had rather be obscured in prison as my Father was then not to Reign as Soveraign Those people with whom Loyalty is elective forbear not to make their Kings absolute because they could have no pretence of Iustice to do otherwise judge then if those who hold their Crowns from Heaven ought to acknowledge their subjects for their Masters and whether they ought not rather to punish or pardon as best agreeth with their pleasure In a word I find it far more glorious to be a loyall Subject then to be a King disobeyed Prepare then your selves to render me all that obedience which you owe me and without farther informing you whether you are to hope more for Clemencie or Iustice resolve your selves to an absolute submission I know well some peevish Politians will censure that I act not as I ought in this conjuncture and that I should reflect on former passages with some sweetness and gratifie you with Presents to encourage you with future hopes but I presume my Policy is more generous and more secure then theirs for if I had so perswaded you perhaps you would have believed me to have been more fit to wear my Fathers Irons then his Crown and would have more suspected me of weakness and dissimulation this excessive indulgence would give you more of fear and me less of honour and estimation I being then so far from following such Maximes tell you once more that I declare my self to be your King And without farther capitulation with you I ascend the Throne by the steps of mine own Authoritie as Soveraignly as if not recalled by you at all Hitherto I have let you know I am not ignorant how far the dutie of Subjects ought to bend But moreover I judge it fit to acquaint you to what degree Soveraign Clemencie may extend it self to this end that by that resentment you may reasonably know what to fear and what to hope Know then that although a Prince may justly punish Traitors he may likewise pardon penitent offenders principally then when he discerns his pardon shall reclaim insolency to obedience and fidelity For seeing Kings are the Fathers of the people they ought not alwaies to be too severe in justice and seeing that a Prince may afford grace and pardon to his enemies he may without doubt shew pity and mercy to his own Subjects He cannot well punish them all but must in part enfeeble himself nor sluce out their blood without emptying his own veins wherefore he ought to spare them as far as Reason and Iustice can make the way passable When then a particular accident grows up against a Prince or State it may suffice that the heads of some chief offendors be sacrificed to a reparation and that by some severe examples others may be instructed with exemplarie terrour But seeing that the number of the offendors may prove infinite and if all should be punish't a desolation of entire Provinces might succeed and consequently more men be lost then 15 main Battails could devour so that the piles of dead corps should make mountains and severe execution of revenge cause Rivers of bloud in such considerations I say it may be better to use a greater example of Clemencie then of Iustice and hazard something rather then to loose the lives of so many miserable souls and there cannot be a greater Victory then to vanquish ones own passion in such dangerous conjunctures Fear not then that I shall abuse my Authoritie since if I should punish all who have offended I should reduce my Kingdom to a forlorn Desart For who is there among you that hath not failed of his dutie Some have done mischief others have desired it or at least permitted it to be acted some have assisted Robert others have directly fought against their King some have most perfidiously laid their hands upon their Anointed Lord committed a sacred person into prison and others have at least forsaken him The publick good is pretext of all things but Rebellion alone is the mother of that horrid Monster The Nobles agitated as they did for their own interest and the people by their madness and unadvisedness seconded their furie and put in execution the intention of the Parricides Your wives and your children are not exempt from these crimes seeing without doubt they made vowes for their Parents offending and praiers against their Prince Whereas then I cannot punish you all but that I must utterly exterminate you it resteth at my choice whether I would become a King without Subjects or to pardon you out of pure grace and bountie and not by Obligations It may be that during your lives you may repent you of your ancient crimes and become as faithful as you have been disobedient But perhaps you will tell me as to our selves we have repented formerly before we sent to you to come and receive the Scepter which belongs to you 'T is true it may be as you have said and that I have considered your Addresses to me were to make reparation of what formerly passed and that with those hands you would advance to the Throne his Son whose Father you had barbarously removed But after all whosoever can abandon the path of Virtue to make choice of that Vice can again embrace that occasion if presented Wherefore you owe greater obligation to me then I can considence to you for had I not resolved to shew Grace and Pardon the great number of Nobles which the King of England my Uncle hath presented to me to attend my person had not come without Souldiers each one of these who incircle me have troops at their command and I would not have received my Fathers Crown but in the head of a victorious Armie in the midst of a Field covered with dead and dying men bedewed with the blood of ten thousand Rebels I would have been the Conqueror of my Kingdom and not have mounted unto the Throne supported by the same hands who snatcht it from my Fathers head But I call to mind I am your King as you are also my Subjects and in this relation I can love you yet as guiltie as you are I can have pittie for your errors and kindness for your obstinacie and I will not put my self into a condition of sadness after the Victorie I am then come to you without an Armie to receive what is mine This Action without doubt is hardie bold and well deserveth glorie and is sufficiently obliging to demerit your acknowledgement in all degrees of fidelitie Before that you were criminous the Divine and humane right conjured you not to forsake your Prince but this day a new obligation chaineth you to more strict obedience It is not enough alone to be faithfull so to satisfie your dutie but it is your part to blot out the memorie of what is past and to justifie what is present you ought not to look on me meerly as your King but as a King of your own choice as a King who
