Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A78464
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Certain considerations: being the legitimate issue of a true English heart: presented to the free-holders, and to the free men of the several corporations in this nation; to regulate their elections of Members to serve in the next Parliament, to be holden the 25. of Aprill, 1660.
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1660
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Wing C1691; Thomason E765_8; ESTC R207146
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8,330
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Storm may meet him there too Sir John Hotham the Fatal Father of as Fatal a Son is sent with 500. Souldiers to keep Hull for them who there denied the King a peaceable Entrance into his own Town And now a Vote passeth to raise 10000. men upon pretence to defend the Parliament against the King who was so far from having a Camp that his numbers scarcely exceeded a Court nor was there about him any Militiarie appearance as yet and the Complexion of his Message of the 20. of January 1641. Courting them to peace with the offers of more Acts of Grace then could modestly be expected from the most indulgent Prince is a sufficient Demonstration how little he delighted in his peoples blood or his own revenge But this Message though the King often prest for an Answer of it had none but what a Battail fought against his very Person at Edge-hill spoke in the Language of the Cannon for by that time their contempt and speedy marching toward him had summond him to receive such persons as would hazard their Lives and Fortunes for their Princes preservation Now was the whole Kingdome in a jealous trepidation A war was begun and the Citty of London doubtful of the Effects of such sad and unnatural Hostility Petition for Peace but with others of the same Inclination and Address were opposed by the Souldiery incouraged for that purpose and beaten and wounded and trodden under the feet of the Horse-Troups where in the Pallace yard some seeking peace lost their lives And as the Kings Messages of Peace so often repeated were ever sleighted so his Messengers for Peace were used and one carried to London blind-folded through their quarters was thence imprison'd and after many weeks confinement at last return'd without the least word of answer They blinded his eyes who came for the Nations Peace because they saw not the things which belong'd to their own For Colbrook and Oxford and Uxbridge are witnesses of the Kings endeavour for Peace and how unsuccessful all his Treaties were which could never procure so much as a Cessation of Arms. And after all this he offer'd his Sacred Person among them an attempt oâ— no smal hazard yet discovering abundantly how much he thirsted after his peoples Happiness that so his Treaties of Peace might be more prosperous but could not be admitted with how little Variation might we say He would have come to his own but they would not receive him But next let the pretended Causes of the War be considered and they as their Declaration of August 1642. told us was first to defend the true Protestant Religion and this they defended by pursuing and at last destroying them who were the Defenders of it The Pillars of the Church the reverend Bishops and most of the reverend Divines of the Nation for the defence of Religion were-suppressed and their Freeholds for so were their Benefices ravish'd from them they their Wives and Children turnd out of dores to seek their Meat in desolate places and to their Places were preferr'd some of Jeroboam's bleating Calves to bellow out their Cause among the People who had not absolutely as yet shook hands with Loyalty And now a race of dumb Asses are raised up to forbid the pâ—etended Madness of the Prophets and an inundation of Sectaries suffered to rush in and overwhelm the Religion these good States men pretended to defend and the greatest Atheists made the Darlings of the Times whilest the Children of this our Israel who durst sacrifice to their God according to the Discipline and Doctrine of the Church of England were punish'd and imprison'd And to defend Religion the better the Birth-day of our Saviour to gratifie their Brethren the Jews was profaned and the Observation thereof made a Crime Secondly they declared to defend the Kings person whilest their Pulpits and their Presses and that without control spoke nothâ—ng but Treason and Rebellâ—on They defended him with Volleys of undistinguishing Shot Pikes and Canon and when forcâ—d from place to place seeking security and finding none he had thought to make the Scots his refuge this rock dashâ—d him in peices and they the Scots his own Natural Subjects sold him to the Parliament who more generously wicked than the Jews gave 1000000 l. for him a great price yet less than he was worth but that vast summe was made the price of Blood and a Counterfeit high Court I cannot say of Justice though they called it so Arraigned Condemned and Murther'd their King not without the prefaces of many grand indignities and spitting in his face His erected Statua which honored the Exchange thrown down and an Infamous Inscription calling him Tyrâ—nâ— for they persecuted him after his Death became the Monument of their Insolence and Rebellion and when they had kill'd the Heir they seised on his Inheritance selling and sharing his Estate among them And thirdly let it be considered how well the Priviledges of Parliament so much declared for were defended when by the help of their Janizaries they secluded a hundred of their own Members at a time and imprisoned above forty more for no other known Crime but that they were wearie of their owne Crimes and through horror of Conscience thought not fit to oppress their King any more And that these mens Ambition might reign alone the House of Peers the undoubted Birth-right of the Nobility was dissolved by a Vote and no footsteps of Nobility were to be found in Parliament but that the Earl of Salisbury to honor the Peers House and his owne in great humility availed his goodness defying as much the checks of his Blew Garter as those of his Conscience was preferred into a Burgess And fourthly let it be considered how well the liberty and rights of the Subject have been defended by these grand Declarers for their Defence and that will appear by their inforced Loans Contributions Parting Mens Estates taking the fifth and twentieth part and by that dishonorable way of Excise and for the better enjoyment of the Subjects Libetties laying them in prison and forbidding the Benefit of a Habeas Corpus And have not the Laws been trampled under foot and Magna Charta and the Petition of Right made the sport and scorn of Cromwell's Ambition who must be made Protector that so the Guilty might not want protection nor the Innocent to be oppress'd And here let it be considered Whether the Kings Proclamation of the 24. of October 1642. were not Prophetical when he told them their War was to take away his Life to Destroy his Posterity to Change the Religion to suppress the Laws and to make the People Miserable by an Arbitrary power And are there not as Mr. Prynn's Memento tells us above one hundred Declarations Remonstrances Petitions and Ordinances of their owne to witness their Perjuries and Hypocrisies And let it be considered Whether the Solemn League and Covenant that holy Engine of Division will not as Mr. Prynne speaks stare in their faces
CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS BEING The LEGITIMATE ISSUE OF A True ENGLISH Heart Presented to the Free-holders and to the Free Men of the several Corporations in this NATION To Regulate their ELECTIONS OF MEMBERS to Serve in the next PARLIAMENT To be holden the 25. of Aprill 1660. LONDON Printed in the Year 1660. March 26. Certain Considerations being the Legitimate Issue of a true English heart Presented to the Free-holders and to the Free-men of the several Corporations in this Nation to regulate their Elections of Members to serve in the next PARLIAMENT to be holden the 25. of Aprill 1660. TAcitus makes it the bane of the Ancient Britains Quod in Commune non Consulunt That is they had no Common-Councels by which that great Statist meant either Parliaments or something equivalent to them And certainly Parliaments are the best Physick of a sick State but when the Physick shall become the disease and by Factions Interest Atheisme and the Consequents of that Sacriledge and contempt of that just Authority shall make the Nation sick of its own Remedy and turn blessings themselves into curses the wound both of Church and State will grow so wide that none butan Almighty hand can close them And thus hath this poor distracted Nation been near 20 years sick of their Physicians and now lies almost at the last gasp with bleeding hearts and watery eyes we cannot but remember for it is a Misery to remember how happy we were that the last late King Charles the best of Princes the Peoples Martyr and his Martyrdome the Astonishment and Earthquake of all Princes in the world in the 16 year of his Reign did summon a Parliament to be holden at Westminster on the 2. of November in the same year to consult with the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and other great men of the Kingdome concerning the difficult and urgent Affairs of the King and State and of the defence of the Kingdome and Church of England then glorious to the envie of some other States and the Admiration of all To this Parliament according to the summons came the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the several Counties Cities and Burroughs elected by the vertue of the said Writ according to the Custom of England ever since the 9. year of Henry the 3. And this was the first time that the Commons were admitted Members of Parliament and to fit in a distinct House by themselves but let this Truth never be forgotten that they sate then but in the Nature of a Grand Jury to present the grievances and desires of the people and on their behalf to consent to such Lawes as should be there ordained but that House of Commons taking advantage either by the weakness or necessities of their succeeding Kings grew as we have seen to such an exorbitancie of Power till at last they gave Law to their Masters and made the King himself but a Royal Homager But to proceed the Parliament consisting as it ought of Lords and Commons met accordingly in their respective Houses and according to custome did severally take the Oathes of Allegiance and Supremacie whereby they swore O remember this all ye that did swear To bear true Faith to the Kings Majesty his Heirs and Successors and to defend him and them against all attempts and conspiracies against them their Persons Crown and Dignity and they did swear that they did abhor that damnable doctrine and a damnable one it is That Princes might be murthered and deposed this they swore But did they keep this Oath when they made their Iniquitie to triumph and erected the Scaffold the sad and unexpected Scean of the late Kings Death upon the very Margin of his Throne and made him goe out of the world at his own Door Poor Cateline whose modest Crimes made Tully eloquent enough to make his Crimes greater by his Eloquence but here Cicero himself would have been bankrupt and amasement become the best Rhetorick The Parliament thus met the King in a Speech declares his willing and ready concurrence to cure all the grievances of his People and to enact such Laws as should tend in order to it And because the Court of Star-chamber High Commission and Councel Table were great eye-sores to some men who liked no power which might control their disregard of Laws and just Authority His Majesty graciously consented to abolish the two first and to regulate the last And more then this devested himself of all Power giving away the Militia both by Sea and Land to those who wanted his Power to destroy him and secure their crimes Tonnage and Poundage were laid at the feet and pleasure of the Parliament and Monopolists and other Delinquents left to Justice and the grant of a Triennial Parliament was made the Monument of the Kings Goodness and the means to the peoples perpetual felicity And might we not stop here and say Happy are the people that be in such a case The people had now nothing to ask nor the King to give that reason could require but this could not satisfie men who scorn'd the Throne and were resolved that their Ambition should trample upon the very Goodness of their King And therefore now Religion and Reformation The usual Masque of Rebellion must be the Engine to earch the people whose power they wanted to oppress their King and the publique Faith must be pawn'd to raise Money to gratifie our Dear Scottish Brethren who must needs be sent for and an Army of 20000. inviâ—ed to force the people to a New Religion for the Old was condemn'd without the Liberty of speaking for it self But the most of this Design was but in projection as yet such an Embrio could not be produced without the grant of a perpetual Parliament which by the Kings Necessities they soon wrested from him Now was the Oath of Allegiance forgot and the King affronted with all the effects of hold defiance and the six Members accused of Treason by their Prince and in due course of Law impeached in the House of Peers protected and the King traduced with the breach of their priviledges and yet till then never any Member claimed priviledge for Felony or Treason Of which last had those Gentlemen been free the world could not have given them so much Honour as would have grown to them by their Trial. The Innocent never dread the Tribunal the guilty only fear Yet the Members justifie themselves but it is with the numbers of the people and by force and affronts about the Royal Pallace endanger the King to their fury who now devested of of all Power but that of an unconquered Patience makes an Honourable flight to Windsore to give his afflictions breath and to consider the safety of his Royal Consort and hopeful Children The Queen leaves the Land because she could not be safe in it and the King as far as he had any Land accompanies her The King finding the South so tempestuous seeks a Calm in the North but that the