Earls of Roxbrough and Traquaire pretended to protect who indured some affronts that their Patience might provoke a greater rage in the Multitude which a vigorous punishment had easily extinguish'd For they that are fierce in a croud being singled through their particular fears become obedient And that rabble that talks high against the determinations of their Prince when danger from the Laws is within their ken distrust their companions and return to subjection But it soon appeared that this was not the bare effort of a mutinous Multitude but a long-formed Conspiracy and to this Multitude whose present terrour was great yet would have been contemptible in a short space there appeared Parties to head them of several Orders Who presently digested their Partisans into several Tables and concocted this Mutiny into a formal Rebellion To prosecute which they mutually obliged themselves and the whole Nation in a Covenant to extirpate Episcopacy and whatsoever they pleased to brand with the odious names of Heresie and Superstition and to defend each other against all Persons not excepting the King To reduce this people to more peaceful Practices the King sends Marquess Hamilton one who being caressed by His Majesties Favour had risen to such a degree of wealth and greatness that now he dreamed of nothing less than Empire to bring his power to perfection at least to be Monarch of Scotland to which he had some pretensions by his birth as His Commissioner Who with a species of Loyalty dissembled that pleasure which he took in the opposition of the Covenanters whose first motions were secretly directed by his counsels and those of his dependents Traquaire and Roxbrough for all his Allies were of that party contrary to the custom of that Country where all the Members of a Family espouse the part of their Head though in the utmost danger and his Mother rid armed with Pistols at her Saddle-bow for defence of the Covenant By his actings there new seeds of Discontents and War were daily sown and his oppositions so faint that he rather encreased than allayed their fury By several returns to His Majesty for new Instructions he gave time to the Rebels to consolidate their Conspiracy to call home their Exiles of Poverty that were in foreign Armies and provide Arms for open Force By his false representations of the state of things he induced the King to temporize with the too-potent Corruption of that Nation an artifice King JAMES had sometimes practised and by granting their desires to make them sensible of the evils which would flow from their own counsels Therefore the King gave Order for revoking the Liturgy the High-Commission the Book of Canons and the Five Articles of Perth But the Covenanters were more insolent by these Concessions because they had gotten that by unlawful courses and unjust force which Modesty and Submission had never obtained and imputing these Grants to the King's Weakness not his Goodness they proceeded to bolder Attempts Indicted an Assembly without Him in which they abolished Episcopacy excommunicated the Bishops and all that adhered to them Afterwards they seised upon the King's Revenue surprised His Forts and Castles and at last put themselves into Arms. Provoked with these Injuries the King amasses a gallant Army in which was a very great appearance of Lords and Gentlemen and with these marches and incamps within two miles of Berwick within sight of the Enemy But their present Condition being such as could endure neither War nor Peace they endeavoured to dissipate that Army which they could not overthrow by a pretence to a Pacification For which they petition'd the King who yielded unto it out of His innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood So an Accord was made June 17. Anno 1639. and the King disbands His Army expecting the Scots should do the like according to the Articles of Agreement But they being delivered from Fear would not be restrained by Shame from breaking their Faith For no sooner had the King disbanded but they protested against the Pacification printed many false Copies of it that might represent it dishonourable to the King retained their Officers in pay changed the old Form of holding Parliaments invaded the Prerogatives of the Crown and solicited the French King for an aid of men and money This perfidious abuse of His Majesty's Clemency made those that judge of Counsels by the Issue to censure the King's Facility Some wondred how He could imagine there would be any Moderation in so corrupt a Generation of men and that they who had broken the Peace out of a desire of War should now lay aside their Arms out of a love to Quiet That there would be always the same causes to the Scots of disturbing England and opposing Government their unquiet nature and Covetousness therefore unless some strong impression made them either unable or unwilling to distract our quiet the King was to look for a speedy return of their Injuries Others attributed the Accord to the King's sense that some eminent Officers in His own Camp were polluted with Counsels not different from the Covenanters and that Hamilton His Admiral had betrayed the seasons of fighting by