General Councils the Power of the Roman Church grew up a pace and either by the negligence or weakness of the succeeding Emperors the Pope did what he pleased in Religion There was no Doctrine which tended to the Power Ecclesiastical or to the Reverence of the Clergy the contradiction whereof was not by one Council or another made Heresie and punished arbitrarily by the Emperors with Banishment or Death And at last Kings themselves and Commonwealths unless they purged their Dominions of Hereticks were Excommunicated Interdicted and their Subjects let loose upon them by the Pope insomuch as to an ingenuous and serious Christian there was nothing so dangerous as to enquire concerning his own Salvation of the Holy Scripture the careless cold Christian was safe and the skilful Hypocrite a Saint But this is a Story so well known as I need not insist upon it any longer but proceed to the Hereticks here in England and what Punishments were ordained for them by Acts of Parliament All this while the Penal Laws against Hereticks were such as the several Princes and States in their own Dominions thought fit to enact The Edicts of the Emperors made their Punishments Capital but for the manner of the Execution left it to the Prefects of Provinces And when other Kings and States intended according to the Laws of the Roman Church to extirpate Hereticks they ordained such Punishment as they pleased The first Law that was here made for the punishments of Hereticks called Lollards and mentioned in the Statutes was in the fifth year of the Reign of Richard the Second occasioned by the Doctrine of John Wickliff and his Followers which Wickliff because no Law was yet ordained for his punishment in Parliament by the favour of John of Gaunt the King's Son during the Reign of Edward the third had escaped But in the fifth year of the next King which was Richard the Second there passed an Act of Parliament to this effect That Sheriffs and some others should have Commissions to apprehend such as were certified by the Prelates to be Preachers of Heresie their Fautors Maintainers and Abettors and to hold them in strong Prison till they should justifie themselves according to the Law of Holy Church So that hitherto there was no Law in England by which a Heretick could be put to Death or otherways punished than by imprisoning him till he was reconciled to the Church After this in the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fourth Son of John of Gaunt by whom Wickliffe had been favoured and who in his aspiring to the Crown had needed the good Will of the Bishops was made a Law in the second Year of his Reign wherein it was Enacted That every Ordinary may convene before him and imprison any person suspected of Heresie and that an obstinate Heretick shall be burnt before the People In the next King's Reign which was Henry the Fifth in his Second year was made an Act of Parliament wherein it is declared that the intent of Hereticks called Lollards was to subvert the Christian Faith the Law of God the Church and the Realm And that an Heretick convict should forfeit all his Fee-simple Lands Goods and Chattels besides the Punishment of Burning Again in the Five and Twentieth year of King Henry the Eighth it was Enacted That an Heretick convict shall abjure his Heresies and refusing so to do or relapsing shall be burnt in open place for example of others This Act was made after the putting down of the Pope's Authority And by this it appears that King Henry the Eighth intended no farther alteration in Religion than the recovering of his own Right Ecclesiastical But in the first year of his Son King Edward the sixth was made an Act by which were repealed not only this Act but also all former Acts concerning Doctrines or matters of Religion So that at this time there was no Law at all for the punishment of Hereticks Again in the Parliament of the first and second year of Queen Mary this Act of 1 Ed. 6. was not repealed but made useless by reviving the Statute of 25 Hen. 8. and freely put it in execution insomuch as it was Debated Whether or no they should proceed upon that Statute against the Lady Elizabeth the Queens Sister The Lady Elizabeth not long after by the Death of Queen Mary coming to the Crown in the fifth year of her Reign by Act of Parliament repealed in the first place all the Laws Ecclesiastical of Queen Mary with all other former Laws concerning the punishments of Hereticks nor did she enact any other punishments in their place In the second place it was Enacted That the Queen by her Letters Patents should give a Commission to the Bishops with certain other persons in her Majesties Name to execute the Power Ecclesiastical in which Commission the Commissioners were forbidden to adjudge any thing to be Heresie which was not declared to be Heresie by some of the first four General Councels But there was no mention made of General Councels but only in that branch of the Act which Authorised that Commission commonly called The High Commission nor was there in that Commission any thing concerning how Hereticks were to be punished but it was granted to them that they might declare or not declare as they pleased to be Heresie or not Heresie any of those Doctrines which had been Condemned for Heresie in the first four General Councels So that during the time that the said High Commission was in being there was no Statute