being broke open before the Common Council of Athens one of which was subscribed to the Queen Olympias was returned untoucht the whole Senate thinking it a shamefull and dishonest act to discover and betray the Conjugall secrets betwixt man and wife A modesty in which those of Athens stand as much commended by Helladius Bisantinus an ancient Writer as the chief leading men of the Houses of Parliament are like to stand condemned for the want of it in succeeding Histories But we return unto the King who having saved himself by flight gathered together some part of his scattered Forces but never was able to make head against the conquerors losing one place after another till his whole strength was almost reduced to Oxford and some few Garrisons adjoyning I shall take notice onely of some of the principal viz. Chester Conway Hereford Bristol and Exeter on which so great a part of his affairs did most especially depend Chester first comes within the danger a City of great importance in those parts of the Kingdom To the relief of this place then besieged by Sir William Brereton Collonel Jones and others of that party and at that time brought to some distresse he made all the convenient speed he could but was pursued upon the way and charged in front by the besiegers betwixt whom this small Army was routed at a place called Bauton-Heath and the Lord Bernard Stuart newly created Earl of Lichfield killed upon the place the last of three brethren that had lost their lives in their Princes quarrell On this discomfiture the King draws towards the North-East and commands the Lord Digby with the Remainder of his Horse to march for Scotland and there to joyn with the Marquesse of Montrosse who with small strengths had acted Miracles in that Kingdome But at a Village in Yorkshire called Sherbourn a fatall name but pointing to another place where he surprized 700 of the Parliaments Foot he he was set upon by Collonel Cotly his Forces made drunk with the good fortune of the day very easily mastered and he himself compelled to fly into Ireland never returning since that time to his Native Country But notwithstanding the Kings misfortune before mentioned which happened on the twenty ninth of September the Lord Byron who had the command of the Garrison in Chester held it out gallantly till the first of February and then perceiving that there was no hopes of any Succour came to an honourable composition and gave up the Town the greatest part of the Countrey falling into the same condition with their mother City Before we leave the North-west parts we must look upon the fortune of the Town and Castle of Conway a place of principall Command on that narrow Channell which runneth between the County of Carnarvon and the Isle of Anglesey Before this Town being then besieged by Collonel Mitton came Doctor John Williams formerly Lord Keeper of the great Seal of England and at that time Arch-bishop of York Who to ingratiate himself with the Houses of Parliament and to save the charges of compounding for Delinquency came with some forces to the aid of the Besiegers some say in Armour and encamped there till the place was taken to the Amazement of the world and the eternall infamy and Reproch of his Person Bristol comes next a place conveniently seated for the Trade of Spain the River capable of great Ships and the port well guarded At the taking of this City by the Kings Forces to such strengths as before it had there was added a Fort Royall as they called it then conceived impregnable into this City Prince Rupert who had spent there too much of the year before had put himself at the present and was besieged not long after by Sir Thomas Fairfax who came before it on the twenty fourth of August and had it surrendred to him without any memorable resistance together with the old Castle and Royall Fort on the thirteenth of September The quick surrendry of which place being so well fortified and furnisht with victuall Arms and Ammunition and the weak defences which were made to preserve the same created some suspicion of disloyalty in Prince Rupert towards the King his Uncle There had before passed some Letters betwixt the King and him touching the Kings coming to a speedy agreement with his Houses of Parliament in which the King was prest so far that he seemed to be displeased at it And now this news coming on the neck of those Letters startled him into such a distrust of his Nephews Loyalty that he dispatcht a messenger with all speed to the Lords at Oxford to displace Collonell William Legg one of the Confidents of Prince Rupert who had succeeded Sir Henry Gage in the Government of that City and to put into his place Sir Thomas Glenham a Gentleman of known extraction and more known fidelity Nor were the Lords of the Council lesse amazed at the news then his Majesty was who thereupon when Prince Rupert and his Brother Maurice returned to Oxford commanded them to be disarmed and would not suffer them to walk the streets with their Swords by their sides as they had done formerly though afterwards by the