riding quietly in the Forth of Edinburgh and had secret Conference with His Mother the great Nurse of the Covenant on Ship-board But most referred it to the King 's innate tenderness of His Subjects Blood and to His Prudence not to defile His Glory with the overthrow which seemed probable of a contemptible Enemy where the gains of the Victory could not balance the hazards of attempting it Anno 1640. While men thus discourse of the Scots Perfidiousness the King prepares for another Army and in order thereto calls a Parliament in Ireland and another in England for assistances against the Rebels in Scotland The Irish granted Money to raise and pay 8000 men in Arms and furnish them with Ammunition Yet this Example with the King's account of the Injuries done to Him and this Nation by the Scots and his promise of for ever acquitting them of Ship-money if now they would freely assist Him prevailed nothing upon the English Parliament whom the Faction drew aside to other Counsels And when the King sent Sir Henry Vane to re-mind them of His desires and to demand Twelve Subsidies yet to accept of Six he industriously as was collected from His own and His Sons following practices insisted upon the Twelve without insinuation of the lesser quantity His Majesty would be contented with which gave such an opportunity and matter for seditious Harangues that the House was so exasperated as that they were about to Remonstrate against the War with Scotland To prevent this ominous effect of the falseness of His Servant the King was forced to dissolve the Parliament May 5. yet continued the Convocation which granted Him 4 s. in the pound for all their Ecclesiastical Promotions But the Laiety that in the House had not time to declame against His Majesties Proceedings did it without doors for being
unhappy Souls with those Crimes and ruines to which they themselves have tempted and betrayed them But the heaviest Censor was Himself for He never left bewailing His Compliance or rather Connivence with this Murder till the issue of His Blood dried up those of His Tears By the other Bill He had as some censured renounced His Crown and granted it to those men who at present exercised so Arbitrary a Power that they wanted nothing but length of time to be reputed Kings and this they now had gotten But the more Speculative concluded it an act of especial Prudence for the King made that an evidence of His sincere intention to oblige His people and overcome the Malice of His Enemies with Benefits which the Faction would have usurped and by the boldness of the attempt ingaged the People to them as the only Patrons of their Liberty And they were furnished with an Example for it by their Confederates in Scotland who indicted an Assembly without the King's leave and continued it against His pleasure and as all imitations of Crimes exceed their first pattern it was conceived these men whose furies were more unjust and so would be more fierce intended to improve that Precedent to the extremest guilt The Bill was no sooner signed but they hastened the Execution and so much the more eagerly because the King desired in a most passionate Letter delivered by the Prince to the Lords that that Excellent Soul which found so much Injustice on Earth might have the more time to fit it self for the Mercy of Heaven But this favour which became Christians to grant agreed not with the Religion of his Adversaries and therefore the second day after he was brought to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill in his Passage thither he had a sight of the Archbishop of Canterbury whose Prayers and Blessing he with a low Obeisance begged and the most pious Prelate bestowed them with Tears where with a greater presence of mind than he had looked his Enemies in the face did he encounter Death and submitted his neck to the stroke of the Executioner He was a person of a generous Spirit fitted for the noblest enterprises and the most difficult parts of Empire His Counsels were bold yet just and he had a Vigour proper for the Execution of them Of an Eloquence next to that of His Master's masculine and most excellent He was no less affectionate to the Church than to the State and not contented while living to defend the Government and Patrimony of it he commended it also to his Son when he was about to die and charged his abhorrency of Sacrilege His Enemies called the Majesty of his Miene in his Lieutenancy Pride and the undaunted execution of his Office on the contumacious the Insolency of his fortune He was censured for committing that fatal Errour of following the King to London and to the Parliament after the Pacification with the Scots at York and it was thought that if he had gone over to his charge in Ireland he might have secured both himself and that Kingdom for His Majesties Service But some attributed this Counsel to a necessity of Fate whose first stroke is at the brain of those whom it designs to ruine and brought him to feel the effects of Popular Rage which himself in former Parliaments had used against Government and to find the Experience of his own advices against the Duke of Buckingham Providence teaching us to abhor