5000 l. To Sir Miles Hubbard 5000 l. To Mr. Hampden's Children 5000 l. To Sir Benjamin Rudyard 6000 l. To Sir John Elliot's Children 5000 l. To Mr. Benjamin Valentine 5000 l. To Mr. Walter Long. 5000 l. To Denzile Hollis Esquire 5020 l. In Toto 99000 l. SO that first this long Parliament miss-pent the Nations Treasure When besides the voluntary Contributions of Silver Thimbles from the Seamstresses Bodkins from the Chambermaids Silver Spoons from the Cooks Silver Bowls from the Vintners and Rings and Ear-Rings from the Sister-hood for the Maintenance of this Holy War they made an Ordinance in March 1642. for the Levying of 33000 l. a Week which comes to above 2700000 l. a year over and above all the Kings Lands and Woods with whatsoever was remaining unpaid of any Subsidy formerly granted him Together with Tunnage and Poundage usually received by the King And also the Profit of Sequestration of Great Persons whom they pleased to vote Delinquents and the Profit of Bishops Lands which they all Peaceably enjoyed Again the Rump of this same Parliament in 1652 to Maintain War with the Dutch Levied a new Tax upon the People of 120000 l. per mensem to continue a year Which shews that this Democratical and Parliamentary Government or rather this Olygarchy and Rump of a Parliament was no less Burthensom and Chargeable to the People even then a French Monarchy And after this again was another Six Months Tax of an 100000 l. per mensem But what was most unjust of this Parliament and shews how Dangerous it has sometimes been for an House of Commons to have any great sum of Money ready raised and deposited in their own hands was their imploying all that Money which had been Collected by Charity for the relief of the distressed Irish towards the Maintenance of a War against the King Whilst in the mean time the Poor Irish Protestants were Perished by Sword and Famine for want of this Relief Secondly this Parliamentary Dominion was no less Bloudy and Tyranical then the most absolute Monarchy of France or Turkey witness their High Court of Justice which murthered the King Duke Hamilton Earl of Holland Lord Capel and other Loyalists nay their own Friends the two Sir John Hothams whom upon a vain Suspition they ungratefully Sentenced to death but what was an Inhumanity equal to any thing in Popery was that the Godly Sectaries once put it to the Vote whether they should Massacre all the Royallists or no which was carried in the Negative but by two Voices And had it once pass'd there are few but know that Lambert and his Levelling Party had designed to destroy all the Nobility and Gentry of England cutting their Throats by the name of Loyallists whether they were so or no As for the Nobility I mean the House of Peers that Parliament which put the King to Death likewise presently Voted them useless Whereby we may observe how entirely the Nobility and Gentry depend upon the King's Prosperity Who was no sooner Dethroned but presently the Lords are turned out of the Government and the Gentry designed to be Massacred So that of all Tyranies God deliver us from a perpetual Parliament and of all Governments from that of Geneva Fetters which consists of many Links being more troublesom then those of one But to argue upon the square pray let me ask any of these Rumpers why the King might not then as well Levy Money without Lords and Commons as the Commons without King and Lords Why the King might not then interest himself in appointing what Members the People should chuse for Parliament as well as Cromwels Major-General awed the Electors in the like case And why the King might not then Govern by a Court Rump of a Parliament as well as they by an Independent Rump For my part I think them alike grievances and equally unlawful Lastly Now As for their Hierarchy or Government Ecclesiastick it was more Intollerable then their Civil Jurisdiction Elders Deacons Synods and Assemblies being far more Oppressive and Authoritative than Vicar Arch-Deacon Doctor or Spiritual Court. Synods are Whelps o' th' Inquisition A Mungrel breed o' th' like Pernition Synods are Mistical Bergardens Where Elders Deputies Church-Wardens And Saints themselves are brought to Stake For Gospel Light and Conscience-sake And then set Heathen Officers Instead of Dogs about their ears Hudib Every little Ananias or Elder usurping as much power over his respective Family and Authority over a man's Wife and Filly Foals whether Children or Servants especially if they be handsom as the Pope himself nay and as formidable to the Master his Patron He must be first served with the best meat and drink and the Female which he chooses for his Convert is ever the handsomest such Fellows and Wasps having always the wit to elect the choicest Fruit As well in Presbytery as Popery the Priests of both kinds center in the Petticoat so that young Elders and young Fryars are frequent charges to the Parish They are the greatest of Hypocrites when by their long Prayers they conceal their Whoredom Drunkenness Gluttony and Lying by their severity to others they shadow their own wickedness and by their Canting Religion disguise their intended Rebellion well knowing that flames as in Hay or Straw may be kindled in the more combustible People by such Foxes as shall appear rather to carry Water then Fire The Presbyterians and Papists began the War in Scotland continued it in England and brought the old King's Head to the