by which a Heretick could be punished otherways than by the ordinary Censures of the Church nor Doctrine accounted Heresie unless the Commissioners had actually declared and published That all that which was made Heresie by those Four Councels should be Heresie also now But I never heard that any such Declaration was made either by Proclamation or by Recording it in Churches or by publick Printing as in penal Laws is necessary the breaches of it are excused by ignorance Besides if Heresie had been made Capital or otherwise civilly punishable either the Four General Councels themselves or at least the Points condemned in them ought to have been Printed or put into Parish Churches in English because without it no man could know how to beware of offending against them Some men may perhaps ask whether no body were Condemned and Burnt for Heresie during the time of the High Commission I have heard there were But they which approve such executions may peradventure know better grounds for them than I do but those grounds are very well worthy to be enquired after Lastly in the seventeenth year of the Reign of King Charles the First shortly after that the Scots had Rebelliously put down the Episcopal Government in Scotland the Presbyterians of England endeavoured the same here The King though he saw the Rebels ready to take the Field would not condescend to that but yet in hope to appease them was content to pass an
they thought worthy even to be Senators of Rome and to give every one of the Common People the Priviledges of the City of Rome by which they were protected from the Contumelies of other Nations where they resided Why were not the Scotch and English in like manner united into one People A. King James at his first coming to the Crown of England did endeavour it but could not prevail But for all that I believe the Scotch have now as many Priviledges in England as any Nation had in Rome of those which were so as you say made Romans for they are all naturaliz'd and have right to buy Land in England to themselves and their Heirs B. It 's true of them that were born in Scotland after the time that King James was in possession of the Kingdom of England A. There be very few now that were born before But why have they a better Right that were born after than they that were born before B. Because they were born Subjects to the King of England and the rest not A. Were not the rest born Subjects to King James And was not he King of England B. Yes but not then A. I understand not the subtilty of that distinction But upon what Law is that distinction grounded Is there any Statute to that purpose B. I cannot tell I think not but it is grounded upon Equity A. I see little Equity in this that those Nations that are bound to equal obedience to the same King should not have equal priviledges And now seeing there be so very few born before King James's coming in what greater priviledge had those ingrafted Romans by their Naturalization in the State of Rome or in the State of England the English themselves more than the Scotch B. Those Romans when any of them were in Rome had their Voice in the making of Laws A. And the Scotch have their Parliaments wherein their assent is requir'd to the Laws there made which is as good Have not many of the Provinces of France their several Parliaments and several Constitutions and yet they are all equally natural Subjects to the King of France and therefore for my part I think they were mistaken both English and Scotch in calling one another Forreigners Howsoever that be the King had a very sufficient Army wherewith he marched towards Scotland and by that time he was come to York the Scotch Army was drawn up to the Frontiers and ready to march into England which also they presently did giving out all the way that their March should be without damage to the Countrey and that their Errand was only to deliver a Petition to the King for the redress of many pretended Injuries they had receiv'd from such of the Court whose Counsel the King most followed so they passed through Northumberland quietly till they came to a Ford in the River of Tine a little above New-Castle where they found some little opposition from a Party of the King's Army sent thither to stop them whom the Scotch easily master'd and as soon as they were over seiz'd upon New-Castle and coming farther on upon the City of Duresme and sent to the King to desire a Treaty which was granted and the Commissioners on both sides met at Rippon The Conclusion was that all should be referr'd to the Parliament which the King should call to meet at Westminster on the third of November following being in the same Year 1640. and thereupon the King returned to London B. So the Armies were disbanded A. No the Scotch Army was to be defrayed by the Counties of Northumberland and Duresme and the King was to pay his own till the disbanding of both should be agreed upon in Parliament B. So in effect both the Armies were maintain'd at the King's charge and the whole Controversie to be decided by a Parliament almost wholly Presbyterian and as partial to the Scotch as themselves could have wished A. And yet for all this they durst not presently make War upon the King there was so much yet left of reverence to him in the Hearts of the People as to have made them odious if they had declared what they intended they must have some colour or other to