over-fine Counsels by the mischiefs they bring upon their Authors The Fall of this Great Man so terrified the other Officers of State that the Lord High Treasurer resigned his Staff to the Hands from whence he received it the Lord Cottington forsook the Mastership of the Court of Wards and the Guardian of the Prince returned Him to the King These Lords parting with their Offices like those that scatter their Treasure and Jewels in the way that they might delude the violence of their greedy pursuers But the King was left â—aked of their faithful Ministery and exposed to the Infusions and Informations of those who were either Complices or Mercenaries to the Faction to whom they discovered his most private Counsels When the Earl of Strafford was dead then did the Parliament begin to think of sending away the Scots who hitherto had much impoverished the Northern Counties and increased the charges of the Nation but now they were Voted to receive 300000 pound under the notion of a Brotherly Assistance but in truth designed by the Faction as a reward for their Clamours for the Earls Blood yet were they kept so long till the King had passed away more of His Prerogative in signing the Bills to take away the High-Commission and the Star-Chamber After which spoils of Majesty they disband the English and the Scotch Armies August 6. and on the 10. of that Month the King follows them into Scotland to settle if it were possible that Kingdom But the King still found them as before when He satisfied their greedy appetites then would they offer Him their Lives and Fortunes but when gain or advantage appeared from His Enemies they appeared in their proper nature ungrateful changeable and perfidious whom no favours could oblige nor any thing but Ruine was to be expected by building upon their Love While the King was in Scotland labouring to settle that Nation by granting all that the Covetousness and Ambition of their Leaders pretended was for the Publick good and so aimed at no less than a Miracle by His Benefits to reduce Faith which like Life when it is once departed doth never naturally return into those perfidious breasts the Parliament adjourns and leaves a standing Committee of such as were the Leaders or the Servants of the Faction These prepared new Toils for His Majesties Return and by them was the Grand Remonstrance formed in it were reckoned for Grievances all the Complaints of men that were impatient of Laws and Government the Offences of Courtiers the unpleasing Resolves of Judges the Neglects or Rigours of the Ministers of Justice the undigested Sermons of some Preachers yea the Positions of some Divines in the Schools were all exaggerated to defame the present Government both in Church and State and to magnifie the skill of these State-Physicians that offered Prescripts for all these Distempers Besides more easily to abuse the Vulgar who reckon Misfortunes as Crimes unpleasing accidents were represented as designs of Tyranny and those things which had been reformed were yet mentioned as continued burthens From which the people were assured there could be no deliverance but by the wisdom and magnanimity of the Remonstrants To prepare the way for this the most opprobrious parts of it were first whispered among the Populacy that by this seeming suppression men impatient of Secrets might more eagerly divulge them and the danger appear greater by an affected silence Then prodigious Calumnies which none but souls prone to any wickedness could believe of so Great a man were formed
knew not how to Dissemble He declares His Profession in Religion to be the same with that which He found left by His Father King James How little the Papists credited what the Faction would have the World believe was too evident by the Conspiracies of their Fathers against His Life and Honour which the Discovery of Habernefield to whose relations the following practices against Him and the Church of England gained a belief brought to light They were mingled likewise among the Conspirators and both heated and directed their Fury against Him They were as importunate in their Calumnies of Him even after His Death as were the vilest of the Sectaries which they had never done could they have imagined Him to be theirs for His Blood would in their Calendar have out-shined the Multitude of their fictitious Saints For His sake they continued their hatred to His Family abetted the Usurpations of the following Tyrant by imposing upon the World new Rules of Obedience and Government invented fresh Calumnies for the Son and obstructed by various Methods His return to the Principality because He was Heir as well of the Faith as of the Throne of His Father Although this Honour is not to be denied to many Gallant Persons of that perswasion that their Loyalty was not so corrupted by their Faith to Rome but that they laboured to prevent the Father's Overthrow and to hasten the Son's Restitution He was not satisfied in being Religious as a particular Christian but would be so as a King and indeavoured that Piety might be as Universal as His Empire This He assaied by giving Ornaments and Assistances to the External Exercise and Parts of it which