Block where the Independants cutting it off the others very cunningly wash'd their hands of it As for the Tyranny of their Discipline I refer you to Geneva or rather to the History of New England and Heylin of Presbytery Presbytery does but translate The Papacy to a Free-State A Commonwealth of Popery Where every Village is a See As well as Rome and must maintain A Tyth-Pig-Metropolitan Where every Presbyter and Deacon Commands the Keys for Cheese and Bacon More haughty and severe in 's place Then Gregory or Boniface Such Church must surely be a Monster With many Heads for if we conster What in th' Apocalypse we find According to th' Apostles mind 'T is That the Whore of Babylon With many Heads did ride upon Which Heads denote the sinful Tribe Of Deacon Priest Lay-Elder Scribe Hudib Moreover as the Government of the Long Parliament was most Tyrannical and wicked so also was the Usurpation and behaviour of Cromwell if rightly examined for as Mr. Cowley well observes What can be more extraordinarily wicked then for a private Subject to endeavour not only to exalt himself above but to trample upon all his equals and betters to pretend freedom for all men and under the help of that pretence to make all men his Servants to take Arms against scarce 200000 l. a year and to raise for himself above two Millions to quarrel for the loss of 3 or 4 Ears and strike off 3 or 400 Heads to fight
studied to find out somthing that might have advanced the Trade of Fishing He of Norwich that might profit the making of Stuff He of Rye what might preserve their Harbour from being choaked up wiâ—h â—heâ—vâ—s of Sand He of Tiverston to further the Manufacture of Kersey's He of Suffolk what produced to the benefit of Cloathing and the Members of Cornwal what belong'd to their Stanneries and so the Respective Members of their several Counties and in doing this they thought to have complyed and discharged the trusts reposed in them without roveing at Universals prying into Arcana Imperii and bringing Religion to the Bar the one as they thought belonging more properly to the Chief Magistrate and his Councel of State as the other to the Bishops and Clergy Let me not here be misconstrued or censured to justifie his Majesty by Reflecting on the priviledges of the Commons for as I would not have the King lose the least Tittle of his Prerogative so neither would I have the Commons one hairs breadth of their priviledges nor do I go to prescribe the late Houses by the Foot-steps of their Predecessors since by the Concession or Connivance of late Princes 't is possible their priviledges may be increased no my only design is partly to satisfie the World that no King of England ever dealt more Candidly with a Parliament then our present Soveraign no not Queen Elizabeth her self who is so much the peoples Darling and partly by the Loyal Moderate example of former Houses to prevent any heats for the future Neither for such a factious age as this is can any Loyal Subject discharge his Duty boâ—h to King and Countrey without endeavouring as much as in him lies to silence those mutineers who having first endeavoured to exasperate the Houses one against another and both against the Kingdo afterwards in the Lobby lye waiting the event of each warm debate with the same Repacious hope as herenofore did Birds of Prey upon a Roman Army when the Signal to Battel was given for the enflaming the two Houses one against another they make use of the Rights and priviledges of Conferences asserting it the undoubted Rights of the Commons as in Fitz-Harris s Case they did at Oxford to confer with the Lords when they please without any denyal Which whether it be so or no I shall not presume to determine any farther then to acquaint you with a Remarkable passage that occurred in the Reign of Henry the fourths When the House of Commons Petition'd the King that they might have advice and Communication with certain Lords about matters of business in Parliament for the Common good of the Kingdom which Prayer as the Record hath it our Lord the King most graciously granted but with this Protestation That he did it not of Duty nor of Custom but of his special Grace and Favour So our Lord the King charged the Clerk of Parliament that this Protest should be entred upon Record in the Parliament Roll. This the King made known to them by the Lord Say and his Secretary who told them That our Lord the King neither of Due nor Custom ought to grant any Lords to enter into Communication with them of matters touching the Parliament but by his special Grace at this time he granted their request in this particular And the said Steward and Secretary brought the King word back from the Commons That they well knew they could not have any such Lords to commune with them about any business of Parliament without special Grace and Command from the King himself In like manner we read in Appian de Bell. Civ lib. 1. That the creation of the Tribune Office was design'd only to ballance the power of the Consuls whose Election then depended only on the Senate and to keep them from exercising the whole Authority in the Administration of their Republick but yet this bred much emulation and many quarrels amongst these Magistrates the one seeing themselves supported by the countenance of the Senate and the other by the favour of the People and each party thought themselves robbed of that which was added to the other Now as