true Religion Et pater Aeneas avunculus excitat Hector Lastly for his great delivery by Sea and Land which so filled our Mouths with Laughter and our Tongues with Joy it shew'd him betimes a Child of King James and withal a Child of God and being so Nolite tangere no Evil might touch him As God was with Moses so he was and will be with him non deseret aut derelinquet he will never fail him nor forsake him To the which Prayer all we his representative Kingdom will never fail to say Amen 12. What you said of the true Religion is most apparently true that it hath been very piously charged upon our King and hitherto full of Blessings upon our Kingdom For the first his Majesty well remembers what I ill forgot in another occasion that the last Blessing of all his Father gave him and I think upon a Motion of mine was with a Recommendation of his Religion and of his People to his special Care Love and Protection And I nothing doubt but that Blessing shall so bless him that he shall see Jerusalem in Prosperity all his Life long And for the effect of our Religion it hath hitherto produced in this Kingdom a very Kingdom of Heaven not only after this Life but even in this Life for the space of sixty Seven Years wherein it hath been most constantly professed All that time Peace hath been within our Walls and plenteousness within our Palaces Non fecit sic omni nationi God hath not dealt so with many nor with any Nation in Europe that I know or read of Sixthly what you recommended to the King concerning the Laws of the Land the King hath already in private and doth now in publick recommend to his Judges and by them to the Professors and Students of the Laws to wit that they would spend their time as their Fore-fathers did in the ancient Common-Laws of the Kingdom and not altogether as the Complaint hath been of late in Statutes new Cases and modern Abridgments In the former Studies you meet with Reason created by God in the latter with Opinion only invented by Men. Here you find peradventure some strong Conclusions but upon weak Grounds and Premises there you learn strong Premises that can never produce a weak Conclusion In a word to borrow the Simile of St. Basil there like Ulysses you Court Penelope herself here like the foolish Wooers but her Hand-maids only Seventhly that just Resentment you express of the Dishonour of our Nation in that hostile Acquisition and Detension of the Palatinate you cannot imagine Mr. Speaker how much it contents his most Excellent Majesty Now he finds indeed his People to be lively Members of this Politick Body because they sympathize so seelingly with the grievous Pains and Troubles of their Head And surely he is no true Part but an Excrescency or dead Flesh upon the outside of the State that is not sensible of his Majesty's Sufferings in those Affairs God forbid against all these Professions this Kingdom should prove to a People so allied either a Meroz as you term it for Inhumanity or an Aegypt for Infidelity or a whit inferior to Caesar himself to aid and relieve them You heard the full Measure of the King's Resolution the last day Ire oportet vivere non oportet He doth not desire to live otherwise than in Glory and Reputation And so he cannot live you know it well enough till somewhat be vigorously effected in that great business of the Palatinate Eightly for the abandoning of those Sons of Bichri the Priest and Jesuits his Majesty returns you this Answer As he doth approve your Zeal and Devotion herein and acknowledgeth that of St. Ambrose to be true Quod in religionem committitur in omnium vertitur injuriam that the meanest Subject in this Kingdom hath a great right and Interest in the Religion so being appointed by and under God Custos utriusque tabulae the Guardian and Keeper of both the Tables he desires you to trust him whose Zeal was never yet questioned or suspected with the ways and means to propagate the same Yet in this Petition of yours his most Excellent Majesty doth absolutely grant the Effect and the Matter that is to be most careful of our Religion or which you more desire to improve and better the Form and Manner But as St. Austin saith of God himself Non tribuit aliquando quod volumus ut quod malimus attribuat Lastly for your four ordinary Petitions for Immunity of Persons liberty of Speech readiness of Access benign Interpretation his most Excellent Majesty grants them all and will have them limited by no other bounds than your own Wisdom Modesty and good Discrietion So his Majesty bids God Speed the Plow 13. I look upon him that spake so well for the King two days together as Antiquarius did upon the L. Picus Mirandula Ratio oratio cum ipso ex côdem utero natae videantur Ep. 279. Here 's strong Mettle and a keen Edge able to cleave the hardest Knot Here 's Reason to convince Judgment with store of Eloquence to delight the Affections Which could not be past over without this censure for it is an ill thrift to be parsimonious in the praise of that which is very good The King reposed much upon the Success of this Meeting because his Mind was so well deliver'd and so strongly put on The Cause of the War was made the Kingdoms The Counsel that began it was the Parliaments and were they not bound to find the Succours As our Poet Mr. Johnson says upon Prince Henry's Barriers He doth but scourge himself his Sword that draws Without a Purse a Counsel and a Cause But the Registers of all Ages I believe will not shew a Man in whom Vertue was more perpetually unfortunate than in this King The Influence of those ill Stars that reigned over all his Reign began thus soon The Parliament was told as if a Dictator had been nominated for this War that all must be consulted and executed together that the present Sacrifice must be eaten in haste like the Lord's first Passover for in that juncture slow help was no help Yet in five Weeks so long they sat at Westminster there was not an Arrow to any purpose shot towards that Mark. These were they that thrust his Majesty upon a War to the mortifying of his Father's part and now his Enemies were awak'd with the Alarum they let him shift for himself Being told enough that there must be Gold as well as Iron to play this Game and that a good Purse made a good Army they gave him such discouragement that they dropt no more than two Mites into the Corban An incredible disproportion between what was found and what was lookt for and suitable to a Passage in an Italian Comedy where a Guest complains of his ill Entertainment at a Miser's Table that there was not enough to make a good Supper nor scarce
the Scottish Army Hami angulares quà m directi mucrones tenaciùs infiguntur Macrob. lib. 7. c. 3. A Sword cuts deep but a Hook sticks in the Flesh when it hath made a Wound He replies That any Government undisturb'd and enjoying Eighty years of Peace cannot but contract accidental Abuses remaining sound in its Essentials The Sun doth win certain Minutes and Seconds in the year which in long tract of time breed great Alterations The longer the Body hath been in Health the harder to be cured when a Disease overtakes it But whether they were Insolencies or Grievances that did distaste them they should be remedied The King was ready to lance every Sore and to let out the Corruption only keep up the Places of the Bishops Deans and other Dignitaries among which themselves men of great Godliness and Learning did deserve a share and should be remembred They need not be taught that the Church the Building of Christ must not be built like a Barn all upon one Floor but must be framed with gradual Subordinations There is a Babel in plucking down as well as in raising up And for the Revenues bestowed upon our Maintenance painful Preachers deserv'd them as well as the best Practisers in other Professions and knew how to use them There were plenty of such Blame not all for the Sloth or Errors of a few Cur omnium fit culpa paucorum scelus Sen. Hippol. This part brought on a Proposition for a regulated Episcopacy I cannot vaunt that the Bishop made his Party good with them in that for the meaning of the Proponent spread out at the breadth was to joyn the Presbytery with the Bishop in all acts of Ordination and Jurisdiction to give him the first Room and the first Voice but no more his Suffragans and Coadjutors in the Consistory being more in number and every of them equal in Power should leave him for a Cypher Then regulate Episcopacy is the same with demolish it for turn a Light downward and it will extinguish it self Take such a Bishop and measure him not with an Ell but a Span and he is Paterculus non Pater a titular Chairman Beza's Moderator for life Cartwright's President How often hath this Mockery of Government been obtruded and rejected But the Mortar will still favour of the Garlick that was stampt in it before 137. The power of the Presbyterians was so great in Tumults and concourse of base People that their Conclusions were strong though their Premisses were weak to blunt the power of ancient Episcopacy Nam quae est ista nova stulta sapientia novitatem quaerere in visceribus antiquitatis Optat. lib. 6. Yet in all this Lincoln was their Days-man and gave them considerate Answers but he did wind them off and would spin the Webb no further with them when he perceived they aimed more at a regulated Crown than a regulated Mitre Just as Pausanius says of the Messenians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That they would change their Kings into Regents of a new name subject to the People and answerable for their Faults So these would make our King as subject to their Elderships as a Stadt-holder in the Netherlands as to have no Government in Church-Affairs as their King I mean their Christian King to be liable to their Censures to execute their Verdicts without disputing the Justice of them Their politick Aphorisms are far more dangerous That His Majesty is not the highest Power in his Realms That he hath not absolute Soveraignty That a Parliament sitting is co-ordinate with him in it He may have the Title of only Supreme yet a Senate have an essential part without the Name The Soveraignty was mixt and distributed into the Hands of King Lords and Commons Though a Nation war against a King and they on the Merit of the Cause have the worser side yet may he not war against the Publick Good on that account nor any help him in such a War When a man's Possession of the Crown doth cease to be the means of the Publick Good it is then his Duty to resign and no Injury to be deprived of it Though the Power of the Militia be expresly given to the King it shall not be his alone unless it be exprest it shall not be in others Do not these Aphorisms suit horribly well with the 13th to the Romans How could God have sealed the King's Safety and Commission with a plainer Text and a stronger Warrant Shall these crooked Rules obliquate those loyal Maxims which are so strait in St. Paul These are Junius Brutus's Theorems or worse which are top-heavy and will fall with their own weight into Hell Worthy Lincoln heard the Presbyterian Encroachments upon all other points with a civil welcome but when such Divinity not fit for English Subjects was pieced unto them he would brook no more Addresses The Cony-skin is easily pluckt off from the Body but it slicks at the Head O what a Flood-gate have they drawn up with these disloyal Tenents through which a Deluge of War and Mischief hath burst out Should I tell them that they have boasted that their Discipline did never prevail in a State but in spight of the Princes of the place They know it is true and that Parsons Fisher and other Jesuites have told them of it Saepius olim religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta quoth Lucretius This was Olim a good while since But Grotius says of the modern sort of these Ministers and some Popish Priests Per quos communis hujus seculi pest is in utrasque partes vulgata est Hist p. 57. Which made a Marshal of France desirous of his Countrys Peace wish That every Minister had a Priests Head in his Belly that they might be rid of them both The Devil wanted not the cunning to jostle Heathen Princes out of their Rights by Stratagems of Religion Cleomenes taught the Delphick Oracle how to cast Demaratus out of his Kingdom So Pausan in Lacon It was an easier thing than for Savanarola a Preacher of Christ to preach the Florentines out of an Optimacy into a Popular Government The Citizens burnt him afterwards at a Stake in their Streets they should have fir'd him in his Pulpit I must charge it on our Presbyterians that their Thunder-clapps of Rebellious Doctrine hurried our three Kingdoms into a most bloody War 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demosth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Plant comes from him that sowed the Seed With which Similitude Cicero arrests M. Anton. Ut in seminibus causa est stirpium arborum sic hujus luctuosissimi belli causa Tu Fuisti Phil. 2. But what care these men to plead guilty to this Bill For a Bell-weather of their Flock writes I dare not repent of it nor forbear the same if it were to do again in the same state of things Holy Commonw p. 486. What hope have we of Good from such Zealots What Comfort ever to have Peace when the greatest
but the Incapacity and as the Philosopher would call it the Natural Impotency imposed by this Bill on Men in Holy Orders to serve the King or the State in this kind be they never so able never so willing never so vertuous Which makes me draw a kind of Timanthes vail over this Point and leave it without any amplification at all unto your Lordships wise and inward thoughts and considerations The fifth Point is the Salvo made for the two Universities to have Justices of Peace among them of their own Heads of Houses which I confess to be done upon mature and just consideration For otherwise the Scholars must have gone for Justice to those Parties to whom they send for Mustard and Vineger But yet under favour the Reasons and Inducements cannot be stronger than may be found out for other Ecclesiastical Persons as the Bishop of Durham who was ever since the days of K. John suffered by the Princes and Parliaments of England to exercise Justice upon the Parties in those Parts as being in truth the King's Subjects but the Bishops Tenants and therefore not likely to have their Causes more duly weighed than when the Balance is left in the hand of their own proper Landlord The Case of the Bishop of Ely for some parts of that Isle is not much different But if a little Partiality doth not herein cast some little Mist before mine eyes the Case of the Dean and City of Westminster wherein this Parliament is now sitting is far more considerable both in the Antiquity extent of Jurisdiction and the Warrants whereupon it is grounded than any one of those places before mentioned For there is a clear Statute made 27 Eliz. for the drawing all Westminster St. Clement and St. Martins le Grand London into a Corporation to be reigled by a Dean a Steward twelve Burgesses and twelve Assistants And if some Salve or Plaister shall not be applied to Westminster in this Point all that Government and Corporation is at an end But this I perceive since is taken into consideration by the Honourable House of Commons themselves I come now to the last Point and the second Salvo of this Bill which is for Dukes Marquesses Earls Viscounts Barons or Peers of this Kingdom which is a Clause that looks with a kind of contrary glance upon Persons in Holy Orders it seems to favour some but so that thereby and in that very act it casts an aspersion of baseness and ignobility upon all the rest of that Holy Profession For if no Persons in Holy Orders ought to intermeddle in Secular Affairs how come those Nobles to be excepted out of the Universal Negative Is it because they are nobly born Then surely it must be granted that the rest must be excluded as being made of a worser and rougher piece of Clay For the second part of this Reason in the beginning of the Bill can never bear out this Salvo That the Office of the Ministry is of so great importance that it will take up the whole Man and all his best Endeavours Surely the Office of the Ministry is of no greater importance in a poor man than in a noble man nor doth it take up the whole Man in the one and but a piece of him in the other I cannot give you many Instances herein out of Scripture because you know that in those days Not many mighty not many noble were called 1 Cor. 1.26 But when any Noble were called I do not find but that they did put more of the whole Man and their best Endeavours upon the Ministry than other Men in Holy Orders are at the least in Holy Scripture noted to have done I puâ— your Lordships in mind of those Noble men of Beraea compared with thâ—se of Thessalonica Acts 17.11 So that this Salvo for the Nobility must needs be under your Lordships favour a secret wound unto the rest of the Ministry unless your Lordships by your great Wisdom will be willing to change it into a Panacaea or common Plaister both to the one and to the other And under your Lordships Favour I conceive it may be done under a very foâ—ing Argument The Office of the Ministry is of equal importance and takes up the whâ— Man and all his best Endeavours in the Noble born as well as in the mean born Bishop But it is lawful all this notwithstanding for the noble born Minister to intermeddle in Secular Affairs and therefore it is likewise lawful for the mean born so to do And so in may Conscience I speak it in the presence of God and great Noblemen it is most lawful for them to intermeddle with Secular Affairs so as they be not intangled as the Apostle calls it with this intermedling as to slight and neglect the Office of their Calling which no Minister noble or ignoble can do without grievously sinning against God and his own conscience It is lawful for Persons in Holy Orders to intermeddle it is without question or else they could not make provision of Meat and Drink as Beza interprets the place It is not lawful for them to be thus intangled and bound up with Secular Affairs which I humbly beseech your Lordships to consider not as a Distinction invented by me but clearly expressed by the Apostle himself 166. And thus my noble Lords I shall without any further molestation and with humble thanks for this great patience leave this great Cause of the Church to your Lordships wise and gracious consideration Here is my Mars-hill and further I shall never appeal for Justice Some assurance I have from the late solemn Vow and Protestation of both Houses for the maintaining and defending the Power and Priviledges of Parliament that if this Bill were now to be framed in the one House it would never be offered without much qualification and I perswade my self it will not be approved in the other Parliaments are indeed Omnipotent but no more Omnipotent than God himself who for all that cannot do every thing God cannot but perform what he hath promised A Parliament under favour cannot un-swear what it hath already vowed This is an old Maxim which I have learned of the Sages of the Law A Parliament cannot be Felo de se it cannot destroy or undo it self An Act of Parliament as that in the eleventh and another in the one and twentieth of Richard the Second made to be unrepealable in any subsequent Parliament was ipso facto void in the constitution Why because it took away the Power and Priviledges that is not the Plumes and Feathers the remote Accidents but the very specisial Form Essence and Being of a Parliament So if an Act should be made to take away the Votes of all the Commons or all the Lords it were absolutely a void Act. I will conclude with the first Ep. to the Corinthians c. 12. v. 15. If the soot shall say because I am not the hand I am not of the body is it therefore not of
April ensuing and pleasantly bad him expect the Labourers peny as soon as they that had serv'd him longer But the Bishop of Winchester made a proposition before his Majesty for another employment and both could not consist together that whereas the Arch-Bishop of Spalato a Proselyte much welcom'd at that time was design'd to be present at Cambridge commencement in the next July that he might behold the University in the fairest Trim and hear the disputation the best being ever provided for that appearance that Mr. Williams might be reserv'd unto that time for a double Service to answer publickly in Divinity for the Degree of Doctor the fittest to be the Days-man before that Learned Prelate and likewise give him Hospitality such as a great Guest deserv'd so it was order'd and so it was perform'd Some men are right Learned yet with all that worth steal out of the World unknown because it was their ill hap never to be brought upon a Theatre of manifestation And some are as Valiant as the best and yet are never praised for it because they were never invited into the Field to shew it So Velleius speaks for Seianus that he never Triumph'd nou merito sed materiâ adipiscendi triumphalia defectus est he deserv'd it but the matter of a Triumph never fell in his way There are others whom not only deliberate Advice but every casualty and contingence puts forward to be Aspectabiles it conducts them likely where they may best be viewed and their full Stature seen upon the advantage of a Rising I fall into this contemplation because an Object is before me wherein I may aptly Exemplify Dr. Williams his Title for which he stood in the Act an 1617. cull'd not out gaudy Seasons for vain Glory that cannot be suspected because he took all his Academical degrees in their just year But he above that disposeth all things provided those Co-incidencies of great Resort and Celebrity such as Arch-Bishop Spalato's Presence at this Commencement to make his Worthiness be known the further The Theses which he defended in the Vespers and were imposed upon him by the over-ruling Power of the Vice-Chancellor and Heads of the Consistory it is their Right and Custom were these 1. Supremus Magistratus nou est Excommunicabilis 2. Subductio calicis est mutilatio Sacramenti Sacerdotii It was well for the Doctor that he was a right Stag well breath'd and had a fair Head with all his Rights for I never heard a Respondent better hunted in all my time that I was a Commorant in Cambridge The Opponents were the Princes of their Tribes Men of Renown in their Generation Dr. Richardson the first Dr. Branthwait Dr. Ward Dr. Collins Dr. Alabaster Dr. Goad 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who did Honour the University that day to the admiration of Mr. Antonie de Dominis with the utmost of their Learning Every Argument they pressed was a Ramm to throw down the Bulwarks of the Cause and yet it totter'd not neither did the Answerer give ground Such a Disputation was worthy to be heard which was carried with equal Praise of the Assailants and Defendants As Plutarch lib. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says of Moral Precepts that they require a good Speaker and a good Hearer with mutual Diligence as a Game at Tennis is well play'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 When the Stroke is serv'd well and the Service taken well 39. That I may mix some Profit to the Reader in this Relation I will let him know upon what Rules and Reasons the Respondent proceeded in the first Cause for the Conviction of all Gainsayers both of the Pontifician part and of the heady Consistories of some Reformed Churches The Pontifician Rubbish he removed away as a Dunghil of unsavoury Filth fit to be cast out of the Lord's Vine-yard either because the Popes medled so far beyond their own Bounds attempting to send out Effulminations against Christian Kings in all Countries upon Arrogation of an Universal bishoprick which hath the Plenitude of all Jurisdiction in it self alone to which they have exalted themselves without Christ's Warrant and Seal or because by the Declaratory Sentence of their Excommunications they inflict the highest Temporal Indignities upon Kings that can be imagin'd As inhibiting their Courts of Justice to proceed any further till he that sits in the Throne shall receive Absolution from their Grace Absolving their Subjects from obligation of all Service and Fidelity Deposing them from their Government and exposing their Lives to Assassinate For though they do not say that such Effects should necessarily go along with Excommunication yet they maintain That if the Pope see cause such Tragical Punishments may be annex'd unto it Far wide from the Truth For it is evident that an Excommunicated Person can be deprived of nothing by the Church but that which is enjoyed through the Ministry of the Church and its Priviledges but how can he be dispossess'd of that which he holds by Civil and Natural Right which are not dependant upon Spiritual Relations And as it is expedient to chip away these hard Crusts of Error so neither is the Crum to be digested which likes the Palates of some who are devoted to the Presbyterian Discipline A King is not obnoxious to be interdicted or deprived of the Sacraments by their Aldermen who can shew no more for the Proof of such Officers with whom they Organize a Church then the Pope can for his unlimited Jurisdiction Nor is it to be suffered that they should deny a Christian King to be a Church-Officer properly and by right of his Crown over Christian Subjects as Christians whose Causes can never be separated by their Metaphysical Abstractions before distinct supreme Rulers that are co-ordinate but that there will be endless Jarrs in their several Entrenchments and God is not the God of Confusion Should he that is next under God in all Causes be subject to the Courts of his Liege-People and Homagers He is their common Parent and the only Mandat how to bear our selves to our Father is to Honour him But what can make him more vile before the People then to thrust him out of the Communion of Saints Moreover the greater Excommunication includes in it the Horror of Anathematizing or a Curse but Curse not the King no not in thy thought Eccles 10.20 Neither would God give a constant Power to any which were in vain and could not sting Vanum est quod fine suo destuuitur But it is vain to interdict a King over whom there is no external Power appointed to bring him into order by Violence and Coercion if he will not be Interdicted In every Policy there must be a Supreme that can be Judged of none for else the Process between Party and Party would be Circular or rather Infinite These Aphorisms and abundance more flowed from the Doctor Respondent in the warmth of Disputation Above all his Answer was highly applauded which he gave to Dr.