make it believ'd that the King made War first upon the Parliament and besides they had not yet sufficiently disgraced him in Sermons and Pamphlets nor removed from about him those they thought could best counsel him Therefore they resolv'd to proceed with him like skilful Hunters first to single him out by Men disposed in all parts to drive him into the open Field and then in case he should but seem to turn head to call that a making of War against the Parliament And first they call'd in question such as had either preached or written in defence of any of those Rights which belonging to the Crown they meant to usurp and take from the King to themselves Whereupon some few Preachers and Writers were imprisoned or forced to fly The King not protecting these they proceeded to call in question some of the King 's own Actions in his Ministers whereof they imprisoned some and some went beyond Sea And whereas certain persons having endeavoured by Books and Sermons to raise Sedition and committed other crimes of high nature had therefore been censured by the King's Council in the Star-Chamber and imprisoned the Parliament by their own Authority to try it seems how the King and the People would take it for their persons were inconsiderable ordered their setting at liberty which was accordingly done with great applause of the People that flocked about them in London in manner of a Triumph This being done without resistance the King 's Right to Ship-Money B. Ship-Money what 's that A. The Kings of England for the defence of the Sea had power to tax all the Counties of England whether they were Maritime or not for the building and furnishing of Ships which Tax the King had then lately found cause to impose and the Parliament exclaim'd against it as an oppression and one of their Members that had been taxed but 20 s. mark the oppression a Parliament-man of 500 l. a year Land taxed at 20 s. they were forced to bring it to a Tryal at Law he refusing payment and he was cast Again when all the Judges of Westminster were demanded their Opinions concerning the Legality of it of Twelve that there are it was judged legal by Ten for which though they were not punished yet they were afrighted by the Parliament B. What did the Parliament mean when they did exclaim against it as illegal Did they mean it was against Statute-Law or against the Judgments of Lawyers given heretofore which are commonly called Reports or did they mean it was against Equity which I take to be the same with the Law of Nature A. It is a hard matter or rather impossible to know what other Men mean especially if they be crafty but sure I am Equity was not their ground for
and other Writings could have done by far and I wonder what kind of Men they were that hindered the King from taking this Resolution A. You may know by the Declarations themselves which are very long and full of quotations of Records and of Cases formerly Reported that the Penners of them were either Lawyers by profession or such Gentlemen as had the Ambition to be thought so Besides I told you before that those which were then likeliest to have their Counsel asked in this business were averse to absolute Monarchy as also to absolute Democracy or Aristocracy all which Governments they esteemed Tyranny and were in love with Monarchy which they used to praise by the Name of mixt Monarchy though it were indeed nothing else but pure Anarchy And those Men whose Pens the King most used in these Controversies of Law and Politicks were such if I have not been misinformed as having been Members of this Parliament had declaimed against Ship-Money and other Extraparliamentary Taxes as much as any but when they saw the Parliament grow higher in their Demands than they thought they would have done went over to the King's Party B. Who were those A. It is not necessary to name any man seeing I have undertaken only a short Narration of the follies and other faults of men during this trouble but not by naming the persons to give you or any man else occasion to esteem them the less now that the faults on all sides have been forgiven B. When the business was brought to this height by Levying of Soldiers and seizing of the Navy and Arms and other Provisions on both sides that no man was so blind as not to see they were in an estate of War one against another why did not the King by Proclamation or Message according to his undoubted Right dissolve the Parliament and thereby diminish in some part the Authority of their Levies and of other their unjust Ordinances A. You have forgotten that I told you that the King himself by a Bill that he passed at the same time when he passed the Bill for the Execution of the Earl of Strafford had given them Authority to hold the Parliament till they should by consent of both Houses dissolve themselves If therefore he had by any Proclamation or Message to the Houses dissolved them they would to their former defamations of his Majesties Actions have added this that he was a breaker of his word and not only in contempt of him have continued their Session but also have made advantage of it to the increase and strengthening of their own Party B. Would not the King 's raising of an Army against them be interpreted as a purpose to dissolve them by force And was it not as great a breach of promise to scatter them by force as to dissolve them by Proclamation Besides I cannot conceive