about these and the like Priviledges they endeavour to set the two Houses in an opposite flame left otherwise they might comply with his Majesty so is it their principal â—nd were it in their power which God Almighty prevent to unite both Lords and Commons against the King and for this purpose invent all the Calumnies imaginable wherewithall to asperse him Thus first they would have his Subjects believe than the removing of the Parliament to Oxford was an inâ—ustice not to be parallel'd whereas he that knows any thing cannot be ignorant how often Parliaments have formerly been summon'd to meet as well aâ— York Oxford and very many other places as at Westminster and that not out of any cause of Sickneâ—s or the like but meerly out of the Kings will and pleasure â—â— hath power by his Writs to assign their meeting when and where he pleaseth Nay so hellish was the malice of some 〈◊〉 these Commonwealths men that as Colledge himself confesses they would have made the Members believe his Majesty brought them thither to be Murthered a report so incredible and so barbarous that as the wise man laughs at it so every Loyal Subject abhors it That a Prince whose greatest error is his Clemency should draw upon himself the guilt of a whole Nations bloud But now as that appears a malicious story and is already confuted by its not happening so let us esteem of their Reports for the future Secondly these disaffected persons who are all descended from the right Forty one breed endeavouring to â—rect another perpetual Parliament insinuate into the Peoples ears how unnatural it is for the Government to go hopping upon one Leg whereby they mean the King as also that he ought to summon a Parliament whenever two or three of the Houshold of Faith desire him and then never dissolve them so long as any grievances are depending when if so they shall never be without some grievance or other to perpetuate their sitting how small soever and for this very reason although no man is a greater lover of Parliaments then my self that expedient seem'd to me of dangerous consequence which to fetter the Duke of York enabled the Parliament then in being to convene and fit six months after this Kings death since if they had not power to act as a Parliament they could do us no good and if they had then by virtue of the same power wherewith they pass'd other Acts they might also pass an Act to perpetuate themselves for frequent and not long Parliaments must render this Nation prosperous old Members being too apt to hunt soul after they have run many Chaces Thirdly and lastly these Malecontents encourage the most hainous Criminals and those who have more personally and particularly offended his Majesty to Petition the House of Commons thereby thinking either to force
the King as it were against his own inclinations to release such his Enemies or else to put him upon a necessity of disobliging the House by his denial and so on the contrary they too often excite them to Address themselves to his Majesty for the Removal of such Ministers who are chiefly in his favour as if it were a thing of that small concern to a Prince to sacrifice his most intimate Friends to whom he hath unbosomed his most secret Councels and who perhaps is so charged only for executing his Masters Precepts Alas let every man but make it his own Case and see how uneasie he should be to part with or give credit to any evil report against an old Friend Relation or Servant without some convincing undeniable proof made out against him Not but that such Addresses may be lawful and many times expedient also Ministers of State too often faulty Nevertheless such Votes and Petitions ought not to be rashly undertaken but first duly weigh'd and considered with the grounds and evidences against them and this more especially now since his Majesty hath been pleased to declare as he will not govern Arbitrarily himself so neither shall his Subjects one towards another Which puts me in mind of the story of the two Roman Embassadors Valerius and Horatius who being sent by the Decem-viri to the People to enquire of their grievances the People amongst other things complained of the Tyranny of the Decem-viri desiring to have them deliver'd up into their hands that they might burn them alive But the Embassadors not consenting to their demand replyed Crudelitatem damnatis incrudelitatem ruitis you condemn Cruelty and practise it your selves I do not find that the House of Commons was ever Petition'd till about the middle of Henry the seventh's Reign which Petition is inserted among the Statutes But though the Petition be directed to the House of Commons in its Title yet the Prayer of the Petition is turn'd to the King and not to the Commons The Petition begins thus To the Right Worshipful Commons in this present Parliament assembled Shews to your discreet wisdoms the Wardens of the Fellowship of the Craft of Vpholsterers within London c. But the conclusion is Therefore may it please the Kings Highness by the Advice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and his Commons in Parliament c. Again I find many Examples to prove that though the cognizance and debating of great State-affairs belong to the High Court of Parliament yet heretofore the Lords have oftentimes transmitted such business to the Kings Privy-Council amongst others let this suffice When one Mortimer who stiled himself Captain Mendall otherwise