I am not as other men are But what Camels of Injustice he could devoure all his three Realms were wittness which was the cause that they almost perish'd for want of Parlaments And he that will be unjust to man will be sacrilegious to God and to bereave a Christian conscience of libertie for no other reason then the narrowness of his own conscience is the most unjust measure to man and the worst sacrilege to God That other which he calls sacrilege of taking from the Clergy that superfluous wealth which antiquitie as old as Constantine from the credit of a Divine vision counted poyson in the Church hath bin ever most oppos'd by men whose righteousness in other matters hath bin least observ'd He concludes as his manner is with high commendation of his own unbiass'd rectitude and beleives nothing to be in them that dissent from him but faction innovation and particular designes Of these repetitions I find no end no not in his prayer which being founded upon deceitfull principl's and a fond hope that God will bless him in those his errors which he calls honest finds a fitt answer of S. James Yee ask and receave not because yee aske amiss As for the truth and sinceritie which he praies may be alwaies found in those his Declarations to the people the contrariety of his own actions will bear eternal witness how little carefull or sollicitous he was what he promis'd or what he utterd there XII Vpon the Rebellion in Ireland THe Rebellion and horrid massacher of English Protestants in Ireland to the number of 1 54000. in the Province of Ulster onely by thir own computation which added to the other three makes up the total summ of that slaughter in all likelyhood fowr times as great although so sudden and so violent as at first to amaze all men that were not accessory yet from whom and from what counsels it first sprung neither was nor could be possibly so secret as the contrivers therof blinded with vaine hope or the despaire that other plots would succeed suppos'd For it cannot be imaginable that the Irish guided by so many suttle and Italian heads of the Romish party should so farr have lost the use of reason and indeed of common Sense as not supported with other strength then thir own to begin a Warr so desperate and irreconcileable against both England and Scotland at once All other Nations from whom they could expect aid were busied to the utmost in thir own most necessary concernments It remaines then that either some autoritie or som great assistance promis'd them from England was that wheron they cheifly trusted And as it is not difficult to discern from what inducing cause this insurrection first arose so neither was it hard at first to have apply'd some effectual remedy though not prevention And yet prevention was not hopeles when Strafford either beleivd not or did not care to beleive the several warnings and discoveries therof which more then once by Papists and by Friers themselves were brought him besides what was brought by depositition divers months before that Rebellion to the Arch bishop of Canterbury and others of the Kings Counsel as the Declaration of no addresses declares But the assurance which they had in privat that no remedy should be apply'd was it seemes one of the chief reasons that drew on thir undertaking And long it was ere that assurance faild them untill the Bishops and Popish Lords who while they sate and Voted still oppos'd the sending aid to Ireland were expelld the House Seeing then the maine incitement and Autority for this Rebellion must be needs deriv'd from England it will be next inquir'd who was the prime Author The King heer denounces a malediction temporal and eternal not simply to the Author but to the malitious Author of this blood-shedd and by that limitation may exempt not himself onely but perhaps the Irish Rebels themselves who never will confess to God or Man that any blood was shed by them malitiously but either in the Catholic cause or common Liberty or some other specious Plea which the conscience from grounds both good and evil usually suggests to it self thereby thinking to elude the direct force of that imputation which lies upon them Yet he acknowledges It fell out as a most unhappy advantage of some mens malice against him but indeed of most mens just suspicion by finding in it no such wide departure or disagreement from the scope of his former Counsels and proceedings And that he himself was the Author of that Rebelion he denies both heer and elswhere with many imprecations but no solid evidence What on the other side against his denyal hath bin affirm'd in three Kingdoms being heer briefly set in view the Reader may so judge as he findes cause This is most certain that the King was ever friendly to the Irish Papists and in his third yeare against the plain advice of Parlament like a kind of Pope sold them many indulgences for Mony and upon all occasions advancing the Popish party and negotiating under hand by Priests who were made his Agents ingag'd the Irish Papists in a Warr against the Scotch Protestants To that end he furnish'd them and had them train'd in Arms and kept them up either op'nly or under hand the onely army in his three Kingdoms till the very burst of that Rebellion The Summer before that dismal October