for him that kept the Seal of England as for him that kept the Seal of France In what Kingdom soever he had been born in what Age soever he had lived he would have shared with them that had a considerable part of Honour and Dignity Certainly he was embued with that Wit and Spirit that he need not lag after the Train of Preferment unless he would And I dare not say he would For they that are sanguine and of a stirring temper which was his Complexion love to take the right hand I must be thus far bold because I write not of an Angel or a Soul among the Beati but of a Man consisting of Humane Desires and Passions And he that describes an ingenious active Man without some addition to Honour and Greatness makes him not Laudable but Prodigious And I will as soon believe it as I will the Alcoran that the Angel Gabriel took out all the black Core of Original Frailty from the Heart of Mahomet Experience teacheth us more then strict Rules that Virtue which is forward to thrust it self into practise nay into danger for the public Good will never discharge it chearfully without a Ticket from hope of some Amplification Salust in the Oration De republicâ ordinandâ spake pleasingly and truly to Caesar Ubi gloriam dempseris ipsa per se virtus amara atque aspera est 46. Now he whom I insist upon being a Subject thus fit for Impression his good Master King James was as ready to put the Stamp upon him He never met with any before no not the Lord Egerton much less with any after that loved him like King James at the full rate of his worth That King's Table was a trial of Wits The reading of some Books before him was very frequent while he was at his Repast Otherwise he collected Knowledge by variety of Questions which he carved out to the capacity of his understanding Writers Methought his hunting Humour was not off so long as his Courtiers I mean the Learned stood about him at his Board He was ever in chase after some disputable Doubts which he would wind and turn about with the most stabbing Objections that ever I heard And was as pleasant and fellow-like in all those Discourses as with his Huntsmen in the Field They that in many such genial and convival Conferences were ripe and weighty in their Answers were indubiously designed to some Place of Credit and Profit Wherein he followed the Emperor Adrian as Spartianus remembers it Omnes professores honoravit divites fecit licet eos quaestionibus semper agitaverit But among them all with whom King James communed was found none like Daniel c. 1. v. 19. His Majesty gave his Ear more Graciously to this Chaplain and directed his Speech to him when he was at hand oftner then to any that crowded near to harken to the Wisdom of that Salomon He had all those Endowments mightily at command which are behoved in a Scholar 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Aristotle 3º Top. terms them unto Extemporary Colloquies Ingenium in numerato habuit as Quintil. l. 6. said of a ready Man he had all his Learning in ready Money and could spend it at an hour as well as at a day's warning There was not a greater Master of Perspicuity and elucidate Distinctions which look'd the better in his English that ran sweet upon his Tongue especially being set out with a graceful Facetiousness that hit the joint of the Matter For his Wit and his Judgment never parted If the King lead him quite out of the rode of Verbal Learning and talk'd to him of real and gobernative Wisdom he pleas'd his Majesty most of all because his Answers discover'd that he loved to see through the present to the future Chiefly since he would be bold not only to argue but to quarrel against Innovations For though he was never addicted to his own Opinions no not among his Inferiors with that pertinacious Obligation for better for worse yet neither his best Friends nor the higher Powers could ever get him pleas'd with new Crotchets either in Church or State His constant Rule was That old Imperfections were safer then new Experiments To which purpose a Saying of his was famous in Court The manner how it came in was thus A great Servant to the King press'd for a change of that which was well enough already and commended his Design by this Note That it would be an easier way for the People Sir says Dr. Williams a Bed is an easie Repose but it is not wholsom to lie upon a new Tick and new-driven Feathers All these Passages the King consider'd from time to time Multa viri virtus animo c. And was glad he had a Servant to be raised up of whom He thought as Cicero did of Demetrius Valerius lib. 3. de Leg. Et doctrinae studus regendà civitate Princeps That he was a full Scholar fit for the Sacred and for the Civil Gown In a word one of the stronger Cattle Gen. 30.41 and designed for a Bell-weather in Jacob's Flock 47. The King was the Fountain of Honour indeed but there was a pre-eminent Pipe through which all Graces flowing from him were derived I pray the Reader to consider the sweetness of this King's Nature for I ascribe it to that cause that from the time he was 14 Years old and no more that is when the Lord Aubigny came into Scotland out of France to visit him even then he began and with that Noble Personage to clasp some one Gratioso in the Embraces of his great Love above all others who was unto him as a Parelius that is when the Sun finds a Cloud so fit to be illustrated by his Beams that it looks almost like another Sun At this time upon which my Pen drops the Marquess of Buckingham was the Parelius He could open the Sluce of Honour to whom and shut it against whom he pleased This Lord was our English Alcibtades for Beauty Civility Bounty and for Fortitude wanted nothing of Man enough says Art Wils p. 223. who favours all Republicans and never speaks well of Regians it is his own distinctions if he can possibly avoid it The Marquess by Sweetness as much as by Greatness by Courtesie as well as by Power pluck'd a world of Suitors to him especially by his generous and franc Usage For he did as many Favours to the King's Servants and Subjects freely and nobly that is without the sordid Fee of Gifts and Presents as ever any did that ruled the King's Affections Some of the most honoured Ladies of his Blood have told me That there was a Chopping-taker in his Family that was least suspected but his Lordship's Hands were clean and his Eyes could not look into every dark corner Dr. William was aware that this was the Man by whom the King delighted to impart his Bounties Aemilio dabitur quicquid petit Juv. Sat. 7. The Doctor had crept
the opening of that Session it was much Noted that the King had said before all the Members Spare none where you find just Cause to punish And if the two Houses should sit a year what good could be expected from them but two or three Subsidies That it were less danger for the King to gather such a Sum or greater by his Prerogative though it be out of the way than to wait for the exhibition of a little Mony which will cost Dishonour and the Ruin of his most Loyal and Faithful Servants 60. O what a Tempting Fiend is self-preservation These Mormo's and ill shap'd Jealousies hatch'd in Hell and prompted by the Father of mischief disquieted the King but Rob'd my Lord of Buckingham of all peace of Mind till the Dean of Westminster his good Genius conjur'd them down whose Wisdom luckily consulted gave him this Advice as I find it in a Breviate of his own hand Writing That the Parliament in all that it had hitherto undertaken had deserv'd praise as well for their dutiful demeanor to the King as for their Justice to his people His Majesties just and gracious Prerogative was untouch'd The Grievances of all that were Wronged with indifferency were Received which they must sift or betray the Trust of their Country which sent them The former Parliament was very Tart if not undutiful what then Shall we be fearful to put our hands into cold Water because we have been Scalded with hot There 's no Colour to quarrel at this general Assembly of the Kingdom for Tracing delinquents to their Form For it is their proper Work And the King hath very Nobly encourag'd them to it in his Speech that in the first day he made before them nay even proffering to have the blemishes of his Government Reformed by them for his own Words must literally bear that meaning as you well remember them if I may know my Errors I will Reform them But your Lordship is Jealous if the Parliament continue Embodied in this Vigour of your own safety or at least of your Reputation least your Name should be used and he brought to the Bandy Follow this Parliament in their undertakings and you may prevent it Swim with the Tide and you cannot be Drown'd They will seek your favour if you do not start from them to help them to settle the public Frame as they are contriving it Trust me and your other Servants that have some Credit with the most Active Members to keep you clear from the strife of Tongues But if you assist to break up this Parliament being now in pursuit of Justice only to save some Cormorants who have devoured that which must be regorged you will pluck up a Sluce which will over-whelm your self The King will find it a great disservice before one year expire The Storm will gather and burst out into a greater Tempest in all insequent Meetings For succeeding Parliaments will never be Friends with those with whom the former fell out This is Negative Counsel I will now spread Affirmative Proposals before your Honour which I have studied and consider'd Delay not one day before you give your Brother Sir Edward a Commission for an Embassage to some of the Princes of Germany or the North-Lands and dispatch him over the Seas before he be mist Those empty Fellows Sir G. Mompesson and Sir Fr. Michel let them be made Victims to the publick Wrath. It strikes even with that Advice which was given to Caesar in Salust when the people expected that some should be Examples of impartial Justice Lucius Posthumins Marcus Fauonius mihi videntur quâ—si magnae navis supervacua onera esse Si quid adversi coortâ—m est de illis pstissumon sactura sit quia pretii minimi sunt Let Lord Posthumius and M. Fauonius be thrown over board in the Storm for there are no Wares in the Ship that may better be spared Nay my Sentence is cast all Monopolies and Patents of griping projections into the Dead Sea after them I have search'd the Signet Office and have Collected almost forty which I have hung in one Bracelet and are fit for Revocation Damn all these by one Proclamation that the World may see that the King who is the Pilot that sits at the Helm is ready to play the pump to eject such Filth as grew Noysom in the Nostrils of his people And your Lordship must needs partake in the Applause for though it is known that these Vermin haunted your Chamber and is much Whisper'd that they set up Trade with some little Licence from your Honour yet when none shall appear more forward than your self to crush them the Discourse will come about that these Devices which take ill were stoln from you by Mis-representation when you were but New blossom'd in Court whose Deformities being Discover'd you love not your own Mistakings but are the most forward to re-call them 61. Before I proceed though Anger be an Enemy to Counsel I confess I cannot refrain to be angry O hearken not to Rhehoboams Ear-Wigs drive them away to the Gibbet which they deserve that would incite the King to Collections of Aid without concurrence of his Parliament God bless us from those Scorpions which certainly would beget a popular Rage An English mans Tribute comes not from the King's Exaction but by the peoples free Oblation out of the Mouth of their Representatives Indeed our Ancient Kings from the beginning did not receive but impose Subsidies When the Saxon Monarchs wanted Relief for repairing Castles Bridges or Military Expeditions they Levied it at their will upon the Shires as we may learn by some Names the only Remainder of those Old times Burg-boot Brig-boot Hen-fan Here-geld Horn-geld Danegeld Terms that meet us every where in our Ancient Chronicles The Normans you may Swear lost nothing that came in by wonted Signory but exacted as they saw Cause as William the Conqueror de Unaquâque hidâ sex solidos cepit imposed Six Shillings on every plowed Land saith Mathew Paris And William Rusus had his Auxilium non lege statutum an Aid without an Act of Parliament as Hoveden in the Life of Henry the Second And in this manner the Norman Race supplied themselves as they needed until King John's Reign who in his great Charter bound himself and his Successors to Collect no Aid nisi per commune concilium regni as it is in Matthew Paris With this agrees the Old Statute of 51 Henry the Third de tallagio non concedendo that Subsidies should not be Levied without the consent of Parliament Which being confirmed also in the 25 of Edward the First hath been inviolably observ'd by all the good and peaceable Kings of England to this very day And God forbid that any other Course should be Attempted For this Liberty was settled on the Subject with such Imprecations upon the Infringers that if they should remove these great Land-Marks they must look for Vengeance as if Entail'd by publick
were cut off too soon that delay would bring them to a more considerate Ripeness Sic vero dificiente crimine laidem ipsam in vituperium vertit invidia says Tully but he is sufficiently prais'd who is disprais'd for nothing but his Vertues Dispatch was a Vertue in him And all his Sails were fill'd with a good Wind to make riddance in his Voyage He was no Lingerer by Nature and kindly warmth is quick in digestion Our time is but a Span long but he that doth much in a short Life products his Mortality To this he had such a Velocity of mind that out of a few Words discreetly spoken he could apprehend the Strength and Sirrup of that which would follow This is that Ingeny which is so much commended 4. Tuseul Multarum rerum brevi tempore percussio such a Wit is ever upon an Hill and fees the Champain round about him And it was most contrary to his incorruptness to prolong an hearing as Felix did Act. 24.26 Till Mony purchas'd a convenient Season He never was Accus'd of it Quod nemo novit poene non fit as Apuleius says 10. Metam 'T was never known therefore 't was never done is a Moral and a Charitable inference Guess his great Spirit from this Essay and how he Coveted no Man's Silver or Gold that when he was in his lowest Want and Misery in the Tower Sequestred of all he had yet he Refus'd the offers of his Friends with this Reason that he knew not how to take from any but a King There is another Rub in the way sometimes Court Messages and Potentates Letters for alass in many Causes there are great Betters that are no Gamesters But he had a Spell against that Inchantment an invincible Courage against Enmity and Envy I will truly Translate Mamertinus his Qualities upon him of which he boasted in the Panegyric for his Consulship Animi magm adversus pecuniam liberi adversus offensas constantis adversus invidiam Those Magnificoes that were Undertakers for perdue Causes gave him over quickly for a stubborn Man that would go his own Pace and make no Halt for their sakes that sate in the Gallery of great ones above him As Cicarella says of Sixtus Quintus in his Addition to Platina In ore omnium erat nunc tempus Sixti est it is not as it was these are Pope Sixtus's days No Man now can work a Reprieve for a Malefactor So this Magistrate was passive to many Solicitations but strenuously Resolv'd to be Active for none for whatsoever Cause was brought before him he could instantly discern the true Face from the Vizard and whether the Counsel did not endeavour rather to shut it up then to open it It askt him a little time to Learn as it were the use of the Compass how to Sail into the Vast Ocean ef Pleadings and not to creep always by the Shore To follow the Pleaders in their own method and to speak to them in their own Dialect nay to reduce them from starting out and to Rectifie every Sprain and Dislocation See what a Globe of Light there is in natural Reason which is the same in every Man but when it takes well and riseth to perfection it is call'd Wisdom in a few 90. The Terms of the Common Law as in all other Professions and Sciences seem Barbarous to the Vulgar Ear and had need to be familiariz'd with pre-acquaintance which being the Primar of that Rational Learning he had inur'd himself to it long before and was nothing to seek in it Yet one of the Bar thought to put a Trick upon his Fresh-man-ship and trouled out a Motion crammed like a Granada with obsolete Words Coins of far fetch'd Antiquity which had been long disus'd worse then Sir Thomas Mores Averia de Wethernham among the Masters of Paris In these misty and recondit Phrases he thought to leave the New Judge feeling after him in the Dark and to make him blush that he could not Answer to such mystical Terms as he had Conjur'd up But he dealt with a Wit that was never entangl'd in a Bramble Bush for with a serious Face he Answer'd him in a cluster of most crabbed Notions pick'd up out of Metaphysics and Logic as Categorematical and Syncategorematical and a deal of such drumming stuff that the Motioner being Foil'd at his own Weapon and well Laugh'd at in the Court went home with this New Lesson That he that Tempts a Wise man in Jest shall make himself a Fool in Earnest Among many Gown-men at the Bar this was but one and that one proved a solid Pleader and sound at the hands of a more reconcileable man more than common Favour who procur'd him Knighthood and did send him his help in another Capacity Ten Years after to advance his Fortunes To proceed his Judgment could not be dazzled with Dark and Exotic Words they were proper to the matters in Hand The difficulty that he did most contend with was against Intrigues and immethodical Pleadings so that he had much to do to force the Councel to gather up their Discourses more closely and to hold them to the Point in Hand checking Excursions and impertinent Ramblings with the Rebuke of Authority though it seem'd a little Brackish to some Palates With a little Experience he gather'd up such Ripeness of Judgment and so sharp-sighted a knowledg that upon the opening of a Bill he could readily direct the Pleaders to that which was the Issue between the Plaintiff and Defendant and constrein them to speak to nothing but the very Weight of the Cause from the Resolution whereof the whole business did attend it's dispatch So true it is which Nepos delivers in the Life of Atticus Facile existimari potest Prudentiam esse quandam Divinati nem Prudence is a kind of Divination let it Tast a little and it can guess at all It needs not to have all the Windows opened when it can see Light enough through a Chink On the Judges part it is not Patience but Weakness not to abridge Prolixity of Words that he may come the sooner to the Truth And on the Advocates part 't is Affectation to seem more careful of his cause then he is when he speaks more then he needs Thus the Lord Keeper behav'd himself constantly and indifferently towards every Bill and Answer using the same method the same diligence the same Application of his great Gifts to all Causes following the Council which Q. Cicero gave to his Brother de Petiti Consul It a paratus ad dicendum venito quasi in singulis caulis Judicium de omni ingenio futurum sit so he carried himself as if he his whole sufficiency were to be Tried upon every Decree he made I shall say much I think enough to his Approbation that in the Tryal of two Terms the Councei at the Bar were greatly contented with him The Primipili or Vantguard of them were such as fil'd up their place with great Glory in
Captain Hostes inciderunt in nâ— the Enemy is fallen among us and into our Power So to such as talk timorously We shall fall into the Mis-perswasions of a Catholick Lady and her Houshold It may well be answered Be not distrustful of a good Cause they are fallen among us and if God love them they will joyn with us 93. The other thing in debate seem'd very harsh and boisterous to his Majesty that sundry Leaders in the House of Commons would provoke him to proclaim open War with Spain To which he replied in a long Letter to the Speaker That he had sent some Forces to keep the strong Towns of his Son-in-Law from the Imperialists That he had sent 30000 l. to those Princes of Germany that promised to assist him in Jealousie of their own Territories and had they done their Part that handful of Men which he sent had sufficiently done theirs He told them that he treated sedulously at that time for Peace but it would be a very Contradiction at the same Instant to be a Party in an open War And he gravely minded them that he rather expected Thanks for a long Peace the great Blessing of God than to stir him up to one of the greatest Plagues which the Lord threatens to a sinful Kingdom That many of his Subjects wanton with Ease and Plenty and pamper'd with Rest desired a Change though they knew not what they would have But did these Words so wise and melting compose the Humors of the Passionate No The Stoicks said well that from all Words and Actions there were two Handles to be catch'd hold of a Good and a Bad. The Virtuous interpret all to the best and lay hold on the Good The Quarrelsome apply all to the worst and lay hold of the Bad. Some that were Christianly Principled and were desirous to contrive every way how to spare the Effusion of so much Humane Blood admir'd the Lenity and Moderation of the King and look'd up to God that he would bring this Work to pass by other Means than unruly and unsatiate Armies But some cry'd out in Ar. W. Language That the King's Heart was not advanc'd to glorious Atchievements P. 172. Or as another of the same Tribe That howsoever the World did believe that he was unwilling to fight it out from a Religious Ground yet it was no other but a cowardly Disposition that durst not adventure Others would find a Knot in a Rush and laid the Blame upon his Learning that did intenerate his Heart too much and make him a Dastard These belike were not acquainted with the Exploits of the Graecian Xenophon the Roman Caesar the English Sidney Montjoy and Raleigh Gentlemen that were renowned both in Arms and Letters Yet such as were transported with Warmth to be a sighting prevail'd in Number before the Pacificous Well hath Pliny noted Epist Lib. 2. In publico concilio nihil est tam inaequale quà m aequali as ipsa nam cum sit impar prudentia par omnium jus est 'T is the Inequality of that equal Right which all have in publick Councils that every Puny hath a decisive Voice as much as Nestor But for all the Sword-men were so forward the King's Head was in Travel with Hopes of Peace He considered that even just Wars could not be prosperous unless they were begun with Unwillingness for they are the first Felicity of bad Men and the last Necessity of good Men. Macrobius observes in Bacchus the great Invader of India That he carried his Spear with a Trail of Ivy twin'd about it Lib. 1 â— 17 Quod vinculo patientiae obligandi sunt impetui Belle Because the Fierceness of Fighting should be rained in with the Bridle of Patience Lofty Spirits more Heathenish than Evangelical account one Victory worth ten thousand Lives But he that looks for the true Life above is sure that Mercy and Tenderness of Heart are better than a thousand Victories Eâ—saws indeed was not the Soldiers Friend but thus far he may be heard in this Cause Epist Aute August Hist Idem omnes pariter adnitantur ne Bellum sit poâ—iùs quà m ut bello vincant 'T is glorious before Men to fight well 't is blessed before God not to sight at all Warlike Motions are a Tryal of Gallantry for a time but all the Pages of Horror Calamity and Desolation attend them upon the Place where the Camp continues And why may not that continue till an Infant come to gray Hairs 'T is easie to set the Day when Wars shall begin but none can tell the Year nor the Age when they will end Metellus had been brought up in such Service none could tell Bacchus better than himself Salush Jug Bellum sumi facilè ceterum aegerimè dirimi non in ejusdem potestate initium ejus sinem esse And if War last long Who can feed that Cormorant with so much as it will devour What Millions and Millions of Coin have been exhausted to maintain this great Curse of God in our Land 't is thrice as chargeable to transport an Army If great Contributions be exacted Year by Year What Outcries will the People make And if we be not shorn to the Quick nay if we be not flay'd to advance Payments What Out-cries will the Soldiers make 'T is remarkable that the Commons in this Parliament voted to give one entire Subsidie to the King to begin the War They were not ignorant that five times that Money was not enough to Rig a Navy and to receive a good Army in it at the Sea-Side What a poor Stock was this to set up such a Trade a Sign they were neither able nor willing to maintain a War but at the Tongues end Finally The King having deliberated upon this Hurry to Battle opened the very Oracle of his Heart in this manner to some that were near him That a King of England had no reason but to seek always to decline a War though he carried his Forces abroad for the Array or Sword was in his Hand and the Purse in the Peoples His Sword could not fight without their Purse to maintain it Suppose a Supply were levied to begin the Fray What Certainty could He have that He should not want enough to make an honorable End If he call'd for Subsidies and did not obtain he must retreat ingloriously to the Wounding of his own Honour and the Nations If he were instant to have Succour and were resolved never to give over till he had it after he had craved it as if he had beg'd an Alms he must take it with such Conditions as would break the Heart of Majesty through Capitulations that some Members would make who desire to improve the Reputation of their Wisdom by retrenching the Dignity of the Crown in Popular Declamations For 't was likely they would ask the Change of the Church of the Laws of the Court Royal the Displacing of his Officers the Casheiring of his Servants Either at
Cook in his Jurisdiction of Courts looks no higher than 28. of Edw. 3. This Lord Keeper cites a Precedent out of his own Search of Records of a Baron Fin'd and Imprison'd by it in the 16th of Edw. 2. as it is quoted Cabal P. 58. Of what standing it was before for the Evidence doth not run as if then it were newly born to me is uncertain For the Dignity that famous Judge I mentioned lifts up his Style that it is the most honourable Court our Parliament excepted that is in the Christian World Jurisdic P. 65. The Citations of it are to cause to appear Coram Rege Concilio for the King in Judgment of Law is always in the Court when it fits and King James did twice in Person give Sentence in it The Lords and others of the Privy Council with the two Chief Justices or two other Justices or Barons of the Exchequer in their Absence are standing Judges of that Court. For in Matters of Right and Law some of the Judges are always presum'd to be of the King's Counsel The other Lords of Parliament who are properly De magno Concilio Regis are only in Proximâ poteentiâ of this Council and are actually Assessors when they are specially called These Grandees of the Realm who cannot fit to hear a Cause under the Number of Eight at the least ennoble this Court with their Presence and Wisdom to the Admiration of Foreign Nations and to the great Satisfaction of our selves for none can think himself too great to be Try'd for his Misdemeanors before a Convention of such Illustrious Senators And as Livy says Nihil tam aequandae libertati prodest quà m potentissimum quemque posse causam dicere As touching the Benefit that the Star-Chamber did bring thus that Atlas of the Law the Lord Cook Et cujus pars magna fuit says in the same Place That the right Institution and ancient Orders thereof being observed it keepeth all England in Quiet Which he maintains by two Reasons First Seeing the Proceeding according to the Laws and Customs of this Realm cannot by one Rule of Law suffice to punish in every Case the Enormity of some great and horrible Crimes this Court dealeth with them to the end the Medicine may be according to the Disease and the Punishment according to the Offence Secondly To curb Oppression and Exorbitancies of great Men whom inferior Judges and Jurors though they should not would in respect of their Greatness be afraid to offend Indeed in every Society of Men there will be some Bashawes who presume that there are many Rules of Law from which they should be exempted Aristotle writes it as it were by Feeling not by Guess Polit. 4. c. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They that were at the Top among the Greeks nor would be rul'd nor would be taught to be rul'd Therefore this Court profest the right Art of Justice to teach the Greatest as well as the Meanest the due Construction of Good Behaviour I may justly say that it was a Sea most proper for Whale-Fishing little Busses might cast out Nets for Smelts and Herring So says the great Lawyer Ordinary Offences which may sufficiently be punished by the Proceeding of the Common Laws this Court leaveth to the ordinary Courts of Justice Ne dignitas hujus Curiae vilesceret 96. Accordingly the Lord Keeper Williams having Ascended by his Office to be the first Star in the Constellation to illuminate that Court he was very Nice I might say prudent to measure the Size of Complaints that were preferred to it whether they were knots fit for such Axes A number of contentious Squabbles he made the Attorney's Pocket up again which might better be compounded at home by Country Justices It was not meet that the Flower of the Nobility should be call'd together to determine upon Trifles Such long Wing'd Hawks were not to be cast off to fly after Field-Fares The Causes which he designed to hear were Grave and Weighty wherein it concern'd some to be made Examples for Grievous Defamations Perjuries Riots Extortions and the like Upon which Occasions his Speeches were much heeded and taken by divers in Ciphers which are extent to this day in their Paper Cabinets To which I Appeal that they were neither long nor Virulent For though he had Scope on those Ocasions to give his Auditors more then a Tast of his Eloquence which was clear sententious fraught with Sacred and Moral Allusions yet he detested nothing more then to insult upon the Offendor with girds of Wit He foresaw that Insolencies and Oppressions are publick provocations to bury a Court in it's own Shame And what could exasperate more then when an unfortunate man hath run into a Fault to shew him no humane Respect Nay to make him pass through the two malignant Signs of the Zodiaque Sagitary and Scorpio That is to wound him first with Arrows of sharp-pointed Words and then to Sting him with a Scorpiack censure Indeed if there be an extreme in shewing too much mercy I cannot Absolve the Lord Keeper For many I confess censur'd him for want of deeper censures said he was a Friend to Publicans and Sinners to all delinquents and rather their Patron then their Judge 〈◊〉 was so oftentimes when he scented Malice in the Prosecution It was so sometimes when he laid his Finger upon the Pulse of humane Frailty Brethren if a Man be overtaken in a Fault we which are Spiritual Restore such a one in the Spirit of meekness considering thy self least thou also be Tempted Galat. 6.1 Pliny the younger had been faulted that he had excus'd some more then they deserv'd Whereupon he Writes to Septitius lib. 7. Ep. Quid mihi invident felicissimum Errorem Ut enim non sint tales quales à me praedicantur ego tamen Beatus quod mihi videntur Which is to this meaning Why do you grudg me this Error they are not so good as I accounted them but I am happy in my Candor that I account them better then they are But first he never condemn'd an Offender to be Branded to be Scourg'd to have his Ears cut Though that Court hath proceeded to such censure in time old enough to make Prescription yet my Lörd Cook adviseth it should be done sparingly upon this Reason Quod Arbitrio judicis relinquitur non facile trahit ad effusionem Sanguinis They that judge by the light of Arbitrary Wisdom should seldom give their sentence to spill Blood He would never do it and declin'd it with this plausible avoidance as the Arch-Bishop Whitgift and Bancroft and the Bishop of Winton the Learned Andrews had done before him that the Canons of Councils had forbidden Bishops to Act any thing to the drawing of blood in a judicial Form Once I call to mind he dispens'd with himself and the manner was pretty One Floud a Railing Libelling Varlet bred in the Seminaries beyond Seas had vented Contumelies bitterer then Gall against many
Clergy of England as being neither Parsons Vicars nor Curates be Licenced henceforward in the Court of Faculties only with a Fiat from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and a Confirmation under the Great Seal of England And that such as transgress any one of these Directions be suspended by the Lord Bishop of the Diocess or in his Default by the Lord Arch-Bishop of the Province Ab officio beneficio for a Year and a Day untill his Majesty by the Advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further Punishment 102. These Orders were well brought fourth but Success was the Step-Mother Destinata salubriter omni ratione potentior fortuna discussit Curtius lib. 5o. Crossness and Sturdiness took best with the Vulgar and he was counted but a Cockney that stood in awe of his Rulers No marvel if some were brought to no State of Health or toward any Temper of Convalesence with these Mandates Nothing is so hardly bridled as the Tongue saith St. James especially of a mis-guided Conscience when their Bladder if full of Wind the least Prick of a Thorn will give it eruption A Fool traveleth with a Word as a Woman in Labour of a Child Ecclus. 19.11 Restraint is not a Medicine to cure epidemical Diseases for Sin becomes more sinful by the Occasion of the Law Diliguntur immodice sola quae non licent says one of the Exteriors Quintil. decl 1a. The less we should the more we would Curb Cholerical Humours and you press out Bitterness as it is incident to those that are strait-lac'd to have sower Breaths The Scottish Brethren were acquainted by common Intercourse with these Directions that had netled the aggrieved Pulpitarians And they says Reverend Spotswood P. 543. accuse them to be a Discharge of Preaching at least a Confining of Preachers to certain Points of Doctrine which they call Limiting of the Spirit of God But the Wiser Sort judged them both necessary and profitable considering the Indiscretion of divers of that sort who to make Ostentation of their Learning or to gain the Applause of the Popular would be medling with Controversies they scarce understood and with Matters exceeding the Capacity of the People But what a Pudder does some make for not stinting the Spirit or Liberty of Prophecying as others call it They know not what they ask Such an indefinite Licence is like the Philosopher's Materia Prima a monstrous Passive Subject without Form A Quid libet which is next to nothing Indeed it is a large Charter to pluck down and never to build up Every Man may sling a Stone where he will and let it light as Luck carries it But how can the House of God be built unless the Builders be appointed to set up the Frame with Order and Agreement among themselves according to the Pattern which was shewn in the Mount Try it first in Humane Affairs and see how it will sadge with them before we proceed to Heavenly Dissolve the publick Mint let every Man Coin what Money he will and observe if ever we can make a Marchandable Payment Their Confusion is as like to this as a Cherry to a Cherry Give their Spirit as much Scope as they ask Let them Coin what Doctrine they will with the Minting-Irons of their own Brain They may pay themselves with their own Money but will it pass with others for Starling Will it go for current Divinity To meet them home Suppose this Priviledge were allow'd yet every good Spirit will limit it self to lawful Subjection Yet these would not Then what Remedy in earnest none was try'd It is the height of Infelicity to be incurable As Pliny in his Natural History said of Laws made against Luxury in Rome which would not be kept down therefore the Senators left to make Laws against it Frustra interdicta quae vetucrant cernentes nullas potiùs quam irritas esse Leges maluerunt 103. Neither were uncharitable Suspicions like to mend For the Unsatisfied that sung so far out of Tune had another Ditty for their Prick-Song The King's Letters were directed to the Lord Keeper to be Copy'd out and sent forth to the Judges and Justices to afford some Relaxation of our Penal Laws to some but not all Popish Recusants Which made sundry Ministers interpose very harshly and in the Prophet Malachy's Stile Chap. 2. Ver. 13. To cover the Altar of God with Tears and Weeping and Crying but the Lord regarded not the Offering neither received it with Good-will at their Hands What could this mean as they conjectured but the highest Umbrage to the Reformed Religion and â—at Toerâ—ion of Popery Leave it at that cross way that they knew not whither this Project will turn Nay Should they not hope for the best Event of the Meaning A King is like to have an ill Audit when every one that walks in the Streets will reckon upon his Councels with their own casting Counters It is fit in sundry Occurrences for a Prince to disguise his Actions and not to discover the way in which he treads But many times the Wisdom of our Rulers betrays them to more Hatred than their Follies because Idiots presume that their own Follies are Wisdom Plaurus displays these impertinent Inquisitors very well in Trinummo Quod quisque habet in animo aut habiturus est sciunt Quod in aurem Rex Reginae dixerit sciunt Quae neque futura neque facta sunt illi sciunt Yet these Fault-sinders were not jear'd out of their Melancholly though they deserv'd no better but were gravely admonished by his Majesty Vivâ voce in these Words I understand that I am blamed for not executing the Laws made against the Papists But ye should know that a King and his Laws are not unfuly compared to a Rider and his Horse The Spur is sometime to be used but not always The Bridle is sometime to be held in at other times to be let loose as the Rider finds Cause Just so a King is not at all times to put in Execution the Rigor of his Laws but he must for a time and upon just Grounds dispense with the same As I protest to have done in the present Case and to have conniv'd only for a time upon just Cause howbeit not known to 〈◊〉 If a Man for the Favour shew'd to a Priest or Papist will judge me to be inclining that way he wrongs me exceedingly My Words and Writings and Actions have sufficiently 〈◊〉 what my Resolution is in all Matters of Religion That Cause not known to 〈…〉 in part unfolded by that grave Father Spotswood where I quoted him 〈◊〉 Says he The Better and Wiser Sort of his Country-men who considered 〈…〉 Estate of things gave a far other Judgment thereof than the Discontented 〈…〉 then our King was treating with the French King for Peace to the Protestants of France and with the King of Spain for withdrawing his Forces from the Palatinate At which time it was no way fitting that