called Jack Cade came with a Rabble of the Vulgar with a Petition to the Lower House the Commons sent it up to the Lords and the Lords transmitted it to the Kings Privy-Council to consider of But to conclude this point the difference between King and Parliament is that the one represents God the other the People the Consultative power by the Kings permission is in Parliament but the Commanding power remains inseparable in him the results and productions of Parliaments at best are but Bills 't is the Kings breath makes them Laws which are till then but dead things they are like Matches unfired 't is the King that gives them Life and Light The Lords advise the Commons consent but the King ordains they mould the Bills but the King makes them Laws Having thus now sufficiently vindicated our most Royal Soveraign against all the malicious aspersions of his Enemies who would falsly and treacherously charge the best-natur'd Prince under Heaven with having a design to introduce an Arbitrary Government here amongst us give me leave in the next place to speak to their no less Devillish and wicked Reproach of his being a Papist which these Traytors cast upon him in Revenge to alienate were such a thing possible the hearts and affections of his Loyal Subjects from that Duty and Allegiance they owe to him They first pretended his Majesty to be in a Plot against his own Life and now because that seems too ridiculous they give out that whereas there were two parts of the Popish Plot the one to introduce Popery the other to kill the King his Majesty was made acquainted only with the former part of it viz the introducing of Popery and not with his own death But here let any Rational man consider for what end they should design to take off the King unless it were that he would not aid and assist them in bringing in the Popish Religion into this Kingdom for if he were as these men say privy and assisting to their Plot of subverting the Government for what purpose should they then conspire against his Person we must therefore either suspend our belief of the one or the other at least Secondly in favour to the Popish Party they would make the world believe that in an unnatural manner his Majesty should for his Royal Brothers sake consent to the destruction of his own natural Son the D. of M. and accordingly possess his Grace with an opinion that he was sent into Flanders on purpose to be destroyed hoping by this means to set the Son against his Father and render him like that worst of Men Darius who together with Fifty of his Bastard Brethren Plotted against the Life of his most Indulgent Father Artaxeâ—xes that good King of Persia in which Conspiracy as the Historian says it was prodigious that in so great a Number Parricide could not only be contracted but concealed and that amongst Fifty of his Children there was not one found whom neither the Majesty of a King nor the reverence of an Ancient man nor the Indulgency of so good a Father could recall from so horrible an Act. Justin lib. 10. We read how Themistocles used to say That such men as He resembled Oaks to whom men come for shelter when they have need of them in Rain and desire to be protected by their Boughs But when it is fair they come to them to strip and peel them Aelian lib. 9. ch 18. In the same manner do the Brotherhood by the D. of M. make all their present Applications to him as thinking him a fit Pole to support those helpless Hops and the only person of whom for Quality and Courage they may make use as a General against a Popish Successor they make him the Claw to take the Chesnut out of the Fire which being done they will as ignominiously cashier him their design being undoubtedly to erect a Geneva Republick and no other Nay did they yet intend a Monarchy their malice would after such a Rebellion reject him even for his Royal Fathers sake Therefore as his Grace must draw his Virtue from His Bloud so I doubt not but e're long to hear the fatted Calf is kill'd especially since he is blessed with so merciful a King and so indulgent a Father But thirdly Another Argument which
good Wherefore as their Interest why there should be a Plot is one argument to me there is one So the Plot is likewise another argument to me that they have a design upon Church-Lands for which reason I could almost wish that all the Abbies in England had been demolished and Levelled with the ground at the time of the Reformation since the best way to destroy Priests as well as Crows is to pluck down both their Nests Now these things considered do fully satisfie me of the Papists Plot and design to introduce Popery and with that Arbitrary Government whereby alone they inspect to be reinstated in the possession of their Church-Revenues And with the same do I also believe that the heat of this Popish Plot hath brought to life the Dissenting Serpents whose design now is to sting the Protestants upon the Papists backs There is a Machiavelian Plot. Though eve y nor All-fact is not By setting Brother against Brother To Claw and curry one another 'T is Plain enough to him that knows How Saints lead Brothers by the Nose Hudib Nevertheless now although I believe the Popish Plot in general yet can I not but suspend my Credit of many particular Circumstances given in Evidence concerning the Kings death as the manner of Groves and Pickerings going to shoot the King with silver Bullets is to me a pill of Faith that I can hardly