he hath are Antecedent Both the Crowning and Proclaming of him are onely Publick Declarations that he is by Birth-Right in Lawfull Possession of it And if he should not observe his Coronation Oath who shall say to him thou art wicked and ungodly What Law is there that can reach his Sacred Person Or what particular man or company of men can exhibit a Commission from God to judge and condemn him But I shall prosecute this Argument no farther Enough is said to convince any reasonable man Thus I have made it clear to you that all Kings or other Supreme Governours of Nations are Ordained of God and owe their Sovereignty to God and God onely by what ways or methods soever they be invested with it whether by Conquest Election or Inheritance And that the King of England in particular who Reigneth over us by the indisputable Right of Inheritance is as truly God's Minister and Vicegerent as any other Prince can be knowing no Superiour but God Let us now draw an Inference or two from the premisses First Kings having their Being from God when God takes away from a Nation a Good and Gratious King one that Rules as well after his Example and Will as by his Power it becomes matter of publick mourning and lamentation Cruelty and Oppression are things so odious in their Nature and so mischievous in their consequences being as prolifick of evils as Pandora's Box Murther Depopulation and a long c. attending that a Tyrannical Prince soon groweth uneasie to his people the men as wicked as himself are weary of him impatient for his death curse and abhor him wish and conspire his ruine And though the good man dares not doe this because his Religion will not suffer it yet upon his fall he lifts up his eyes to Heaven and blesseth God for the deliverance whilst he hates the Treason Whereas on the contrary Love and Clemency and all the other Qualities of a Godlike Prince are so amiable and attractive so productive of publick benefits peace and plenty and every thing that conduces to make a Nation happy that when these are manifested the people rejoyce in their Prince while Living as the Light of their eyes and the Breath of their Nostrils they love him as their Father and depend upon him as their Saviour The profane equally with the pious are ready to rise up and call him blessed to esteem his Life worth ten thousand of their own and to offer up themselves and all they have in defence of his Royal Person But when God who gave them this blessing from Heaven is pleas'd to call it thither again than these Great Rejoycings are immediately converetd into sorrows as excessive They look upon their Prince indeed to be happy but upon themselves to be forlorn and miserable And therefore as Rachel when she had lost the Darlings of her Affections they grieve and will not be comforted till Nature hath had her Fill of Grief or the sorrow be in some good measure proportionate to the loss This hath been the general sense of the World from the beginning of it The antient Jews and Christians and Heathens also give Testimony to it When Moses died the Children of Israel wept for him in the plains of Moab thirty days Deut. 34. The visible assurance they had of the continuance of God's special care over them the Divine Accomplishments of Joshuah his Successour their earnest expectations of Canaan could not divert that mighty sorrow which they had conceived at the death of this excellent Prince who had preserv'd and brought them through the perils of the Wilderness to the confines of the promis'd Land So at the death of their King Josiah all Judah and Jerusalem mourned 2 Chron. 35.2 And Jerimiah lamented for Josiah and all the singing men and singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations and made them an ordinance in Israel and behold they are written in their lamentations He had purged their Religion from all Heathenish superstitions he had repair'd their Temple and restor'd the Worship of it to its primitive purity and so had endear'd them to God and himself And they thought in return they could do nothing too much to perpetuate the memory of his Goodness And therefore besides their mournfull Elegies at his Funeral they transmitted their Griefs to posterity in a Book of Lamentations Upon the death of Constantine the Great in Nicomedia Zuing. Theatr. Vol. 1. l. 1. p. 97. the first Christian Emperour who had not onely embrac'd Christianity himself but had industriously promoted it throughout the Empire his Souldiers were so overcome with sorrow that they tore their Cloaths cast themselves prostrate upon the ground dashing their Heads against the wall omitting no outward expression of Grief that a sorrowfull heart could dictate crying out in dolefull Accents that they had lost