a Committy of most active Papists all since in the head of that Rebellion were in great favour at White-Hall and admitted to many privat consultations with the King and Queen And to make it evident that no mean matters were the subject of those Conferences at their request he gave away his peculiar right to more then five Irish Counties for the payment of an inconsiderable Rent They departed not home till within two Mounths before the Rebellion and were either from the first breaking out or soon after found to be the cheif Rebels themselves But what should move the King besides his own inclination to Popery and the prevalence of his Queen over him to hold such frequent and close meetings with a Committy of Irish Papists in his own House while the Parlament of England sate unadvis'd with is declar'd by a Scotch Author and of it self is cleare anough The Parlament at the beginning of that Summer having put Strafford to death imprison'd others his chief Favorites and driv'n the rest to fly the K. who had in vain tempted both the Scotch and the English Army to come up against
Simonical praier annex'd Although the Praier it self strongly prays against them For never such holy things as he means were giv'n to more Swine nor the Churches Bread more to Dogs then when it fed ambitious irreligious and dumb Prelats XV. Upon the many Jealousies c. TO wipe off jealousies and scandals the best way had bin by clear Actions or till Actions could be clear'd by evident reasons but meer words we are too well acquainted with Had his honour and reputation bin dearer to him then the lust of Raigning how could the Parlament of either Nation have laid so oft'n at his dore the breach of words promises acts Oaths and execrations as they doe avowedly in many of thir Petitions and addresses to him thether I remitt the Reader And who can beleive that whole Parlaments elected by the People from all parts of the Land should meet in one mind and resolution not to advise him but to conspire against him in a wors powder plot then Catesbies to blow up as he termes it the peoples affection towards him and batter down thir loyalty by the Engins of foule aspersions Water works rather then Engines to batter with yet thosé aspersions were rais'd from the foulness of his own actions Whereof to purge himself he uses no other argument then a general and so oft'n iterated commendation of himself and thinks that Court holy water hath the vertue of expiation at least with the silly people To whom he familiarly imputes sin where none is to seem liberal of his forgiveness where none is ask'd or needed What wayes he hath tak'n toward the prosperitie of his people which he would seem so earnestly to desire if we doe but once call to mind it will be anough to teach us looking on the smooth insinuations heer that Tyrants are not more flatterd by thir Slaves then forc'd to flatter others whom they feare For the peoples tranquilitie he would willingly be the Jonah but least he should be tak'n at his word pretends to foresee within Kenn two imaginarie windes never heard of in the Compass which threaten if he be cast overboard to increase the storm but that controversy divine lot hath ended He had rather not rule then that his people should be ruin'd and yet above these twenty yeres hath bin ruining the people about the niceties of his ruling He is accurate to put a difference between the plague of malice the ague of mistakes the itch of noveltie and the leprosie of disloyaltie But had he as wel known how to distinguish between the venerable gray haires of ancient Religion and the old scurffe of Superstition between the wholsome heat of well Governing and the fevorous rage of Tyrannizing his judgement in Statephysic had bin of more autoritie Much he Prophesies that the credit of those men who have cast black scandals on him shal ere long be quite blasted by the same furnace of popular obloquie wherin they sought to cast his name and honour I beleive not that a Romish guilded Portrature gives better Oracle then a Babylonish gold'n Image could doe to tell us truely who heated that Furnace of obloquy or who deserves to be thrown in Nebuchadnezzar or the three Kingdoms It gave him great cause to suspect his own innocence that he was oppos'd by so many who profest singular pietie But this qualm was soon over and he concluded rather to suspect their Religion then his own innocence affirming that many with him were both learned and Religious above the ordinary size But if his great Seal without the Parlament were not sufficient to create Lords his Parole must needs be farr more unable to create learned and religious men and who shall authorize his unlerned judgement to point them out He guesses that many well minded men were by popular Preachers urg'd to oppose him But the opposition undoubtedly proceeded and continues from heads farr wiser and spirits of a nobler straine those Priest-led Herodians with thir blind guides are in the Ditch already travailing as they thought to Sion but moor'd in the I le of Wight He thanks God for his constancy to the Protestant Religion both abroad and at home Abroad his Letter to the Pope at home his Innovations in the Church will speak his constancy in Religion what it was without furder credit