swallow which very thing makes many incredulous persons raise this scruple whether some men perceiving the designs of the Papists to introduce Popery which part of the Plot is undeniable even by their own party did not to represent it more formidable to the common people forge this aditional Plot of murthering the King the Duke of Buckingham Earl of Shaftsbury Earl of Ossery and other great Darlings of the people who God be praised have none of them been yet assaulted that joyning both Plots together the vulgar people might be the more exasperated and so by preventing the one help to keep out the other but whether this be the truth of it or no I do not positively affirm only this I know that since Colledges Tryal neither I nor I presume any one else can have that esteem for the Popish Witnesses as before where if you believe Dugdale Turbervil and Smith what must you think of Oates's Evidence which has help'd towards the hanging so many and if you credit the Doctor what will your opinion be of Dugdale Turbervil and Smiths Evidences which have cost my Lord Stafford and so many others their Lives 'T is a mistery which nothing but the Gallows can expound therefore let him that best deserves it have it only this I can say in behalf of the King's Evidence against Colledge that I my self have bought two yards of Popery and Slavery Ribbon of him at Short's Coffee-house in Oxford where I also heard him speak things though not Treasonable yet scandalously reflecting on the whole Royal Family also one of those Treasonable Pictures which he deny'd ever to have dispersed is now to be seen at a Smiths House at Fretwel in Oxfordshire the which Colledge gave him with his own hands as others of his Neighbours can testifie Nay Mr. Sheriff of Oxon and other Gentlemen can testifie that the day before his death he acknowledged to them many things whereof he was convicted at his Tryal the which he again denied at the time of his Execution how then the London Jury could think him so Innocent as not to deserve to be brought upon his Tryal is a Riddle which all men wonder they have not yet expounded by some Vindication of themselves to the world unless it be as the ingenious Hudibras says That Witnesses like Watches go Just as they 're set too fast or slow And where in Conscience they 're strait lac'd 'T is ten to one that side is cast Is not the winding up the Witness And nicking more than half the business Do not your Juries give the Verdict As if they felt the Cause not heard it And as they please make matter of Fact Run all on one side as they 're pack'd Nature has made man's Breast no windows To publish what he does within-doors Nor what dark secrets there inhabit Vnless his own rash folly blab it This Grand-Ignoramus-Jury did undoubtedly cost the Prisoner his life for had they brought in Billa vera then a pack'd Petty-Jury might afterwards have acquitted him in Middlesex and prevented his Oxford-Tryal which was a great over-sight of the Brotherhood as also was Dr. Oates's appearing so violently against the rest of his Brother-witnesses whereby he has cast no small blur upon the Plot in general But two of a Trade can never agree Now to conclude this subject give me leave only to acquaint you what more favour Mr. Colledge had shewn him then Mr. Staley who being buried pompously was for that Treason afterwards taken out of his Grave by Command and his Quarters erected upon the several City-Gates whereas Mr. Colledge though no less decently interred was nevertheless permitted to remain undisturbed so much more merciful to him was our good King whom he had offended then those Barbarous Oxonians whom he had never injured and who yet shouted at his Condemnation And now Gentlemen having plainly shew'd and demonstrated the miseries of the late Civil War and our danger of running into the same again having without flattery represented to you the Justiâ—e and Clemency of our present King as also the moderation of former Parliaments and having most impartially characterized the endeavours of the Factious and Tyranny of a Commonwealth my earnest prayers and entreaty now is that you would not too easily credit those idle reports and jealousies concerning the King and Government which are raised only to deceive you that as well in your Judgment as Obedience you would follow the Supreme Authority of the Nation esteeming the King's Glory your Honour and His Grandeur your Security Men of heat are men of Faction therefore avoid all such Zealots of any kind and wheâ— His Majâ—sty shall summon your Picture again to sit in the Parliament-house be sure it be drawn by a good Hand The Government by King Lords and Commons is the best of all others therefore endeavour to support it by following every man his own Vocation resigning State-affairs to the Conduct of King and Parliament to whom they more properly belong As for my self I was ever before of a different opinion and blush not to own that my Principles are changed since 't is not out of any Preferment Interest or expectation at Court which as I never wanted so I never sought after but purely upon the merits of the Cause I now perceive so much Faction and Knavery among the WhigParty and so much uncertainty among the Witnesses that he who wishes well to King Charles and old England must equally abhor both Whigs and Tories that is both Enemies to King and Enemies to Parliaments Again Gentlemen as well our Interest