a Protectour a Guardian and a Father The Citizens at the same time as men out of their wits ran howling about the streets not able to suppress their Grief within Others as men amaz'd walk'd silently about with their Heads hanging down all complaining that they were no longer possessours of the comforts of this life And answerable to this were the sorrows of the Senate and People of Rome for his death At the Relation of it their Baths were shut up their Markets and Plays unfrequented and their publick sports and pleasures and days of Festivity neglected They could find no Alleviation to their Grief but by painting him above the Firmamental Regions partaking with other blessed Souls of Heavenly Glory and by petitioning his Son Constantius that they might have the Honour of interring his Remains at Rome And the like were the Resentments of the Roman Senate for Titus Vespasian Id. p. 98. one of their Heathen Emperours a Prince so universally fam'd for his Vertues that his Motto was Princeps bonus Orbis amor upon the news of his death they rushed into the Curia and there bewail'd their loss of him in Panegyrical Orations and could not be satisfied till they had decreed him the honour of an Apotheosis till they had Deisy'd and plac'd him amongst the rest of their Supernal Gods whence they might hope for some sarther Experiments of his favour and protection To name no more this is a Truth that our own experience testifies How grievous hath the Death of our Late Sovereign been to every one of us How full of surprize and sadness was the news of it At its first Reception we look'd as half Dead our selves and stood staring upon one another as men at our wits end Every eye was ready to drop a tear and every heart to breath a sigh I think I may truly say never was King of England so generally and so heartily lamented And is was no more than was due to a Prince so extraordinary Good as he was a Prince that exceeded all others in a benign and gratious Government a Prince to say all of him we can
a deep melancholy seized closely upon him in which the Guilt of so much innocent Bloud as he had spilt might perhaps somewhat touch him but without doubt that which stuck nearest to him was his real consideration that he could never ascend to such a height of Sovereignty as his ambitious desires had long gaped after And these sorrows and perplexities of his restless mind meeting with some natural infirmities of his Body struck him into a sharp and severish distemper of which in a few days notwithstanding his own and his Chaplins Revelations to the contrary he died in great discomposure upon the same day of the month whereon he had been twice wonderfully victorious After his death his Carcase though it was artificially embowelled and embalmed with Aromatick Odours wrapt also in six-fold Cerecloth and put in a sheet of Lead with a strong wooden Coffin over it yet did it in a short time so strangely ferment that it burst all in pieces and became so noisome that they were immediately necessitated to commit it to the Earth and to celebrate his Funeral with an empty Coffin And here I cannot but add that his memory will ever stink as did his Body both equally loathsome and abominable to all Good Men. Wretch that he was who to perfect the sum of all his Villanies added this as the last Figure that when he had solemnly protested to take care for the safety and welfare of his Prince he brought him to the Block and struck off his Head before his own Royal Palace in the face of the Sun and the People and even then wip'd his mouth and said he had done no wickedness But neither yet had the Divine Vengeance left him For although he had at his death usurp'd the Sepulchre as in his life the Throne of a King yet he was not suffered to remain there in peace or to mix with Royal Dust but not long after his Interrment was dig'd up and drawn thence on a hurdle to Tyburn the place which he did best deserve and become where he hung stinking in his corruptions with as much Shame and Infamy as before he had lain in State and Grandeur a reproach to all prosperous wickedness and a scare-crow to Rebellion And this reminds us also of the inglorious ends of many of his Fellow-Trytours who died about that time by the hand of the Common Hangman and whose Head and Quarters are yet standing upon the Bridge or other places of our Metropolis as lasting monuments of their villany And happy had it been for some of later date if these or any other examples could have given them warning those late Rebells against King Charles II. many of whom we all know have had the same Fate with their predecessours to suffer the legal punishment due to their crimes And one of them to avoid the Hand of publick Justice as