Kings great goodnesse they were restored to all apparences of favour though not to any speciall places of Command or Trust Hereford followes the same fortune which having in vain been besieged by the Scots from the 13 of July to the first of September was suddenly surprized by Collonel Birch and Collonel Morgan this last then Governour of Glocster on the eighteenth of December Exceter holds out longest and was last attempted such blocks as lay in the way between Fairfax his Army and that City being first in the course of war to be removed Which took up so much time that it was the twenty fifth day of January before Fairefax could come neer enough to give it a Summons and being summon'd it held out till the thirteenth of April and then was yielded upon as honourable Conditions as any other whatsoever all other Garrisons in the West being first surrendred the Princes forces worsted at Torrington not long after disbanded upon Composition and he himself retired into France for his personall safety All these mischances thus hapning on the neck of one another all the Kings hopes and expectation rested upon the coming of Sir Jacob Astley created Lord Astley of Reading two years since Who having kept together some Remainders of the Kings Forces since the Fight neer Chester and increasing them with the Accession of some fresh supplies marched towards the King and was to have been met upon the way by Sir John Campsfield with the Oxford Horse But either through the want of intelligence or the necessity of fate or some occasionall delayes it was so long before Campsfield was upon his march that the newes came of the Lord Astleys being vanquish'd at a place called Donnington neer Stow on the Wold on the 21 of March In which fight
the advice of his Privy Councel dispatcht a command to the Earl of Bristol not to deliver up the Proxie unlesse the businesse of the Palatinate were concluded also The expectation whereof not being answered by Successe a Parliament is summoned to begin on the sixteenth day of February then next following to the end that all things might be governed in this great Affair by the publick Counsel of the Kingdom Not long after the beginning whereof the Duke declared before both Houses more to the disadvantage of the Spaniard then there was just ground for how unhandsomely they had dealt with the Prince when he was in Spain how they had fed him with delaies what indignities they had put upon him and finally had sent him back not onely without the Palatinate but without a Wife leaving it to their prudent Consideration what course to follow It was thereupon voted by both Houses that his Majesty should be desired to break off all Treaties with the King of Spain and to engage himself in a war against him for the recovery of the Palatinate not otherwise to be obtained And that they might come the better to the end they aimed at they addresse themselves unto the Prince whom they assured that they would stand to him in that War to the very last expence of their lives and fortunes and he accordingly being further set on by the Duke became their instrument to perswade his Father to hearken to the Common Votes and desires of his Subjects which the King prest by their continuall importunities did at the last assent to But in the conduct of this Businesse the Prince consulted more the Dukes passion and the pleasing of the Commons in Parliament then either his own or the Regall interesse For there is nothing more unsafe for a King of England then to cast himself upon the necessity of calling Parliaments and depending on the purse of the Subject By means whereof he makes himself obnoxious to the Humour of any prevailing Member in the House of Commons and becomes lesse in Reputation both at home and abroad The Commons since the time of King James have seldome parted with a peny but they have paid themselves well for it out of the prerogative And this appeared by their proceedings in this very Parliament For though they had ingaged the King in a War with Spain and granted him three Subsidies and three Fifteens toward the beginning of that War yet would they not suffer that grant to passe into an Act of Parliament till the King had yielded to another against Concealments Insomuch as it was affirmed by Justice Dodderidge at the next Publick Assizes held in Oxford that the King by passing that Act had bought those Subsidies and Fifteens at ten years purchase Nor dealt they otherwise with this Prince then they did with his Father those very Commons who had ingaged him in the Warre and bound themselves to make good that ingagement with their lives and fortunes most shamefully deserting him in the first Parliament of his Reign and after working more and more upon his necessities till they had robbed him of the richest Jewels in the Regal Diadem 1624. But to proceed the Treaty with Spain being like to come to a Rupture it was judged necessary to counterballance the Power of that King by negotiating a Match with the Princesse Henrietta Maria the youngest Daughter of France first set on foot