that the passing of that Act was otherwise intended than conditionally so long as they should not ordain any thing contrary to the Sovereign Right of the King which Condition they had already by many of their Ordinances broken And I think that even by the Law of Equity which is the unalterable Law of Nature a man that has the Sovereign Power cannot if he would give away the Right of any thing which is necessary for him to retain for the good Government of his Subjects unless he do it in express words saying That he will have the Sovereign Power no longer For the giving away that which by consequence only draws the Sovereignty along with it is not I think a giving away of the Sovereignty but an error such as works nothing but an invalidity in the Grant it self And such was the King's passing of this Bill for the continuing of the Parliament as long as the two Houses pleased But now that the War was resolved on on both sides what needed any more dispute in writing A. I know not what need they had but on both sides they thought it needful to hinder one another as much as they could from Levying of Soldiers and therefore the King did set forth Declarations in print to make the People know that they ought not to obey the Officers of the new Militia set up by Ordinance of Parliament and also to let them see the Legality of his own Commissions of Array And the Parliament on their part did the like to justifie to the People the said Ordinance and to make the Commission of Array appear unlawful B. When the Parliament were Levying of Soldiers was it not lawful for the King to Levy Soldiers to defend himself and his Right though there had been no other Title for it but his own Preservation and that the Name of Commission of Array had never before been heard of A. For my part I think there cannot be a better Title for War than the defence of a man 's own Right but the People at that time thought nothing lawful for the King to do for which there was not some Statute made by Parliament For the Lawyers I mean the Judges of the Courts at Westminster and some few others though but Advocates yet of great reputation for their skill in the Common Laws and Statutes of England had infected most of the Gentry of England with their Maxims and Cases prejudged which they call Presidents and made them think so well of their own knowledge in the Law that they were very glad of this occasion to shew it against the King and thereby to gain a Reputation with the Parliament of being good Patriots and wise States-men B. What was this Commission of Array A. King William the Conqueror had gotten into his hands by Victory all the Land in England of which he disposed some part as Forests and Chases for his Recreation and some part to Lords and Gentlemen that had assisted him or were to assist him in the Wars upon which he laid a charge of Service in his Wars some with more men and some with less according to the Lands he had given them whereby when the King sent men unto them with Commission to make use of their Service they were obliged to appear with Arms and to accompany the King to the Wars for a certain time at their own charges and such were the Commissions by which this King did then make his Levies B. Why then was it not legal A. No doubt but it was legal but what did that amount to with men that were already resolv'd to acknowledge for Law nothing that was against their Design of abolishing Monarchy and placing a Sovereign and absolute arbitrary Power in the House of Commons B. To destroy Monarchy and set up the House of Commons are two businesses A. They found it so at last but did not think it so then B. Let us now come to the Military part A. I intended only the Story of their Injustice Impudence and Hypocrisie therefore for the proceeding of the War I refer you to the History thereof written at
they require first That the King be brought to Justice 2. That the Prince and Duke of York be summoned to appear at a day appointed and proceeded with according as they should give satisfaction 3. That the Parliament settle the Peace and future Government and set a reasonable period to their own sitting and make certain future Parliaments Annual or Biennial 4. That a competent number of the King 's Chief Instruments be executed And this to be done both by the House of Commons and by a general Agreement of the People testified by their Subscriptions Nor did they stay for an Answer but presently set a Guard of Soldiers at the Parliament-house-door and other Soldiers in Westminster-Hall suffering none to go into the House but such as would serve their turns All others were frighted away or made Prisoners and some upon divers quarrels suspended Above 90 of them because they had refused to vote against the Scots and others because they had voted against the Vote of Non-Addresses and the rest were an House for Cromwel The Fanaticks also in the City being countenanced by the Army pack a new Common Councel whereof any forty was to be above the Major and their first work was to frame a Petition for Justice against the King which Tichborne the Major involving the City in the Regicide delivered to the Parliament At the same time with the like violence they took the King from Newport in the Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle till things were ready for his Trial. The Parliament in the mean time to avoid perjury by an Ordinance