other Bodies cannot dissolve the Constancy of Gold 108. How faithfully and with what Courage like himself he adventur'd to maintain Orthodox Religion against old Corruptions and new Fanglements will be a Labour to unfold hereafter One thing remains that is purely of Episcopal Discharge which I will salute and so go by it before I look again upon his Forensive or Political Transactions When he was Dean of Westminster he had a Voice in the High Commission Court and so forth when he was in higher Degrees For as Nazianzen commends Athanasius pag. 24. Encom he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 skiiful in all the various Arts of Government He appear'd but once at Lambeth when that Court sat while he was Dean A sign that he had no Maw to it For he would say that the Institution of the Court was good without all Exception That is to Impower the Kings of England and their Successors by Statute to issue out that Authority under the Great Seal which was annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm to assign some as often and to so long time as the King should think fit to be Judges for the Reformation of great Abuses and Enormities But that this Power should be committed from the Kings and Queens of this Realm to any Person or Persons being Natural born Subjects to their Majesties to overlook all Ecclesiastical Causes correct punish deprive whether one or more whether Lay or Clergy whether of the vilest as well as the noblest nay whether Papist as well as Protestant as no harm was to be feared from good Princes albeit they have this Liberty by the Tenure of the Act 1 Eliz. Cap. 1. So if God should give us a King in his Anger who would oppress us till our cry went up like the Smoke out of a Furnace this Statute would enable them to enact Wickedness by a Law This was a Flaw to his seeming in the Corps of the Statute which gave Vigour to the High Commission But in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her two blessed Successors God be praised we were never the worse for it Better Commissioners than were appointed in their Days need not be wish'd What ail'd this wise Church-man then to be so reserv'd and to give so little Attendance in that Court He was not satisfied in two things Neither in the Multiplicity of Causes that were pluck'd into it nor in the Severity of Censures It is incident to Supream Courts chiefly when Appeals fly unto them to be sick of this Timpany to swell with Causes They defraud the lower Audiences of their Work and Profit which comes home to them with Hatred What a Clamor doth Spalat make Lib. 5. Eccl. Reip. c. 2. ar 28. That the Judicatories at Rome lurch'd all the Bishops under that Supremacy of all Complaints that were promoted to their Consistories Eò lites omnes cò dispensationes trahuntur Fluviorum omnium tractus ad suam derivat molam nobis quod sugamus nihil relinquitur The Affairs of all Ecclesiastical Tribunes were little enough to drive that Mill So the Consistories of all the Suffragans in the Province of Canterbury became in a manner Despicable because the Matters belonging to every Diocess were followed before the High Commission That it might be said to the neglected Praelates at Home Are ye unworthy to Judge the smallest Matters 1 Cor. c. 2. It seems ill Manners increas'd apace For I heard it from one that liv'd by the Practice of that High Court An. 1635 That whereas in the last Year of Arch-Bishop Whitgift eight Causes were left to be discuss'd in Easter-Term there were no less than a Thousand depending at that time This was one of his Exceptions That the High Court drew too much into its Cognizance The other Reason which made him stand a loof from it was That it punish'd too much Arch-Bishop Abbot was rigorously Just which made him shew less Pity to Delinquents Sentences of great Correction or rather of Destruction have their Epocha from his Predominancy in that Court. And after him it mended like sowre Ale in Summer It was not so in his Predecessor Bancroft's Days who would Chide stoutly but Censure mildly He considered that he sate there rather as a Father than a Judge Et pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis est patris He knew that a Pastoral Staff was made to reduce a wandering Sheep not to knock it down He look'd upon St. Peter in whom the Power of the Keys was given to the Unity of all the Officers of the Church who incurr'd a great Offence in the Hall of the High Priest let the Place be somewhat consider'd but his Action most Ut mitior esset delinquentibus grandis delinquens Saith St. Austin It being the most indubitate Course of that Commission to deprive a Minister of his Spiritual Endowments that is of all he had if Drunkenness or Incontinency were prov'd against him I have heard the Lord Keeper who was no Advocate for Sin but for Grace and Compassion to Offenders dis-relish that way for this Reason That a Rector or Vicar had not only an Office in the Church but a Free-hold for Life by the Common Law in his Benefice If a Gentleman or Citizen had been Convicted upon an Article of Scandal in his Life was it ever heard that he did Confiscate a Mannor or a Tenement Nay What Officer in the Rolls in the Pipe in the Custom-house was ever displac'd for the like Under St Cyprian's Discipline and the Rigor of the Eliberitan Canons the Lay were obnoxious to Censures as much as the Clergy But above all said he there is nothing of Brotherhood nor of Humanity in this when we have cast a Presbyter cut of Doors and left him no Shelter to cover his Head that we make no Provision for him out of his own for Term of Life to keep him from the Extremities of Starving or Begging those Deformed Miseries 109. These Reasons prevailing with him to be no ordinary Frequenter of that Court yet an Occasion was offered which required his Presence Mart. 30. 1622 which will draw on a Story large and memorable M. Amonius de Deminis Arch Bishop of Spalato made an Escape out of Dalmatia an English Gentleman being his Conductor he posted through Germany and came safe into England in the end of the Year 1616. The King gave him Princely Welcome Many of the Religious Peers and Chief Bishops furnished him with Gold that he lack'd for nothing He seem'd then for all this Plenty brought in to be covetous of none of these things but was heard to say That the Provision of an ordinary Minister of our Church would suffice him For in the end of June as he was brought on his Way to the Commencement at Cambridge a Worthy and a Bountiful Divine Dr. John Mountfort receiv'd him for a Night in his Parsonage-House of Ansty Where Spalat noting that Dr. Mountfort had all things about him orderly and handsome like
up the greatest part of the Time in speaking to the Redress of petty Grievances like Spaniels that rett after Larks and Sparrows in the Field and pass over the best Game Therefore his Majesty to loose no time drew up a Proclamation with his own Pen Feb. 20 to this end that certain of the Lords of the Privy Council should have Power and special Commission to receive the Complaints of all the good People of this Land which should be brought before them concerning any Exorbitances Vexations Oppressions and Illegalities and either by their own Authority if it would reach to it to see them corrected or to give Orders to cut them off by the keenest Edge of the Laws That Complainants should be encouraged to present their Grievances as well by the Invitement of the Proclamation as by the Signification of the Judges to the Country and Grand Juries in their respective Circuits The Draught of this the Features of his Majesty's own Brain came by Post to pass the Great Seal Yet for all that Hast the Lord Keeper took time to scan it and sent it back with Advice that the Project would be sweeter if it were double refined presuming therefore that his Majesty would not be unwilling to stop a little at the Bar of good Counsel he wrote this ensuing Letter to the Court Feb. 22. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty 120. I Do humbly crave Your Majesties Pardon that I forbear for two or three days to seal Your Proclamation for Grievances until I have presented to Your Majesty this little Remonstrance which would come too late after the Sealing and Divulging the Proclamation First As it is now coming forth it is generally misconstrued and a little sadly look'd upon by all men as somewhat restreining rather than enlarging Your Majesties former Care and Providence over Your Subjects For whereas before they had a standing Committee of all the Council-Table to repair unto they are now streitned to four or five only Most of which number are not likely to have any leisure to attend the Service Secondly I did conceive Your Majesty upon Your first Royal Expression of Your Grace in this kind in a Resolution to have mingled with some few Lords of Your Privy-Council some other Barons of Your Kingdom Homines as Pliny said of Virginius Rufus innoxiè Populares Whose Ears had been so opened to the like Grievances in the time of Parliament as their Tongues notwithstanding kept themselves within the compass of Duty and due Respect to Your Majesty as the Earls of Dorset and Warwick the Lord Houghton Dr. Morton the Lord Dennie the Lord Russel the Lord North. And among the Lords Spiritual the Bishops of Lichfield Rochester and Ely and especially unless Tour Majesty in Your deep Wisdom have some Reasons of the Omission Dr. Buckeridge the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This mixture would produce the these Effects ensuing First An Intimation of Your Majesties Sincerity and Reality in this Proclamation Dr. Felton Secondly A more free and general Intimation to Parties Aggrieved who will repair soonear to these private Peers then to the great Lords of Your Majesties Council Thirdly The making of these Lords and the like Witnesses of Your Majesties Justice and good Government against the next ensuing Parliament and the stopping of their Ears against such supposed Grievances at that time as shall never be heard of in their Sitting upon this Commission Fourthly and Lastly The gaining of these Temporal Lords to side with the State being formerly much wrought upon by the Factious and Discontented If Your Majesty shall approve of these Reasons it is but to Command Your Secretary to interline these or some of these Names in the Commission which in all other respects is already wisely and exceeding well penn'd with two short Clauses only First That these Lords shall attend very carefully and constantly in Term-time when they are occasion'd to be at London Secondly That they be instructed to receive all Complaints with much Civility and Encouragement giving them full Content and Redress according to the merit of their Grievances For nothing will sooner break the Heart of a People or make them lose their Patience than when hopes of Justice are frustrated after the Royal Word is engaged But if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom will overpass these Particulars which I have dutifully presented upon the return of the Proclamation as it is it shall be sealed and divulged with all expedition But these Reasons were not overpass'd Both the Proclamation and private Orders to the Lords Commissioners were reformed by the Contents of that weighty Letter His Majesty greatly inclining to the Lord-Keeper's Readiness and espying Judgment in all Consultations For as Laertius in Zeno's Life said of a famous Musician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Ismenias could play well upon all Instruments So this was another Ismenias who had the Felicity to make all Deliberations pleasing and tuneable especially he had that way above all that I knew to make sweet Descant upon any plain Song that was prick'd before him It will be to the Profit of the Reader if I rub his memory with one Passage of the Letter for it is but one though it come in twice which presseth the King to Sincerity and Reality to fix his Word like the Center of Justice that cannot be moved Righteous Lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16.23 And a King of Righteous Lips is most delightful Since the coercitive part of the Law doth not reach him upon what Nail shall those Millions that stand before his Throne hang their Hopes if his Word do not bind him A People that cannot give Faith to their Sovereign will never pay him Love It seems that the ancient Latin Kings did profess to use Crookedness and Windings of Dissimulation in their Polity therefore their Scepter was called Lituus because it bent in toward the upper end But the Scepter of thy Kingdom says David of GOD is a right Scepter A right one indeed For Contracts and Promises bind God to Man much more must they oblige the King to his People An Author of our own Dr. Duck in his very Learned Treatise De usu Juris Civilis p. 44. hath well delivered this Morality Princeps ad contractum tenetur uti privatus nec potest contractum suum rescindere ex plenitudine potestatis cum maximè in eo requiratur bena sides Falshood is Shop-keepers Language or worse but 't is beneath Majesty 121. A Parliament being not far of either in the King's Purpose or in Prospect of Likelihood Serj Crooke Cvew Finch Damport Bramston Bridgman Crawly Headly Thin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authurst Blng. Dâ—y the Lord Keeper was provident that the Worthies of the Law should be well entreated Their Learning being most comprehensive of Civil Causes and Affairs they had ever a great Stroke in that Honorable Council Therefore he wrought with his Majesty to sign a Writ for the Advancement of some
〈…〉 unsel being present keeping my Intention from my Chancellor himself from whom I never kept any of my weightiest Business Because if I had made him of my Counsel in that purpose he had been blamed for putting the same into my Head which had not been his Duty For it becometh no Subject to give his Prince Advice in such Matters In this Story it appears that the Father-King trod the way to his Son to undergo such an Audacious Journey in the pursuance of his Love Quid non effraeno captus amore Audeat Ovid. Then that he Persisted in his Principles of Secrecy for a generous End that he might not draw his Chief and Best Servants whom he loved most into a Snare of Guiltiness 127. Let Provision be made to the most that could be for the safety of all others yet Sir Ant. W. in his Court and Character of K. James hath one Exception That the King set this Wheel on Running to destroy Buckingham for the hatred which he had long bore him and would not think it ill to loose his Son so Buckingham might be lost also Pag. 149. O Horrid But the best is the Foundation is Rotten For Buckingham as all Men about the King would Testifie was in as high Favour at that time as any Subject was ever with his Sovereign But when Sir A. to make out the Proof he lays it upon Sir H. Yelverton displaced from the Office of Attorney General to the King and committed to the Tower 't was he that assured the Marquess that the King hated him more than any man Living pag. 159. Sir Harry was Unfortunate but too honest a Man to sow Discord between the King and his principal Peer and Attendant Now mark upon what Bottom the Contriver of this Tale doth wind his Forgery Sir W. Balfore at the time of his Lieutenancy of the Tower brought the Marquess at Midnight to Sir H. Yelverton's Chamber being then his close Prisoner Where Sir William heard those Passages and a great deal more between them And by one or other who came to the knowledge of it but this Sir Anthony O Wicked Servant to thy good Master O fowl Bird that defilest the Nest wherein thâ—u wert hatch'd and well fledg'd Thou art catch'd in thine own Lime for thou never couldst have Conserence with Sir W. Balfore or Sir H. Yelverton about such a matter For Learned Yelverton was never Prisoner to Valiant Balfore Sir Allen Apsley was Lieutenant all the time of that worthy man's restraint And Sir W. Balfore was not preferr'd to that Office of great Trust in more than four years after Sir Harry had obtain'd his Liberty when Knaves will turn Fools it is not amiss to be merry with them And I will fit Sir Anthony with a Jest out of Illustrius the Pythagorean p. 23. One Daphidas came to the Pythian Deity to beseech his Oracleship to tell him when he should find a Gelding of his that was gone astray You shall find him very shortly says Apollo's Minister I thank you for your good News says Daphidas but I have neither lost a Horse nor have a Horse to loose So I turn Sir Anthony over to the Committee of Oracles and proceed After the Princes Out Leap the King lingred at New-market till the time was nigh that every day Tidings were expected of his safe Arrival in Spain that he might shew himself to the Lords at White-hall with better Confidence which he did March 30. being the first day that the Lord Keeper spake with the King about his dear Sons Planetary Absence No sooner had he made most humble sign of his Majesties Welcome by Kissing his Hand but the King Laugh'd out this Question to him Whether he thought this Knight-Errant Pilgrimage would be lucky to win the Spanish Lady and to convey her shortly into England Sir says the Lord Keeper If my Lord Marquess will give Honour to Conde Duke Olivares and Remember he is the Favourite of Spain Or if Olivares will shew Honourable Civility to my Lord Marquess Remembring he is a Favourite of England the Woing may be Prosperous But if my Lord Marquess should forget where he is and not stoop to Olivares or if Olivares forgetting what Guest he hath Received with the Prince bear himself haughtily and like a Castilian Grandee to my Lord Marquess the Provocation may be Dangerous to Cross your Majesties good Intentions And I pray God that either one or both of them do not run into that Errour The King drew a Smile at the Answer but bit his Lip at the presage Discourse being Enlarg'd between them the King perceiv'd that his Counsellor had other Fears and that his Brain teemed with Jealousies of very hard Encounters which he knock'd upon softly that his Majesty might discern them and not seem to apprehend them Only thus far the King proceeded to ask him If he had wrote to his Son and to the Lord Marquess clearly and upon what Guard they should stand Yes Sir says he for that purpose I have dispatch'd some Packets Then continue says the King to help me and themin those difficulties with your best Powers and Abilities and serve me faithfully in this motion which like the highest Orbe carries all my Raccolta's my Counsels at the present and my prospects upon the Future with it and I will never part with you The Cause which made His Majesty so solicitous made the Lord Keeper need no Provocation to diligence He was before hand And upon the 25 of February by a Currier that was at Madrid almost as soon as the Prince he wrote two Letters following to his Highness and to the Lord Marquess A Letter to the Prince May it please your Highness 128 ALthough Prayer is all the Service That at this time either I the most obliged or any other the wisest of your Servants can perform unto you yet I Humbly beseech your Higness to pardon true Affections that cannot stay there but will be expressing of it self though peradventure neither wisely nor discreetly The Comick Writer held these two scarce competent Amare sapere And to exclude all shew of discretion I presume to write this First Letter of mine to your Highness without so much as excribing or taking a Copy of the same this opportunity admitting no leisure at all to do the one or the other Your Journey is generally reputed the depth of your danger which in my Fears and Representations your Arrival should be You are in a strange State for ought we know uninvited business being scarce prepared subject to be staid upon many and contrary pretenses made a Plot for all the Wisdom of Spain and Rome for all the contemplations of that State and that Religion to work upon And peradventure the detaining of Your Highness his Person may serve their turn as amply as their Marriage at least wise for this time and the Exploits of the ensuing Summer I write not this to fright you who have Testified to all the
Cause It is the Author of the Observations upon H. L. his History of the Reign of King Charles pag. 137. He hath not bestowed his Name upon his Reader but he hath a Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Homer Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I ought not to put him to the first Question of our Catechism Quo nomine vocaris For good Writers nay Sacred Pen-Men do not always Inscribe their Names upon their Books Scholars do invariably Father the Work and some of them say they have it from the Printer upon one that hath Wrote and Publish'd much favoring of Industry and Learning And they give Reasons which will come into the Sequel though a great while deferr'd why he blotts the good Name of King James Why he grates so often upon the mild Nature and matchless Patience of King Charles And if Fame have taken the right Sow by the Ear it is one that had provok'd the then Bishop of Lincoln in Print with great Acrimony Twenty years ago and that Anger flames out in him now as hot as ever Panthera domari nescia non semper saeuit Yet when that Bishop came out of the Tower and this Adversary sought him for Peace and Love because the Bishop was then able to do him a Displeasure he found him easie to be Reconciled What should move this Man to forget that Pacification so truly observ'd on the Bishops part who was the greater and the offended Party Naturale est odisse quem laeseris And Malice is like one of the Tour Things Prov. 30.15 That never say it is enough 'T is Degenerous for the Living to Trample upon the Dead but very Impious that he that was once a Christian nay a Christian Priest should never cease to be an Enemy The Words with which he wounds the Spanish Match through his side though otherwise he is one that witheth it had succeeded are these That that Bishop being in Power and Place at C◠the time of King James made himself the Head of the Popish Faction because he thought the Match with Spain which was then in Treaty would bring not only a Connivance to that Religion but a Toleration of it And who more like to be in Favour if that Match went on than such as were most zealous in doing Good Offices to the Catholick Cause Here 's a Knot of Catter-Pillars wrapt in a thin Cobweb so easie it will be to sweep them of The accused Person was always free of Conference Let any now living say that heard him often Discourse of the adverse Church if he did not constantly open himself not for a Gainsayer only but for a Stiff Defier of their Corrupt Doctrines although he was ever pitiful for Relaxation of their Penalties And would that Party cleave unto him for their greatest Encourager Encouragement was the least their Head could give them Beside the Thing is a Chimaera I never knew any Head of the Popish Faction in this Kingdom Others and Bishops in Rank above him have been traduced in that Name but who durst own that Office especially in the end of King James his Reign when every year almost was begirt with a Parliament and every Parliament procreated an inquisitive Committee for Matters of Religion What Mist did he walk in that neither Parliament nor Committees did detect him for Head or Patron or Undertaker call it what you will of the Pseudo-Catholick Cause could nothing but the goggle Eye of Malice discover him 135. Perhaps the Contemplation of the Spanish Match might embolden him so this Author would have us think It could not it did not take a little in the highest Topicks to both It could not For as the Anteceding Parliament was much taken with King James's Words That if the Match should not prove a fartherance to our Religion he were not Worthy to be our King so this his Majesties near Counsellor knew his meaning of which he often discours'd that when the Holy-Days of the Great Wedding were over his Majesty would deceive the Jealousies of his Subjects and be a more vigorous Defender of the Cause of the True Faith than ever And Judge the Bishop by his own Words in his Sermon Preach'd at the Funerals of that Good King that his Majesty charg'd his Son though he Married the Person of that Kings Sister never to Marry her Religion I said likewise he did not Look back to the first Letters he dispatch'd into Spain but much more let every Reader enjoy the Feature of his own Piety and Wisdom which he put into the Kings Hand to have his liking while his Majesties Dear Son was in Spain to Cure popular Discontents and sickly Suspicions which had come forth with Authority in October following if the long Treaty had not Set in a Cloud The Original Draught of his Contrivances yet remaining is thus Verbation That when the Marriage was Consummated and the Royal Bride received in England His Majesty should Publish his Gracious Declaration as followeth First To assure his Subjects throughout his three Kingdoms that there is not one word in all the Treaty of the Marriage in prejudice of our own Religion Secondly To Engage himself upon his Kingly Word to do no more for the Roman-Catholics upon the Marriage than already he did sometime voluntarily Grant out of Mercy and Goodness and uncontroulably may do in disposing of his own Mulcts and Penalties Thirdly That our Religion will be much Honoured in the Opinion of the World that the Catholic King is content to match with us nor can he Persecute with Fire and Sword such as profess no other Religion than his Brother-in-Law doth Fourthly That His Majesty shall forthwith advance strict Rules for the Confirmation of our Religion both in Heart and in the outward Profession 1. Common-Prayer to be duly performed in all Churches and Chappels Wednesdays and Fridays and two of every Family required to be present 2. Every Saturday after Common-Prayer Catechising of Children to be constantly observed 3. Confirmation called Bishopping to be carefully executed by the Bishop both in the General Visitations of his Diocese and every Six months in his own House or Palace 4. That Private Prayers shall no Day be omitted in the Family of him that is of the Degree of an Esquire else not to be so named or reputed 5. All Ladies and all Women in general to be Exhorted to bestow two hours at the least every Day in Prayer and Devotion 6. All our Churches to be Repaired and outwardly well Adorned and comely Plate to be bought for the Communion-Table 7. Dispensations for Pluralities of Livings to be granted to none upon any Qualification but Doctors and Batchelors in Divinity at the least and of them to such as are very Learned Men. 8. Bishops to encourage Public Lectures in Market-Towns of such Neighbouring Ministers as be Learned and Conformable 9. A Library of Divinity-Books to be Erected in every Shire-Town for the help of the poorer Ministers and Leave shall be
my power to advertise you of all Particulars though it would be very useful to me I end c. If one should say to this That young Heads hope for the best upon all Expectations because Experience hath not taught them to Distrust I take it up and Answer That there was nothing then in appearance to be distrusted no not the Remora of the Pontifical Dispensation when it should come with all its Trinkets about it The Prince had excellently prevented it For as it was Reported before the Lords and Commons in our ensuing Parliament 1624. his Highness did utterly refuse to Treat with the King of Spain or his Council until he was assured he might go on with the Marriage if he satisfied them to his Power and Conscience in all Particulars to be Debated without respect to any orders that should come from Rome This was granted to his Highness before he would sit in Consultation which caused the Lord Marquess unto that time to bear up with chearfulness 137. The month of May coming in with its Verdue his Lordship had a Garland sent him the most eminent Title of a Duke to shew says the Lord-Keeper in his Dispatch May 2. That His Majesty is most constant and in some degrees more enslamed in his Affections to your Grace than formerly and which is better than all unaffectedly to remunerate your Diligence in the great Negotiation and that being the Princes right hand by the Trust you are in your Honour might be no less than the Conde Duke Olivares the Great Privado of King Philip. It may be 't is so small a Circumstance that I have not searched about it that the Patent came with the Ships that carried the Prince's Servants into Spain to attend his Highness who went with the King's Order and their own great Desire a most specious Train of them to visit their dear Master and to serve him in all Offices of his Family Among these two were his Highness's Chaplains who were sent over to Officiate to him and his Court in the Worship of God These were Dr. Maw and Dr. Wrenn both of prime Note for Learning and Discretion very Learned to defend their own Religion and very Discreet to give no wilful Offence to the opposite part in a Foreign Dominion The Spanish liked not their company yet they took it not so ill for they could not but expect them as that there was not one Romish Catholic declared for such a one among all his Highness's Attendants Cabal p. 15. Tully states the Proverb in the Feminine Sex Lib. 5. ad Att. Ep. 11. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As you would say Such as Diana her self such are her Nymphs about her But it is better paralell'd in King David's Person He that walketh with a perfect heart he shall serve me Psal 101.6 These were the Chorus of the Scene that sung in Tune with the chief Actor and seconded his Part with their Symplasma as it is called by ancient Musicians in their adherence to sincere Religion Yet some of these brought Instructions with them to the Duke of Buckingham from his secret Intelligencers which not only disturbed all posteriour Treaties but made the Prince return for England with the Willow Wreath Because the King and they that were faithful to his meaning knew not of it till July next after let it squat till then and it that order be started up In this place it sufficeth to glance at it that the Duke was cunningly dealt with and underhand by some whom he had lest behind to be as it were the Life-Guard of his Safety who were to send him notice of common Talk or secret Whispers that might concern him These perswaded him to set the Match back by degrees and in the end to overturn it That this was the desire of most Voices in England And his Grace must look to stand by the love of the People as well as of the King Or if he could not prevail in that let him be sure to joyn the Restitution of the Palatinate with the Marriage in the Capitulations or the Unsatisfaction which all would take that pitied the King's Daughter and her Children would undo him Upon these and their subtile Arts Sir W. Ashton Reflects in this Passage Cabal p. 32. I believe that your Grace hath represented to you many Reasons shewing how much it concerns you to break the Match with all the force you have This was the Junto at London that had done his Grace this Office and had guilded their Councils over with flourishing Reasons That these would procure him a stable continuance in Power and Sublimity with everlasting Applause Well every thing that is sweet is not wholsom Cael. Rhodoginus says lib. 23. c. 25. That at Trevisond in Pontus the Honey that Bees make in Box-Trees breeds Madness if it be eaten So I mean that the Urgencies of those Undertakes who pretended so far to the Duke's Prosperity were no better than Rhodoginus his Box-Tree Honey-Combs Yet after they had given the Qu now began the Duke to irritate the Spaniard to shut out or to slight the Earl of Bristow in all Councels to pour Vinegar into every Point of Debate to fling away abruptly and to threaten the Prince's Departure These boistrous Moods were not the way to succour the Prince's Cause for Favour cannot be forc'd from great Spirits by offering Indignities And the Temper of the Business in hand was utterly mistaken For they were not met at a Diet to make Articles of Peace and War but to Woo a fair Lady whose Consent is to be sought with no Language but that which runs sweet upon the Tongue As Q. Cicero wrote to his Brother de Peti Consul Opus est magnopere Blanditiâ Quae etiamsi vitiosa turpis sit in caeterâ vitá tam in Petitione est necessaria All Suitors are ty'd to be fair spoken but chiefly Lovers 138. No doubt but at this time in the Prime of May the Duke with such such others as the Prince did take into his Council sate close to consider upon the Overtures that came with the Dispensation For all thought that was the Furnace to make or to mar the Wedding-Ring and it asked Skill and Diligence to cast it well It is a Gibe which an Heathen puts upon an Amorose that wasts his whole time in Dalliance upon his Mistress 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Love is an idle Man's Business But there was Business enough beside Courtship and Visits which came thick to keep this Love from being idle The Dispatches that were sent from Spain to employ those that were in Commission here to direct the great Negotiation were many First The Dispensation came to the King from the Prince his Son May 2. But it came to scanning a good while after as will appear by this Letter of the Lord Keepers to the Duke dated May 9. May it please your Grace IT is my Fortune and I thank God for it to be ever rendring
that his Lordship should be offered up to Justice as a publick Sacrifice But they that contest for his Innocency observe that he was let loose to depart in Quiet when he should have been brought to the Horns of the Altar And when the Bill drawn up against him was put into Sir Robert Philip's Hand an active and a gracious Member of the House to manage it to his Ruine Sir Robert writes to the Duke Cab. P. 265. If Bristol frame a probable satisfactory Answer to any Charge will it not rather serve to declare his Innocency than to prepare his Condemnation Your Grace may consult with your self whither you may not desist with Honour upon having him further questioned Afterward when his Master King James was dead and when he was at the Stake I may say like to be worried in Parliament by his Accusers he writes thus confidently to the Lord Conway Cab. P. 20. As for the Pardon Jacob. 21. I should renounce it but that I know the justest and most cautious Man living may through Ignorance or Omission offend the Laws So that as a Subject I shall not disclaim any Benefit which cometh in general as it doth usually to all other Subjects in the Kingdom But as for any Crime in particular that may entrench upon my Employments in point of Loyalty and Fidelity I know my Innocency to be such that I am confident I shall not need that Pardon A. Gallius li. 12. c. 7. Take the Earl's Case Pro and Con it is very dubious therefore I will deal with it as the manner of the Areopagites was in such Perplexities adjourn it to be heard an hundred Years hence I say not He but They were the Proprophets of Baal that troubled our Israel Our Corner-miching Priests with the Bloomesberry-Birds their Disciples and other hot spirited Recusants cut out the Way with the Complaints of their no-grievous Sufferings which involved us in Distractions Rome and Madrid were full of them and they conjured Pope Gregory and the Catholick King to wind in their Safety and Immunity in the Articles of the Match as behoved a Father and a Friend If they had sate still and let the Business go adrist with the Tide it had been better for them They that force their Fruits to be Ripe do but hast them to be rotten Qui spretis quae tarda cum securitate prematura vel cum exitio properant Tacit. Annal. lib. 3. The Word of the King and Prince would not serve them that they would be gracious to all of their Sect that lived modestly and inoffensively to deserve their Clemency But they must have publick Instruments for it and Acts of Parliament if they could be gotten to debauch his Majesty in the Love of his People For as the Lord Keeper writes very prudently to the Duke Cab. P. 105. The Bent of the English Catholicks is not to procure Ease and Quietness to themselves but Scandals against their neighbouring Protestants and Discontents against the King and State Rhetorical Campian avows it in an Oration made at Doway Note this Apostrophe of his to our Kingdom As far as it concerns our Society we all dispersed in great Numbers through the World have made a League and Holy Solemn Oath that as long as any of us are alive all our Care and Industry all our Deliberations and Councils shall never cease to trouble your Calm and Safety Yet when our pragmatical Bosom-Enemies had wearied themselves with Solicitations the Earl of Nitsdale a main Prop of their Cause confest It may be Assurance sufficient to all Catholicks who have the Sense to consider that it must be our Master's and the Prince's gracious Disposition that must be our Safety more than either Word or Writ Thus he to the Duke Cab. P. 250. But while the Recusant Petitioners had caused all Affairs with us and Abroad to be obnoxious to Inflammation the Lord Keeper like a right Lapidary cuts a Diamond with a Diamond and useth Sir Tobâ— Mâ— is it not a Paradox the busiest Agent in that Cause to Manifest both in the Palace at Rome and in the Court at Madrid that the Petitioners grasp at more Favours than they could hold either with the Peace of this Kingdom or with the Laws of it which would endanger them to forfeit all that Connivance which they had gained before Give him his Due he rode with great Celerity to those remote Places and did his Work to the Proof and to his great Praise Sâ—stus est at mihi infidelis non est As Plautus in Trinummo The Lord Keeper failed not to put Gold in his Pocket but he paid him chiefly out of his Father's Purse That most Reverend Arch-Bishop of York his Father being highly distasted with Sir Toby's Revolt from the Protestant Religion made a Vow to Dis-inherit him and to leave him nothing The Lord Keeper plied the Arch-Bishop with sweet and pleasant Letters which he loved and with some Mediators in Yorkshire not to infringe his Vow for he did not ask him so much as to name him in his last Wiâ—l and Testament but to furnish him with Three thousand Pounds while he lived and the Sum was paid to his Son to a Peny How Sir Toby beâ— himself in the wisest Counsel which I think was given to the King of Spain may be read Cab. P. 25â— importuning his Majesty not to entangle the Prince with the Voâ—o of the Theologos to which he could not submit himself with Honour but to accept of those large Conditions for Catholicks which my Lord the King and the Prince have condescended to that so the Prince may have some foot of Ground upon which he may stand without Breach of Honour to comply with the incomparable Affection which he beareth to the Infanta This is sure that Sir Toby's Industry was well taken because he did what he could And he that employed him held him ever after to be a Person of Trust in any thing which he promised to do 145. Very consonant to the grand Particulars of the Praemises are the Contents of two Letters both dispatcht in June from the Lord Keeper to the Duke's Grace That which bears the former Date June 15 and yet unpublished lays out Errors advisedly and mannerly under the Heads of trivial Reports and furnisheth the Duke with Counsel for all Exigencies of Advantage especially diseloseth the King's Opinion if the Worst should come It is long but I could not pare it and not mar it Thus it is May it please your Grace IF ever I had as God knoweth I never had any extraordinary Contentment in the Fortunes of this World I have now good Cause offered me to redouble the same by that exceeding Love and Affection which every Man in his private Letter to others doth take Notice that your Grace doth bear and continually express to your poor Servant Nor is your Love incentred to me only in your own Breast but full of Operation having procured to me a good