to this vain boast His using the assistance of some Papists as the cause might be could not hurt his Religion but in the setling of Protestantism thir aid was both unseemly suspicious inferr'd that the greatest part of Protestants were against him his obtruded settlement But this is strange indeed that he should appear now teaching the Parlament what no man till this was read thought ever he had lernt that difference of perswasion in religious matters may fall out where ther is the samenes of allegeance subjection If he thought so from the beginning wherfore was there such compulsion us'd to the puritans of England the whole realm of Scotl. about conforming to a liturgie Wherfore no Bishop no king Wherfore episcopacie more agreeable to monarchie if different perswasions in religion may agree in one duty allegeance Thus do court maxims like court Minions rise or fall as the king pleases Not to tax him for want of Elegance as a courtier in writing Oglio for Olla the Spanish word it might be wel affirm'd that there was a greater Medley disproportioning of religions to mix Papists with Protestants in a Religious cause then to entertaine all those diversifi'd Sects who yet were all Protestants one Religion though many Opinions Neither was it any shame to Protestants that he a declar'd Papist if his own letter to the Pope not yet renowne'd bely him not found so few protestants of his religion as enforc'd him to call in both the counsel the aid of papists to help establish protestancy who were led on not by the sense of thir Allegeance but by the hope of his Apostacy to Rome from disputing to warring his own voluntary and first appeale His hearkning to evil Counselers charg'd upon him so oft'n by the Parlament he puts off as a device of those men who were so eager to give him better counsell That those men were the Parlament that he ought to have us'd the counsel of none but those as a King is already known What their civility laid upon evil Counselers he himself most commonly own'd but the event of those evil counsels the enormities the confusions the miseries he transferrs from the guilt of his own civil broiles to the just resistance made by Parlament imputes what miscarriages of his they could not yet remove for his opposing as if they were some new misdemeanors of their bringing in and not the inveterat diseases of his own bad Goverment which with a disease as bad he falls again to magnifie and commend and may all those who would be govern'd by his Retractions and concessions rather then by Laws of
so but privatly in the Counsel Books inroull'd no Parlament that if accommodation had succeeded upon what termes soever such a devilish fraud was prepar'd that the King in his own esteem had bin absolv'd from all performance as having treated with Rebels and no Parlament and they on the other side in stead of an expected happines had bin brought under the Hatchet Then no doubt Warr had ended that Massacher and Tyranny might begin These jealousies however rais'd let all men see whether they be diminish'd or allay'd by the Letters of his own Cabinet open'd And yet the breach of this Treaty is lay'd all upon the Parlament and thir Commissioners with odious Names of Pertinacy hatred of Peace Faction and Covetousness nay his own Bratt Superstition is layd to their charge not withstanding his heer profess'd resolution to continue both the Order Maintenance and Authority of Prelats as a truth of God And who were most to blame in the unsuccessfullness of that Treaty his appeale is to Gods decision beleeving to be very excusable at that Tribunal But if ever man gloried in an unflexible stifness he came not behind any and that grand Maxim always to put somthing into his Treaties which might give colour to refuse all that was in other things granted and to make them signifie nothing was his own Principal Maxim and particular instructions to his Commissioners Yet all by his own verdit must be consterd Reason in the King and depraved temper in the Parlament That the highest Tide of success with these principles and designes set him not above a Treaty no great wonder And yet if that be spok'n to his praise the Parlament therin surpass'd him who when he was thir vanquish'd and thir captive his forces utterly brok'n and disbanded yet offerd him three several times no wors proposals or demands then when he stood fair to be thir Conqueror But that imprudent surmise that his lowest Ebb could not set him below a Fight was a presumption that ruin'd him He presag'd the future unsuccessfulness of Treaties by the unwillingness of som men to treat and could not see what was present that thir unwillingness had good cause to proceed from the continual experience of his own obstinacy and breach of word His prayer therfore of forgiveness to the guilty of that treaties breaking he had good reason to say heartily over as including no man in that guilt sooner then himself As for that Protestation following in his Prayer How oft have I entreated for peace but when I speak therof they make them ready to Warr unless he thought himself still in that perfidious mist between Colebrook and Houndslow and thought that mist could hide him from the eye of Heav'n as well as of Man after such a bloody recompence giv'n to