declared void the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance and presently after made another to bring the King to his Trial. B. This is a piece of Law that I understood not before that when many Men swear singly they may when they are assembled if they please absolve themselves A. The Ordinance being drawn up was brought into the House where after three several Readings it was voted That the Lords and Commons of England assembled in Parliament do declare That by the fundamental Laws of the Realm it is Treason in the King of England to Levy War against the Parliament And this Vote was sent up to the Lords and they denying their consent the Commons in anger made another Vote That all Members of Committees should proceed and act in any Ordinance whether the Lords concurred or no and that the People under God are the original of all just Power and that the House of Commons have the Supream Power of the Nation and that whatsoever the House of Commons enacteth is Law All this passed nemine contradicente B. These Propositions fight not only against a King of England but against all the Kings of the World It were good they thought on 't but yet I believe under God the original of all Laws was in the People A. But the People for them and their Heirs by consent and Oaths have long ago put the Supream Power of the Nation into the hands of their Kings for them and their Heirs and consequently into the hands of this King their known and lawful Heir B. But does not the Parliament represent the People A. Yes to some purposes as to put up Petitions to the King when they have leave and are grieved but not to make a Grievance of the King's Power Besides the Parliament never represents the People but when the King calls them nor is it to be imagin'd that he calls a Parliament to depose himself Put the Case every County and Burrough should have given this Parliament for a Benevolence a Sum of Money and that every County meeting in their County-Court or elsewhere and every Burrough in their Town-Hall should have chosen certain men to carry their several Sums respectively to the Parliament Had not these men represented the whole Nation B. Yes no doubt A. Do you think the Parliament would have thought it reasonable to be called to account by this Representative B. No sure and yet I must confess the Case is the same A. This Ordinance contained first a Summary of the Charge against the King in substance this That not content with the Encroachments of his Predecessors upon the freedom of the People he had designed to set up a Tyrannical Government and to that end had raised and maintained in the Land a Civil War against the Parliament whereby the Country hath been miserably wasted the publick Treasure exhausted thousands of people murdered and infinite other mischiefs committed Secondly A Constitution passed of a High Court of Justice that is of a certain number of Commissioners of whom any 20 had Power to try the King and to proceed to Sentence according to the merit of the Cause and see it speedily executed The Commissioners met on Saturday Jan. 20 th in Westminster-Hall and the King was brought before them where sitting in a Chair he heard the Charge read but denied to plead to it either Guilty or Not Guilty till he should know by what Lawful Authority he was brought thither The President told him That the Parliament affirmed their own Authority and the King persevered in his refusal to plead though many words passed between him and the President yet this was the substance of it all On Monday January 22 the Court met again and the Solicitor moved that if the King persisted in denying the Authority of the Court the Charge might be taken pro confesso but the King still denied their Authority They met again January 23 and then the Solicitor moved the Court for Judgment whereupon the King was requir'd to give his final Answer which was again a denial of their Authority Lastly They met again January 27 where the King desir'd to be heard before the Lords and Commons in the Painted Chamber and promising after that to abide the Judgment of the Court The Commissioners retir'd for half an hour to consider of it and then returning caused the King to be brought again to the Bar and told him that what he proposed was but another denial of the Courts Jurisdiction and that if he had no more to say they would proceed Then the King answering that he had no more to say the President began a long Speech in Justification of the Parliaments Proceedings producing the Examples of many Kings killed or deposed by wicked Parliaments Ancient and Modern in England Scotland and other parts of the World All which he endeavoured to justifie from this only Principle That the People have the Supream Power and the Parliament is the People This Speech ended the Sentence of death was read and the same upon Tuesday after January 30 executed at the Gate of his own Palace of White-hall He that can delight in reading how villainously he was used by the Soldiers between the Sentence and Execution may go to the Chronicle it self in which he shall see what Courage Patience Wisdom and Goodness was in this Prince whom in their Charge the Members of that wicked Parliament