quit the field and to retreat from his Enemies is it not the Prince that loseth the Battail Is it not the Prince that suffers the disgrace Is it not the Prince that is reputed vanquisht And that bears the loss and infamie of the day Notwithstanding that by his own particular actions he hath merited to be conqueror seeing it is thus why will not you in such conjunctions bear with the infirmities and misfortunes of your Princes as well as they do with yours Or to speak something yet nearer to the quick why do you not repair these disorders by your own more exact obedience The Prince alone is obvious in a Battail to the infamie Cowardise and misfortune of his whole Army and you are thousands who are obliged to strengthen the Authoritie and Honour of your King which he cannot support with his single valour Believe me if all Subjects would be loyal no Kingdome could be miserable and if all Princes thought more of severity then of Clemencie there would not be so many Subjects Rebells Moreover if it were permitted to the Capritious people to take and give Crowns when they fancied a change I conceive there is not a Shepheard but might hope to be a King and not a King but might be reduced to be a Shepherd so unruly and uncertain are their floating judgements But to speak the truth to you these things ought not thus to pass we are your Masters and you ought not to become ours It is not that I am ignorant that God disposeth of Scepters and Crowns as he pleases gives them as he lists and bestowes them on or takes them from whom he will and what he alwaies doth is without all injustice sometimes permitting that the people shalelevate to the Throne those who never pretended to such a high degree But when such an accident happeneth it is usually in favour to those extraordinary persons in whom Virtue hath imprest a Royal Character so visible that it were almost injustice not to admit them Kings To conclude that which precedes and that which followes ought to be sufficient to justifie the effect and it became Charles Martel Pepin and Charlemain puissantly to erect a Throne which was not founded upon a line of right succession yet even in this reencounter you will see the event to this present hath not authorized your design The Engine of this enterprize hath been slain in battail The Arch bishop of Rhemes preserved not his life but three daies after he had anointed the usurper But it is not seasonable to day to exaggerate the injustice of your proceedings I am not willing to particularize other things and I shall satisfie my self with telling you in generall that Kings ought not to lose their Crowns but with their lives and that nothing can dispense Subjects from the respect and loyaltie which they owe to their Soveraignes nor any pretence whatsoever Authorize Treason and Rebellion If sacred persons may not enjoy their particular priviledge which is derived from none but God they shall be exposed more then others to all sorts of miseries Their guards will appear to them instead of enemies their Thrones will rather seem a direfull precipice then a place of honour and safetie a King of this kind is no better then an illustrious slave when he shall have as many Masters as Subjects This first disorder will quickly cause a second for when the Nobles of a Kingdom fail in their dutie to their Prince their own Vassals and Tenants will forfeit their fealtie to them and then Rebellion communicated from the Grandees to the Commons and so descending from one Soul to another an universall confusion swells and devours all Every one will command and no person obey and in this resentment of Levelling equality each person proves a slave to his own ambition and no one either rationally Commands himself or others In effect this is the most sad condition that a Kingdom can fall into when there is no subjection and where for their punishment the Prince hath not force to reduce the people to their obedience For mine own part when I consider my self to be the Son of a King the successour of so many Kings and yet notwithstanding that I immediately succeed not my Father This Idea imprints in me a strange confusion as towards you and an extream grief as towards my self for when I reflect how the same Subjects who inchained Charles in Fetters and gave the Crown to Robert placed Lewis on the Throne the malice which they bore to the Father may it not easily fall upon the Son and may not they fear that the Son will revenge the outrages committed against the Father but yet may some one say those who have searcht after you pass'd the Seas to present you with a Scepter they need not fear that the memorie of their ancient injustice will obliege you to punish them They have reason rather to believe that this submission should blot out the memory of the first disservice It is certain in the exact Rule of justice no noble Action ought to passe without his recompence and it is really as true That no crime ought to escape without his punishment After all these reasons what ought you not to fear and what not to hope you have recalled me to the Throne 't is true but if you had not had you not been as Criminall against Lewis as you had been against Charles he who gives to another that which he hath taken from him restores without doubt that which he hath taken but his restoration is not a free present and he ought not to expect thanks for an Action of that nature No it sufficeth if one punish not the first without intending any recompence for the second I may say also that you understand not rightly all my present concernments for why because you have not left me still in exile because you have rendred what justly appertained to me Because you understood that I came to re-demand mine own not with a powerfull Army and being tired with your crimes and miseries you believe you may probably disarm the furie of Heaven by this Act of justice No no confide not in any of these pretenses for if I had not stronger considerations then these I should commence my Reign with the punishment of your treasons I should send them to prison who restrained the person of my Father and expose them to the most cruell tortures who contrived and caused his death with the greatnesse of his misfortunes Those black crimes are such which nothing can exterminate Repentance and tears for common errours where humane frailty may plead excuse and not for Traitors and Rebels nor for those who have destroied Thrones and Scepters inchaind Kings created and protected Tyrants Think not then that by taking an Oath of fidelitie which is your dutie that I am thereby ingaged not to doe what becomes a King No I scorn a Throne where I should be a slave and I