our first offers of Peace how could this in the sight of Heav'n without horrours of conscience be utter'd XIX Vpon the various events of the Warr. IT is no new or unwonted thing for bad men to claim as much part in God as his best servants to usurp and imitate thir words and appropriate to themselves those properties which belong onely to the good and righteous This not onely in Scripis familiarly to be found but heer also in this Chapter of Apocrypha He tells us much why it pleas'd God to send him Victory or Loss although what in so doing was the intent of God he might be much mistak'n as to his own particular but we are yet to learn what real good use he made therof in his practice Those numbers which he grew to from small beginnings were not such as out of love came to protect him for none approv'd his actions as a King except Courtiers and Prelats but were such as fled to be protected by him from the fear of that Reformation which the pravity of thir lives would not bear Such a Snowball he might easily gather by rowling through those cold and dark provinces of ignorance and leudness where on a sudden he became so numerous He imputes that to Gods protection which to them who persist in a bad cause is either his long-suffering or his hard'ning and that to wholesom chastisement which were the gradual beginnings of a severe punishment For if neither God nor nature put civil power in the hands of any whomsoever but to a lawfull end and commands our obedience to the autority of Law onely not to the Tyrannical force of any person and if the Laws of our Land have plac'd the Sword in no mans single hand so much as to unsheath against a forren enemie much less upon the native people but have plac'd it in that elective body of the Parlament to whom the making repealing judging and interpreting of Law it self was also committed as was fittest so long as wee intended to bee a free Nation and not the Slaves of one mans will then was the King himself disobedient and rebellious to that Law by which he raign'd and by autority of Parlament to raise armes against him in defence of Law and Libertie we doe not onely think but beleeve and know was justifiable both by the Word of God the Laws of the Land and all lawfull Oaths and they who sided with him fought against all these The same Allegations which he uses for himself and his Party may as well fitt any Tyrant in the world for let the Parlament bee call'd a Faction when the King pleases and that no Law must bee made or chang'd either civil or religious because no Law will content all sides then must be made or chang'd no Law at all but what a Tyrant be he Protestant or Papist thinks fitt Which tyrannous assertion forc'd upon us by the Sword he who fights against and dyes fighting if his other sins overweigh not dyes a Martyr undoubtedly both of the Faith and of the Common-wealth and I hold it not as the opinion but as the full beleef and persuasion of farr holier and wiser men then Parasitie Preachers Who without their dinner-Doctrin know that neither King Law civil Oaths or Religion was ever establish'd without the Parlament and thir power is the same to abrogate as to establish neither is any thing to bee thought establish'd which that House declares to be abolisht Where the Parlament sitts there inseparably sitts the King there the Laws there our Oaths and whatsoever can be civil in Religion They who fought for the Parlament in the truest sense fought for all these who fought for the King divided from his Parlament fought for the shadow of a King against all these and for things that were not as if they were establisht It were a thing monstrously absurd and contradictory to give the Parlament a Legislative power and then to upbraid them for transgressing old Establishments But the King and his Party having lost in this Quarrel thir Heav'n upon Earth beginn to make great reckning of Eternal Life and at an easie rate in forma Pauperis Canonize one another
into Heav'n he them in his Book they him in the Portrature before his Book but as was said before Stage-work will not doe it much less the justness of thir Cause wherin most frequently they dy'd in a brutish fierceness with Oaths and other damning words in thir mouths as if such had bin all the Oaths they fought for which undoubtedly sent them full Sail on another Voyage then to Heav'n In the mean while they to whom God gave Victory never brought to the King at Oxford the state of thir consciences that he should presume without confession more then a Pope presumes to tell abroad what conflicts and accusations men whom he never spoke with have in thir own thoughts We never read of any English King but one that was a Confessor and his name was Edward yet sure it pass'd his skill to know thoughts as this King takes upon him But they who will not stick to slander mens inward consciences which they can neither see nor know much less will care to slander outward actions which they pretend to see though with senses never so vitiated To judge of his conditions conquerd and the manner of dying on that side by the sober men that chose it would be his small advantage it being most notorious that they who were hottest in his Cause the most of them were men oftner drunk then by thir good will