men Or that any but the King had Authority to affix the Great Seal of England to any Writing And who did ever doubt to call our Laws though made in Parliament the King's Laws What was ever called a Law which the King did not assent to Because the King has granted in divers cases not to make a Law without the advice and assent of the Lords and Commons therefore when there is no Parliament in being shall the Great Seal of England stand for nothing What was more unjustly maintained during the long Parliament besides the resisting and Murdering of the King then this Doctrine of his Lordship's But the Bishop endeavoured here to make the Multitude believe I maintain That the King sinneth not though he bid hang a man for making his Apparel otherwise than he appointed or his Servant for negligent attendance And yet he knew I distinguished always between the King 's natural and politick capacity What name should I give to this wilful slander But here his Lordship enters into passion and exclaims Where are we in Europe or in Asia Gross palpable pernicious flattery poisoning of a Common-wealth poysoning the King's mind But where was his Lordship when he wrote this One would not think he was in France nor that this Doctrine was Written in the year 1658 but rather in the year 1648 in some Cabal of the King's enemies But what did put him into this fit of Choller Partly this very thing that he could not answer my reasons but chiefly that he had lost upon me so much School-learning in our controversie touching Liberty and Necessity wherein he was to blame himself for believing that the obscure and barbarous Language of School Divinity could satisfie an ingenuous Reader as well as plain and perspicuous English Do I flatter the King Why am I not rich I confess his Lordship has not flattered him here J. D. Something there is which he hath a confused glimmering of as the blind man sees men walking like Trees which he is not able to apprehend and express clearly We acknowledge that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erroneous or unjust or injurious such as a Subject cannot approve for good in themselves yet he is bound to acquiesce and may not oppose or resist otherwise than by Prayers and Tears and at the most by flight We acknowledge that the Civil Laws have power to bind the Conscience of a Christian in themselves but not from themselves but from him who hath said Let every Soul be subject to the higher Powers Either they bind Christian Subjects to do their Soveraign's Commands or to suffer for the Testimony of a good Conscience We acknowledge that in doubtful Cases semper praesumitur pro Rege Lege the Soveraign and the Law are always presumed to be in the right But in plain evident cases which admit no doubt it is always better to obey God than man Blunderers whilst they think to mend one imaginary hole make two or three real ones They who derive the Authority of the Scriptures or God's Law from the Civil Laws of men are like those who seek to underprop the Heavens from falling with a Bullrush Nay they derive not only the Authority of the Scripture but even the Law of nature it self from the Civil Law The Laws of nature which need no promulgation in the condition of nature are not properly Laws but qualities which dispose men to peace and obedience When a Common-wealth is once setled then are they actually Laws and not before God help us into what times are we fallen when the immutable Laws of God and Nature are made to depend upon the mutable Laws of mortal men just as one should go about to controll the Sun by the Authority of the Clock T. H. Hitherto he never offered to mend any of the Doctrines he inveighs against but here he does He says I have a glimmering of something I was not able to apprehend and express clearly Let us see his Lordship's more clear expression We acknowledge saith he that though the Laws or Commands of a Soveraign Prince be erroneous or unjust or injurious such as a Subject cannot approve for good in themselves yet he is bound to acquiesce and may not oppose or resist otherwise than by Prayers and Tears and at the most by Flight Hence it follows clearly that when a Soveraign has made a Law though erroneous then if his Subject oppose it it is a sin Therefore I would fain know when a man has broken that Law by doing what it forbad or by refusing to do what it commanded whether he have opposed this Law or not If to break the Law be to oppose it he granteth it Therefore his Lordship has not here expressed himself so clearly as to make men understand the difference between breaking a Law and opposing it Though there be some difference between breaking of a Law and opposing those that are sent with force to see it executed yet between breaking and opposing the Law it self there is no difference Also though the Subject think the Law just as when a Thief is by Law Condemned to dye yet he may lawfully oppose the Execution not only by Prayers Tears and Flight but also as I think any way he can For though his fault were never so great yet his endeavour to save his own life is not a fault For the Law expects it and for that cause appointeth Felons to be carryed bound and encompassed with Armed men to Execution Nothing is opposite to Law but sin Nothing opposite to the Sheriff but force So that his Lordship's sight was not sharp enough to see the difference between the Law and the Officer Again We acknowledge says he that the Laws have power to bind the Conscience of a Christian in themselves but not from themselves Neither do the Scriptures bind the Conscience