A Lively POURTRAICTURE OF THE FACE OF THIS COMMON-WEALTH Exactly drawn By LEWIS the Fourth OF FRANCE Of Famous Memory Printed in the year 1659. LEWIS THE FOURTH To his Revolted Subjects BEfore I shall receive your Oath of Fidelity which I may justly demand and you ought dutifully to take I shall let you know you have recalled this day a Prince who during his Exile had nothing else to do but to study how to Rule and Reign and hereby I shall enforce you to believe that you shall not be able to make a Royal Throne a passage into my Fathers prison And after you have presented me with a Crown to dare to wish me so much ill as once to think of Chains Irons I know well that this discourse will surprise you and that you did not believe when you presented me with a Scepter that I should not rather have received it with Thanks then Reprehensions but this act is extraordinary in its commencement in its progress and in its conclusion and it is just that all circumstances should be proportionable Let it then suffice you onely to know that if I be ignorant to what point Subjects are to pay their obeisance yet I am not ignorant to what degree Soveraigns may extend their clemency Notwithstanding there is this difference betwixt them that the Subjects have no limits for the first but Soveraigns have for the latter The People are obliged to the Princes wills both by their Births and their Lawes They owe them their goods their lives and their liberties and their Princes owe them nothing but Iustice which can hardly pardon Traytors If these Truths and Maximes had been equally understood and followed by the late King my Soveraign and you his People affairs had not been in that sad condition as they now are The State had not been reduc'd to such confusion the Provinces had not been Cantonized Germany had not been so full of Factions Italy had not been so divided all the Cities of the kingdom had not had so many kings as they now have Governours you had not been guilty of the crime of Treason in elevating an Usurper to the Throne the King my Father might still have Reigned or at least I might have received the Crown from his hands and not from yours his Tomb might have been bedewed with my tears his Scepter had not been prophaned his Hearse might have been covered with Trophies and not with Chains And to speak all in a few words you might have been happy and innocent But as his Clemency and your Rebellion were the sole causers of all these evils so your Obedience and my Iustice are the onely means to make reparation Consider a little I pray you that you fall not back in the same estate wherein you were in what Relation you now stand and in what condition I am First you have violated all sorts of Rights in the person of your King you have raised a War against him you have assaulted him and afterwards poysoned him you have abused the confidence he had in you you have detained him prisoner with as great Treason as Injustice with as great insolency as cruelty an injury which was never offered hardly to the person of an ordinary Herald Thus you have violated and impudently abused your King you have detained him prisoner during a Treatie of Peace for five years together led him from prison to prison you have forced him not only to set by his Militia and to depose his Crown but you have constrain'd him with violence to transferre it into other hands then mine To conclude you put him to death and you have reduced my self to a strict necessitie to search my safetie in my flight and to go and shew my miserie beyond the Seas Yet this is not all you have done one thing which never any did before it hath been seen sometimes that the Grandees of a Kingdom have interposed themselves against a Tyranny and have destroied it but 't was never seen that they themselves elevated a Tyrant to the Throne as you have done In these kind of crimes the Abettors may be said to be more criminal then he who hath received all the fruit For if each one of you in particular had aspired to set the Crown upon his own head you might have been more excusable then to have snatcht it from your lawfull Prince to place it on the head of an Vsurper But you 'l say to me the Prince that bore it was not able to support it To that I shall answer As I have the honour to be his Son and was his Subject it belongeth not to me to determine what he could or what he could not seeing he was my Father I ought not to presume to be his judge and seeing he was my King I ought not to be so impudent to censure much lesse to condemne his actions he being not obliged to render an account to any But God alone Believe then the same respect I have for his memorie you ought to have had for his person he was your King as well as mine seeing then that Kings are called the Fathers of the people Their Subjects are obliged to have for them a true resentment of a respect which their very birth may infuse into them Besides as Soveraigns are the true Images of God and that the splendor of their puissance is a beam and ray of his power Subjects ought to have an equall submission to their Soveraigns will When you see a Comet appear the Sun eclipsed the Thunder bolt fall on innocent heads when you see Floods drown whole Towns by their inundation and the Sea passing his bounds and swallowing whole Provinces in the bottome of the deep devour them up When you see an Earthquake make Kingdoms tremble and cause horrid devastations of whole Countries then I say it is permitted to the People to murmure Do you not discern the contrarie how in these occurrences they redouble their vowes and prayers and that they are never more obedient to God then at such a time as if God had forsaken his providence of the Vniverse and when it shall so happen that Heaven for the punishment of your sins gives you a Prince under whose Reign policy and prudence are not well observed during whose Government Forraign and Civill Wars devour all with cruell ravages it belongeth not then to you to reprehend and condemn your Soveraign for is he feeble then you ought to sustain him is he unfortunate you ought to bemoan him is he wicked you ought to look upon him as a scourge and chastisement sent from Heaven and to wait with Patience for a remedie from that hand which hath caused your evil For when a Prince commands an Armie and gives Battail if it so happen that the Souldiers perform not their devoires and dutie that his squadrons yield the main body be broken and in the end after he hath done even miracles in his person he be yet constrained to