sober and very many of them so fought and so dy'd And that the conscience of any man should grow suspicious or be now convicted by any pretentions in the Parlament which are now prov'd fals and unintended there can be no just cause For neither did they ever pretend to establish his Throne without our Liberty and Religion nor Religion without the Word of God nor to judge of Laws by thir being establisht but to establish them by thir being good and necessary He tells the World He oft'n prayd that all on his side might be as faithfull to God and thir own souls as to him But Kings above all other men have in thir hands not to pray onely but to doe To make that prayer effectual he should have govern'd as well as pray'd To pray and not to govern is For a Monk and not a King Till then he might be well assur'd they were more faithfull to thir lust and rapine then to him In the wonted predication of his own vertues he goes on to tell us that to Conquer he never desir'd but onely to restore the Laws and Liberties of his people It had bin happy then he had known at last that by force to restore Laws abrogated by the Legislative Parlament is to conquer absolutely both them and Law it self And for our Liberties none ever oppress'd them more both in Peace and Warr first like a maister by his arbitrary power next as an enemy by hostile invasion And if his best freinds fear'd him and he himself in the temptation of an absolute Conquest it was not only pious but freindly in the Parlament both to fear him and resist him since their not yeelding was the onely meanes to keep him out of that temptation wherin he doubted his own strength He takes himself to be guilty in this Warr of nothing els but of confirming the power of some Men Thus all along he signifies the Parlament whom to have settl'd by an Act he counts to be his onely guiltiness So well he knew that to continue a Parlament was to raise a War against himself what were his actions then and his Government the while For never was it heard in all our Story that Parlaments made Warr on thir Kings but on thir Tyrants whose modesty and gratitude was more wanting to the Parlament then theirs to any of such Kings What he yeelded was his feare what he deny'd was his obstinacy had he yeelded more fear might perchance have sav'd him had he granted less his obstinacy had perhaps the sooner deliverd us To review the occasions of this Warr will be to them never too late who would be warn'd by his example from the like evils but to wish onely a happy conclusion will never expiate the fault of his unhappy beginnings T is true on our side the sins of our lives not seldom fought against us but on their side besides those the grand sin of thir Cause How can it be otherwise when he desires heer most unreasonably and indeed sacrilegiously that we should be subject to him though not furder yet as farr as all of us may be subject to God to whom this expression leaves no precedency Hee who desires from men as much obedience and subjection as we may all pay to God desires not less then to be a God a sacrilege farr wors then medling with the Bishops Lands as he esteems it His Praier is a good Praier and a glorious but glorying is not good if it know not that a little leven levens the whole lump It should have purg'd out the leven of untruth in telling God that the blood of his Subjects by him shedd was in his just and necessary defence Yet this is remarkable God hath heer so orderd his Prayer that as his own lipps acquitted the Parlament not long before his death of all the blood spilt in this Warr so now his prayer unwittingly drawes it upon himself For God imputes not to any man the blood he spills in a just cause and no man ever begg'd his not imputing of that which he in his justice could not impute So that now whether purposely or unaware he hath confess'd both to God and Man the bloodguiltiness of all this Warr to lie upon his own head XX. Upon the Reformation of the times THis Chapter cannot punctually be answer'd without more repetitions then now can be excusable Which perhaps have already bin more humour'd then was needfull As it presents us with nothing new so with his exceptions against Reformation pittifully old and tatter'd with continual using not onely in his Book but in the words and Writings of every Papist and Popish King On the Scene he thrusts out first an Antimasque of two bugbeares Noveltie and Perturbation that the ill looks and noise of those two may as long as possible drive off all endeavours of a Reformation Thus sought Pope Adrian by representing the like vain terrors to divert and dissipate the zeal of those reforming Princes of the age before in Germany And if we credit Latimers Sermons our Papists heer in England pleaded the same dangers and inconveniencies against that which was reform'd by Edward the sixth Whereas if those fears had bin available Christianity it self had never bin receav'd Which Christ foretold us would not be admitted without the censure of noveltie and many great commotions These therfore are not to deterr us He grants Reformation to be a good work and confesses What the indulgence of times and corruption of manners might have deprav'd So did the foremention'd Pope and our Gransire Papists in this Realm Yet