by the Mediation of the Earl of Holland who found that Court inclinable thereunto and afterwards concluded at the coming over of the Earl of Carlile joyned in Commission to that purpose It was reported that when she was told that the Prince of Wales had been at the Court and was gone for Spain she Answered that if he went to Spain for a Wife he might have had one nearer hand and saved himself a great part of the trouble And I have read that receiving at one time two Letters from England the one from King James and the other from the Prince she put that from King James into her Cabinet and that from Prince Charles into her Bosom Of which King James being told he was exceedingly pleased with it saying that he took it for a very good Omen that she should preserve his Name in her Memory and lodge Charles in her heart 1625. During these preparations for War and Marriage King James departed this life at Theobalds on Sunday the twenty seventh of March Anno 1625. Immediately upon whose death Prince Charles was proclaimed at the Court-Gates to be King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. The like done presently after at London and by degrees in all the other Cities and Towns of the Kingdom with infinite rejoycings and Acclamations of the People The Funeralls of the deceased King were celebrated on the seventh of May his body being brought from Somerset-House with great Magnificence to Saint Peters Church in Westminster where he was interred the King himself being principall Mourner Which though it were contrary to the Custome of his Predecessours yet he chose rather to expresse his Piety in attending the dead body of his Father to the Funerall Pile then to stand upon any such old Niceties and points of State The Funerall being past he thought it was time for him to quicken the coming over of his dearest Consort to whom he had been married on the Sunday before at the Church of Nostre-Dame in Paris the Duke of Chevereux a Prince of the House of Guise from which House King Charles derived himself by the Lady Mary of Lorain Wife to James the fifth espousing the Princesse in his Name On Trinity Sunday late at night she was brought by a Royall Fleet of Ships from Bulloign to Dover which being signified to the King who was then at Canterbury he went to her betimes the next morning and received her with great expressions of Affection professing that he would be no longer Master of himself then whilest he was a Servant to her The same day He brought her to Canterbury where he gave himself up to those Embraces to which from that time he confined himself with such a Conjugal Chastity that on the day before his death he commanded his Daughter the Princesse Elizabeth to tell her Mother that his thoughts had never straied from her and that his love should be the same to the last On the Thursday after being the sixteenth of June they came from Gravesend to White-hall in their Royal Barges attended with an infinite number of Lords Ladies and other people who could get Boats to wait upon them the Ordnance from the Ships which were then preparing for the Wars those from the Merchants Ships and the Tower of London thundering her Welcome as she past But in the heat of these Solemnities and entertainments the King forgat not the main Concernments of himself and the Kingdome and to that end began his first Parliament on Saturday the eighteenth of June which fell out not unseasonably that
himself was taken prisoner and with him all the Kings hopes lost of preserving Oxford till he could better his condition 1646. In this extremity he left that City in disguise on the 27 day of April Anno 1646. and on the fourth of May put himself into the hands of the Scots then lying at the siege of Newark After the taking of which Town they carried him to Newcastle and there kept him under a Restraint The news hereof being brought to Oxford and seconded by the coming of the whole Army of Sir Thomas Fairfax who laid siege unto it disposed the Lords of the Council and such of the principall Gentry who had the conduct of the Affair to come to a speedy Composition According whereunto that City was surrendered on Midsomer day James Duke of York the Kings second Son together with the Great Seal Privy Seal and Signet were delivered up into the hands of the enemy by whom the young Duke was sent to Westminster and kept in the House of S. James under a Gard with his Brother and Sisters the Seals being carried into the House of Peers and there broke in pieces But long these young Princes were not kept together under that restraint the Princess Henrietta being in a short time after conveyed into France by the Lady Dalkieth and the Duke of York attired in the habit of a young Lady transported into Holland by one Captain Bamfield The Scots in the meane time being desirous to make even with their Masters to receive the wages of their iniquity and to get home in safety with that spoil and plunder which they had gotten in their marching and remarching betwixt Tweed and Hereford had not the patience to attend the