Choler in his Complexion Yet that it could not appear but that the Marriage on King Philip's part was very sincerely meant in all the Treaty most clearly when his Highness took his Farewell most openly since his Departure Wherein the Earl of Bristol had much wronged that great Monarch giving him a Bastle insupportable For when the Power of Revocation or rather Repression of the Proxy was peremptorily in his Lordship's hand he did not acquaint the King of Spain to stop him from erecting a Gallery turned by the Earl's Negligence into a Gullery in the open Streets covered with the richest Tapestry and set forth with all other Circumstances of Wealth and State to conduct the Infanta in open View and with most magnificent Solemnity to the Deposorios when by the Instruments and Commissions the Earl had lately received he knew these augustious Preparations would be ridiculously disappointed which was a Despight that a Gentleman not to say an Embassador should have prevented For the Disgrace was so far blown abroad with Derision that it was the News of Gazette's over all Europe The Intention of that Nation to give the Infanta in Marriage to the Prince being not controverted Yet his Highness protesting on his part that he was free unless the Palatinate were surrendred they were all satisfy'd with it his Word was Justice to them and that which was in his own Breast must alone direct him how to use his Freedom This Question dispatched was upon a blown Rose the next was upon a Bramble The Lord Duke was so zealous say it was for the Palsgrave's Sake that he voted the King of Spain to be desied with open War till amends were made to the illustrious Prince Elector for the Wrongs he sustained The Lords appointed for the Conference that apprehended it otherwise were the Keeper Treasurer Duke of Richmond Marquess Hamilton Earl of Arundâ—l Lord Carow Lord Belfast who could not say that the King of Spain had done the part of a Friend for the Recovery of the Palatinate as he had profess'd nor yet could they find that he had acted the Part of an Enemy declaredly as was objected Their Judgment was the Girts of Peace were slack but not broken This is couched in the Admonitions of an Ignote unto King James Cab. p. 278. The Conference or Treaty about the Palatinate was taken from the Council of State a Society of most prudent Men only for this Cause that almost every one of them had with one Consent approved the Propositions of the most Catholick King and did not find in it any Cause of dissolving the Treaty And a little beneath The Duke fled from the Council of State and disclaimed it for a Parliament by way of an Appeal Most true that scarce any in all the Consulto did vote to my Lord Duke's Satissaction which made him rise up and chase against them from Room to Room as a Hen that hath lost her Brood and clucks up and down when she hath none to follow her The next time he saw the Lord Belfast he asked him with Disdain Are you turned too and so flung from him Cab. p. 243. To which the Lord Belfast answered honestly in a short Letter That he would conform himself in all things to the Will and good Pleasure of the King his Master The greatest Grudge was against the Lord Keeper who seldom spake but all Opinions ran into his one as they did at this time and the Duke presumed that his Sentence should never vary from his own Mind An hard Injunction and all the Favour on Earth is too dear to be bought at such a Price But he declared that he saw no Expediency for War upon the Grounds communicated For upon whom should we fall says he either upon the Emperor or the King of Spain The Emperor had in a fort offered our King his Son-in-Law's Country again for a great Sum in Recompence of Disbursments but where was the Money to be had Yet it might be cheaper bought than conquered before a War were ended For the King of Spain he saw no Cause to assault him with Arms He had held us indeed in a long Treaty to our Loss but he held nothing from us and was more likely to continue the State of things in a possibility of Accommodation because he disliked the Duke of Bavaria's Ambition and had rather stop the Enlargement of his Territories The King was glad that some maintained his Judgment and would not consent wantonly to raise him from the Down Bed of his long admired Peace Neither did he refrain to speak very hardly of that Servant whom he loved best that agitated to compel him to draw the Sword one of the great Plagues of God His Censure upon him was bitter Cab. P. 92. but fit to be cast over-board in silence 176. A King of Peace is not only sittest to build Temples but is the Temple of God Such a one doth foresee how long how far how dangerously the Fire of War will burn before he put a Torch to kindle it And as every Bishop ought to have a care of the Universal Church so every King ought to have a care of all Humane Society It is not such a thing to raise War in these Days as it was in Abraham's Muster his Servants in one Day and rescue Lot from his Enemies the next Nor such as it was with the old Romans make a Summers Laâ—rt in Vit. before he laid down his Office The Charge in our Age which usually for many Years doth oppress the People will hardly countervail if GOD should send it the Gladness of a Victory Nor is all fear over when a War is ended But as Solon says Lacrt. in Vit. Great Commanders when they have done their Work abroad and are return'd with Honour 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 do more Mischief by their Factions to their Country than they did against their Enemies And whosever scape well the poor Church is like to suffer two ways First as Camden says Eliz. Ann. 1583. Schismatica pravitas semper bello ardente maxime luxuriat Schismatical Pravity will grow up under the Licentiousness of War Some profane Buff-Coats will Authorize such Incendiaries Secondly For some Hundreds of Years by-past in Christendom I cannot find but where Wars have been protracted the Churchman's Revenue hath been in danger to pay the Soldiers If this affect not those that will not think that there is such a Sin as Sacrilege yet all acknowledge that there is such a Virtue as Humane Compassion Then they that would awake drouzy Peace as they call it with the Noise of the Drum and the prancing of Horses in the Street let them before they design their War describe before their Consciences the heaps of slaughter'd Carkasses which will come after That the Land which is before tâ—en shaâ—I look like the Garden of the Lord and that which is behind them like Burning and Brimstone For all this will they tempt God and be the Foes of
their Clutches that by Arms or cunning Treaties do Usurp it But the way and Manner in Discovering the Couchant Enemy in preserving that handful of our Friends in laying down some Course of Diversion and the like you do most wisely and modestly refer to the proper Oracle His Majesties Wisdom and Deep Counsel Yea but I must tell you Mr. Speaker Vinci in amore turpissimum the King cannot endure to be outvyed by his People in Love and Courtesies What you in Duty do refer to him his Majesty in Confidence of your Wisdom and Loving Assections returns upon You. You say you would have the King betake him to sound Counsel You are his Counsel Consilium magnum his Main and Principal Counsel It is very true That since the begining of Harry the 8th the Kings of England have reserved those Matters to their own Conisance and Resolution But it is as true that from Harry the First until that Harry the Last our Kings have in every one of those Questions Repaired to and received Advice of their Parliaments Id verum quod primum Our Master means to follow the former Precedents His Majesty Commands me to yield unto you Hearty Thanks for your just Resentments of his Sufferings in this Cause and to tell you withall that because the main of the Expedition is to be born by the Persons and Purses of the People whom you do represent He is pleased to accept of the Advice of the House of Commons concerning the finding out of this secret Enemy the re-inforcing of our remaining Friends and by what kind of Diversion we shall begin the Enterprize And God the Holy Ghost be present with you in all your Consultations 184. In the Ninth Place That Well of Wood our Navy Royal wherewith you well observed this whole Island to be most strongly fortified we must all attribute the well Rigging and good Condition of it to the great Cost Care and Providence of his Sacred Majesty Hic tot sustinuit hic tanta negotia solus And yet as that Carver that beautified the Temple of Diana although he wrought upon other Mens Charges was suffered notwithstanding to engrave his own Name in some eminent Places of the Building So surely can it be denied by Envy it self but that most Noble Lord who is now a compleat Master in his Art and hath spent his seven years Studies in the Beautifying of the Navy should have a glorious Name enstamped thereupon though in a sitting Distance from his Lord and Master whose Princely Majesty A longe sequitur vestigia semper adorans Lastly For the Reformation of Ireland this I am bidden to deliver Pliny commending the Emperor Trajan to the utmost reach of Eloquence says That the most laudable and most remarkable Point in all his happy Government was That his Care was not consined to Italy alone but Instar solis like the Beams and Influence of the Sun it shed it self to many other Countries Surely his Majesty's Providence is of a large Extent for where the Sun scarce darteth his Beams his Majesty hath shined most gloriously by the Execution of wholsome Laws engrafting Civility and Planting true Religion And let this be our Soveraign's Comfort that though this poor Kingdom though never so reformed shall add very little to his Crown of Temporal Majesty here on Earth it will be an Occasion of an immense Access to his Crown of Glory hereafter in Heaven And now for your four Petitions Mr. Speaker his Majesty grants them all in one Word What Priviledge Liberty Access or fair Interpretation was ever yielded to the Members of that House his Majesty grants them to the Knights and Burgesses now assembled fully and freely without the least Jealousie Qualification or Suspicion I will only add a Memorandum out of Valerius Maximus to cut an even Thred between King and People Quid Cato sine Libertate Quid libertas sine Catone What is Wisdom without Liberty to shew it And what is Liberty without Wisdom to use it 185. Hitherto the King spake to the People by the Lord Keeper's Mouth and then the House rose All rejoyced that such gracious Concessions were returned to Mr. Speaker's Motions which were the Beam that held up the insequent Counsels till the Roof was covered with Agreement And it took the more that it was inlaid with such Mosaick Work not to the Eye but to the Ear by a perfect Orator It was the greatest and the knowingest Auditory that this Kingdom or perhaps the World afforded whose general Applause he carried away to as much as Modesty could desire Isocrates extolling the famous Acts of Evagoras before the full Celebrity of the Athenians exulted that Evagoras was approved by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose good Opinion was more honorable to him than all the Earths beside It was a happy sight at that time to see the Patriots of both Houses depart with Hands held up to God and with Smiles in their Looks that you might think they said one to another as the Princes of the Congregation and the Heads of the Thousands of Israel said to the Children of Reuben and Gad c. This day we perceive that the Lord is among us Jos 22.31 The Lord Keeper was summoned in three days after to a fresh Business and a larger Task than the former So fine a Tongue was sure not to want Work The Lords and Commons were brought into the Banqueting-House at White-Hall Feb. 24. where the Duke of Buckingham spake unto them leading them into the Maeanders of the Spanish Treatise and lead them out of them by the Clew of his own Diligence as he spared not to give himself the Honour of it For this time he was the Alcibiades that pleased the Common-wealth His Zeal and unremovable Pertinacy not to cope with the Spaniard in any Proposition unless the Prince Elector might be brought into his own Land again with an honorable Post liminium did enter inwardly and into the Marrow of all pitiful Affections But when he unfolded how strong the Prince was to the Principles of the right Faith and how attendant and dutious himself was to see that no Emissaries should poyson his Highness's Heart the general Suffrage was that the Prince had march'd valiantly like a Captain of Holy Truth and that the Duke deserved a great Name as a Lieutenant that maintained the Cause of God under him For it was ever easie to strike the good People of England half blind with the Dazling of Religion So much did the Parliament thirst for the Report of this Narration that it was imposed on the Lord Keeper to make it the next day All that might be done was that he took him to his Memory and to his Pen and drew up three Sheets of Paper upon it in a fast and scarce legible Hand He must proceed by the Pattern My Lord Duke's Oration was the only part of Speech he must follow and like a wise Man whatsoever he thought he must make
Wherein the Lord Keeper interceded with the Duke to the incurring a mighty Anger as may be seen by the Letters of Decem. 24. and Jan. 4. Cab. p. 99. If Threatings had been mortal Shot he had Perisht for he never had such a Chiding before but he kept his Ground because he held the fairer side of the Quarrel Dr. Meriton the Dean of York was lately Dead and much Deplor'd For he was an Ornament to the Church My Lord Duke entreated by great ones named a Successor that had no Seasoning or Tast of Matter in him one Dr. Scot But a Doctor Inter Doctores Bullatos for he never stood in the Commencement to approve himself beside too many Faults to be ript up I have known a Scholar in Cambridge so bad a Rider that no Man for Love or Price would furnish him with a Horse I would have thought no Man would have furnisht such a Scholar as this with a Deanery chiefly of York It came about strangely Scot was a Prodigal Gamster and had lost upon the Ticket to a Noble Person far more then he was worth Which Debt his Creditor knew not how to recover but by Thrusting him aided with my Lord Dukes Power into this Rich Preferment The Casuists among all the Species of Simony never Dream'd of this which may be called Simonia Aleatoria when a Gamester is Installed into a goodly Dignity to make him capable to pay the Scores of that which he had lost with a bad Hand And yet the Man Died in the Kings-Bench and was not Solvent The Lord Keeper intending to put of Dr. Scot from this place besought for the remove of those most worthy Divines Dr. White or Dr. Hall or to Collate it upon Dr. Warner the most Charitable and very Prudent Bishop of Rochester But he was so terrified for giving this good Counsel that he writes now he knew his Graces Resolution he would alter his Opinion and would be careful in giving the least Cause of Jealousie in that kind again Yet it is a received Maxime Defuturos eos qui suaderent si suasisse sit periculum Curt. l. 3. Certainly with others this might work to his Esteem but nothing to his Prejudice And I dare confidently avouch what I knowingly speak that I may use the Words of my industrious Friend Mr. T. F. in his Church History That the Solicitation for Dr. Theodore Price about Two Months after was not the first motive of a Breach between the Keeper and the Duke the day-light clears that without dusky conjectures no nor any Process to more unkindness then was before which was indeed grown too high The Case is quickly Unfolded Dr. Price was Country Man Kinsman and great Acquaintance of the Lord Keepers By whose procurement he was sent a Commissioner into Ireland two years before with Mr. Justice Jones Sir T. Crew Sir James Perrot and others to rectifie Grievances in Church and Civil State that were complain'd In Executing which Commission he came of with Praise and with Encouragement from His Majesty that he should not fail of Recompence for his Well-doing Much about the time that the Prince return'd out of Spain the Bishoprick of Asaph soll void the County of Merioneth where Dr. Price was Born being in the Diocess The Lord Keeper attempted to get that Bishoprick for Dr. Price But the Prince since the time that by his Patent he was styled Prince of Wales had Claimed the Bishopricks of that Principality for his own Chaplains So Dr. Melburn and Dr. Carlton were preferr'd to St. Davids and Landaff And Asaph was now Conferr'd upon Dr. Hanmer his Highness's Chaplain that well deserv'd it A little before King James's Death Dr. Hampton Primate of Armach as stout a Prelate and as good a Governor as the See had ever enjoy'd Died in a good old Age. Whereupon the Keeper interposed for Dr. Price to Succeed him But the Eminent Learning of Dr. Usher for who could match him all in all in Europe carried it from his Rival Dr. Price was very Rational and a Divine among those of the first Note according to the small skill of my Perceivance And his Hearers did testifie as much that were present at his Latin Sermon and his Lectures pro gradu in Oxford But because he had never Preach'd so much as one Sermon before the King and had left to do his calling in the Pulpit for many years it would not be admitted that he should Ascend to the Primacy of Armach no nor so much as succeed Dr. Usher in the Bishoprick of Meth. To which Objection his Kinsman that stickled for his Preferment could give no good Answer and drew of with so much ease upon it that the Reverend Dr. Usher had no cause to Regret at the Lord Keeper for an Adversary Neither did Dr. Price ever shew him Love after that day and the Church of England then or sooner lost the Doctors Heart 214. It is certain that all Grants at the Court went with the Current of my Lord Dukes Favour None had Power to oppose it nor the King the Will For he Rul'd all his Majesties Designs I may not say his Affections Yet the L. Keeper declin'd him sometimes in the Dispatches of his Office upon great and just Cause Whereupon the King would say in his pleasant Manners That he was a stout Man that durst do more than himself For since his Highness's return out of Spain if any Offices were procur'd in State of Reversion or any Advouzons of Church Dignities he interpos'd and stopt the Patents as Injurious to the Prince to whose Donation they ought to belong in just time and preserv'd them for him that all such Rewards might come entire and undefloured to his Patronage Wherein his Highness maintain'd his Stiffness for that foresight did procure that his own Beneficence should be unprevented And he carried that Respect to the Dukes Honour nay to his Safety for notice was taken of it that he would not admit his Messages in the Hearing of Causes no not when his chief Servants attended openly in Court to Countenance those Messages to carry him a-wry and to oppress the Poorest and whose Faces he had never seen with the least wrong Judicii tenax suit neque aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit as Capitolinus makes it a good Note of Maximus He would believe his own Judgment and his own Ears what they heard out of Depositions and not the Representation of his best Friends that came from partial Suggestions Such Demands as are too heavy to ascend let them fall down in pieces or they will break him at the last that gives them his Hand to lift them up In this only he would not stoop to his Grace but pleas'd himself that he did displease him And being threatned his best Mitigation was That perhaps it was not safe for him to deny so great a Lord yet it was safest for his Lordship to be Denied It was well return'd For no Arrand was so privily conveyed
excluded the Kingdom of Heaven for want of that Ordinance This shift is vulgarly approved among you in all places of the World Then let that content Catholick Parents in England which is so general a remedy among your own Devotees in case of necessity And this Bush will stop the first Gap Next If the Baptized die without Confirmation none ever made it a Salvation-hazard Especially that Ceremony being not stubbornly rejected but privatively intercepted because the proper Instrument is not in the way to act it For how many Biscainers have never heard of it In whose Craggy Mountains I am told a Bishop appears as seldom as a black Swan I presume your Lordship is a Mainteiner of the Canonical Privileges of Episcopacy and you know without a Bishop's shop 's Hand the Blessing of Confirmation hand no Validity by the Canons and perhaps no Entity in the Doctrine of the best Antiquity Now if this Sacrament which comes limping after Baptism must have a Bishop's Crosier to stay it up I know not whether our Romish Male contents demand that Then here 's a Tale of new Tidings comes to my Ears that to integrate Sacred Offices they would have the Presence of a Bishop as well as of a Priest and then these Adonijahs fly so high to ask for Abishag that they may ask the Kingdom also The Ministers of the King of Spain upon such an Occasion as your Lordship is employed in offered at such a thing in their Propositions to my Royal Master's Commissioners It pleaseth the Castilian Mouth to speak big and ask high but we checkt them with repulse and disdeign And good Cause for it A Bishop will think his Wings pinion'd if he have not a Consistory for Jurisdiction Vexations of Jurisdictive Power will provoke Appeals to the Court of Rome And then my Masters People should crouch for Justice to a Foreign Potentate But that Beast shall never get the Head to run a Wild-Goose-Chase where it lists while he holds the Bridle in his Hand My Lord Ambassador There is nothing discoverable though the wideness of the British Ocean flow still between us and your Bishops that their absence should cross their Party that is among us from entering into Eternal Life Which makes the Sacrament of Order not to belong to our Argument But Marriage doth it is Gods Ordinance who joyned Man and Woman together in Paradise and is fittest to be celebrated among Christians in the Paradise of the Church-Assembly And to be blessed by those Servants of God his Priests who are to bless his People in all things especially in so great a Mystery The Question is Whether a Man should scruple not to Wed a Woman unless she were joyned to him by the Priests of his own Communion My Lord Let me set the shape of it before you in another Glass If a Roman born and bred made choice of a Greekish Woman for his Wife among Greeks in Morea or Thessalonica would the Wedlock be esteemed ineffectual if a Priest of the Ordination of the Greek Church did tie the Knot The Ordination of our Clergy is nearer to you than the Greeks Indeed I never heard but a good Wife and a rich Portion would be welcom to a Recusant though a Minister made by Imposition of Hands in this Kingdom did joyn them And I never heard that such Married Ones as departed out of our Church to yours were question'd among you upon the Truth of their Matrimony which they brought with them from hence And 't is well done of you lest we should require Exceptions and make the Issue of the most of the Roman Catholiques in the Land Illegitimate It is in our Power to do so because they are not scrupulously Married by that Form which our Laws have provided and with an even Obedience to every tittle of our Prescriptions But many things are lawful which are not expedient 224. The Annoiting of the Sick may come in next or in what Order you will my Lord. I know it is called Extreme Unction in some Writers sense because it is the Extreme Sacrament when the Soul is about to take its leave of all Sacraments As soon as I have named it I am ready to shake Hands and part with it What if some in the infirmity of their Sickness desire it because the Tradition of the Church hath commended it Yet none is so superstitious to think that Comfort cannot be infused into them that are at the point of Death sufficiently without it St. Stephen departed without Extreme Unction and yet the Lord Jesus receiv'd his Spirit Men condemn'd by the Law and led to Execution but well prepar'd for a better Life by their Ghostly Fathers neither have it nor crave it But they that are most impotent most affected with Languor are subject to a most disorder'd Appetite Why suppose then one that is sick should have this Pica and long to be Annoiled Why might not a Lay-Friend Annoil as well as Baptize Eckius would have us believe that the blessed Virgin and your peculiar Saint St. Genouefa have Anointed many that were sick and they have recover'd Yet lest it should be evaded that these were Persons of miraculous Endowments hear the Words of Pope Innocent the First that are as large as can be and allowed to be his speaking of this sick Man's Salve Omnibus uti Christianis licet in suâ aut suorum necessitate inungendo Which Papal Sentence our Countryman Bede quotes and makes it full on this wise not only Presbyters but any Christians may Anoint the Infirm in case of necessity Will you have the Judgment of some that are latter than Innocent and Bede Hear one but a sound Card Bonaventure upon the Sentences Potest dispensari in casu necessitatis à non Sacerdotibus For the Sacrament of the Altar my Lord as you speak in your Dialect it is necessary Necessitate Praecepti non Medii say both your Divines and ours That is in a longer Paraphrase the Commandment to Take and Eat I and to Drink too must necessarily be obeyed by them that can keep it But it hath not such a strict tie with the Covenant of Salvation That all they shall fail of final Mercy who are impeded to partake without any fault of theirs Infants lack the taste of that Heavenly Food and are not prejudiced For our Saviour requir'd it of none but of such as could actually believe that he died for the Sins of the World Is not the same Indulgence intended towards them and far rather who believe in Christ's Death and would enjoy the Sacrament that Annuntiates his Death but cannot Your Gravest Authors do please themselves in the Words of Rupertus and they are grown to be the trivial Quotation upon this Case Non judicatur apud Deum non manducare nisi qui manducare noluit qui non curavit qui neglexit The desire of the Heart supplies the defect of actual Manducation Time was more than 1300 Years ago when those that
Meditation as also to Repulse those who crept much about the Chamber Door he was sure for no good Nay and into the Chamber They were of the most addicted to the Church of Rome whom he controuled for their Sawciness and commanded them as a Privy Counsellor further off Impostors that are accustom'd to bestow Rubrick Lies upon the best Saints of God and whom they cannot pervert living to challenge for theirs when they are Dead So being rid of these Locusts he was continually in Prayer while the King linger'd on and at last shut his Eyes with his own Hand when his Soul departed Whatsoever belong'd to Church Offices about the Royal Exequies fell to his part afterward He perform'd the Order of Burial when the Body was reposed in the Vault of King Henry the Sevenths Chappel appointed only for that famous King's Posterity and their Conforts He Preach'd the Sermon at the Magnificent Funeral out of the 2 Chron. c. 9. v. 29.30 and part of the 31. Now the rest of the Acts of Solomon First and Last are they not written in the Rock of Nathan the Prophet and in the Prophesie of Ahijah the Shilonite and in the Visions of Iddo the Seer against Jeroboam the Son of Nebat And Solomon Reigned in Jerusalem over Israel Fourty Years And Solomon slept with his Fathers and was Buried in the City of David his Father and no further Out of which Text he fetch'd two Solomons and Match'd them well together And I conceive he never Studied any thing with more care to deliver his mind apud honores exactly to the Truth and Honour of the King He enquired after the Sermon which Bishop Fisher made at the Funeral of King Henry the Seventh and procur'd it likewise for the Oration which Cardinal Peron made for King Henry the Fourth of France and had it by the means of Dr. Peter Moulin the Father These he laid before him to work by and no common Patterns 'T is useless to Blazon this Sermon in the Quarters take it altogether and I know not who could mend it It is in the Libraries of Scholars that are able to judg of it And such as Read it shall wrong King Charles his Son if they conceive any Passage Reflects upon him because Eloquence in the Body of the Sermon and in the Margent is commended in King James and Extoll'd to be very useful in Government Doth this derogate from the Honour of the Succeslor Chrisippus non dicet idem nec mite Thaletis ingenium Juvenal Sat. For King Charles might be allowed for an Elegant Speaker and choice in his matter if he had not stood so near to his Fathers Example 230. To whose Memory I stand so near having been carried on to Record his Happy Departure that I am prest in Conscience to do some right to his Worthiness He was a King in his Cradle Aequaevâ eum Majestate Creatus Nullaque privatae passus contagia sortis As Claudian of Honorius Paneg. l. 7. As he was born almost with a Scepter in his Hand so he had studied long to use it which made him much contest to keep Regal Majesty intemerated which was as good for us as for him Summum dominium est Spiritus vitalis quem tot millia Civium trahunt says Grotius out of Seneca de Ju. B. P. l. 2. c. 9. con 3. Which will Expound that Phrase in the Book of Lamentations That Josiah is call'd the Breath of the Jews Nostrils Some thought that the good King studied to Enthral the people far from his mind God wot But his speculation was that Northern Nations love not a Yoke upon their Necks and are prone to Anarchy that they will ruin themselves if they be not held down to a good temper of Obedience and that by too much Liberty Liberty it self will Perish It is is an Excellent Speech which Artabanus makes to Themistocles in Plutarch We hear of you Greeks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that you love Liberty and Parity but among many good Laws this is the Chief in Persia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. To Honour our King and to Worship him as the Image of God And I trow the Persian Monarchs have lasted longer then the Burgo-Masters of Greece The Grast will have no Cause to Repent that it is bound close to the Stock it will grow the better But as King James did rather talk much of free Monarchy then execute it So no people did ever live more prosperously then we did under him and he made no ostentation of it If all were not turn'd upside downward of late I might declame out of the Paneg. to Constantine Quis non dico reminiscitur sed quis non adhuc quodam modò videt quantis ille rebus auxerit ornaritque rempub To what an immense Riches in his time did the Merchandize of England rise to above former Ages What Buildings What Sumptuousness What Feastings What gorgeous Attire What Massy Plate and Jewels What Prodigal Marriage Portions were grown in fashion among the Nobility and Gentry as if the Skies had Rained Plenty The Courts of Laws Civil and Common never had such practise nor the Offices belonging to them such Receipts upon their Books The Schools in the Universities and the Pulpits with Wits of all Arts and Faculties never flourish'd so before over all the Land Let Zion and the Clergy be joyful in the Remembrance of their King God bestowed with him upon the Land the Gift which Homer says Jupiter promised to Ulysses his Reign in Iâ—haca 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss a. Enough of Wealth and Peace And they that suck at those two Breasts and are forward they know not what is good for them and are insensible of a Benefit Let them keep silence with shame enough that Ball aloud we were corrupted by them whose Fault was that Therefore God hath taken them away from us and will give them to a people that will use them better Neque jugi pace aut longo otio absoluta ingenia corrumpis says Capitol of M. Antonius A Soul of good Metal will never Rust in the Scabbard of Peace O with what mony would we be content to buy so many years of Peace again now Wars have trodden us under foot like Dirt If there be a Milky Circle upon Earth a Condensation of many comfortable and propitious stars it is Peace which this Peace-maker preserv'd at home and pursued it for his contemporary Potentates abroad till his Son-in-Law made an Attempt upon Bohemia unfortunate to himself and to all Christiandom But what says Ar. Wil. to this p. 160. His maintaining of Peace howsoever the World did believe it was out of a Religious Ground yet it was no other but a Cowardly disposition that durst not adventure Like as when L. Opimius had supprest C. Gracchus with the rascal Rabble that follow'd him and Opimius having pacified the uproar Dedicated a Temple to Concord The Seditious flouted it with this Verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
have seen a Manuscript of Arch-Bishop Abbots stating the Reason of his own Relegation to Ford in Kent the Papers were written with his own Hand to my knowledge wherein he paints the Fickleness of the great Duke to set up and pluck down with these Lines First He wanted not Suggestors to make the worst of all Mens Actions whom they could misreport Secondly He loved not that any Man should stick too long in a Place of Greatness He hit the Nail in that For this Keeper continued the longest in a great Office of any that he had lifted up and did live to use them Which proceeded not from his Grace's Constancy but from the good-liking of the old King But as Symmachus said of Polemio Lib. 2. Ep. 14. Sic amicis utitur quasi sloribus tam diu gratis quà m diu recentibus So my young Lord chang'd his Friends as Men do Flowers he lik'd a Scent no longer than it was fresh Indeed he lookt from his Vassals for more than they could do and hurried to make tryal of those that would do more Thirdly says the Arch-bishop again He stood upon such fickle Terms that he feared his own Shadow and desperately adventur'd upon many things for his own Preservation Too true for by this time he had lost the People in whose good Opinion he thought he stood for the space of Nine Months Alas he had a slight fastning in them for he never got their Love further than his Hatred to Spain procur'd it And that was spent out upon an exacter Information of his bearing at Madrid This was the Jealousie which gave the Lord-Keeper the deadly Stoccada who would not abuse his own Knowledge so far to extol my Lord for his Spanish Transactions which broke the Peace the Credit the Heart of his King and his Patron never to be requited Therefore that he was fallen in less than a Year from the abundance of a great Esteem he thought he might thank the Keeper whose down-right Honesty gave the Example More may be said but once more shall suffice the Duke had attempted with King James that which he threatned now but his Majesty that then was did not allow of it and charged them both to unite and to work friendly together for his Service But that mighty Lord waited the opportunity to root up the Tree which he had gone about to unfasten For commonly the offended Person is an Eye-fore to him that did offend him And such as have done great wrongs are afraid of those whom they have provok'd and can never after affie in them So it was among the Rules of Michael Hospitalius the best of the Chancellors of France and yet in a Pet cashiered from keeping the Great-Seal as Thuanus remembers it Anno. 1568. Principum documentum esse ut iis nunquam serio reconcilientur quos temerè offenderint This as it is related was our Duke's Temper And the Keeper understood that no Peace was to be had from an Adversary seeded with such Qualities All that he could do to help himself was not by preventing but by retarding a Mischief For though with the Stoick's Fate was inevitable Yet Servius says in 8. Lib. Aen. that his great Poet thought it might be deferr'd though not avoided Two things stuck to the Keeper like Sorrows and gave him all the unrest that he had First He wish'd that his deposing might have come from any hand but his Patrons that raised him before whom he would fall rather than wrestle with him as an Enemy Secondly He had read much to teach him and seen the Proof of it that when Princes call back their Honours more Misery ensues But as yet he stood his ground and did become his Place as well as ever 4. He never made use so much of his whole stock of Worth and Wisdom as in matter of Religion which appears before in the Mazes wherein he led the Spanish Embassador with whom he shisted so cunningly that they could obtain nothing for the Toleration of Popish Recusants but Delays and Expectations from time to time Neither could the Monsieurs squeeze any more out of him against the Ratification of the French Marriage as appears in a bare Fortnight before K. James died witness the Letter written to the Duke March 13. 1624. Cabal p. 105. If your Grace shall hear the Embassador complain of the Judges in their Charges of their receiving Indictments your Grace may answer that those Charges are but Orations of course opening all the Penal Laws And the Indictments being presented by the Country cannot be refused by the Judges But the Judges are ordered to execute nothing actually against the Recusants nor will they do it during the Negotiation And your Grace may put him in mind that the Lord-Keeper doth every day when his the Embassadors Secretary calls upon him grant forth Writs to remove all the Persons Indicted in the Country into the Kings-Bench out of the Power and Reaches of the Justices of Peace And that being there the King may and doth release them at his Pleasure In all this there is no bar against the common Course of Law but Mercy reserv'd to the Royal Pleasure Now what cause had my Lord Duke to defie him by his Secretary Cab. p. 87. That his Courses were dangerous to his Country and prejudicial to the Cause of true Religion Forsooth because he proffer'd a Gap to be opened to the Immunities of the Papists in a desperate Plunge to bring the Prince home safe out of Spain where he stuck fast for want of such a Favour to be shewn to those Complainants Which was a liberal Concession in Promise but no Date set nor observ'd for the Expedition of it And so all that Indulgence which hung in nubibus and never dropt down is frankly granted now and he is commanded by this Warrant that follows to signifie to all Officers to suspend the Laws which are grievous to the Romish Profession dated 1 Car. May the first Charles Rex RIght Reverend and Right Trusty c. Whereas we have been moved in Contemplation of our Marriage with the Lady Mary Sister of our dear Brother the most Christian King to grant unto our Subjects Roman Catholicks a Cessation of all and singular Pains and Penalties as well Corporal as Pecuniary whereunto they be subject or any way may be liable by any Laws Statutes Ordinances or any thing whatsoever for or by reason of their Recusancy or Religion and every matter or thing concerning the same Our Will and Pleasure is and we do by these presents Authorize and Require you That immediately upon the receipt hereof you do give Warrant Order and Directions as well unto all our Commissioners Judges and Justices of the Peace as unto all others our Officers and Ministers as well Spiritual as Temporal respectively to whom it may appertain that they and every of them do forbear all and all manner and cause to be sorborn all and all manner of Proceedings against our said