Achitophel and Zimri fell by his own became his own shamefull Executioner Thus you have seen from the beginning of the World to our own Age the Actours of Rebellion and Treason exemplarly punished But I deny not that there have been of old and yet are some Rebels and Traitours that go to their Graves in peace like other men dying natural and easie deaths Yet this ought not to be any plea for or encouragement to their wickedness because we see God hath given example enough to the contrary in terrorem to affright others from it And however it be as to this present World we are ascertain'd he hath awarded everlasting punishment to it in the next So we hear from St. See Dr. Hammond's Ann. on that place Paul in the verse following the Text They that resist shall receive to themselves Damnation Which in its utmost extent must necessarily mean that they who by force or violence do oppose their Lawfull Sovereign in this Life shall after this Life ended be condemn'd eternally to suffer the Torments of Hell Verily there is a God that judgeth in the Earth And though some of his Acts of Providence are here unsearcheable and past finding out by the short Line of Man's finite understanding yet in the next Life he will abundantly convince the World that he will doe right Psal 58.11 that he will as he hath said render to every man according to his deeds To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for Glory and Honour and Immortality Rom. 2.6 7 8 9. eternal Life But unto them that are contentious and do not obey the Truth but obey unrighteousness indignation and wrath tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil Therefore Sirs if you have any regard to the Commands of God if you have any regard to your Temporal and Eternal Happiness never resist the Lord 's Anointed never privately plot or publickly fight against your King It is to be feared that our present Sovereign will have the same enemies all his Ancestours had since the Reformation I mean the Fanatical part of the Nation who have been all along declar'd enemies to the Monarchy and the Church The Jesuits those creatures of Ignatius Loyola that were created on purpose to embroil and destroy every Reform'd Regal and Ecclefiastical Government and are accordingly sworn to it first instill'd their Antimonarchical and Schismatical principles into them and still under the disguise of holy and sanctified Brethren and fine pretences of Gifts of Prayer and Gifts of Preaching and the like intoxicating whedles they nourish and maintain the same And while they are willing to be deceiv'd and run into Conventicles where these poisons are infus'd notwithstanding the many Warnings they have had from the faithfull Ministers of our Church in printed Sermons and other Treatises what hope can we have of better things from them But be not you of them partake not with them in their sins least you partake with them in their punishments Remember always and follow that pertinent Advice of St. Paul Rom. 16.17 Mark them which cause Divisions and Offences contrary to the Doctrine which you have learned and avoid them And that of Solomon Prov. 24.24 My Son fear thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change Finally be ever ready to aid and assist the King against all his enemies whatsoever to the utmost of your powers and capacities And be ever praying for him that Almighty God would secure his Sacred Person from the secret conspiracies and the violent outrages of seditious bloud-thirsty-men that he would strengthen his Arm and render him perpetually able to make good his most gratious Promise to preserve the Government both in Church and State as 't is now by Law Established Grant this O Lord for the sake of thy Blessed Son by the powerfull Operation of thy Holy Spirit To whom be ascribed for ever all Power and Dominion Amen FINIS
A DISCOURSE SHEWING That KINGS have their Being and Authority from GOD That therefore Good KINGS when Dead are lamented That all while Living are to be Obeyed AND That Treason and Rebellion are punishable both in this and the next World Preached the Sunday following the news of the Death of our late King of Blessed Memory Charles the Second By JOHN CVRTOIS Rector of Branston near Lincoln LONDON Printed for Jo. Hindmarsh at the Golden Ball against the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1685. TO Sir HVMPHREY WINCH BARONET Honoured Sir I Present here a Discourse to you which I preach'd to my Parish the Sunday after we had heard of the Death of our late Sovereign By which you may see how faithfull I am to my Trust in instructing them to give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's as unto God the things that are God's And I think it was receiv'd