leisure of any more voluntary surrendries They therefore pressed the King to give order to the Marquesse of Ormond in Ireland and to all the Governours of his Garrisons in England to give up all the Towns and Castles which remained untaken to such as should be appointed to receive them for the Houses of Parliament assuring him that otherwise they neither could nor durst continue him in their protection To this necessity he submitted but found not such a generall obedience to his commands as the Scots expected For not the Marquesse of Ormand onely but many of the Governours of Towns and Castles in England considered him as being under a constraint and speaking rather the sense of others then his own upon which grounds they continued still upon their guard in hope of better times or of better conditions But nothing was more hotly pressed by the Scots then that the Marquesse of Montrosse should lay down his Commission who with small strength in the beginning and inconsiderable forces when they were at the best had acted things in Scotland even unto admiration For besides many victories of lesse consequence he had twice beaten the Marquesse of Argile out of the field followed him home and wasted his Countrey with Fire and Sword He vanquisht Baily one of the best Souldiers of the Faction commanding over a well-formed Army in a set battell fought between them followed his blow and made himself Master of the City and Castle of Edenburgh releasing divers of his Friends who had been seized and imprisoned there when he first took Arms Had the Lord Digby's Horse come to him he had not onely perfected but assured the conquest of that Kingdome But instead of those aids which he expected he was unexpectedly set upon and his whole Army broken by David Lesley sent from the Scots Army in England with six thousand Horse to oppose the progresse of his fortune whose coming being known to the Earl of Roxborow and Traquair in whom the King continued still his wonted confidence was purposely concealed from him to the end that he being once suppressed and in him the Kings power destroyed in Scotland they might be sure from being called to an account of their former Treasons however he began to make head again and was in a way of well-doing when he received the Kings command to disband his Forces to which he readily conformed took ship and put himself into a voluntary exile These Obstacles removed his Majesty conceived some thoughts of finding Sanctuary in Scotland the Scots having first assured him as he signified by Letter to the Marquesse of Ormond before he put himself into their hands that they would not onely take his person but so many of his party also as repaired unto him into their protection and stand to him with their lives and fortune According to which hopes on his part and those assurances on theirs he had a great mind to return to his Native Countrey his Ancient and Native Kingdome as he used to call it there to expect the bettering of his condition in the changes of time But the Scots hearing of his purpose and having long ago cast off the yoke of Subjection voted against his coming to them in a full Assembly so that we may affirm of him as the Scripture doth of Christ our Saviour viz. He came unto his own and his own received him not The like resolution also was entertained by the Commissioners of that Nation and the chiefe Leaders of their Army who had contracted with the Houses of Parliament and for the summe of two hundred thousand pounds in ready money sold and betrayed him into the hands of his Enemies as certainly they would have done with the Lord Christ himself for halfe the money if he had bowed the Heavens and came down to visit them By the Commissioners sent from the Houses to receive him he was conducted to Holdenby a fair house of his own and one of the goodliest Piles in England scituate not far from Naseby to the intent that he might be continually grieved with the sight of the fatall place of his overthrow but kept so close that none of his Domestick servants no not so much as any of his own Chaplains were suffered to have Accesse unto him In the mean time a breach began betwixt the Presbyterian Party in both Houses and some chief Officers of the Army which growing every day wider and wider one Cornet Joice with a considerable party of Horse was sent to seize on his Majesties Person and bring him safe to their head Quarters There at the first he was received with all possible demonstrations of Love and Duty some of his Chaplains licensed to repair unto him and read the Book of Common-Prayer as in former times and the way open to all those of his party who desired to see him This made the Animosities between those of the two Houses and the Army to be far greater then before the City closing with that party of the Houses which desired the Kings coming to the Parliament and going down in a tumultuous manner required the present voting of a Personal Treaty This made the Speaker and such of both Houses as either held for the Army or had no mind to see the Kings Return