An Error like to that of Adrians in Spartianus Non admisit Terentium Gentianum est eò vehementiùs quod à Senatu diligi eum videret But the Commons while they were in heat ask'd a Conference with the Lords Afternoon in Christ's-Church-Hall where Sir Edward Coke opened the Complaint sharply against Secretary Conway and like an Orator did slide away with a short Animadversion upon the Duke It was not so well for his Grace that the noise of the Grievance had entred into both Houses Arcus cum sunt duplices pluviam nuntiant says Pliny Lib. 2. N. H. c. 59. If our Rain-bow multiply another by its Reflection it prognosticks a Shower And the Storm burst out in the lower Region when he was rather declam'd against as I would call it than accus'd because the Gentlemen that did prosecute contain'd themselves in generals The most upon which insistance was made was that he held the most and the most important Offices of Trust and Honour by Sea and Land Though it was foolish and superstitious in the Heathen Romans to think it was not for the Majesty of their Common-wealth to serve but one God Majestatem imperii non decuisse ut unus tantùm Deus colatur Tull. Orat. pro Flacco Yet it were to be desir'd if it might be dutifully obtain'd that one Subject should not possess all those Places which require the Sufficiency of many to discharge them Much to this purpose is that of the Lord Herbert Harry 8. p. 318. That it was a great Error that such a multitude of Offices was invested in Woolsey as it drew Envy upon the Cardinal so it derogated not a little from the Regal Authority while one Man alone seems to comprehend all The King may be satisfied to settle the Choice of his high Promotions in one Minion so will never the People And the Advanced is sure to be shaken for his height and to be malign'd for over-dropping He that sees a Stone-wall swelling looks every day when it will fall And one Stalk is not strong enough to hold a cluster of Titles hanging at it Salmasius hath a Note upon the first Book of Solinus That if a Man grow so fast that it exceeds the usual way of Nature he will fall into sickness His Instance is in the Son of Euthymenes that grew three Cubits in three Years Et immoderatis aegritudinum suppliciis compensasse praecipitem incrementi celeritatem But what Grandee will believe this Because there is more in our corrupt Nature that will obey Ambition than Wisdom 16. Yet to speak to the other side Might not this have been forborn to be objected by the Parliament to this great Lord at this time When his Head and his Hands were wholly taken up to prepare that War which was their own Creature He was at their Plough he was under their Yoke if it were well remembred Now Grotius marks well from the old Law Deut. 21.3 That Beasts that had been put to labour might not be sacrificed Elisha's Act was hasty and singular 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he quotes it out of Chaeremon They were priviledged by the Work in which they had been profitable Nay could it be objected as a Fault at any time I say as a Fault for I plead not for the Convenience What Pharisee would be so corrupt to ask Master who sinned This Man or his Parent that he was made a Duke as Lord Admiral a Master of the Horse c. No Inch of Sin is in ten Cubits of Honour that are lawfully conferr'd But there is a Fault for which Budaeus knew no direct Name Lib. 2. Pandec fol. 10. Cum milites Imperatori infensi vincere nolunt Let it be termed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says he when Souldiers will lose a Victory wilfully because they are discontented at their General All was tending much this way at Oxford The great Expedition in hand and the Fleet ready at Plimouth lost its season the Souldiers and Sailors dishearten'd for want of Pay yet not the Supply of a Subsidy could be drawn to give courage to the Onset because the Generalissimo that manag'd the Voyage had lost their Favour Numbers there were some Friends some Flatterers that brought Fuel to the Fire to enflame the Duke against these Dealings The Lord-Keeper was not sought to Yet came and offer'd himself to confer about it And certainly all that knew him would say no Man could pluck the Grass better to know where the Wind sat no Man could spie sooner from whence a Mischief did rise I 'll begin thus My Lord I come to you unsent for and I fear to displease you Yet because your Grace made me I must and will serve you though you are one that will destroy that which you made Let me perish Yet I deserv'd to perish ten times if I were not as earnest as any Friend your Grace hath to save you from perishing The Sword is the Cause of a Wound but the Buckler is in fault if it do not defend the Body You have brought the Two Houses hither my Lord against my Counsel My Suspicion is confirm'd that your Grace would suffer for it What 's now to be done but wind up a Session quickly The occasion is for you because two Colledges in the University and eight Houses in the City are visited with the Plague Let the Members be promis'd fairly and friendly that they shall meet again after Christmas Requite their Injuries done unto you with benefits and not revenge For no Man that is wise will shew himself angry with the People of England I have more to say but no more than I have said to your Grace above a Year past at White-hall Confer one or two of your great Places upon your fastest Friends so shall you go less in Envy and not less in Power Great Necessities will excuse hard Proposals and horrid Counsels St. Austin says it was a Punick Proverb in his Country Ut habeas quietum tempus perde aliquid At the Close of this Session declare your self to be the forwardst to serve the King and Common-wealth and to give the Parliament satisfaction Fear them not when they meet again in the same Body whose ill Affections I expect to mitigate but if they proceed trust me with your Cause when it is transmitted to the House of Lords and I will lay my Life upon it to preserve you from Sentence or the least Dishonour This is my Advice my Lord. If you like it not Truth in the end will find an Advocate to defend it The Duke replied no more but I will look whom I trust to and flung out of the Chamber with Minaces in his Countenance Yet the other did not think he had play'd the Game ill though he lost his Stake by it Dangerous Faithfulness is honester than cunning Silence And once more he was bold to wrestle with this Potentate in high Favour before he fell The Commons of this Parliament was censur'd at Woodstock
in Psychom upon the Persecuted Church Yet though nothing was alter'd in him to appearance when he was doom'd to resign his Office with such a plausible Dismission pruning away the Circumstances of it I cannot see how the substance of the Act could choose but displease him For whether it come from a white or a black Whip the Wound will be blew The Transactions with which all that remain'd were wound up were first between the Lord Conway and the Lord-Keeper Lastly with his Majesty if they belong let him skip them that doth not like them He that would satisfie Posterity knows not how to leave them out And it will be worth the noting to learn from a wise Man how to manage a broken Fortune One of the first things that Comines praises in King Lewis his Master is Optimòrationem tenebat ex adversis rebus eluctandi To be fallen into great disfavour and yet to come off with no blot of Credit proves him that could do it a great Master in State-wisdom A Boat-swain will tell you That a rotten Ship had need of a good Pilot. On the 15th of October the Lord Conway came to the Lord-Keeper's Lodgings in Salisbury and began thus My Lord His Majesty some four days ago gave me a Command to deliver a Message unto you the which because it was sharp and there might be occasion for change of Councils I forbore to deliver till this Morning That is That his Majesty understanding that his Father who is with God had taken a Resolution that the Keepers of the Great-Seal of England should continue but from three Years to three Years and approving very well thereof and resolved to observe the Order during his own Reign he expects that you should surrender up the Seal by Allhallowtide next alledging no other cause thereof And that withal that having so done you should retire your self to your Bishoprick of Lincoln Answer I am his Majesty's most humble Servant and Vassal to be commanded by him in all things whatsoever The Great-Seal is his Majesty's And I will be ready to deliver up the same to any Man that his Majesty shall send with his Warrant to require it And do heartily thank God and his Majesty that his calling for the Seal is upon no other ground No indeed said Mr. Secretary no other ground that I know Only this last Clause seemeth strange unto me that I should be restrained to my Bishoprick or any place else And I humbly appeal to his Majesty's Grace and Favour therein Because it is no fault in me that his Majesty or his Father hath made such a Resolution Nor do I dispute against it although the King that dead is continued me in the Place after the three Years ended and the King that now is deliver'd me the Seal without any Condition or limitation of Time And therefore deserving no restraint I humbly desire to be left to my discretion which I will so use as shall be no way offensive to his Majesty Lord Conway I conceive it not to be a restraint but to mount in effect that his Majesty intends not to employ you at the Table but leaves you free to go to your Bishoprick Answer My Lord I desire your favourable Intercession for an Explanation of that Point And I beseech your Lordship to move his Majesty that I may attend upon him considering there is no offence laid to my charge to present unto his Majesty two humble Petitions nothing concerning this business in hand but in general the one concerning my Reputation and the other my maintenance Lord Conway I shall move his Majesty in the best Fashion I can for your content therein Answer I thank your Lordship and I doubt not of it and the rather because I vow before God I am not guilty of the least Offence against his Majesty and am ready to make it good upon my Life And I make the like Protestation for any unworthiness done against the Duke whose Hand peradventure may be in this Business Lord Conway I am ever ready to do good Offices and if my Lord of Middlesex had been perswaded by me I believe I had saved him I am the Duke's Servant but no Instrument of his to destroy Men. My Lord I being latly demanded by a great Personage if it were true that your Lord was guilty of such unworthy Practices towards the Duke I answer'd plainly I knew of no such things For which my Lord Conway having receiv'd due Thanks from me he repeated my Answers and my Petition to the King in few words that he might not be mistaken At the parting my Lord Conway spake about the time of Resignation I said it was all one to me if it were before Christmas as good soon as late Then I ask'd his Lordship if I was restrained from the Board before the delivering of the Seal His Lordship answer'd He knew of no such Intent 25. October 16. Waiting on his Majesty by my Duty and Place to go to Church my Lord Conway told me He was now for me I thank'd him and past on to the Church heard the Sermon and at the Anthem after Sermon desir'd him to tell me my Answer He said Well do you long for it And so we went on to the upper-end of the Quire and said to this effect This Morning entring into our dispatches with his Majesty I desir'd him to stay a while that I might relate your Answer to him I told his Majesty that you yielded to his Command with all possible Obedience that you said the King remanded but his own which you were very willing and ready to restore That for the Condition of three Years you would not dispute against it being a way that once you had your self recommended to the late King his Father But for the Clause of retiring to your Bishoprick which seemed to be a restraint and no cause of Offence exprest it wounded you much and you sent it back to his Majesty's Consideration Then I acquainted his Majesty with your Lordship's desire to wait upon him and to present his Majesty without touching upon things settled and resolv'd two Petitions the one concerning your Reputation the other concerning your Estate His Majesty said for the first which is your retiring he meant no restraint of Place but for some Questions that might be renewed and for some Considerations known to himself he intended not to use your Service at the Council-Table for a while until his Pleasure should be further known And for your Estate you had no Wife and Children You had a Bishoprick and his Father to help you to bear the Dignity of your Office gave you leave to hold the Deanry His Majesty intended not to debar you of any of these until he should provide you of a better But he was content to admit you to speak with him when you pleas'd so as you endeavour'd not to unsettle the former Resolutions I gave his Lordship hearty thanks for his friendly and faithful
be done to in my Temptations what you will not admit I should do to another as in the Case of Fornication or Adultery shall I do in that case what I desire to be done to me And therefore the Rule is not so safe as it is represented Yea but then if you will any thing as this Rule would have you to will you must will voluntate rationali discretà saith Alexander Ales with a rational and discreet will and then you shall not miscarry Or you must do as you would have Men do homines non bruta as you would have Men and not Beasts do unto you saith Albertus magnus But those that will do unto you any such filthiness as you speak of are as St. Paul calls them Men after the manner of Beasts And therefore in all your Actions whatsoever remember still this little Sentence as you desire to avoid those other Sentences some in this Life and some in the Life to come Which is all I shall say unto you my good Friends and Neighbours of the Laity 60. Now that particular thing which I am to recommend to you my Brethren of the Clergy not falling properly within the Limits of a Visitation but put off by my self for a Year or two in hope of this or the like opportunity is Subsidium charitativum which so as it tend to a publick and no private end Bishops by Law may move unto their Clergy It is a charitable Benevolence or Contribution for St. Paul's Cathedral Church seated in London which as you know is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he said he of Athens our England of England and our Landskip and Representation of the whole Island For here strangers no sooner arrive but they first take unto themselves and then vent abroad unto others a Scantling and Platform of the British Government as well in Matters concerning the Church as in those that touch upon the State and Commonwealth Here if God's worship be decently perform'd his Word learnedly Preach'd his Sacraments reverently administred his material Houses polish'd and repaired especially this great and huge Fabrick the City as it were of the City it self and a place of continual resort both to our own and other Nations then presently omnes omnia bona dicere the Mouth of Detraction is quite stopped the Priests and Jesuites are blank and silenc'd the Government in Church and State is generally approved And which is more considerable than all the rest God himself is magnified and glorified for giving a Nation Eighty years of Peace and Plenty which had the Heart to return some little Share somewhat at the least unto him again But should this Minster still remain as of late it did a great heap of mouldering Stones or rather a little Mountain of Dust and Rubbish were our Churches in the inner places of this Isle never so repaired as I doubt it much yet would Strangers out of Error and Seminaries out of Rancour possess the World That since the Reformation God's Houses in England are become the Habitations of Dragons and a Court for Owls that Satyrs do dance in them and Beasts of the Field do roar in them Lastly That when Pater Noster had reared them up to touch the Heavens Our Father hath pull'd them down to the Dust of the Earth And is it nothing thus to become a Reproach and Proverb in all places Nothing that God's Glory should be thus impaired Nothing that his Gospel should be thus blasphemed God forbid but we should all be sensible of it And thus it must needs be unless these great Fabricks reared at the first for the main of the Work by Indulgences and Superstition be repaired again by the bountiful Devotion of King and People But the Misery of it is this that People in all Ages are sound to be People that is far more easily noosed and cheated than taught enlighten'd or perswaded Whereas the Case God be thanked is otherwise with you my Brethren of the Clergy whose advantage of Breeding makes you better understand a Motion from your King so vigilant and attentive to any Motion of yours especially when it comes upon you as this doth backed and accompanied with all the Reasons and Demonstrations of Piety and Policy Beside that the Care of our Metropolitan hath been such that your Contribution may without offence be so minced and distributed to Years and Half-years as that it shall become very easie and portable doing good abroad without hurting at home or impairing in any sensible measure your private States or Fortunes I will leave it thus unto your own Considerations without accumulating more Reasons or Motives left I might seem to doubt of your Affections to any reasonable Proposition whom I have found for these Fourteen years as loving a Clergy to any Motion of mine as I have been unto you by reason of some Misfortunes an unuseful and unprofitable yet a most affectionate Bishop 61. Thus he ended and thus was the Visitation perfumed with the sweet Gums of his Eloquence Perhaps the Smell is too strong for them that lov'd him not and whose contumelious Writings and bitter Words eat into his Credit like Quicksilver They will be wiser when Truth and Charity meet together in them which Graces they had need to pray for Envy like a Kite sits upon the top of the tallest Tree in the Wood. A drowsie Bishop that had bestirred himself in nothing to be known to Posterity no better than a silly Consul that served for nothing but to know the Fasti by his Name this man should have scap'd the Lash it may be had the good word of our common Jeerers but offer another unto them that hath lived in Action and Renown as our Prelate did they will pull him out of his Grave as one Pope served another to censure him How ready have they been either to raise or take up Reports to wound him Reports spread far and wide by the King 's unfortunate Regiments that reveli'd it with all kind of Insolency round about him in Wales whose ungovern'd looseness the Bishop could not endure but oppos'd them stifly wherein it may be he lost his Judgment considering their Strength and Rudeness He loved the King's Cause but not his Army whose debauched Carriage and little Hope of Success methinks I read in Tully's Epistles lib. 7. epist 3. to M. Marius concerning Pompey's Sword-men Extra Ducem paucosque praeterea de Principibus loquor reliqui primùm in bello rapaces deinde in oratione it a crudeles ut ipsam victoriam horrerem Maximum aes alienum amplissimorum virorum Quid quaeris nihil boni praeter causam These are they that brought up Tales and Tidings of the Bishop in their Knapsacks to London and on such Stuff our History-men Ecclesiastical and Civil are pleas'd to insist Why did they pretermit the noble parts of his Episcopal Government digested in this Work in so many Paragraphs which are so unquestionable that they were seen
Parliament and had stood up to defend him where there was openly such defiance of Enmity between them he had been censur'd by all Judgment for double-mindedness or sawning And as Lanfrank charged one of his Predecessors Remigius Bishop of Lincoln Quod officio emerat Episcopatum So the World would have censur'd this Prelate that he kept his Place by Service Simony as Mr. Fuller calls it And with what Safety and Liberty he could appear let one Passage demonstrate The Duke demanded that the Attorney-General might plead for him in the House of Peers against the Charge transmitted by the Commons which was opposed because the Attorney was one of the King 's Learned Council and sworn to plead in Causes concerning the King and not against them And the King is supposed to be ever present in the noble Senate of the Lords It was rejoyn'd That His Majesty would dispense with the Attorney's Oath It came to be a Case of Conscience and was referr'd to the Bishop's Learning Some of them judged for the Duke that this was not an Assertory-Oath which admits no alteration but a Promissory-Oath from which Promise the King if he pleas'd might release his Learned Counsel Bishop Felton a devout man and one that feared God very learned and a most Apostolical Overseer of the Clergy whom he governed argued That some Promissory-Oaths indeed might be relaxed if great cause did occur yet not without great cause lest the Obligation of so sacred a thing as an Oath should be wantonly slighted And in this Oath which the Attorney had taken it was dangerous to absolve him from it lest bad Example should be given to dispense with any Subject that had sworn faithful Service to the Crown for which plain Honesty he was wounded with a sharp Rebuke And the reverend Author told me this with Tears Yet the Archb. Abbot said as much and went farther for whom Budaeus would stand up a great Scholar and a Statesman De Asse lib. 3. fol. 102. Neque turpe esse credo cos homines observare quibus apud Principem gratiâ slagrare contigit si non cosdem apud populum ordines infamiâ invidiâ slagrare videamus As who would say it is Duty to love a Favourite for the King's sake and it is Duty to desert him when he becomes a publick Scandal For no man will be happy to stick to him who is so unhappy to become a common Hatred All that Parliament was a long Discontent of eighteen weeks and brought forth nothing but a Tympany of swelling Faction and abrupt Dissolution whereby the King saved that great Lord who lost His Majesty in some expeditions Honour abroad and the love of his People at home This was another Fire-brand kindled after the former at Oxford to burn down the Royal House and the most piously composed Church of England For a wife Oratour says it is Isocr Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 243. The cause of an Evil must not be ascribed to things that concur just at the breaking out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to the forerunning Mischiefs which were soaking long to ripen the Distempers Well was it for Lincoln that he had no hand in this Fray for as the Voyagers to Greenland say When the Whale-fishing begins it is better to be on the Shore and look on E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem than to be employed in the Ships to strike them and hale them to Land 71. Say then that he neither did harm nor receive any by being shut out of this turbulent Parliament Yet his Advice had been worth the asking because of the Plunges that His Majesty was put to upon the Dissolution but he heard of no Call to such a purpose For no man looks on a Dyal in a cloudy day when the Sun shines not on it God's Mercy was in it for he sate safer at home than he could have done at the Council-Board at this time where much Wisdom was tryed to help the King's Necessities out of the Peoples Purses by a Commandatory Loan and with the least Scandal that might be for not to run into some Offence was unavoidable Pindar the Poet was call'd out of his House to speak with some Friend in the Street Castor and Pollux says the Tale-teller searce was his Foot over the Threshold when the Building sunk and all that were within perish'd Thus upon a time the least Shelter gave the most Safety as did the lesser Honour procure this man the more Peace But as Camillus in Livy thrust out of Rome and retired to Ardea prayed that they that had cashier'd him might have no need of him so this forlorn Statesman would have been satisfied to have his place at the Council-Table supplied by others if the King's Affairs had not wanted him at this instant when he suddenly slid down from his former value in the love of this People The Bishops most likely it came from them advised His Majesty first to fly to God and to bid a publick Fast first at Court then over all the Land about the fifth of July Bish Laud whose Sermon was printed preach'd before the King upon the 21st Verse of the 17th Chapter of St. Matthew This kind goeth not out but by Prayer and Fasting The Preface of the Book and the Exhortation publish'd to the observing that solemn Fast stirred up all good Christians to entreat God not to take Vengeance on the Murmurings of the People to keep their Spirits in Unity to divert the plague of immoderate Rain like to corrupt the Fruits of the Harvest and chiefly to preserve us from the Bloody Wars that Spain intended against us Intended says the Book for depredation of Merchants Ships was the worst they had done us Let the Reader gather this by the way That a publick Fast had not been indicted before by the Supreme Authority upon the Alarums of our Enemies Preparations In Eighty eight an Order came out call'd A Form of Prayer necessary for the present Time and State to be used on Wednesdays and Fridays that is certain Collects to be added to the Common Prayer Yet no Fast was bidden saving thus far That Preachers in their Sermons and Exhortations should move the People to Abstinence and Moderation in their Dyet to the end they might be more able to relieve the Poor c. The first Form to be used in Common Prayer with an Order of publick Fast for every Wednesday in the week for a time was set out by Queen Elizabeths special Command in Aug. 1563. when the Plague called The Plague of New-haven was rise in London In which Book is a passage to illustrate our Common-Prayer-Book for the first Rubrick prefixt to the Order for the Holy Communion That so many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion should signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning either before the beginning of Common Prayer or immediately after That immediately after means that in
Bishop is censured for over-doing his part in Popularity yet only by such as will calumniate all that act not according to their mind Some things were offer'd at him which might have transported him to that excess for the Van-curriers of my L. Duke's Militia had prepar'd Petitions to disorder him in a light Skirmish but were never preferr'd Since no Fault could be charg'd upon him when he delivered up the Seal to the King Malignants had small encouragement to slander his Footsteps before a Parliament To borrow Pliny's Similitude lib. 28. c. 2. A scorpione aliquando percussi nunquam postea à crabronibus vespis apibusque feriuntur He that happens to be stung of a Scorpion and escapes it the smaller Insecta of Hornets Wasps and Bees will never trouble him Beside in Equity they could not have blamed him to be sure to himself since that Lord that preferr'd him and that Bishop whom himself had preferr'd did push with all their Violence against him Yet his Good bearing between the King's Power and the Subjects Rights the great Transaction of the high Court at this time needed no such Answers Though he was earnest yet he was advised in all his Actions and constant as any man living to his general Maxims Tua omnia gest a inter se congruunt omnia sunt uná forma percussa says Casaubon to K. Henry the Fourth before his Edition of Polybius So the Bishop never varied whether in favour or out of favour in his Counsels to the King to hang the Quarrel even upon the Beam of Justice between him and the Common-wealth As it was his Saying to K. James so he went on with the like to K. Charles Rule by your Laws and you are a Compleat Monarch your People are both sensibly and willingly beneath you If you start aside from your Laws they will be as sawcy with your Actions as if they were above you The Fence of the great Charter was lately thrown down by taking a Loan by Commissioners without a Statute to authorize it And says the Remonstrance of Decemb. 15 1641. Divers Gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to pay it whereby many of them contracted such Sicknesses as cost them their Lives p. 10. When the Body of the Lords and Commons were at work to redintegrate the empailment of the Laws if the Bishop had not appeared that the King would return to walk upon the known and trodden Cawsey of the Laws he had forsaken himself and left the nearest way to do him Service His care was that no Dishonour should be cast upon His Majesty's Government nor Censure upon the Commissioners of the Loan his Ministers and yet to remove the publick Evils of the State To mend them would bring a Reformation to be blush'd at not to mend them a continued Confusion to be griev'd at The Bishop had the Praise from the Wisest that his Dexterity was eminent above any of the Peers to please all parties that would be pleas'd with Reason He distinguish'd the Marches of the two great Claims the Prerogatives of the Crown and the Liberties of the People and pleaded for the King to make him gracious to all as it is in his Sermon on the Fast p. 55. That he was a man as like Vertue it self as could be pattern'd in Flesh and Blood and justified him for good Intentions in all his Proceedings The Errors that were to come to pass he named them to be Errors for what Government was ever so streight that had no crookedness With this Cunning Demetrius appeared for his Father Philip of Macedon before the Roman Senate Justin lib. 32. The Senate accused his Father for violation of the last Articles of Peace to which Demetrius said nothing but blush'd Et veniam patri Philippo non jure defensionis sed patrocinio pudoris obtinuit And how unreasonable was it that the emulous Bishop who did upon all occasions derogate from this man blamed this person to the King for doing no more good to his Cause whereas himself did him no good at all Like to Critias in Xenophon and his Dealings against Theramenes lib. 2. Hist says Theramenes I labour to reconcile divided Factions and he calls me a Slipper to fit the right Foot and the left because I set my self to please all sides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What shall I call him that pleaseth no side that can do a pleasure to no side They that were present at all Debates did discern that no Service could be done to the Crown without a mixture of Moderation A dram of such Wisdom was worth a pound of Flattery For as one says wittily A besmeared Dog doth but dirty him upon whom he fawns 74. When the Commons fell roundly to sist the exacting of the Loan the Ill-will gotten by it touch'd none so near as the Clergy So ill was it taken that their Pulpits had advanc'd it and that some had preach'd a great deal of Crown Divinity as they call'd it And they were not long to seek for one that should be made an Example for it But to make that which was like to be by consequent less offensive they unanimously voted a Gist of five Subsidies before the King's Servants had spoke a word unto it A Taste of Loyalty and Generosity that willing Supplies should rather come from a sense of the King's Wants than be begged Straitway they called Dr. Maynwaring the King's Chaplain before them for preaching but rather for printing two Sermons deliver'd before the King the one at Oatland's the other at Alderton in the Progress in July neither of them at St. Giles in the Fields as Mr. W. S. might have found in the Title Page of them both These being in print no Witnesses needed to be deposed the Doctrine was above the Deck sufficiently discover'd The Sermons both preach'd upon one Text Eccles 8.2 are confessedly learned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein Art and Wit have gone about to make true Principles beget false Conclusions It was not well done to hazard the dangerous Doctrine in them for the Learning sake to the view of the World for not the Seeds of a good Melon but the good Seeds of a Melon should be preserved to be planted No notice was taken of the King 's Special Command to publish these Tractates but severing the Author by himself he is design'd to be censur'd as Keepers beat Whelps before their Lions to make them gentler And the Charge is brought up to the Lords That the Sermons were scandalous feditious and against the good Government of this Kingdom The Reverend Bishops one and all left him undefended Yet that was not enough to correct the Envy which the Clergy did undergo upon it so the Bishop of Lincoln stood up and gave reprehension to some Points of both his Sermons in this manner In the former of these Sermons pag. 2. Dr. Maynwaring begins his Work upon the Loom with these Threads That of all Relations the first and original is between the