by them with that respect and affection that is due from all honest and good men to a Discourse of this nature A while after I had the opportunity to Preach it in the Cathedral at Lincoln where it was kindly resented by many Loyal persons of whom the number is very great in that City But there were a few Heterogeneous men crept in among them that were as much disgusted at it and no sooner out of the Church but they fell to calumniate and belye me perverting my intentions and laying to my charge things that I never said So that to vindicate my self from the Aspersions of these men I have made the Sermon publick as you see it after the same Copy by which I spoke it It will I presume endure such a publick Test For upon a strict review I find nothing there but what is agreeable to the Doctrine of our Church and the late General acknowledgments of our Loyal Nobility Gentry and Clergy in their Addresses to His Sacred Majesty And therefore I question not your Favourable acceptance of it in particular As it hath so it needs nothing else to commend it to you but the Loyalty of it which it is Argument enough that you approve of in all its Appearances because at the Critical time of Trial you abhor'd and withstood the Vnnatural and Vnchristian Bill of Exclusion and the same Party which in those days of iniquity would have Excluded His Sacred Majesty from his three Kingdoms would have also excluded you from the Parliament That all future Parliaments may consist of such worthy Members as you such as will distinguish betwixt Religion and faction legality and injustice such as will be as True to the Church and State as the King is pleased to be Gratious to them is the earnest prayer of Honoured Sir Your most obliged and most humble Servant JOHN CURTOIS ROM XIII 1. There is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God HAVING receiv'd the sad tidings of the Death of our most Gratious Sovereign Charles the Second I think it requisite to say something as early as I can that will be suitable to it And therefore I pitch upon this Subject as proper and seasonable to exercise your Devotions at this time In these words Saint Paul plainly teacheth this Doctrine That all Kings or Supreme Governours of Nations are Constituted of Almighty God and Rule solely by his Divine pleasure and Authority I shall clear this unto you and then draw an inference or two from it First This was eminently true of the several Governours of the Jews They had all particular and apparent Signatures and Impresses of the Image and Authority of God upon them For when from all the Nations of the World God had set apart the Jews to be the Object of his more immediate care he is said to have sent Moses to be a Ruler and Deliverer unto them by the hand of the Angel which appeared to him in the Bush By reason of which power so signally conferr'd by God he was intituled King in Jeshurun when the Heads of the People and the Tribes of Israel were gather'd together And when God was pleased to remove his servant Moses to a Crown of Glory in Heaven he nominated Joshuah to succeed him in the same Authority And after the removal of Joshuah he raised up Judges to them men of absolute and uncontrollable power for the time they continued inferiour to Kings onely in the title And lastly to oblige them with variety of dispensations at their own desire and according to a former promise of making them every way as Glorious as the Nations round about them he gave them many Governours with the Title of Kings too to go out before them and fight their battels But although the Kingdom of Israel might seem here to have had a more signal designation and her Governours a more particular commission from God than any other yet Secondly the Gentile Rulers were as truly the Ministers and Vicegerents of God in their respective Dominions though not so remarkably Thus Syracides saith Eccl. 17.17 in the division of the Nations of the whole Earth God set a Ruler over every people but Israel is the Lord's portion And the same is signified by the men whom we are certain God inspir'd to reveal the truth The Prophet David speaking of Rulers in General calleth them Gods and the children of the most High Psal 82.6 And that of Solomon is as General Prov. 8.15 16. By me Kings Reign and Princes decree Justice By me Princes Rule and Nobles even all the Judges of the Earth And particularly in the Prophecy of Isaiah Isa 44.28 45 1. Cyrus the King of Persia is styled the Shepherd and the Anointed of the Lord. And in the Prophecy of Jeremiah Nebuchadnezzar Jer. 27.6 King of Babylon is styled his Servant And the Prophet Daniel telleth that King expresly Dan. 2.37 The God of Heaven hath given thee a Kingdom Power and Strength and Glory