because they are Scriptures but because they were from God So also the Book of English Statutes bindeth our Consciences in it self but not from it self but from the Authority of the King who only in the right of God has the legislative Powers Again he saith We acknowledge that in doubtful cases the Soveraign and the Law are always presumed to be in the right If he presume they are in the right how dare he presume that the cases they determine are doubtful But saith he in evident cases which admit no doubt it is always better to obey God than man Yes and in doubtful cases also say I. But not always better to obey the inferior Pastors than the Supream Pastor which is the King But what are those cases that admit no doubt I know but very few and those are such as his Lordship was not much acquainted with J. D. But it is not worthy of my labour nor any part of my intention to pursue every shadow of a Question which he springeth It shall suffice to gather a Posie of Flowers or rather a bundle of Weeds
TRACTS OF M R. THOMAS HOBBS OF Malmsbury CONTAINING I. Behemoth the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England from 1640. to 1660. printed from the Author 's own Copy Never printed but with a thousand faults before II. An Answer to Arch-Bishop Bramhall's Book called the Catching of the Leviathan Never printed before III. An Historical Narration of Heresie and the Punishment thereof Corrected by the true Copy IV. Philosophical Problems dedicated to the King in 1662. but never printed before LONDON Printed for W. Crooke at the Green-Dragon without Temple-Bar MDCLXXXII Behemoth THE HISTORY Of the Causes of the Civil-Wars OF ENGLAND And of the Councels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640. to the year 1660. Written by THOMAS HOBBS of Malmsbury Printed from the Author 's true Copy Bella per Angliacos plusquam civilia campos Jusque datum sceleri loquimur LONDON Printed for W. Crooke at the Green-Dragon without Temple-Bar MDCLXXXII THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER MY Duty as well to the Publick as to the Memory of Mr. Hobbs has obliged me to procure with my utmost diligence that these Tracts should come forth with the most correct exactness I am compell'd by the force of Truth to declare how much both the World and the Name of Mr. Hobbs have been abus'd by the several spurious Editions of the History of the Civil Wars wherein by various and unskilful Transcriptions are committed above a thousand faults and in above a hundred places whole Lines left out as I can make appear I must confess Mr. Hobbs upon some considerations was averse to the publishing thereof but since it is impossible to suppress it no Book being more commonly sold by all Booksellers I hope I need not fear the Offence of any Man by doing Right to the World and this Work Which I now Publish from the Original Manuscript done by his own Amanuensis and given me by himself above twelve years since To this I have joyn'd the Treatise against Arch-Bishop Bramhall to prevent the like prejudice which must certainly have faln on it there being so many false Copies abroad if not thus prevented as also the Discourse of Heresie from a more correct Copy and have likewise annex'd his Physical Problems as they were translated by himself and presented to His Majesty with the Epistle prefix'd in the Year 1662. at the same time they came forth in Latin These things premis'd there remains nothing but to wish for my self good sale to the Buyer much pleasure and satisfaction Your Humble Servant William Crooke Behemoth OR THE EPITOME OF THE Civil Wars OF ENGLAND PART I. A. IF in time as in place there were degrees of high and low I verily believe that the highest of time would be that which passed between 1640. and 1660. for he that thence as from the Devils Mountain should have looked upon the World and observ'd the Actions of Men especially in England might have had a Prospect of all kinds of Injustice and of all kinds of Folly that the World could afford and how they were produced by their Hypocrisie and self-conceit whereof the one is double Iniquity and the other double Folly B. I should be glad to behold that Prospect You that have liv'd in that time and in that part of your Age wherein Men use to see best into good and evil I pray you set me that could not see so well upon the same Mountain by the Relation of the Actions you then saw and of their Causes Pretensions Justice Order Artifice and Event A. In the Year 1640. the Government of England was Monarchical and the King that reigned Charles the first of that name holding the Sovereignty by right of a descent continued above 600 years and from a much longer descent King of Scotland and from the time of his Ancestors Henry the second King of Ireland a Man that wanted no vertue either of Body or Mind nor endeavour'd any thing more than to discharge his Duty towards God in the well governing of his Subjects B. How could he then miscarry having in every County so many Trained Soldiers as would put together have made an Army of 60000 Men and divers Magazines of Ammunition in places fortified A. If those Soldiers had been as they and all other of his Subjects ought to have been at his Majesties command the Peace and Happiness of the three Kingdoms had continued as it was left by King James but the People were corrupted generally and disobedient persons esteemed