of God and because all that he is and hath is God's cannot render what he owes unto God in equality of Justice And all that he speaks of a Father in regard of his Children between whom Justice in one Acception doth not intercede he borrows out of Suarez Suarez out of Cajetan Cajetan out of Aquinas 2 vol. qu. 57. art 4. not art 8. as he misquotes him But he adds The King out of his own Brain who is but a metaphorical Father Benevolentiâ animo pater est naturâ rex pater non est says Saravia lib. 2. c. 12. without the Authority of his Authors nay flatly contrary to Aquinas in that place for he allows that Justice and Law may be stated between Father and Son Says he As the Son is somewhat of the Father and the Servant of the Master Justum non est inter illos per commensurationem ad Alterum sed in quantum uterque est homo aliquo modo est inter eos justitia He goes on That beside Father and Son Master and Servant there are other degrees and diversities of Persons to be sound in an Estate as Priests Citizens Souldiers c. that have an immediate relation to the Common-wealth and Prince thereof and therefore towards these Justum est secundum perfectam rationem justitiae So Suarez lib. 5. de leg c. 18. Some will say that Tribute is not due by way of Justice but by way of Obedience Hoc planè falsum est contra omnes Doctores qui satentur hanc obligationem solvendi tributa ubi intervenit esse justuiám And which is more than the Judgment of meer Man it is St. Paul's Rom. 13.7 For this cause pay your tribute render therefore to every man that which is his due Redditio sui cuique is the very definition of Justice And he makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Justice to intercede between Fathers and their Children Ephes 6.1 Children obey your Parents in the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for this is just This is the first Observation how he falsifieth his Learning The next is this That his end to bring us to the case of Creatures and Children towards the King is to take away all Propriety as it appears clearly by what he must draw out of his own Authors Suarez ubi supra Man cannot render to God his due by way of Justice Quia quicquid est vel habet totum est Dei Apply it with Dr. Maynwaring to the King Whatsoever the Subject is or hath is all the King 's by way of Property Aquinas in the place before Quod est filii est patris ideo non est propriè justitia patris ad filium Apply it to the King Justice doth not interceed between the King and his People because what is the Peoples is the King 's This is the Venom of this new Doctrine that by making us the King's Creatures and in the state of Minors or Children to take away all our Propriety Which would leave us nothing of our own and lead us but that God hath given us just and gracious Princes into Slavery As when the Jews were under a meer Vassalage their Levites their Churchmen complain to God The Kings of Assyria have dominion over our bodies and over our cattel at their pleasure Nehem. 9.37 Thus far the Bishop making very even parts between all that were concern'd in the Question And because the Chaplain's Doctrine had drawn up a Flood-gate through which a Deluge of Anger and Mischief gush'd out His Majesty left him to the Censure of his Judges No Wonder if one of the best of Kings did that Honour to his Senate which one of the worst of Emperors did to that at Rome Magistratibus liberam jurisdictionem sine interpellatione concessit says Suetonius of Caligula Neither had it been Wisdom to save one Delinquent with the loss of a Parliament Lurentius Medices gave better Counsel than so to his Son Peter Magis universitatis quà m seorsùm cujusque rationem habeto Polit. lib. 4. Ep. p. 162. Yet Dr. Maynwaring lost nothing at this lift his Liberty was presently granted him by the King his Fine remitted the Income of one Benefice sequestred for three years put all into his own Purse and was received in all his ordinary attendance again at Court with the Preferments of the Deanry of Worcester and after of the Bishoprick of St. Davids so willing was the King to forget that Clause in his Sentence past by the Lords which did forbid it 76. No man else suffering for so common a Grievance it made a glad Court at Whitehall The Parliament used their best Counsels and Discretions at the same time to secure their Lives Livelihoods and Liberties from such arbitrary Thraldom thereafter Nunquam fida est potentia ubi nimia est We must live under the Powers which God hath set over us but are loth that any man should have too much Power Sir Ed. Coke made the motion which will keep his noble Memory alive to sue to the King by Petition the most ancient and humble Address of Parliaments that His Majesty would give his People Assurance of their Rights by Assent in Parliament as he useth to pass other Acts viz. That none should be compell'd to any charge of Tax or Benevolence without agreement of Lords and Commons nor any Freeman be imprison'd but by the Law of the Land with some such other-like which are enter'd into many Authors The Duke of Buck. was forward to stop this Petition in the House where he sate for which the Commons having not yet meddled with him resolved to give him an ill Farewel before their parting Neither did he recover his old Lustre nor carry any great sway among the Peers since his dishonourable Expedition to Rhe for evil Successes are not easily forgotten though prosperous ones vanish in the warmth of their Fruition And not only that Duke and the Lord Privy-Seal with other great and able Officers did repulse this motion with all main but the King 's learned Council were admitted to plead their Exceptions against it Six weeks were spent in these Delays and Hope deserred made their hearts sick Prov. 13.12 and their Heads jealous who follow'd the cause that there was no good meaning to relieve their Oppressions At last the difficulty was overcome the Petitioners had one Answer from the King and look'd for a fuller and had it in the end So much sooner had been so much better as our Poet Johnson writes to Sir E. Sackvile of some mens Good-turns They are so long a coming and so hard When any Deed is forc'd the Grace is marr'd The Subjects ask'd for nothing now which was not their own but for Assurance to keep their own which had it been done with a Smile benignly and cheerfully and without any casting about to evade it it had been done Princely It is not impossible to find an honest Rule in Matchiavel for this is his Beneficia
illa quibus conciliatur plebis animus cò usque ne differantur donec ea praestare cogi videantur Passing right is Sir J. Haward's Hist of H. IV. p. 4. says he The Multitude are more strongly drawn by unprofitable Courtesies than by churlish Benefits Among those that argued for this Petition de Droit I shall remember what past from two eminent Prelates Archbishop Abbot offer'd his own Case to be consider'd banish'd from his own Houses of Croydon and Lambeth confin'd to a moorish Mansion-place of Foord to kill him debarr'd from the management of his Jurisdiction and no cause given for it to that time harder measure than ever was done to him in his Pedagogy for no Scholar was ever corrected till his Fault was told him But he had fuller'd the Lash in a Message brought by the Secretary and no cause pretended for it And what Light of Safety could be seen under such dark Justice The Bishop of Lincoln likewise promoted the Petition but he was a great Stickler for an Addition that it might come to the King's Hands with a mannerly Clause That as they desir'd to preserve their own Liberties so they had regard to leave entire that Power wherewith His Majesty was entrusted for the Protection of his People which the Commons disrelish'd and caused to be cancell'd This caused the Bishop to be suspected at first as if he had been sprinkled with some Court-holy-water which was nothing so but a due Consideration flowing from his own Breast that somewhat might be inserted to bear witness to the Grandeur of Majesty A Passage in Xenophon commends such unbespoken Service lib. 8. Cyrip says he Hystaspus would do all that Cyrus bade but Chrysantus would do all which he thought was good for Cyrus before he bade him 77. In the Debate of this great matter among the Lords this Bishop hath left under his own Pen what he deliver'd partly in glossing upon a Letter which His Majesty under the Signet sent to the House May the 12th partly in contesting with the chief Speakers that quarrel'd at the Petition As to the former First the King says That his Predecessors had never given Leave to the free Debates of the highest Points of Prerogative Royal. The Bishop answered The Prerogative Royal should not be debated at all otherwise than it is every Term in Westminster-hall Secondly the Letter objects What if some Discovery nearly concerning Matters of State and Government be made May not the King and his Council commit the Party in question without cause shewn For then Detection will dangerously come forth before due time Resp No matter of State or Government would be destroyed or defeated if the Cause be exprest in general terms And no danger can likely ensue if in three Terms the Matter be prepared to be brought to Trial. Ob. 3. May not some Cause be such as the Judges have no Capacity of Judicature or Rules of Law to direct or guide their Judgment Resp What can those things be which neither the Kings-bench nor Star-chamber can meet them Obj. 4. Is it not enough that we declare our Royal Will and Resolution to be which God willing we will constantly keep not to go beyond a just Rule and Moderation in any thing which shall be contrary to our Laws and Customs And that neither we nor our Council shall or will at any time hereafter commit or command to Prison for any other cause than doth concern the State the Publick Good and Safety of our People Resp Not the Council-Table but the appointed Judges must determine what are Laws and Customs and what is contrary to them And this gracious Concession is too indefinite to make us depend upon that broad Expression of Just Rule and Moderation Especially be it mark'd That all the Causes in the Kingdom may be said to concern either the State the Publick Good or the Safety of the King and People This under Favour is abundantly irresolute and signifies nothing obtain'd Obj. 5. In all Causes hereafter of this nature which shall happen we shall upon the humble Petition of the Party or Signification of our Judges unto us readily and really express the true cause of the Commitment so as with Conveniency and Safety it be fit to be disolosed And that in all Causes of ordinary Jurisdiction our Judges shall proceed to the delivery or bailment of the Prisoner according to the known and ordinary Rules of this Land and according to the Statutes of Magna Charta and those six Statutes insisted on which we intend not to abrogate or weaken according to the true intention thereof Resp To disclose the cause of Imprisonment except Conveniency and Safety do hinder are ambiguous words and may suffice to hold a man fast for coming forth And if all Causes be not of ordinary Jurisdiction as I hope they are who shall judge which be the extraordinary Causes We are lost again in that Uncertainty So likewise for the Intention of Magna Charta and the six Statutes who shall judge of the true Intention of them That being arbitrary we are still in nubibus for any assurance of legal Liberty So the Concessions of His Majesty's Letter were waved as unsatisfactory 78. And the Bishop went on to shew that the Contents of the Petition were suitable to the ancient Laws of the Realm ever claimed and pleaded expedient for the Subject and no less honourable for the King which made him a King of Men and not of Beasts of brave-spirited Freemen and not of broken-hearted Peasants The Statute in 28 Edw. 3. is as clear for it as the day at Noon-tide That no man of what state or condition soever shall be put out of his Lands or Tenements nor taken nor imprison'd nor disinherited nor put to death without being brought to answer by due process of Law I know one Lord replied to this lately That the Law was wholsom for the good of private men and sometime it might be as wholsom for the Publick Weal that the Soveraign Power should commit to Custody some private man the cause not being shew'd in Law upon more beneficial occasion than a private man's legal Liberty And though the Hand of Power should seem to be hard upon that one person a Benefit might redound to many First be it consider'd if no Law shall be fixt and inviolable but that which will prevent all Inconveniencies we must take Laws from God alone and not from men Then be it observ'd that to bring the exception of a Soveraign Power beside the Laws in Cases determined in the Laws takes away all Laws when the King is pleas'd to use and put forth this Soveraign Power wherewith he is trusted and makes the Government purely arbitrary and at the Will of the King So shall this Reason of State eat up and devour the Reason of Laws Shew me he that can how the affirmation of a Soveraign Power working beside the Law insisted upon shall not bring our Goods and our
Lives to be liable and disposable by this Soveraign Power and not turn England into the case of Turky And if you affirm that a man may be taken and imprison'd by a Soveraign Power wherewith a King is trusted beside the Law exprest in the Statute why should you not grant as well the Law being one and the same that a man may be put out of his Lands and Tenements disinherited and put to death by this Soveraign Power without being brought to answer by due process of Law I conceive this Reason may be more fortified but will never be answer'd and satisfied Bore one hole into this Law and all the good thereof will run out of it Next I shew that nothing was ever attempted against the Magna Charta without great Envy and Grudging Now since a man's Liberty is a thing that Nature most desires and which the Law doth exceedingly favour the 29th Chapter of that Charter says Nullus liber homo imprisonetur nisi per legem terrae What word can there be against these words Why it was said here with Resolution and Confidence That Lex terrae is to be expounded of Actions of the King 's Privy Council done at the Council-Table without further Process of Law But did ever any Judge of this Land give that interpretation of Lex terrae in Magnâ Chartâ Indeed a great learned Lord in this House did openly say That all Courts of Jurisdiction in this Land establish'd and authorised by the King may be said to be Lex terrae Which is granted by me although it was denied by implication by the resolution of the House of Commons But then the Question still remains whether the Council-Table at Whitehall be a forum contentiosum a Court of Jurisdiction I ever granted they may commit to Prison juxta legem terrae as they are Justices of Peace and of other legal Capacities And I grant it also that they may do it praeter legem terrae as they are great Counsellors of State and so to provide where the Laws are defective ne quid detrimenti respub capiat Secondly It was much prest that my L. Egerton did expound this Lex terrae to be Lex regis which must mean somewhat in his Post-nati pag. 33. I have read the Book and it is palpably mistaken That great Lord saith only this That the Common-Law hath many Names secundùm subjectam materiam according to the variety of Objects it handles When it respects the Church it is called Lex Ecclesiae Anglicanae When it respects the Crown Lex Coronae and sometime Lex Regia When it respects the common Subject it is called Lex Terrae Is not this his plain meaning It must be so by his instance p. 36. That the cases of the Crown are the Female to inherit the eldest Son to be preferr'd no respect of Half-blood no disability of the King's Person by Infancy If his Lordship should mean otherwise his Authorities would fail him Regist fol. 61. the word Lex Regia is not nam'd that 's my Lord's Inference but the Title is Ad jura Regia that is certain Briefs concerning the King's Kights opposite to Jura Papalia or Canonica all of them in matters ecclesiastical as Advousons Presentations Quare-impedits c. all pleaded in Westminster-hall things never heard of in the King 's dwelling Court since the fixing of the Courts of Justice Thus much for the Authorities Now the reason offer'd out of them which will never be answer'd is this By the Lex Terrae in Magna Charta a man may be not only imprison'd but withal outlaw'd destroy'd try'd and condemn'd but a man cannot be outlaw'd destroy'd try'd and condemn'd by any Order of the Lords of the Council therefore the Orders of the Lords of the Council are not Lex Terrae At this and upon other occasions the Bishop spake to this matter till the Petition was most graciously consented to by the King in all the Branches of it and was more attended to upon the Experience of his Knowledge and Wisdom than at least any of his Order And as Theocritus says of his principal Shepherd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From that day Daphnis was accounted the Chief of his Calling which filled the Court with the Report But some men are in danger to be traduced with too much Praise 79. One thing struck in unhappily which made this Session rise without a good close in the shutting up it was a Remonstrance presented to the King by the House of Commons of many Complaints the most offensive being those that were personal against two Bishops that were about the King and against the L. Duke That his excessive Power and abuse of that Power was the cause of all Evils and Dangers among us Though this came very cross to the King's Affections yet the worst word that he gave to the Remonstrance was That no wise man would justifie it How many Kings of England had treated both Houses more sharply upon less provocation Yet now the chief Tribunes spake their Discontents aloud That they had given a bountiful Levy of five Subsidies and were called Fools for their labour The Gift was large the Manner the Allegiance the Willingness were better than the Gift yet might not His Majesty touch mildly upon a Fault without such a scandalous Paraphrase The Galatians would have pulled out their own Eyes to do Paul good yet he spared them not for it but upon Errors crept into the Doctrine of their Faith he called them foolish Galatians The sowrest Leaven not seen in the Remonstrance but hid in the House was That some seditious Tongues did blab their meaning to cut off the payment of Tonnage and Poundage by the concession of the Petition of Right against which His Majesty spake and declar'd That his Predecessors had quietly enjoy'd those Payments by the Royal Prerogative which both Houses did protest to leave inviolable That the Grant of the Petition did meet with Grievances said to entrench upon the Liberty and Property of the People to give them assurance of quiet from paying Taxes or Loans without Order of Parliament To go further it was not his Meaning nor their Demand The Bishop of Lincoln appeared very much to concur with the King's Interpretation and was very zealous to have had an Act past for it before the Parliament was prorogued Nay he forbore not to chide his Friends in the lower House whose Metal he found to be churlish and hard to be wrought upon Ut erat generosae indolis nihil frigidè nihil languidè agebat as Clementius says of renowned Salmasius in his Life p. 61. But the Bishop's Motion was laid by and with no good meaning Yet since it was seen that his Endeavours were real to have wound up the Bottom at that time without that scurvy knot in it he had the Favour to kiss the King's Hand and to have Words both with His Majesty and with the Duke in private O hard Destiny this he had
ten degrees backward upon their Dyal they knew it That Abner gave good Counsel to Asahel not to pursue a valianter man than himself and a Captain of the Host but lay hold on one of the young men and take his Armour 2 Sam. 2.21 they knew it Yet they had shuffled the Cards that they knew they should win somewhat by the Hand for if the Bishop gave no Answer to this Challenger he was baffled and posted upon every Gate about London for a Dastard If he return'd them their own again then pull him to the Stake and worry him in the Star-chamber where he was struggling for Life at this time in which fatal juncture the King must be told that he was an Enemy to the Piety of the Times and the Good Work in hand So that this Spaniel was to put up the Fowl that the Eagle might fall upon the Quarry But it was soon decided for rather than forsake a good Cause and a good Name Lincoln chose to use his Pen to maintain his innocent Letter though malicious Subtlety had made it manifest that nothing could fall so moderately from him in that cause which would not be subject to perverse exposition The Athenians had deserted their old Philosophy Cum imminente periculo major salutis quà m dignitatis cura fuit Justin lib. 5. Therefore a Mind that was not degenerous had rather provide for Dignity than Safety None writes better than Budaeus upon such a case de Asse lib. 1. fol. 10. Tanta fuit vis numinis ad stylum manum urgentis ut periclitari malis quà m rumpi degeneri patientiâ Some divine Spirit did so strongly stir him up to write that he had rather run any hazard than smother such an Injury with cowardly Patience 98. I have cleared the rise of the Controversie which follows That a Letter of the Bishop's was sent to some few persons nine years before to stop a Debate in a private Parish and to make Peace in the place This was published by Dr. Heylin with a Confutation and censur'd for Popular Affectation Disaffection to the Church Sedition and for no better than No Learning And the Plot was as Concurrencies will not let it be denied to pop out this Pamphlet when the Bishop's Cause in Star-chamber was now ripe for hearing And this was the Pack-needle to draw the Whip-cord of the Censure after it But what was this about Take the Substance or rather the Shadow that was contended for out of the Letter in an Abstract The Vicar of Grantham P. T. of his own Head and never consulting the Ordinary had removed the Communion-Table to that upper part of the Chancel which he called the Altar-place where he would officiate when there was a Communion and read that part of Service belonging to the Communion when there was none And when the People shewed much dislike at it because it was impossible as they alledg'd that the 24th part of the Parish should see or hear him if he officiated in that place he persisted in his way and told them he would build an Altar of Stone upon his own cost at the upper end of the Quire and set it with the ends North and South Altar-wise and six it there that it might not be removed upon any occasion A Complaint being made against this by the Alderman and a multitude of the Town the Bishop contented himself at first to send a Message to the Magistrate and the Vicar that they should not presume either the one or the other of them to move or remove that Table any more otherwise than by special direction of him and his Chancellor that in his Journey that way he would view the place and accommodate the matter according to the Rubrick and Canons There being no certain day set when the Bishop would come the Inhabitants of Grantham prevented him and came with open cry to Bugden against the Vicar who was among them at the Hearing Some Heat and sharp Impeachments against each other being over the Bishop did his best to make them Friends and supp'd them together in his great Hall while himself retired to his Study and bade them expect that he would frame somewhat in a thing so indifferent to him to give them content against the Morning So he bestowed that night in writing and made his Papers ready by day As the Panegyrist said to Constantine of such Celerity Quorum igneae immortales mentes mintâ—â—e sentiunt corporis moras p. 303. The Secretary gave a short Letter to the Alderman in which that which concerns the case in hand is this little That his Lordship conceived that the Communion-Table when it is not used should stand in the upper end of the Chancel not Altar-wise but Table-wise But when it is used either in or out of the time of Communion it should continue in the place it took up before or be carried to any other place of Church or Chancel where the Minister might be most audibly heard of the whole Congregation What can a Critick in Ceremonies carp at herein What else but that the end and not the side of the Table should stand toward the Minister when he perform'd his Liturgy Is this all And must a Controversie as big as a Camel be drawn through the Eye of this Needle But more of the same comes after in a larger Script which the Bishop at the same time willed to be delivered to the Divines of the Lecture of Grantham to be examined by them upon their next meeting-day that their Vicar being one of their company might read the Contents and take a Copy for his own use if he would but to divulge it no further Herein the Bishop derives his Conceptions from the Injunctions Articles and Orders of the Queen from the Homilies and Canons from Reports out of the Book of Acts and Monuments and from the Rubricks of the Liturgy and shews out of these that the Utensil on which the Holy Communion is celebrated ought not to be an Altar but a joyned Table that the Name of Table is retained by the Church of England and the other of Altar laid aside that the Table without some new Canon is not to stand Altar-wise in Parish-Churches and the Minister be at the North end thereof but Table-wise and he must officiate at the North side of the same that this Table when holy Duties are not in performing at it must be laid up in the Chancel but in the time of Service to be removed to such a place of Church or Chancel the over-sight of Authority appointing it wherein he that officiates may be most conveniently seen and heard of all They that would peruse the whole Letter are referred to it in Print but the sum of it is already laid before them And the Author was so little over-weening tho' in a frivolous case that he prays the Divines to whom he sent it that if they found mistakings in his Quotations or had met with any Canons
or Constitutions differing from the alledg'd or did vary in their Judgment that they would send their Reasons and they should be kindly and thankfully accepted How could a Prelate carry himself with more Moderation or a Scholar write with more Modesty or a Variance be more suddenly composed as it was with more Indifferency Did this Letter deserve to be ript up nine years after and torn into Raggs by an angry Censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss w. It will be a dishonour to the Times that Posterity should hear of it I see if the Dr. had been in the place of the Bishop he would have led the Parish of Grantham another Dance to their cost and vexation Many that are in low condition are best where they are As Livy says lib. 1. dec 5. Quidnam illi Consules Dictatoresve facturi erant qui proconsularem imaginem tam trucem saevÃmque fecerint If such had been the Consuls and Dictators of the Church what would they have done who flew so high when they had no Authority 99. Scan this now both for the Form and Matter before equal Judges in some Moral and Prudential Rules The Letter or private Monition as he calls it that drew it up Hol. Tab. p. 82. was written nine years before and in all that time had gained this Praise that it savour'd of Fatherly Sweetness to satisfie the Scrupulous by Learning in matter of Ceremony rather than to strike the case dead with Will and Command The Contents of it had been quoted in a Parliament with well done good and faithful Servant thou hast been faithful in a little A Divinity-Professor in his Chair Dr. Pr. had spoken reverendly of it by the relation of many it was punctually read or opened fully to the King at the hearing of the Cause of St. Gregory's Church Ho. Tab. p. 58. and no Counsellor did inform that it was disparaged A Litter of blind Whelps will see by that time they are nine days old and was the Answerer blind that could not see the reputation this Paper had got by that time it was nine years old Let a Presbyter for me dispute the truth with him that is of the greatest Order in the Church yet what Canons will suffer him to taunt and revile a Bishop whose whole Book was but a Libel against a Diocesan p. 58. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. Const lib. 2. c. 31. Which Canon will not allow a Clerk of a lower degree to raise an evil Murmur against a Bishop Much of the like is an Antiquity from Ignatius downward Their supereminent Order is not to be exposed to petulant Scoffings by their own Tribe Sed servanda est uniuscujusque Episcopi reverentia says Gregory Ep. 65. Ind. 2. since the Age grew learned and Knowledge puffed men up Ministers are more malapart among us and in every state with the Fathers of the Church but from the beginning it was not so If the like to this had been done upon the Person of another Bishop he would have been taught better Manners that had presum'd it The Example is the same wheresoever it lighted and might have taught them that where Reverence is forgotten to any of the chief Order that he that abuseth one doth threaten many It is a sad Presage to my Heart to apply that of Baronius to them that did not maintain the Honour of their Brother Quod Praesides ecclesiarum alter alterius vires infringebant Deus tranquilla tempora in persecutiones convertebat an 312. p. 6. These Annals prevent me not to forget that for a better colour to make licentious Invectives the Respondent takes no notice that a Bishop wrote the Letter For why not rather some Minorite among the Clergy Indeed it had not the Name but the Style tells him all the way that it could come from none but the Diocesan of Grantham Therefore I will give him his Match out of Baronius anno 520. p. 22. Maxentius contra epistolam Hormisdae scripsit sed ut liberam sibi dicendi compararet facultatem Hormisdae esse negavit sed ab adversariis ejus nomine scriptam esse affirmans This is a stale Trick to bait a Pope or a Prelate in the name of one that was much beneath them Sternitur infoelix alieno vulnere Aen. lib. 10. but he that wilfully makes these mistakes I take him for what he is I pass to the main Question What did this Letter prescribe that it should be torn with the Thorns of the Wilderness It pared away no Ceremony enjoyned O none further from it but it moderated a doubtful case upon the Mode and Practice of a Ceremony how the Communion-Board should stand and how the Vicar in that Church should pray and read at it for best edification of his Flock He must give me time to study upon it that would demand me to start him a Question belonging to God's Service of less moment Had the Gensdarmery of our great Writers no other Enemy to fight with Nothing to grind in their Brain-mill but Orts This the Colleges of Rome would have to see us warm in petty Wranglings and remiss in great Causes as Laertius says of one Xenophon of the Privy-Purse to Alexander the Great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 632 He would quiver for cold in the hot Sun and sweat in the Shade It was a Task most laudably perform'd by Whitgift Bridges Hooker Morton Burgess to maintain the use of innocent Ceremonies with whom Bishop Williams did ever jump and as Fulgentius says in P. Paulo's Life would defend and observe all Ordinances the least considerable and no whit essential But this was a great deal below it to litigate not about the continuance but about the placing of a Ceremony an evil beginning to distract Conformists who were at unity before and to make them sight like Cocks which are all of a Feather and yet never at peace with themselves Wo be to the Authors of such Cadmaean Wars Quibus semper praelia clade pari Propertius A most unnecessary Gap made in the Vine yard through which both the wild Boar our foreign Enemy and the little Foxes at home may enter in to spoil the Grapes Plutarch lib. de Is Osyr tells me of a Contention between the Oxyndrites and Cynopolites who went to War for the killing of a Fish which one of the Factions accounted to be a sacred Creature and when they were weaken'd with slaughter on both sides 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in sine the Romans over-run them and made them their Slaves Let the Story be to them that hates us and the Interpretation fall upon our Enemies 100. Yet will some of the stiffer Faction say it was time to clip the Wings of this Letter or if it could be done to make it odious abroad for the Mctropolitan intending one common decency in all Churches of his Province about the Table of Christ's Holy Supper this Paper six years older than his translation to the See of Canterbury
were living But though they are all under Earth Faith forbid that their Names should be abused to a wrong Report To keep History uncorrupt from such baseness 't is daintily observ'd out of the Poets by Salmasius Clymac p. 819. Apud orcum defunctae animae jurare dicuntur ne quid suos quos in vitâ reliquerint contra fas adjuvent The Souls departed take an Oath not to help their surviving Friends against Justice But no such Protestation needs in this Cause There is a Petition to be produced written with the Hand of Dr. Walker a Gentleman living and well known wherein His Majesty is minded that he had cancell'd this Complaint and had given his Royal Hand to confirm it What could be more sure Yet it turn'd to nothing the Wound was never suffer'd to heal by the daily Whispering of Bishop Laud diligent in the King's Ear. You may read of one in Suetonius's Caligula Cui ad insaniam Caius favebat So the King suffer'd this Prelate in excess of Power to turn and return Causes as he would and was obnoxious by the bewitching of his Tongue to facility of Perswasions to grant and retract as he possest him Which was seen too late in this excellent Passage of His Majesty in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wish I had not suffer'd mine own Judgment to be overborn in some things more by others Importunities than their Arguments As Erasmus wrote honestly to a mighty Monarch Harry the Eighth Ep. p. 74. Eximia quaedam inter mortales res est Monarcha sed homo tamen And with much liberty our Poet Johnson in his Forrest p. 815. I am at feud With that is ill tho' with a Throne endu'd The Faults of the Blessed Charles were small yet some he had who having assured Lincoln he should never be question'd again about the matter brought against him by Lamb and Sibthorp yet remitted it to the Star-chamber The Defendant conceived it would spend like a Snail or the untimely Fruit of a Woman but when he found himself deceiv'd and that the Cause was glowing hot in Prosecution he sought the King's Clemency Quaedam enim meliùs fugiuntur quà m superantur it is in Erasm Ep. p. 18. He thought it better to fly the Trial than to get the Cause and he put up this which follows into the Hands of His Majesty The Humble Petition and Submission of John Bishop of Lincoln c. THAT although he is innocent from any Crime committed against your Majesty in thought word or deed yet abhorring as he finds by Presidents all other Bishops of this Realm have done Placitare cum Domino rege to have any Suit with his Sovereign Lord Master and Patron he casts himself in all humility at Your Majesties Feet and implores your Royal Mercy and Clemency Non intrare in judicium cum servo tuo coveting to ascribe his Deliverance to Your Majesties Clemency And whereas your most Excellent Majesty having in the fourth year of your happy Reign received the Opinion of the four Lords Committees concerning these very self-same Charges did in your Majesties Gallery at Whitehall admit this Defendant brought in by the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer one of the said Committees to kiss your Majesties Hand and did use unto him this Defendant in the presence and hearing of the said Right Honourable Lord these gracious words That your Majesty was pleased to forgive all that was past and would esteem of this Defendant according as he should deserve by his Service for the time to come He most humbly beseecheth your most Excellent Majesty that according to that so gracious Remission and Absolution no further Prosecution at your Majesties Suit may be used against him concerning the said Charges all which he doth the rather hope for from your Majesty because he is a Bishop that hath endeavoured not to live scandalously in his Calling and hath formerly had the Favour from Almighty God with his own Hands to close your Majesties Father's Eyes and to have written and drawn up that Commission and Contract for your Majesties Marriage whereupon ensued to this Kingdom a most unvaluable Blessing and heartily prayeth that God who hath delivered your Majesty from your late Sickness may bless you in all Health Happiness and Prosperity So far the Petition I will not teach the Reader what Sallads to pick out of it but only the Herb of Grace that the Bishop kist the King's Hand upon the assurance of his Peace that the Offence which was taken was buried and should never rise up in Judgment more Nihil periculi Soloni à Pisistrato Diog. Laert. Now who ever liked Julian the Cardinal that made Ladislaus K. of Polonia break his League with the Turk And who will defend B. L. that made his Soveraign break his word with his Subject It was he and none else that put in an unseasonable Bar to hinder Lincoln the fulness of the Benefit I know none that had the nearest part in B. L's Favour that can deny it And let them turn it about as they will is it possible they should excuse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Theodoret's Ep. 2. Children see no uncomeliness in their Parents But although they will see no ill in the Person they must in the Fact For what a Trespass is this in Justice to punish that which was forgiven Let the King do Righteous Judgment like God in whose Throne he sits before whom this holds inviolable Peccata dimissa nunquam redeunt No not original Sin when remitted in Baptism it shall not be imputed to them any more that are damned for actual Crimes whereof they did not repent So Grotius cites it out of Prosper in Matth. c. 18. v. 34. Extinctam semel obligationem non reviviscere sed propter postrema crimina affici The most that seems to be against this Rule but falls in with it is this That when former Sins are forgiven and new ones are superadded the latter shall be punish'd the more for the ungratefulness of the Sinner Non quod jam remissa puniantur sed quod sequens peccatum minùs graviter punâ—retur si priora remissa non fuissent says Maldonat My Sentence is at the last of all with Syracides c. 29.3 Keep thy word and deal faithfully revoke not your Kindness pluck not up the Seeds of a Benefit which you had sown with your own Hand It is worse to turn Mercy than Justice into Wormwood 111. Destiny is unavoidable A Bill is filed in the Star-Chamber and prosecuted for the King for Revealing his Councils The Defendant made him ready for his Answer and plyed the King with Petitions together in Parody like Virgil's Aeneas Et se collegit in arma Poplite subsidens At first he tried Bishop Laud if he would be so generous as to heal the Wound that he had made and anointed him with the Weapon-Salve of remembrance of Friendship past and protestation of the like for ever he courted him to