The Son of God himself said as much John 19.11 when he confessed that Power by which Pilate acted under the Roman Emperour to be given him from above And so his Apostle in the Text in the Reign of a Heathen saith There is no Power but of God the Powers that be are ordained of God Accordingly the first Christians taught L. 5. Contr. Har. Irenaeus saith that by whose appointment men are born by his appointment Princes are constituted Apol. c. 30. Tertullian saith that they have their Power thence whence they have their Spirit So Optatus lib. 3. There is no person Superiour to the Emperour but God onely who ordained the Emperour Nay the wiser Heathens that had any sense of Religion had the same sentiments of the Divinity of Regal Power This is the meaning of that Benediction of the Queen of Sheba when she was full of Admiration at the Wisedom of Solomon 1 King 10.9 Blessed be the Lord thy God which delighted in thee to set thee on the Throne of Israel because the
Lord loved Israel for ever therefore made he thee King to doe Judgment and Justice The Romans in their Lex Julia adjudged the same punishment to Treason as to Sacrilege Vlpian l. 7. De Off. Procons in l. 1. ff ad Leg. Jul. maj as looking upon an injury done to their Prince to be an injury also to Gods Hist Hea. Gods l. 3. p. 187. whose place of power upon Earth the Prince supplied The Kings of Egypt had Asps usually represented upon their Crowns to express the Holyness of their persons whom none ought to dishonour or injure without a signal punishment as being the most Sacred Images and Lieutenants of God upon Earth So firmly did the better sort of Heathens who believed an invisible over-ruling Being believe likewise the power of Kings to be derived from it Now it does not invalidate this Truth 1. That some Princes exercise their power Tyrannically and Rule wickedly oppressing and murthering their Subjects For the power is nevertheless of God though it be abused and perverted by men As it is in the case of Episcopacy the spiritual power by which the Bishops govern the Church must be acknowledged to be received from Christ though the Bishop of Rome Tyrannize in the exercise of it So it is in the case of Kingship and Regality God must be own'd to have conveyed and consigned over the Temporal Power to all Princes though the Grand Seigniour of the Turks and others play the Tyrants within their Dominions And yet we may not here conceive God to be Authour of the wickedness as of the Power for it is the Power onely not the abuse of it that is from God The latter proceeds from the Prince's evil heart alone God maketh him a Prince and he through the corruption of his Nature and the malitious Temptation of the Devil finds out many inventions to doe wickedly The Kingly Power as other good and perfect Gifts do descendeth from God although they may be all some time or other abus'd by evil instruments and to evil ends and purposes Our Saviour intimated this in granting Pilate's power to be from Heaven by whom he knew he should be sentenced to dye as a Malefactour St. Paul did the same speaking the Text in the days of Claudius or Nero two of the worst of men and the greatest Tyrants that ever were Neither 2. doth it invalidate this Truth that some Princes come to this Power by Conquest some by Election and others by Inheritance For these are but several ways and means of Conveyance and Investiture they are but as Conduit Pipes to carry the Water from the Fountain to separate places Still the Power is deriv'd from God to the Prince by which soever of these means he be invested with it 1. Although he fight for it and by the Sword maketh his way to the Throne yet when he is placed there he sitteth as God's Vicegerent having no Superintendent but God The People are all subjected to him by right of Conquest Or say it be 2. By Election by the Votes and Consent of the People that he is seated on the Throne yet being once there he becomes their Sovereign Lord Ruling by a Power Superiour to theirs For the Power is God's not the Peoples They are onely God's instruments in conferring the Regalia's and when the Ceremony is over have no more to doe but to obey And if it hold true in Conquer'd and Elective Kingdoms then how much rather 3. Deut. 21.15 In all those Nations where the Crowns are Hereditary the way which God appointed in Israel before their settlement in Canaan and after it did so signally bless in a numerous Succession of Heirs In all Hereditary Kingdoms the people have nothing to doe but upon the Death of their King immediately to obey the next Heir Apparent and humbly to recognize him for their Sovereign Their Approbation or Consent here is of no signification for he is born to Reign over them and