is the proper Province of a Magistrate whose Power reaches but to the Outward man that so carnal minds if they were not brought to an Obedience might yet to a Reverence and if men would not honour yet they should not despise Religion This He did in taking Care for the Place of Worship that Comeliness and Decency should be there conspicuous where the God of Order was to be adored And it was a Royal Undertaking to restore St. Paul's Church to its primitive strength and give it a beauty as magnificent as its Structure He taught men not to contemn the Dispensers of the Gospel because He had so great an esteem for them admitting some to His nearest Confidence and most Private Counsels as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the greatest Place of Trust as the Bishop of London to the Treasury consulting at once the Emolument of Religion whose Dictates are more powerfully impressed when the Minister is honoured by the Magistrate and the Benefit of the State which wise Princes had before found none to seek more faithfully if any did more prudently than Church-men Though a Voluntary Poverty did much contribute to the lustre and increase of the Church in the Purer times yet a necessitated would have destroyed it in a Corrupt age therefore the King to obstruct all access of Ruine that way secured her Patrimony and recovered as much as He could out of the Jaws of Sacrilege which together with time had devoured a great part of it His endeavours this way were so strong that the Faction in Scotland found no Artifice able to divert them but by kindling the flame of a Civil War the Criminals there seeking to adjust their Sacrilegious Acquisitions by Rebellious practices and to destroy that Church by force which His Majesty would not suffer them to torture with Famine In Ireland the Lord Lieutenant Wentworth by His Command and Instructions retrived very great Possessions which the tumults of that Nation had advantaged many greedy Persons to seize upon and would not suffer Sedition to be incouraged with the hopes of Impiety In England He countenanced those just Pleas which Oppressed Incumbents entred against Rapacious Patrons and this way many Curates were put into a Condition of giving Hospitality who before were contemptible in their Ministry because they were so in their Fortune His Enemies knew how Inviolable was the Faith of His Majesty in this and therefore pressed Him with nothing more to obstruct Peace than the Alienation of Church-Lands rather than which He did abandon His Life and parted sooner with His Blood than them He used to say Though I am sensible enough of the Dangers that attend My Care of the Church yet I am resolved to defend it or make it My Tomb-stone alluding to a Story which He would tell of a Generous Captain that said so of a Castle that was committed to His trust He had so perfect a Detestation of that Crime that it is said He scarce ever mentioned Henry the 8. without an Abhorrency of His Sacriledge He neglected the Advices of His own Party if they were negligent of the Welfare of the Church Those Concessions He had made in Scotland to the prejudice of the Church there were the subject of His grief and penitential Confessions both before God as appears in His Prayers and men For when the Reverend Dr. Morley now Lord Bishop of Winchester whom He had sent for to the Treaty in the Isle of Wight where he employed his diligence and prudence to search into the Intrigues and Reserves of the Commissioners had acquainted Him how the Commissioners were the more pertinacious for the abolishing of Episcopacy here because His Majesty had consented to it in Scotland and withall told Him what answer he himself had made to them That perchance the King was abused to those grants by a misinformation that that Act which was made in King James 's Minority against Bishops was yet unrepealed and that His Concession would but leave them where the Law had The King Answered It is true I was told so but whenever you hear that urged again give them this answer and say that you had it from the King Himself That when I did that in Scotland I sinned against My Conscience and that I have often repented of it and hope that God hath forgiven Me that great Sin and by God's grace for no Consideration in the World will I ever do so again He was careful of Uniformity both because He knew the Power of Just and Lawful Princes consisted in the Union of their Subjects who never are cemented stronger than by a Unity in Religion but Tyrants who measure their greatness by the weakness of their Vassals work that most effectually by caressing Schisms and giving a Licence to different Perswasions as the Usurpers afterwards did Besides He saw there was no greater Impediment to a sincere Piety because that Time and those Parts which might improve Godliness to a Growth were all Wasted and Corrupted in Malice and Slanders betwixt the Dissenters about forms He was more tender in preserving the Truths of Christianity than the Rights of His Throne For when the Commissioners of the Two Houses in the Isle of Wight importunately pressed Him for a Confirmation of the Lesser Catechism which the Assembly at Westminster