on whose silent consent the Bishop had not to awaken the King that he would look upon these Courses that cried abroad to the amazement of his Subjects All wish it done and the Bishop did not fear to do it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Theodorets stout Divinity Ep. 21. Under the hand of God there is no remedy but patience suffering under the hand of Man the best Remedy is Courage So he stept forward to his Majesty with the confidence of this Petition To the King 's most Excellent Majesty c. THat if your Majesty be not pleased to accept as yet of his humble Submission for his Peace your Majesty would graciously vouchsafe not to interrupt but to permit the Petitioner to proceed according to the ordinary Rules and Course of the Court of Star-Chamber against Kilvert the Sollicitor for his manifold Falshoods and Injuries in the Prosecution of this Cause particularly first for menacing and frighting your Petitioners Witnesses 2. For publickly defaming this Petitioner to be your Enemy averring that neither he nor any of his did know what the name of a King meant 3. For offering to sell the Prosecution of your Majesties Cause against this Petitioner for Money and because this Petitioner refused to tamper with him in that kind for procuring base People to make false and aspersing Affidavits to incense your Majesty and that Court against your Petitioner 4. For menacing the Judges that should report and certifie any thing for your Petitioner 5. For not sparing to tax most falsly your most Sacred Majesty with pressing upon the Lords the Sentencing of your Petitioner All which the Petitioner will clearly prove and pray to God c. So strong an Accusation upon such foul Heads was fit to be sifted especially upon the last Branch For grant it was a lye here 's a false Report raised against the King's Honour If it were true what more criminal than to impart such Secrets of his Majesty 's to his Gossips at a Tavern where they flew abroad But some may more safely steal a Horse than others look over the Hedge The Bishop could get no leave to call this shameless Mate to an answer From that day Kilvert was free from Righteousness and might do any thing Ipse sibi Lex est quà fert cunque voluntas Praecipitat vires Manil. lib. 5. He that hath no Conscience and need to fear nothing will turn a Monster So true is that of Livy Dec. 1. lib. 4. Hominem improbum non accusari tutius est quà m absolvi 'T is safer to have a nocent Person never accus'd than to have him discharg'd for an Innocent 113. For all this the Defendant thought he had said so much against the Prosecutor that he should never appear in Court again But as Calvin said of Bucer Ep. 30. Qui sibi est optimè conscius securior est quam utile sit Yet he proved against him as foul a prank as ever was committed That he got Warren the Examiner to the Fountain Tavern near to Shoe-Lane Kilvert's daily Rendezvouz from whence the Bishop got continual and sure intelligence and fetch 't out of him contrary to his express Oath the Depositions which the Defendants Witnesses had made an heinous wrong to be done before Publication which coming to light Warren fled away from his Office and never appeared more But whether could he run from God's Vengeance Omnia quidem Deo plena sunt nec ullus perfidis tutus est locus Sym. p. 54. Kilvert stood to it as if the sin were not his that drew the Examiner to Perjury and no notice was taken of that constant Rule which the Casuists took from Tertullian de Bapt. c. 11. Semper is dicitur facere cui praemmistratur The Sin was Ahab's that purchast a Field of Blood by the Oath of the Sons of Belial Let Religion look to this for that Court would not nothing would lace it in it was so wide in the waste From this exorbitancy from this and nothing else sprung the Iliad of wrongs which the Bishop endured for Kilvert finding by Warren's disclosures that the Depositions for the Defendant were material and some of the Witnesses to be Learned men that had deposed upon Notes and Remembrances he turned himself into all shapes to crack their Credit At first he made an Affidavit of slight pretended Abuses which were over-ruled against him Whereupon he vapour'd in the hearing of the Register and divers others That he cared not what Orders the Lords made in Court for he would go to Greenwich and cause them all to be changed It was the most scornful Defiance that ever was given to the Honour and Justice of the Star-Chamber as the Bishop's Counsel prest it home Every one expected the Ruin of the Prosecutor yet the Lords perceiving up-upon the Archbishop's Motion that it was not safe to punish him it past over with a slight Submission One presaged the Ruin of the Athenian State because Rats had eaten up the Books of Plato's Commonwealth And might not a man that had no more Prophecy than Prudence foresee the Ruin of this Court when such a Rat-catcher did despise their Authority telling them he could fetch Orders to sweep away theirs from such Powers Quae nec tutò narrantur nec tutò audiuntur Seneca de Tranquil Sir Robert Heath Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas was but one of the Lords Assessors yet as just and sufficient as any of his order and the Indignity done to him was as if done to all Who made his own Complaint That Kilvert threatned to procure him to be turn'd out of his place for his forwardness Yet this also was slubber'd over with a little acknowledgment of Rashness So much were those honourable Persons now no longer themselves fearing that Severity which they perceived impending upon them As Pliny bewails the Roman Senate in his Panegyrick Vidimus curiam sed curiam trepidam elinguem cum dicere quid velles periculosum quod nolles miserum esset It was become like Ezekiel's Vine-tree c. 15. v. 3. you could not make a Pin out of it to hang a good Order upon it that was equal and generous Beshrew the Varlet that kept his word which he was not wont to do for Sir Robert Heath was displaced and for no Misdemeanour proved But it was to bring in a Successor who was more forward to undo Lincoln than ever the Lord Heath was to preserve him A man of choice parts which yet he shewed not in this Cause which cannot be smother'd without defacing the truth which Posterity must not want Desipiunt qui faeces ob vâ—ni nobilitatem absorbent The Dregs of the best Wine are but Dregs and must be spit out as distastful his Lordship's part cannot be spared in this Tragedy yet it shall be short because I will leave him to those Figures that live in the House of Memory 114. The main Bill against the Defendant being not like to
Commenda's For the Money says the Bishop I am low in Cash but will make a shift to pay it To part with the Deanry will make an open Scar and no fair one Beside the Money is useful for the King's Revenue the Deanry is no Profit to His Majesty to take it from my hand and to put it into another and what the World hath given me I am willing to give it back again but what His Majesty's Father did give me and by the Mediation of His Majesty being Prince I can take no comfort in my Life if I be stript of it That Lord return'd again with a Message to leave him his Deanry and Commenda's but to raise up the Sum of Composition to 8000 l. The Bishop held up his Hands to Heaven in amazement at it But you will lift your Hands at a greater Wonder says L. Cottington if you do not pay it Well I will satisfie the King says Lincoln and I will sell some Land for it The Match is struck done 'tis and the Bishop as good as undone by it He delighted to do charitable Works but this would sear the Vein that it could run no more It was a sweet Apophthegm which I heard come from him when all was exhausted I care not for Poverty but I shall not be able to requite a Benefit God grant every good King a better way than this was to enrich him Fiscus bonorum Principum non sacerdotum damnis sed hostium spoliis angeatur I commend thee Symmachus for it p. 56. But on goes the Game the Bishop is dealing in London to take up a Cart-load of Money and that right worthy Attorney Sir J. Blanks was sedulous to draw up a full Pardon so absolute that it included more than the Bishop desired as this Letter to the L. Keeper will declare My very good Lord MR. Attorney hath once or twice sent unto me by my Man some imperfect Propositions about the manner of a Pardon which His Most Excellent Majesty should grant unto me which Propositions not speaking with Mr. Attorney himself I do not well understand for as it is delivered to me His Majesty's Offer's more than ever I desired by naming a general Pardon to wit to pardon all Offences contained in the two Informations and any other Offence or Misdemeanor I should desire particularly to be freedfrom which if it be so is as gracious a Favour from His Majesty as any reasonable man can expect But my good Lord I know nothing by my self that should of necessity be so solemnly pardon'd Yet hearing His Majesty's Inclinations to grant unto others in the condition that I stand general Abolitions and being not so wise as the last Parliament to refuse the benefit of a general Pardon I confess I fell in my Parley with your Lordship upon that way propounded unto me by my Counsel Learned But hearing of late it is construed by others as a kind of Capitulation with my Soveraign I beseech your Lordship I may wave it altogether and that your Lordship would represent me kneeling at His Majesty's Feet craving that his Goodness and Mercy only without any thing in Writing together with my Industry in his Service for the time to come may be the substance and extent of all my Pardon and this but for such things as by Informations or Petitions I have been though undeservedly presented as an Offender against His Most Excellent Majesty and desir'd to be proceeded against by His Majesty's immediate Directions If any other private Subject hath ought to say against me for any Trespass or Misdemeanour committed against himself and not His Majesty I desire no Protection but those of His Majesty's Courts of Justice against any such person whosoever c. December 11th 1635. From December it hung as it were between Heaven and Earth it will and it will not be done till the King had occasion to go to Windsor and the Bishop had order to lye at Eaton expecting to be sent for to kiss the King's Hand But who comes thither that was not look'd for it being the middle of the week but the Archbishop who malleated the King's Gentleness into stronger Metal When Lincoln had laboured for Peace from thenceforth it was as far set back as if it had never been in Treaty How was his good Soul toss'd about between Friends and Foes between Mercy and Frowns and now in the last Attempt put to Job's note c. 16. v. 11. God hath deliver'd me to the ungodly and turn'd me over to the hands of the wicked I was at ease but he hath broken me asunder and shaken me to pieces and set me up for a mark Intempestiva benevolentia nihil à simultate differt Polit. Ep. p. 26. A constant Enmity is more generous than to interrupt it with Offers of never-intended or never-composed Agreements Now the Archbishop look'd for the day when he should trample upon this Bishop in a Censure Azorius the Jesuite shall apply it for me Moral tom 1. lib. 13. c. 6. When the Order of the Knights Templars was plotted to be overthrown in a Council at Vienna in Dauphine says Pope Clement V. Etsi non per viam justitiae potest destrui destruatur per viam expedientiae ne scandalizetur filius noster rex Franciae If they cannot fall by Justice they must fall for convenience sake But here 's the difference in the Story There a Bishop did gratifie the King here the King did gratifie a Bishop 117. Proceed then to another Information since it must be so The first Cause being mortified a new one took life from it as Gorgias Leontinus his Mother was deliver'd of him when she was dead Viva fuit sterilis mortua facta parens as Dr. Alabaster writes in his Epigram upon it They are but ill Examples in the New Testament when an Accusation is turn'd into a new Species The Jews impleaded our Saviour at first that he said he would destroy the Temple c. and chang'd it before Pilate into another Charge that he made himself a King Paul was Indicted by the same Nation that he brought a Greek into the Temple to pollute it but it was turn'd into another matter Revilest thou God's High-Priest They that will not stand to their own Bill are more set upon Destruction than Justice Kilvert onerated the Bishop with Ten Charges together the use of the Court being as Judge Popham had regulated it to admit but Four at once But chiefly he was active to grime the Defendant with one foul fault Subornation of Witness that is to foment Perjury But the King's Counsel perusing the Depositions waved it and gave it another form Seducing of Witnesses a manifest injury to the attestation of Truth and for contraction in a new phrase Tampering with Witnesses as my Lord of Canterbury called it in his Sentence Perhaps it is not Subornation of Perjury but it is Tampering The Defendant thought to help himself with a Demur upon four Heads
a Belly-god From the first breaking out of the Plot against the Earl they committed him as a Traytor to the Black Rod who for any thing of Treason or like to Treason might go bare-fac'd through the World and never be asham'd For in the end of all long after his Commitment they had no proof towards that Crime but a Paper brought out of old Sir H. Vane's Cabinet by his naughty Son Crudelis pater est magis an puer improbus ille What were other Misdemeanors to Treason Sift any man that hath been long in a great Office and if his Enemies may be permitted to accuse him see if he can escape a black Bill which will found to his peril and disgrace amplified with the Rhetorick of Malice So Plutarch defends the gallant Roman Fabius Tò 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not to offend at all in great matters is more than a man can do Let me speak of his Judges with reverence It was a Parliament which is more able to prepare Laws to pass where all are concern'd than to sit upon a Trial where one Subject is concern'd Wise and Weak have the same Right to Judge therefore Pliny the younger spared not to censure the Conscript-Fathers of the Roman Senate lib. 2. Ep. In publico concilio nihil est tam inaequale quam aequalitas quia cum sit impar prudentia par omnium jus est Those that are no Body when they are singled and stand alone must pass for Oracles when they vote with others in the House Like the Vanity of Astrologers as Salmasius taxeth them Chym. p. 795. Singula sidera vix pro numinibus habent Composita offigiata potentum numinum instar habere voluerunt The vertue of such and such a Star is not reckon'd in their Art but put it into a Constellation that Figure cast into a Globe of Stars they hold to be propitions in-flowing into the Life and Death of Men. There were some in this Parliament that out of their Birth and Education were carried to noble Attempts who would not concurr to the Ruin of great Wentworth but their Names were posted for it by Ruffians as Enemies to the State And this was never look'd into for a breach of Privilege An Indignity will never be forgotten till Truth hath left to breathe And it was to no purpose to reason it soberly with so violent Opposites Decernente ferocissimo quoque non sententiis sed clamore strepitu Liv. lib. 20. Their Blood was warmed with the greatness of their number and confidence in the People Beside says the rare Author in his Essay of Faction it is often seen that a few that are stiff will tire out a greater number that are more moderate What odds then was on their side that exceeded in quantity and stiffness Yet every thing that is stiff is not streight But here the bloody part were the Godly in their own Language they and no others All that came from them was pretended to be for Reformation and common Safety but as different in event as Numbers that are even and odd Hypocrisie dwells next door to Virtue but never comes into its Neighbor's House What Justice was that which was thrown by for ever which plaid its part so ill that the very Actors hiss'd it off the Stage and provided by their own Vote that it should be seen no more Quintil. lib. 7. hath this upon the Pleadings of his time Tot saeculis nullam repertam esse causam quae sit tota alterisimilis No Cause was ever pleaded that was the same with any that went before in all points and circumstances But how say you to this Cause when it was enacted by Statute That no Cause should be like it for the time to come Sir Rob. Dallington notes the Subtlety of the Pope in these words That he never challengeth a Power till he be able to maintain it no more did this High Court and then that he never approves a Mischief till it be done So did not this Court that would not approve their own Mischief when it was done They were not asham'd before and when they shed innocent Blood but after Quos cum nihil refert pudet ubi pudendum est deserit illos pudor Plaut in Bacch Finally no Evidence can have more light than this That they knew not how to make their Justice passable because before they began they found so many Knots and Scruples how to enter into a Trial. When they had resolved on a way the King would have crost them Discreet men were afraid lest Opposition should make them worse Lincoln is consulted approves the King's Zeal to use all expedient means to rescue his faithful Servant but thought it would do hurt to check what the Parliament had devised for a legal procedure He that seeks a thing the wrong way goes so far backward In all Contests of Power the King is ever thought to do wrong The King's Greatness made too much contemptible already must beware to take a foyl at this time Mary Queen of Scotland Mother to James the third who was deem'd worthy the Character of Livia the Empress Ulysses stolata Ulysses in a Petticoat Calig in Sueton. gave this Counfel to her Son on her Death-bed Suffer not your Prerogative to come in question but fore-seeing the danger rather give way to all that in reason is demanded of you Drum p. 79. With these Considerations the Bishop proceeds to deliver his Opinion as followeth to the Lords 143. The first Question which your Lordships have called upon me to resolve is Whether the House of Commons may examine some of the Members of their House before a Committee of your Lordships There is no question of the thing but of the time Regularly they ought not to do it yet but ought first to put in a Specifial Charge and the Reus or Defendant first be call'd to his Answer Then and not before Witnesses ought to be produced This is the regular Course If the Charge be not Specifial it may be demurred unto and need not be answer'd at all We have all this in the Acts of the Apostles cap. 25. Festus brought brought forth Paul to be examin'd before Agrippa that he might have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 27. some certain matter to lay to his charge so as he might not slip away from it Therefore a general and uncertain matter will not serve the turn For otherwise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 28. it seem'd to Festus void of all reason to send a Prisoner to Rome and no Charge go along with him They are call'd there 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 particular Criminations This is the regular way before your Witnesses are used The Star-Chamber goes a little further beside the Rule For in the King's Cause upon Affidavit of Sickness to prevent Mortality and as it were de benè esse some Witnesses have been admitted to Examination before any Answer put in or Issue joyned Though these Witnesses were
would witness against me for my Council-Table Opinion I would say to him as Gallus did to Tyberius Caesar Good Sir speak you first for I may mistake and you may witness against me for it in the next Parliament Some did make Laws with Ropes about their Necks What Must men give their Counsel as it were with Ropes about their Necks Solomon says When thou comest to a rich man's table put a knife to thy Throat But what 's here When we give Judgment as we are able among the Lords of the Council must we put an Ax to our Necks Beware of such Traps pittying the case of human Weakness 145. The fourth Question is thus comprized Whether some Members of the House of Commons may be present at the Examination Judicially they cannot the Judicature is in your Lordships but whether organically and ministerially is the Scruple to be satisfied I will be brief in my Conceptions what is against the claim of the House of Commons and what is for them This is not for them That 50 Edw. 3. one Love was a Witness in Lord John Nevile's Case Love denied what he had confest before two Knights Members of the Lower House The House of Commons send them to the Lords to confront Love which they did and Love was thereupon committed Now their being here was only to confront not to assist the Lords either judicially or ministerially Many things make for them why they may be there ministerially at least First Originally both Houses were together and so the Commons heard all Examinations Considerent inter se Modus ten Pl. and sate so till Anno 6 Edw. 3. by Mr. Elsing's Collections which are not over-authentick Secondly After that time they have all the House of Commons been present when Witnesses were sworn here Anno 5 Hen. IV. Rot. 11. swears his Fealty before the Lords and Commons and two or three days after by the same Oath and before the same persons clears the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of York from a Suspicion of Treason laid to their charge The Commons were by and heard all this The third Reason is Mr. Attorny-General if this Lord were arraigned of Treason as I pray God bless him from deserving it would be by and observe his Defence and such Witnesses as he should produce for himself and would no doubt bring Counter proofs Sur le Champ and upon the sudden against the same if he were able The House of Commons is in this case the King's Attorny who make and maintain the charge So far out of brief Notes for take them to be no other you have a strong Judgment pass'd upon four Questions Says Tully in his Brutus of Caesar's Eloquence Tabulam benè pictam collocat in bono lumine He draws his Picture well and hangs it out to be well seen So here 's a Piece well drawn and placed in the light of Perspicuity His next Argument is very long but of that use to the Reader that he shall not sind so much Learning in any Author on that Theme that I know a Scholar would not want it They that fostered deadly Enmities against E. Strafford laboured to remove the Bishops from the hearing of his Cause This Bishop and his Brethren minding to him all the Pity and Help they could shew him the Opposites began to vote them out of Doors and would not admit them in the Right of Peers in this Cause because it was upon Life and Blood Lincoln maintains that the Lords did them Injury and that Bishops in England may and ought to vote in causâ sanguinis That they were never inhibited by the Law of this Land never by the Peers of the Land before this time That their voluntary forbearance in some Centuries of the Ages before proceeded from their Fears of the Canons of the Court of Rome and by the special Leave of the King and both Houses who were graciously pleased to allow of their Protestations for their Indemnity as Church-men when the King and Parliament might have rejected their Protestations if they had pleas'd And much he insisted upon it that the opponent Lords grounded their Judgment upon the corrupt Canons of the Church of Rome Indeed I find in my own Papers that the Monks of Canterbury complain'd against Hubert their Archbishop to the Pope for sitting upon Tryals of Life and Blood They could not complain that he went against the Laws and Customs of England but their Appeal was to the Pope's Justice and it was more tolerable for Monks to rake in the Rubbish of the Roman Courts than for English Barons And say in sooth must not Divines of the Reformed Church meddle in Cause of Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amph. Would they be laugh'd at for this Hypocrisie or abhorr'd For who more forward to thrust into the Troops of the late War than the Ministers whom they countenanc'd Have I not seen them prance about the Streets in London with Pistols in their Holsters and Swords by their sides And so for Edg-hill and Newberry c. Could they rush into so many Fights and be clear from cause of Blood Nay the Pontisical part make but a Mockery of this Canon for anno 1633 a Book was printed in Paris sill'd with a Catalogue of Cardinals Bishops and Priests who had been brave Warriours most of them Leaders in the Field the Author a Sycophant aimed to please Cardinal Richlieu and a Fig for the Canons Reason Canons Parliamentary Privileges nay Religion are to corrupt men as they like them for their own ends Now hear how this Bishop did wage his Arguments for the affirmative 146. It is to be held for a good Cause against which nothing of moment can be alledg'd such is this concerning the Right of Bishops to vote in causâ sanguinis First It is not prohibitum quia malum not any way evil in it self no more than it is an evil thing in it self to do Justice Secondly It was in use from the Law of Nature when the eldest of the Family was King Priest and Prophet Thirdly It was in use under Moses's Law and so continued in the Priests and Levites down to Annas and Caiaphas and after Christ's death till the Temple was destroyed as appears by the scourging of the Apostles by the stoning of Stephen and commanding St. Paul to be smitten on the Mouth Fourthly It was in use in the persons of the Apostles themselves as in that Judgment given upon Ananias and Saphira in the delivery up to Satan as most of the ancient Fathers expound that Censure to be a corporal Vexation And generally in all the Word of God there is no one Text that literally inhibits Church-men more than Lay-men to use this kind of Judicature For that Precept to be no striker 1 Tim. 3.3 is no more to be appropriated to a Bishop distinct from the rest of Christian men than that which is added not to be given to Wine that is immoderately taken Proceed we
Members an ordinary Punishment of the Goths and Vandals who then lived in Spain but never heard of here with us of many years before the Reign of Hen. II and therefore not sitly pressed to drive Bishops from sitting as Peers in the case of the Earl of Strafford who is not to be sentenc'd to any mutilation of Members True it is that in the Council it self being the Eleventh Council of Toledo Can. 6. they are forbidden Quod morte plectendum sit sententiâ propria judicare to sentence in any Cause that is to be punish'd with Death Whereas in the Fourth Council of Toledo Can. 31 under Sisinandus not long before held anno 633 it is said That the Kings do oftentimes commit to Priests and Bishops their Judicature Contra quoscunque Majestatis obnoxios against all Treasons howbeit they are directed not to obey their King in this particular unless they have him bound by Oath to pardon the Party in case they shall find reason to mediate for him And thus the Canon-Law went in Spain but no where else in Christendom in that Age. 148. But these Bishops at Westm travelled not so far as Toledo to fetch in this Canon into their Synod but took it out of Gratian then in vogue for he lived in the time of Hen. Beu-clerk Grandfather to this Hen. II. who in the second part of his Decrees Cap. de Clericis saith thus Clericis in sacris ordinibus constitutis ex concil Tolet. Judicium sanguinis agitaro non licet And so this Canon was fetch'd from Spain into these other parts of Europe above four hundred years after the first making thereof upon this occasion Pope Gregory the Seventh otherwise called Hildebrand who lived in the time of William the Conqueror having so many deadly Quarrels against Hen. IV. Emperor of Germany to make his part good and strong laid the first ground which his Successors in their Canons closely pursued to draw the Bishops and other great Prelates of Germany France England and Spain from their Lay-Soveraigns and Leige-Lords to depend wholly upon him and so by colour and pretence of Ecclesiastical Immunities withdrew them from the Services of their Princes in War and in Peace and particularly from exercising all Places of Judicature in the Civil Courts of Princes to the which Offices they were by their Breeding and Education more enabled than the martial Lay-Lords of that rough Age and by their Fiefs and Baronies which they held from Kings and Emperors particularly bound and obliged And therefore you shall find that whereas the Bishops of this Island before the Conquest did still joyn with the Thanes Aldermen and Lay-Lords in the making and executing of all Laws whatsoever touching deprivation of Life and mutilation of Members Yet soon after when the Norman and English Prelates Lanfrank Anselm Becket and the rest began to trade with Rome and as Legati nati to wed the Laws and Canons cried up in Rome and to plant them here in England they withdrew by little and little our Prelates from these Employments and Dependencies upon the Kings of England and under the colour of Exemptions and Church-Immunities erected in this Land an Ecclesiastical Estate and Monarchy depending wholly upon the Pope inhibiting them to exercise secular Employments or to sit with the rest of the Peers in Judicatures of Life and Members otherwise than as they list themselves and hence principally did arise those great heats between our Rufus and Anselm which Eadmer speaks of and those ancient Customs of this Kingdom which Hen. II. pressed upon Becket in the Articles of Clarendon that the Prelates ought to be present in the King's Courts c. Which Pope Alexander a notable Boutefeu of those times in the Church of God did tolerate though not approve of as he apostyles that Article with his own Hand to be shewn to this day in the M. S. extant in the Vatican Library And although I shall not deny but the Popes did plead Scripture for this Inhibition as they did for all things else and allude unto that place 2 Tim. 3.4 which they backed with one of the Canons of the Apostles as they call them the seventh in number Yet it is clear their main Authority is fetch'd from this obscure Synod of Toledo where eighteen Bishops only were convened under Bamba the Goth who of a Plowman was made a King and of a King a Cloyster'd Monk as you may see in the History of Rodericus Santius par 2. c. 32. This is all the goodly Ground that either Gratian in his Decrees or Innocent III in the Decretals or Roger Hoveden in his History alledges against the Ecclesiastical Peers their sitting as Judges in Causes of Blood to wit this famous Gothish Council of Toledo The first that planted this Canon here in England was Stephen Langton a Cardinal the Pope's Creature as his Holiness was pleased to stile him in his Bull and thrust upon the See of Canterbury by a Papal Provision where he continued in Rebellion against his Soveraign as long as King John lived This Archbishop under colour of Ecclesiastical Immunity for so this Canon is marshall'd by Linwood at Osney near Oxford did ordain Ne quis Clericus beneficiatus vol in sacris Ordinibus constitutus praesumat interesse ubi judicium sanguinis tractatur vel exerceatur And this is the first Canon broach'd in this Kingdom to this effect that of Othobone being subsequent in time and a meer Foreign or Legantine Constitution See it at large in Linwood Constit lib. 3. ad sinem And by vertue of a Branch of this very Constitution the now Archbishop two years since sined the Bishop of Gloucester in the High-Commission because he had given way in time of Pestilence only that a Sessions a Judgment of Blood might be kept in a sacred place which was likewise inhibited in this Canon But this admits of a multitude of Answers First 149. Quod haec dictio Clericus ex vi verbi non comprehendit Episcopum Linwood lib. 3. de locat is conductis Secondly the irregularity incurr'd by Judicature in Causes of Blood is only Jure positivo and therefore dispensable by the Pope saith Covarruvias in Clemen si furiosus p. 2. com 5. n. 1. and here in England is dispens'd with in Bishops by the King who in his Writs or Summons to the Parliament commands the Lords Spiritual without any exception of Causes of Blood to joyn in all Matters and Consultations whatsoever with the Temporal Peers of the Kingdom their Summons being unto them a sufficient Dispensation so to do And Othobon himself inhibiting other Clerks to use these Secular Judicatures hath a Salvo to preserve the Priviledges of our Lord the King whereby he may use any of their Services in that kind when he shall see cause Tit. ne Clerici Juris saec exerceant And Linwood upon that Text doth instance in the Clerks of the Chancery and others Nor are these Writs that summon the
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
refuse to concurr with the Parliament nay if he took more time to deliberate upon it it would be worse for the Earl and he would come to a more unhappy Death for an Hellish Contrivance was resolved upon just as in St. Paul's case Acts 23.15 the Zealots that had vowed Paul's death laid the Plot with the Priests and Elders to signisie to the Captain to bring him down to enquire somewhat more perfectly concerning him and ere ever he came near they would fall upon him The condemn'd Earl when he heard of this was no longer fond of Lise but sent word to the King that he was well prepared for his End and would not his gracious Majest y should disquiet himself to save a ruin'd Vessel that must sink A valiant Message and sit for so great a Spirit Loginus notes acutely that when Ajax was to combat with Hector he begg'd some things of such Gods as he call'd upon but to escape with life was not in his Prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was beneath a Graecian Heroe to desire Life It being therefore to no purpose to dispute what was the best Remedy to save this Lord when there was none at all the House of Lords nominate four Prelates to go to His Majesty to propound how the Tenderness of his Conscience might safely wade through this insuperable dissiculty these were L. Primate Usher with the Bishops Morton Williams Potter There was none of those four but would have gone through Fire and Water as we say to save the Party which being now a thing beyond Wit and Power they state the Question thus to the King sure I am of the Truth because I had it from the three former Whether as His Majesty refers his own Judgment to his Judges in whose Person they act in Court of Oyer Kings-bench Assize and in Cause of Life and Death and it lies on them if an innocent man suffer so why may not His Majesty satisfie his Conscience in the present matter that since competent Judges in Law had awarded that they found Guilt of Treason in the Earl that he may susser that Judgment to stand though in his private mind he was not satisfied that the Lord Strafford was criminous for that juggling and corrupt dealing which he suspected in the Proofs at the Tryal and let the Blame lye upon them who sate upon the Tribunal of Life and Death The four Bishops were all for the ashrmative and the Earl took it so little in ill part that Reverend Armagh pray'd with him preach'd to him gave him his last Viaticum and was with him on the Scassoid as a Ghostly Father till his Head was severed from his Body 154. Indeed His Majesty in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doth seem to represent it as if he did not approve what he received from the four Bishops at that Consultation And I will leave such good men to his Censure rather than contradict any thing in that most pious most ravishing Book which deserves as much as Tully said of Crassus in his Brutus Ipsum melius potuisse scribere alium ut arbitror neminem Perhaps the King could have wrote better but I think no man else in the three Kingdoms What a venomous Spirit is in that Serpent Milton that black-mouth'd Zoilus that blows his Vipers Breath upon those immortal Devotions from the beginning to the end This is he that wrote with all Irreverence against the Fathers of our Church and shew'd as little Duty to his Father that begat him The same that wrote for the Pharisees That it was lawful for a man to put away his Wife for every cause and against Christ for not allowing Divorces The same O horrid that desended the lawfulness of the greatest Crime that ever was committed to put our thrice-excellent King to death A petty School-boy Scribler that durst graple in such a Cause with the Prince of the learned men of his Age Salmasius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eunapius says of Ammonius Plutarch's Scholar in Aegypt the Delight the Musick of all Knowledge who would have scorn'd to drop a Pen-full of Ink against so base an Adversary but to maintain the Honour of so good a King whose Merit he adorns with this Praise p. 237. Con. Milt De quo si quis dixerit omnia bona vix pro suis meritis satis illum ornaret Get thee behind me Milton thou savourest not the things that be of Truth and Loyalty but of Pride Bitterness and Falshood There will be a time though such a Shimei a dead Dog in Abishai's Phrase escape for a while yet he and the Enemies of my Lord the King will fall into the Hands of the Avenger of Blood And that Book the Picture of King Charles's innocent Soul which he hath blemish'd with vile Reproaches will be the Vade Mecum of godly persons and be always about them like a Guardian Angel It is no marvel if this Canker-worm Milton is more lavish in his Writings than any man to justifie the beheading of Strafford whom good men pray'd for alive and pitied him dead So did the four Bishops that I may digress no longer who pour'd the best Oyl they could into the King's Conscience to give him Peace within himself when the main Cause was desperate and common Fury would compel him in the end to sacrifice this Earl to the Parliament Things will give better Counsel to men than men to things But a Collector of Notes W. Sa. hath a sling at the Bishop of Lincoln his quill hits him but hurts him no more than if it were a Shuttle-cock with four Feathers Forsooth when those four Bishops were parting from the King he put a Paper into His Majesty's Hand and that could be nothing else but an Inflammatory of Reasons more than were heard in publick left the King should cool and not set his Hand to the fatal Warrant This Author was once in the right p. 154. of his own Book That it becomes an Historian in dubious Relations to admit the most Christian and Charitable Pessumè it is optimè herclè dicitis Plaut in Pen. But this Case needs no Favour The Paper which that Bishop put into the King's Hands as he told me the next morning was an humble Advice to His Majesty why he should not give the Parliament an indesinite time to sit till both Houses consented to their own dissolution Was not this faithful Counsel For what could the King see in them who had been so outragious already to stand out the trial of their wavering Faith Trust should make men true Says Livy lib. 22. Vult sibi quisque credi habita fides ipsam plerumque fidem obligat But a number of these men cared not for moral Principles they were all for the Scriptures and they read them by new Lights The King had too much Faith and they had no Good Works What magnanimous Prince would bow so low to give the Keys of Government to so many Male-contents