whether they will or no doth rightfully inherit that Power which God hath entailed upon his Family And to speak something here particularly of our own Nation thus it is thanks be to God in the Kingdom of England And we have reason to thank God for it because we are hereby free from many mischiefs which unavoidably attend the change of Kings upon Conquests or Popular Elections Here God hath for many Ages past by wonderfull Providences made known the Family that is to Govern us so certainly and so apparently that none but he that desires to be a Rebel to God and the King will ever dispute the Title Whence it is become a Maxime in our Law that the King never dieth And that nothing is to be assented to in Parliament which tendeth to the disinherison of the Crown Hence also we find it ever subscribed to those Ensigns of Royalty which descend perpetually with the Crown Dieu Et Mon Droit God and my Right So in all publick Edicts we find this inserted Dei Gratiâ Rex By the Grace of God King of England And upon Twelve several Festival days in the year our King offereth upon the Altar a sum of Gold to God in signum specialis Dominii as a publick Acknowledgement That by his Grace alone he is King And this every man of us solemnly assenteth to that taketh the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy In the Oath of Allegiance we promise to bear Faith and True Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successours In the Oath of Supremacy we first utterly testifie and declare that the King's Highness is the onely Supreme Governour in this Realm And do therefore promise that we will bear Faith and True Allegiance to the King's Highness his Heirs and Lawfull Successours and will to our power assist and defend all Jurisdictions Privileges Preheminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successours or united and annext to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So that by the way we may wonder at the great impiety of our late pretending Patriots who with so much heat and boidness Voted the Exclusion of the Rightfull Heir in plam contradiction not onely to their Natural Allegiance but also to their Promises and Declarations solemnly made by these Oaths They ought I think to seek God and the King's Pardon or a publick Repentance And when they are so ingenuous and not before we may in Charity hope that they will be better Christians and better Subjects for the future But to convince you more fully that our King by the unalterable Right of Inheritance Succeeding to the Crown Raigneth by God and him onely let us a little distinctly consider that there is neither person or thing within his Dominions but what are subject to him as by the ordinance of God and right reason so likewise by our own publick concessions The People are all so and so are the Laws The People of this Nation whether singly or Representatively considered are subject
Question is resolved by that Reverned Person But blessed be God there is no reason to ask this Question calculated onely for the Meridian of a bloudy Antichristian Covenant or Association It is a Question as unseasonable now as it is at all times improper for a Disciple of the Son of God who never needs the Arm of flesh to defend his cause But because the evil of punishment is usually the surest conviction of the evil of sin to satisfie you fully of the wickedness of Treason and Rebellion upon all Accounts whatsoever I shall here take leave to observe a while their direfull and tremendous consequences or the signal punishments that have attended them recorded both in sacred and civil Story for our Admonition Many of the Instances of sacred Story are collected to our hands by Sir Edw. Short View of late Troub p. 650. Coke And I will give you them in that order as they are lately recited from him by Sir William Dugdale It appears saith he in the Holy Scriptures that Traitours never prospered what good soever they pretended but were most severely and exemplarily punished as Corah Dathan and Abiram by miracle The ground clave asunder that was under them Num. 16.31 32.27.3 and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Corah and all their goods they and all that appertained to them went down alive into the Pit and the earth closed upon them and they perished from among the Congregation Athaliah the Daughter of Amri who Massacred all the seed Royal of Judah except 2 Kin. 11.16 one Infant which was conceal'd from her and so for seven years usurp'd the Crown was at length slain by the sword Bigthan and Terish Esth 2.23 who sought to lay hands on King Ahasuerus were both hanged on a Tree Absalom 2 Sam. 18.9.14 in Rebellion against his Father David was hanged in an Oak and Joab took three darts in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the Oak Achitophel the promoter of that Rebellion hanged himself and died 2 Sam. 17.23 Abiathar the High Priest 1 King 2.26 27. who had been Traiterous against King Solomon was thrust out from being Priest unto the Lord though he had his life indeed granted him because he had bore the Ark before David and had been afflicted in all wherein David was afflicted Shimei who had curs'd and cast stones at David 1 King 2.46 was slain at last by the hands of Benaiah at the command of Solomon Zimri 1 King 16.18 that kill'd Elah his King and Master and all the House of Baasha that he might Reign securely after seven days Reign to save himself from the hands of Omri was forced to burn the Palace over his own head and there perish'd in the flames Theudas a Mutineer in Israel Act. 5.36 37. boasting himself to be some body to whom a number of men about four hundred joyned themselves was slain and all as many as obeyed him were scattered and brought to nought And Judas of Galilee who rose up after him in the days of Taxing and drew away much people after him he also perished and all even as many as obeyed him were dispersed These examples we have in sacred Scripture of the disastrous events which have attended Rebels and Regicides Other History is as full of them For as men of such profligate spirits have never been wanting in the World so God hath never been wanting to make examples of them The Plotters and Actours of the Assassination of Julius Caesar Sueton. vit Juli Caesar though they escap'd the legal punishment which the Senate condemn'd them to yet being pursued by Divine Nemesis died all immature and unnatural deaths some of them stabbing themselves with the same Dagger they had stab'd Caesar Pope Gregory VII Otho Frising Chr. l. 6. c. 35. the first Pope that took the impudence to excommunicate and depose Kings having stirr'd up the Princes of Germany against the Emperour Henry IV. and by them endeavouring his utter Ruine was during the Contest by the consent of his own people turn'd out of the Papacy and at length by a sense of his own miseries upon his death-bed forced to confess and lament his crime Sigeb Ann. 1084. imputing it to the instigation of the Devil This we may believe from the Relation which Sigebert gives of it Ibid. Ann. 1085. who lived at that time though Bellarmin many years after charges him with a lie Bell. de Scrp. Eccl. p. 215. for no other reason but because he was Loyal to the Emperour Radolph Duke of Suevia Vespergens Ann. 1080. the great instrument of that Pope in the War against the Emperour lost his Right Hand and received some other mortal wounds of which being ready to die he bitterly bewail'd his wickedness and sighing observ'd to the by-standers that he had lost that Hand in the Rebellion against his Sovereign with which he had sworn Allegiance to him I might produce many other instances from Foreign Histories but I chuse here to divert to a few Observations which the aforesaid English Authour makes upon some Traitours of our own Countrey because they probably will the most affect you Montfort Earl of Leicester saith he the principal Actour in the great Rebellion against Henry III. Short View of late the Trou p. 599. with his Eldest Son Henry was slain at the Fight near Evesham his head hands and feet were cut off by the fury of the Souldiers and though his body through the charity of others was buried in the Abbey the common people out of high indignation towards him who had been the chief instrument of misery to the whole Realm dig'd it up and carried it to a more remote place esteeming it unworthy of Christan Burial by reason it had been so much infected with the Leprosie of Rebellion Neither did the judgment for his iniquities terminate here but pursued his two other Sons Guy and Simon who being escap'd out of Prison got into France and there endeavouring to bring in Foreign Forces ended their days in misery As for his Complices most of them perished in that Battel at Evesham and the rest excepting one were taken prisoners and disherited But afterwards through the King 's special favour restored to their Lands upon several Fines according to the measure of their offences And that which he relateth also of Oliver Cromwell that Arch-Traitour against Charles I. is as remarkably judicial Immediately upon Cromwell's Murthering the Reverend Dr. Huit p. 456. his Beloved Daughter Claypole was perplext with such an excessive Grief of mind that falling into a sharp fit of sickness wherein crying out against her Father for Dr. Huit's death she died with the most bitter torments imaginable Which death of hers was the forerunner to that of this wicked Tyrants for soon after