and to stand to their Courtesie when they would resign them again Nec missura cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo Hor. Art Poet. It could be for no small time that they itch'd to hold the Reins and having govern'd so long they would never be brought to obey The Fox in the Fable crept into a Granary of Corn and staid till his Belly was so full that he could not get out It is a wise Note of Spartianus upon Did. Julianus Reprchensus in eo praecipuè quod ques rogere auctoritate suâ debuit praesules sibi ipse fecit When the prudent Augustus saw he could not shake off a standing Senate he saw no way but to divide the Provinces of the Empire between him and them and to take the worst half the remotest to himself But did the King think to escape so well with an indissoluble Parliament Balsack writes prophanely That the World ought not to end until the French King's Race should fail And it proved by this concession to continue the two Houses to sit as long as they would that the Glory of the Crown should fail before they would endure their old Stump to be rooted up When a Swarm of luxurious men that made love to Penelope wasted Ulysses's Substance in his absence Homer breaks out Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let no King henceforth be gracious and kind for he shall fare as ill as the worst So let no King suppose to oblige his Subjects with the greatest Trust that was ever committed to men for he shall speed the worse for his considence in them The Bishop of Lincoln but two days before ask'd the King If his wise Father would have suffer'd such a thing to be demanded much left have granted it And Whether it would be possible for his truest Lieges to do him Service any more So bold he was and ply'd his good Master to the last with new Motives to dehort him from it I know not what ill Star scouled upon so good a King to listen to no good Counsel in that point There was one that thrust him on whose Advices were more loving than lucky And on a Sunday May 9. he signed the indefinite continuance of the Parliament as it is commonly voiced and Strafford's Execution with the same drop of Ink. A sad Subject and as I found it so I leave it 155. Wisdom and Reason were not wanting in that noble King Fortune was Darius called Codomann was the best of all the Kings of the Porsian Race from Cyrus downward to himself yet under him the Persian Monarchy was ruined and fell to the Macedonians Destinatus sorti suae jam nullius salubris consilii patiens says the Historian Curt. lib. 5. It cuts my Heart to say that this agrees to a far better Monarch than himself King Charles makes ready in the Summer for a Journey into Scotland hoping to bring over the Seditious there to love him with Sweetness and Caresses by Bounties as he was able by Honours bestow'd on some by Promises and by the gracious Interview of his presence for we owe Affection naturally to them that offer us Love Or if all this wrought not he was so oversway'd with Disdain to be near to Westminster where his Person his Justice his Court or his Clergy were slander'd every hour that he would ride far enough from the strife of Tongues and not be near the Furnace where the steam was so hot I heard one of his Bed-chamber say That nothing made him remove so far from his Court and Council as the tediousness of Intelligence brought to him every minute with variety of Glosses and Opinions upon it As Adrian the Emperor said in his last Sickness that he had too many Physicians about him to be cured so our King thought he had too many Counsellors at London to take distinct Advice Walk in the Spring-Garden in May and what Bird can you listen to particularly when there is not a Bough but hath a Bird upon it that warbles his own Note There is pleasure in that But those that press'd so thick upon the King came with some ill Augury Seraque fatidici cecinerunt omnia vates AEn lib. 5. Howsoever Home is homely says the Country Adagy and this Journey to Scotland was not begun in a good day There was never any Parliament like it which now fate that bewrayed openly so many foolish Fears raked up in the cold Embers of Distrust and Guiltiness Quae pueri in tenebris pavitant sing untque futurâ Therefore a Jealousie was straightway in their Heads that this Journey could not be good for them Why What can a King do to be good for himself and pernicious to his People Well said the Persians Xen. lib. 8. Cyr. paed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cyrus can undertake nothing and make it good for himself alone and not for us But upon their Jealousie they resolve to give the King such a Welcome home as should offend him O Hypocrites that seem to be afraid of the King when none had more cause than he to be afraid of them Watchful Lincoln had dived into the Secrets of the Masters of the private Assembly Hannibali omnia hostium non secus ac sua nota sunt Liv. lib. 22. Every man knows his own mind a wise man like Hannibal will know his Enemies if he can The Bishop coming to the King besought His Majesty that for his sake he would put off his Scotch Journey to another season His written Notes in my keeping are long and impersect the sum is thus He besought His Majesty to consider that the Scotts were Sear-boughs not to be bent whatsoever he said to them they would reveal it to their Cronies at Westminster for there was a Trade and Exchange that ran currently among them Some of them and not the meanest make it a slight thing to be persidious and will laugh at it when they are derected They have distinctions for it from their Kirk which straddle so wide that flat Contraries Yea and Nay Truth and Lyes may run between them K. James the Fourth had the knack of such Devices who having made a strong League of Peace with Harry VIII and yet invaded England with an Army remember it was at Flodden-Field Drummond p 142. said He did not break his League with England but departed from it The Bishop pray'd the King to remember that those Lowns had been in Hubbubs and Covenants and Arms two years together could they be converted of a sudden without a Miracle Integrum non est ad virtutem semel reliclam remigrare Cic. Lelius It will be a long time before Rebels find their Fidelity again when they have lost it They have shew'd their Despight so lately that it is too soon to offer them Courtesie they know in what condition your Majesty is and they will not take it for Kindness but Fear Keep near to the Parliament all the Work is within those Walls win them man by man inch
But the tidings came from the most interested in both Armies That none was more active than this great Prelate to keep Yorkshire in obedience to the King to reduce them that were perverted none more assiduous in the Consultations of War with the Gentry to raise Money Men and Horse for the Army This was hung up in Picture in the Hall and Change And let them do their worst in those peny Tables Sint modo carminibus non onerata malis as Passeratius deprecates all bad Epitaphs let them make good Verses to their Pictures or let their Poets hang up for Company But let this go together with his Loyalty that there was not one man that served him as Lord-Keeper or Bishop but either served or suffered in the King's Cause except a brace whom Kilvert had long before perverted They that were affected to the sin of the Parliament saw so much opposition in him and fierceness to bring them on their knees that the same unhappy ones vowed his death and were near to execution who first refisted his Majesty at Hull quae prima malorum Causa fuit belloque animos incendit agrestes Aen. l. 7. Which is worth a story to observe that these Professors of the new Discipline made no scruple to break down God's double Defence Touch not mine anointed and do my Prophets no harm 173. King Charles his coming to York was not a Progress of Delight but an Escape from his Palace of West minster for the Alarums of continual Mutinies which he could not stand out with safety As great a blemish to the Parliament that provided no better for him as the flight of Harry the Third of France was to the Guisians on the Sunday which is still called by them Dominica dolearis when they would have block't him up with Piles of Wine-Casks in the Louver to keep him fast for stirring His Majesty's first care was and ought to be to have some Hold of good Defence for Retreat if Blood-hounds sought him And happy was that Fortress of which he should make Election for so good a Service All places are patent to a Monarch that are under his Laws and Scepter though he were a Tyrant Then what inferiour Officer would not be glad to give the Keys of his Government upon his Knees to as great a Saint as Josiah Tribonius writes well to that matter in an Epistle to Tully of Caesar Lib. 12. Ep. Fam. Eum quem necesse erat diligere qualiscunque esset talem habemus ut libenter quoque diligamus And certainly he that should repulse the King in his first design must both be his first and his greatest Enemy Initia ferè dare formam negotiis Thuan. An. 1558. The first Success gives Spirit to an Army and Honour to their Chief Which the solid man Tacitus teacheth Hist lib. 2. Ut initia belli provenissent famam in caetero fore And if the first Expedition be unfortunate it is as ominous as a sinister hour at the birth of a Child when an Astrologer Calculates a Nativity So unauspicious it was that his Majesty did stumble I may say at the Threshold when he came out of Doors He goes to Hull where he had stowed up Shot Powder Arms in his Magazine The Gates are kept shut the Walls manned Sir John Hotham and his Son capitulate that they keep it for the Parliament Dirarum nidis domus opportuna volucrum Aen. 8. A strong Cage it was to keep these unclean Birds from the Royal Eagle Great Ordnance great Provision great Wealth were within No man would have sealed up a Box so fast if it had been empty Yet the Hothams were so kind that they offer'd Entrance to his Majesty's Person with a few of his unarmed Servants which was no better than to receive him to be their Prisoner Intempestiva benevolentia mhil à simultate differt says Politian Ep. p. 26. Nothing is more hateful than a malicious Courtesie But they look't to be born out in all they did by the strength of their great Masters and had cast it up that when Crimes are carried in a happy strain of Luck they lose their Infamy that shame seldom or never follows victory The Names of Delinquent or Traitor never scar'd them Haec acies victum factura nocentem est Silius He must be the Delinquent that is at the Conquerour's Mercy Unlucky Town of Hull for thy Commanders sakes Perhaps some other Garrisons would have been as bad as it if they had been tried Perhaps so But no Dunghil smells ill till you stir it Hull had the opportunity to be renown'd if it had yielded to be the King's Harbour Now her Infamy is like that of the Village of the Samaritans which would not receive the Lord Christ Luke 9.52 I do not condemn all that were within her Walls who could not help this Insolency but with groans and tears if they durst do that I will plead for such as I know there were such as Isocrates did for the Plataâ—ks forced by the Thebans to do unkindness to their Friends the Athentans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Theban constrained their Bodies but their Hearts were with you Their Lecturers were the Corrupters of that Corporation who had preach't the People from Charitable to Censorious from neighbourly Love to Faction from Subjects to Rebels from Sheep to Swine Quá magis viá irrepunt vitia quà m publicá Prin. l. 36. c. 2. If you would have some great harm done imploy those who are heard so often in publick and they shall do a mischief sooner than all the Brotherhood of the Guild beside Absalom sent Spies throughout all the Tribes of Ifrael saying as soon as ye hear the sound of the Trumpet ye shall say Absalom reigns in Hebron 1 Sam. 15.10 Spies says Grotius upon the place and in all the Tribes Some of these must be Levites for none but they dwelt among all the Tribes Genus hominum ad turbandas res maxime idoneum ubi suis indulgent affectibus These are they that will sooner rail against me for this observation then leave off their girdings at the Civil State and keep close to that matter only which Christ hath taught them in his Gospel Their bald Rhetorick sit for great Ears and gross Brainâ— made the King wait attendance two hours at their Gate and had his Commands nay his Prayers despised O that a King should give the stoop to such as these Meumque Objeci caput supplex ad limina veni Aen. 8. So great a heart in another Prince would not have turn'd away without Choler and Fire flashing upon them But he was a Soveraign over all his Passions and opened not his mouth Nullius hominis quà m sui simillimus as was said of Picus Mirandula He had no pattern of a meer Man before him and none that saw him for a Pattern was ever like him for Patience So let Cerberus that kept the Gates of Hull keep them still It is a greater honour
Accordance did he make in that very Instant How many Messengers were posted to London which was no better than to dry-ditch the business for every Offer of Grace made his Enemies haughty the King's Reputation less his Friends suspicious that he could sooner entreat for than defend his Cause Paper Mercuries well worded are fine things but not forcible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for Ulysses sake so much abused says Homer For K. Charles so much rejected say I let no Prince hope to bend the stubborn and revolted Subject with Goodness and Mildness break them to pieces and quell them with Power there is no other Art to work upon such churlish Metal Forasmuch then as the King saw that he but abused advantage of time to knock at a Door that would never be opened he opened the Temple of Janus that was close shut before and let out War if it might be called so who brought scarce 600 into the Field but had his Array been forty times more he would not have look'd how strong he was but how innocent and the more innocent because most unwilling Well did the Orator state it lib. 4. ep 7. Sapientem bonum virum initia belli civilis invitum suscipere 〈◊〉 non libenter persequi Which was consonant to the Hearts-affection of our King as he took it upon his Death And to speak to common Reason and Charity a man whose Paths were Piety his Governance Mercy his Bed Chastity his Repast Sobriety his Addresses Humility how could he set a Ditty to any other Prick'd Song but the Tune of Peace 175. What Pardon can we expect from the Censure of a better Age that we did not stop the Fury of Malecontents before any drop of Blood was shed I appeal to Fidelity Homage Duty why did we no instantly raise an Host of Horse and Foot which Rebels would not dare to encounter And because Help from remoter Countries would be too flow for sudden action why did not the adjacent Counties come in all as one man where the Royal Standard was pitch'd Water which is to be setch'd far will not quench a Fire There are some Vertues which lose their Name unless they operate as soon as their fit Object is before them To be loyal to be thankful to be just to be remorseful should be done ex tempore And I appeal to Prudence who doth not know that if you endure the Feaver of a Civil War to have one Fit it will have more and consume the Body-politick before it be cured Semper erit paribus bellum quia viribus aequant Manil. lib. 1. Which Sir Walter Ralâ—igh well translates Hist p. 179. Equals from Equals will receive equal harms When a domestick War seizeth on a Country rich in Plenty and full of Surfeits with continual Ease it never leaves purging those Superfluities till all be wast d. It was an Imposture which many were willing to put upon their own Cenference by this Excuse that they did nothing against Allegiance because they took not the contrary part First None can sin against themselves but that they incurr a great Guilt and those betrayed their Liberties and Livelihoods to the Rage of Tyrants for not defending themselves themselves I say for while they fight for their King they fight for themselves if he fall they are ruin'd in whose Weal their own is comprehended And their not listing themselves in the King's Battalion was a Trespass It is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by one word in Greek when the Subjects make not ready to follow their Soveraign in Arms And note the Punishment of it 1 Sam. 11.7 Saul hewed a yoke of oxen and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of his messengers saying Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and Samuel so shall it be done to his oxen and the fear of the Lord fell on the people and they came out with one consent Not the care of Wife and Children in a Family not a weak Body not a grey Head should free a Subject from such a Service To the latter which may look more excusable than the rest Symmachus gives an Instance p. 10. Epis Nullam Nestor tertio aetatis curriculo militiae vacationem poposcit Where was the English Piety or where was their Bravery at this season that so few adventur'd themselves to draw their Swords for the Lord 's Anointed when so many invited themselves unbidden to do a Mischief I go further They were basely backward to come forth into the Field when they should have stood manfully to their own Cause for it was not the King's Cause alone it was the Kingdoms Cause and the King was in the Cause Non magni partes sed magnum in partibus esse Lucan lib. 5. Put King Charles into the Verse for Pompey and the sence is the same I have no Name scurvy enough for it that without some special feelings and ends of their own few lead on to remove an Evil for the common Relief but would thrust every man before them into the danger of an Action if they can share in the Profit of an Event they mind not the Glory And that which in Reason should have drawn the Peasants on held them back the small Band of Souldiers that march'd after His Majesty This Objection was every man's Fault that did not make the thin Files more by one And it was every ones Infidelity that would not trust in the Lord of Hosts to maintain the Right He gives power to the faint and to them that have no might he encreaseth strength Isa 40.29 What Cowardice was it to think all was lost before they struck a stroke Turpiter desperatur quicquid fieri potest Liv. lib. 10. If God had given the Multitude Faith to remove this Despair and to have obeyed the King in the first Onset Rebellion had sunk into the Ground like Snow and nothing could have been added to our Prosperity with wishing 176. And yet I will not say that the Sin of Omission was bad in all alike some did not discharge Allegiance out of Imprudence and Frailty but take them by the Poll and more offended out of Design and Subtilty such as turned their Sails to the changableness of the Wind Utcunque in alto ventus est velum vortitur So Plautus of such crafty Time-servers That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I condemn'd when subjects did not give up their names to the king's militia was worse in them by far that kept at home till they saw how fortune went abroad who would be of no side in the open dispute that in the end they might be of the victor's side they would wear the king's colours in the pale purple if the day were his or Essex's Badge in Orange-tawny if Treason proved prosperous These Neutralists are of a Spaniel Brood that will fawn as much upon a Stranger as upon their Master and are welcome to none because they undertake Impossibilities to
and so it did for certain in Adam the first Father and first King Yet grant them their asking here is an Instance to silence them All the Creatures were made before Man yet God gave him the Dominion to govern them that were created before and after him It is to no more purpose to cavil That the King is made for the good of the People Is that which is appointed for the good of another the less for that Cause Quite contrary 't is therefore the greater So is a Preceptor and Shepherd the one above the Scholars the other above the Flock Saravia distinguisheth skilfully de Obed. p. 228. Quod est propter aliud si benesicium ab co accipit minus esl si dat majus est They stretch their Wit further and say That the King gives his Oath to his Subjects to mamtam them in their known Laws It well befits him So God gave an Oath to Abraham and David Quare juramentum praes itum Inseriori non ei subjicn Superiorem says the same Author As for the matter of the Oath to keep the Laws it puts him not under the Wrath of Men if he do not keep them but under the Wrath of God A King is to keep the Laws of Nations with other Princes yet is not subject to them God defend us from making Experiments what would come to pass if the choice of a Governor or Governors were referred to the thousands and millions of England Beware a Heptarchy again beware an Hecatontarchy Things give better Counsel to men than men to things Look behind enquire into Histories what bloody meetings the World hath known upon such ambitious bandings between Gogs and Magog's Parties An quae per totam res atrocissima Lesbon Non audita tibi est Metam l. 2. Is it forgotten how they have lifted up their Friends in a Fit and straightway pluck'd them down in a Fury As the Greek Emperor said to a Bishop Ego te Furne condidi ego te destruam For as Painters delight in Pieces not being made but in their making so the Hare-brain'd Multitude run on to a Choice with Greediness and when it is pass'd they loath it with Fickleness The Conclusion shall be That this Stratagem to unthrone a King by the pretended inherent Right of the People can come to no conclusion For if there were occasion for all Cities Counties Burroughs Hamblets to come to try that Right who shall warn them that the opportunity is ripe to require their concurrence Who shall summon them Why A. rather than B Who shall propound Upon what place shall they meet Who shall preserve Order and Peace For every Hog when you drive them must have a String about his own Leg. Who shall umpire and stop Outrages Such there will be Saevitque animis ignobile vulgus An hundred impossible Dissiculties may be added to these and he that can rowl them up all into Sence deserves the Philosopher's Stone for his Labour To divert the vulgar fort from meddling with things improper to and so much above them Budaeus remembers me how to call them to such a Choice as is fitter for them lib. 1. de As In Pervigilio Epiphamae regnum ad sesquiboram lusu sabae sortiuntur Let them chuse the King of the Bean on Twelsth-night and be merry with the Cake-bread 189. The best of Kings had some that fell off from him after the fust and second year of the War when they saw his Enemies had got ground in some Skirmishes and Sieges and were possest of the best part of his Navies surrendred to them by a false Faitour This was a colour for their Rhetoricians to impute Righteousness to the fortunate Part. And their Orders for Thanksgivings boast of it that God did own their Cause because of the Victories which had besall'n them But Wisdom dresseth her self by her own Light and minds not the shadow of Success for after the first dark Cloud that comes it can be seen no more It is not strange that Self-lovers are so wary and rash Springolds so sond to like that which is most lucky Thucyd. l. 1. notes it upon the variable turnings of the Peloponnesian Wars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men cannot leave but they will bend their Fancies to the Casualties of Events Nay says Matth. de Prin. c. 25. There is no living for us without that Tropical Humour Si tempora mutant ur statim perit qui in agendo rationem non mutat But all such Errours shall be reversed and the mistakes consuted before a Tribunal Eternal Impartial which will deceive none Go not about then to try right and wrong as they are bandied among us No man knows either Love or Hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Eccles 9.2 If you Judge the merit of a Cause or the integrity of a Man by prosperous Chance Epicurus will have a strong tentation to say Is there a God whose wisdom sees and governs all things Dionysius when he had rob'd a Temple and failed away merrily with his Booties scost at it Videt is amici quà m bona à Diis immortalibus navigatio sacrilegis datur Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 3. Such a Scandal another of the voluptuary Sect took at a Courtezan that had forsworn her self and look't more amiably after it Obligasti Perfidum diris caput enitescis Pulchrior multo juvenumque prodis Publica cura Horat. Od. l. 4. We that are bred under holy Discipline know that it will be the worse for thee hereafter for their Torments will appear more bitter in the next World because they felt nothing but pleasure in this The ways of God are past finding out He permits that Evil which he hates and he Corrects that Good which he loves This is the Trial of Faith Quicquid imponitur molit All that is brought to her Mill she will grind it into fine slour of Thanksgiving and Patience and is afsured That as a Ball mounts higher when it is thrown to the ground so a good Cause when it is beaten will rebound higher to Heaven Otherwise says Manilius l. 5. Si sorte accesserit impetus ausis Improbitas fiet virtus If Sin get the better at hand-blows Vertue shall hold up its hand at the Bar and be condemned for Vice Joshuah's discomfit at Ai Josiah's at Megiddo the hundred Victories that the Saracens have had against the Christians tell us how they that sight the Lord's Battels are not priviledged from turning their Backs to their Enemies It is an acute passage of S. Ambrose in an Epistle to Valentinian That the Heathen had no reason to beast that the Idols whom they worshipt were true Gods and gave them â—icleries for if the Romans prevailed where were the Carthaginian Gods to help them if the Carthaginians triumpht where were the Roman Gods when they were beaten Success will neither serve Christians nor Heathen
to make a competent Judge for the lawfulness of their War For is it not most impious to prove a Cause not till after the Victory and to have no Inducement that they sought for the right till all was done Experience is stronger than twenty Reasons against it As Paterculus said of one good man Lusius Drusus Meliore in omma ingenio quà m fortuná usus so let there be thousands of such in a body their Innocency may be greater than their Fortune The fallacy of Success is to be exploded out of the Morals of Justice neither can such a contingent Medium produce a demonstrative Conclusion It was bravely pleaded by the Rhodians in an Oration before the Roman Senate Liv. lib. 35. You Romans were wont to account your Wars prosperous Non tam exitu eorum quòd vincat is quà m principiis quod non sine causâ suscipiat is I may say hic rhodus hic saltas And this is sapience to list them who admire Success among those whom Fortune favours 190. Neither were the vain-glorious content to pride it upon Success and to stamp it upon their Money God with us but sharpned their presumption against the King's Friends with Insultations and Revilings that they were unregenerate such as walked after the flesh forsaken of God and appointed to slaughter Bitter untrue uncharitable Such as knew not his Majesty's faithful Soldiers thought vilely of them such as faw their daily diligence at Common-Prayer their sidelity for their Lord and King their preparation for death their adventuring their Estates and Bodies in all hard Service without pay nay without necessary Subsistence did deservedly magnisie the Grace of God that was in them Yet we do not justifie all Some scores of them might have been spared who were driven into the King's Quarters by the Oppression of the Parliament and came to save themselves more than to defend the King and it was a common observation at Oxford that excepting the great Counsellors and the Clergy they that sought least liv'd worst Yet the loosest of these kept their Oath of Allegiance which comes nearer to a Saint than any Rebel of a good outside Qui nesciret in armis Quam magnum crimen virtus civilibus esset Luc. l. 6. But did they never read of an holy Commander forced to take Arms in a good Cause and guarded from his Enemies by Persons of an homely Character David is the Captain the Heir to the Crown of Israel and Judah by God's Election his Cause to escape the Tyranny of Saul not to bid him War And what were his Soldiers 1 Sam. 22.2 Every one that was in distress discontented in debt of a bitter soul gathered themselves to David and he became a Captain over them There were sins very reproveable in either of our adverse Armies put them thus into a comparison Which did most offend God Noah's planting a Vine and being drunk or the building of the Tower of Babel The Casuists have an Answer at their fingers ends That drunkenness corrupted the world but ambition confounded it And is not confusion of a whole Realm more pernicious than corruption in a part But how willingly did the sober Army allow cherish and make wealthy their Chaplain Peters Is there such another spotted Leopard in all the King's Quarters as Catulus said of Nonius What a deal of dung doth that Cart carry Have they no better excuse for themselves than a pandanni Plauti trinum Scelest us est at mihi infidelis non est or than Xenoph. makes for the Athenians in his Oration upon their Republick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Athenians a baseness in them loved those that were fit and useful for them though they were wicked men Yet it was not the Riot of the King's Army that caused it to be improsperous that was reported where nothing was examin'd and weighed but out of spight believed as it was rumor'd It was partly neglect of Duties for want of pay But chiefly Presumption that their cause was clearly loyal and lawful that the name of the King was more than thirty thousand that the Subjects of England did never suffer the Crown in fine to be opprest that they would fight for it though it hung upon an Heythorn-Hedge They forgot that the English were new cast and turn'd into another People by scottish sawciness and contempt of Soveraignty This Presumption kept the King's Forces sleeping when their Enemies were waking and what is Presumption but Hope run out of its Wits The Rebels were well paid well provided of all Ammunition mightily courted by their Chiestains as Tertullian could say de Praes c. 41. Nunquam 〈◊〉 proficitur quà m in castris rebellium ubi ipsum esse illic promereri est Again none are so adventurous as they that dare not be Cowards for fear of hanging The Law was behind the Parliamentarians sight or hang. Despair will inspire a faint heart as a skilful Author notes it Vegetius l. 3. Clausis in desperatione crescit audacia cum spei nihil est sumit arma formido These are the Difficulties through which the King was to pass and could not which is no dishonour to his Goodness or Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. No man need to be ashamed that he cannot do all things And never wonder if the Counsels of men well contrived be frustrated by the secret Counsels of God which an Ethnick expresseth in the style of his Religion Destinata salubriter omni ratione potentior fortuna discussit Curt. l. 3. To clear up this more would they that so much adore their Idol Success would they have confest from their heart their own Cause to be wrong if the King had beaten them I believe the God of this World hath darkned them so much that such a Confession cannot be gotten out of them The Weavers of Kidderminster must not be brought to such a sight of their sin that is they must never repent if they be true Disciples of Mr. Baxter's Doctrine The best of Orators was the greatest of Dissemblers in his Plea for Ligarius before Caesar Tully had been a violent Pompeian but the whole Empire after the Pharsalian Field being turn'd Caesarean says the fine-spoken man Nunc certè melior ea causa judicanda est quam etiam Dii adjuverunt Yet so much dissonancy there was between his Tongue and his Heart that he triumpht in the murder of Caesar the only Roman that exceeded all their Race in nobleness and was next to Tully in eloquence Boast not therefore in Success which is an advantage to make Insidels proud but the abstruse ways of God's Providence which setteth up one and pulleth down another as he pleaseth should make us Christians humble 191. For all this if the wise men of Goat-ham will appeal to Success to Success let the matter be referr'd and then every eye may see what was the Summum bonum the chief aim and drift of the rebellious Enterprise Wealth and Spoil So
desensible whither he carried the Prayer of Synesius with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would presently lay down my life and very contentedly if I might see my Country the beautiful Shape of former Peace and Happiness 194. Physicians use to prescribe to their Patients when a tedious Languor hangs upon them to remove their dwelling and change the Air. But Pliny says Longissima locorum mutatio est utilissima the further removing from the Soil where they did not mend the more wholesom and healing I would it proved so to this Archbishop who lest Cawood-Castle in the North to come to Aber-Conway in Wales It was the magnetick attraction of the Town wherein he was born that drew him thither Summas in affectu partes jure sibi usurpat terra quae genuit Sidon lib. 3. ep 8. And a greater than he King James called it a Salmon-like instinct to see the place of his Breeding Spotsw Hist p. 257. He had been near fifty years from the County of Carnarvan and the Town of Conway unless by incidentary Visits where his Mother brought him forth Now by the circulation of a strange Destiny he is carried thither in a Rapture or a Whirlwind to spend a few years and to end his last days An ulla est patria tam digna quae hanc reciperet virtutem quam quae peperit as Tully pleads for An. Milo Even now it was that every Hundred almost every Tything of this Kingdom did need some wise and couragious Man to defend it And who could better settle the distracted People of Wales than this person and who did better deserve his help than his own Flesh and Blood He came not so much for Refuge as to be a Refuge to those true-hearted Mountaineers his Kindred and Allies He is well who is the better for others but he is happy for whom others are the better And they might give God thanks that their Chief was come among them Their Fault is that there are many emulations another would call them Factions between the tops of their Families who would never have been brought into one Body to do the King Service unless such a Man had interposed who could wind in some with Patience and Bounty and scatter others with Authority Nothing liker to him than Pompo Atticus in AEmilius Probus Ita Athenis se gerebat ut communis insimis par principibus haberetur Though indeed it was not common Love but common Fear that drew those Counties into Confederation so true it is what Philostratus hath in Protesilao The communion of good things as Plenty and Peace often breed heart-burnings and envy but when men share in Miseries they begin to love one another recompensing Compassion for Compassion It behoved him that was a wise Man and potent in those remote places to watch two Evils among them that cried up the King's Cause Treachery among false Friends and Disagreement among true ones but such as had rather perish than be ruled The Archbishop had as good a scent as any Vulture to smell them out who held Intelligence with the Enemy of whom he secured a few and the rest fled far enough out of guiltiness To stop the other Inconvenience besides the general Love born to him and his great Alliances he found it best to appear in the strength of a strong hold with such Men and Arms as might incline the whole Body to obey his Counsels For they that are beset with danger had better go one way in concord then ran many ways though they were better with crossness and discord Which they might learn from those that were disciplin'd by the Parliament nay from the Devils Est quaedam concordia inter daemones non ex amicitiá sed ex nequitiâ proveniens as the School-men distinguish it Moreover this Prelate well seen in all good things inured all North-Wales round about to Piety to brotherly Love to Temperance as well as to be fit to use their Arms. He bid that frequent Prayers should be had in all Churches with Fasting Put the Ministers to preach weekly and none more often in the Pulpit than himself invited well-prepared Christians many times to partake of the Lord's Supper the best Ordinance of the Gospel and little used there by most culpable negligence This was the course he rook 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Aeschyl in Persis Wisdom did turn the Rudder of his Projects And this was the way to bring down God among them Si vis tuto vivere benè vive nihil virtute securius it is in a Dialogue of Petrarchs And none could be more active in any place that owned the King's Authority than he was there in providing Powder and Ammunition in sorting good Commanders in fortifying Conway Castle and such like to his Majesty's high content and his deserved praise as will come on in the sequel So much did Wales gain by that which Yorkshire lost As Tully solaced himself in his banishment Lib. 3. Ep. Duas res quibus me sustineam habeo optimarum rerum scientiam maximarum rerum gloriam so he that was driven by the evil Spirit of the Hothams into this Wilderness had these Companions to travel with him great Piety great Learning and great Glory 195. Being entred into the care of so great a Province he wearied himself and all that assisted in the Service with indefatigable diligence His own share in collecting Moneys gathering Forces repairing the Castle casting up Works writing sending consulting woing and entreating was his as much as the burden of all the Agitants besides In which assiduity of watching and an hundred vexations his strength and healthful vigour well maintained to that time began to fail and from that year came forward no more 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrysost lib. 2. de Sacerd. Continual cares says he will pull down the spirit the body much more The male-contents at London heard of it quickly how busie he was in arraying the Welch Militia although no Bishop belide would run such hazard but all fell quietly to their Prayers Hereupon they that acted for the Parliament did him the worst despight they could libelling be riming him setting him in out in Picture covered with a Helmet Musquet on his Shoulder Sword and Bandaliers about him A trick which they had learnt of their Gossips the Low-Dutch who traduce the greatest Kings in Europe in such paltry Tables with their Mechanick Scurrility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Baubles to be laught at for the folly and to be lamented for the bitterness The worst was that there were many clashes at Conway and in the contines of it among themselves The raw Soldiers now come into muster and pay were malapart and crowed over their own Friends that had not the honour as they call'd it to serve on Horse or to trail a Pike They had not gotten John Baptist's Lesson by heart Luke 3.14 To do no violence to put no man in fear to be content with their allowance In some things