the best Patriots B. But sure there were Men enough besides those that were ill-affected to have made an Army sufficient to have kept the People from uniting into a Body able to oppose him A. Truly I think if the King had had Money he might have had Soldiers enough in England for there were very few of the Common People that cared much for either of the Causes but would have taken any side for pay and plunder but the Kings Treasure was very low and his Enemies that pretended the Peoples ease from Taxes and other specious things had the command of the Purses of the City of London and of most Cities and Corporate Towns in England and of many particular persons besides B. But how came the People to be so corrupted and what kind of People were they that did so seduce them A. The Seducers were of divers sorts One sort were Ministers Ministers as they call'd themselves of Christ and sometimes in their Sermons to the People God's Ambassadors pretending to have a right from God to govern every one his Parish and their Assembly the whole Nation Secondly there were a very great number though not comparable to the other which notwithstanding that the Popes power in England both Temporal and Ecclesiastical had been by Act of Parliament abolished did still retain a belief that we ought to be governed by the Pope whom they pretended to be the Vicar of Christ and in the Right of Christ to be the Governour of all Christian People and these were known by the Name of Papists as the Ministers I mentioned before were commonly called Presbyterians Thirdly There were not a few who in the beginning of the Troubles were not discovered but shortly after declared themselves for a Liberty in Religion and those of different Opinions one from another some of them because they would have all Congregations free and independent upon one another were called Independents Others that held Baptism to Infants and such as understood not into what they are baptized to be ineffectual were called therefore Anabaptists Others that held that Christ's Kingdom was at this time to begin upon the Earth were called Fifth-monarchy-men besides divers other Sects as Quakers Adamites c. whose Names and peculiar Doctrines I do not well remember and these were the Enemies which arose against his Majesty from the private Interpretation of the Scripture exposed to every Man 's scanning in his Mother-Tongue Fourthly There were
they sent up to some of their Friends at Court a certain Paper containing as they pretended the Articles of the said Pacification a false and scandalous Paper which was by the King's Command burnt as I have heard publickly and so both parts returned to the same condition they were in when the King went down with his Army B. And so there was a great deal of Money cast away to no purpose But you have not told me who was General of that Army A. I told you the King was there in Person He that commanded under him was the Earl of Arundel a Man that wanted not either Valour or Judgment But to proceed to Battle or to Treaty was not in his power but in the King 's B. He was a Man of a most Noble and Loyal Family and whose Ancestors had formerly given a great overthrow to the Scots in their own Country and in all likelihood he might have given them the like now if they had fought A. He might indeed but it had been but a kind of superstition to have made him General upon that account though many Generals heretofore have been chosen for the good luck of their Ancestors in like occasions In the long War between Athens and Sparta a General of the Athenians by Sea won many Victories against the Spartans for which cause after his death they chose his Son for General with ill success The Romans that conquered Carthage by the Valour and Conduct of Scipio when they were to make War again in Africk against Caesar chose another Scipio for General a Man valiant and wise enough but he perished in the Employment And to come home to our own Nation the Earl of Essex made a fortunate Expedition to Cadiz but his Son sent afterwards to the same place could do nothing 'T is but a foolish superstition to hope that God has entail'd success in War upon a Name or Family B. After the Pacification broken what succeeded next A. The King sent Duke Hamilton with Commission and Instructions into Scotland to call a Parliament there and to use all the means he could otherwise but all was to no purpose for the Scotch were now resolv'd to raise an Army and to enter into England to deliver as they pretended their Grievances to his Majesty in a Petition because the King they said being in the hands of evil Councellors they could not otherwise obtain their Right but the truth is they were animated to it by the Democratical and Presbyterian English with a promise of reward and hope of plunder Some have said that Duke Hamilton also did rather encourage them to than deter them from the Expedition as hoping by the disorder of the two Kingdoms to bring to pass that which he had formerly been accus'd to endeavour to make himself King of Scotland But I take this to have been a very uncharitable censure upon so little ground to judge so hardly of a Man that afterwards lost his life in seeking to procure the Liberty of the King his Master This resolution of the Scots to enter England being known the King wanting Money to raise an Army against them was now as his Enemies here wished constrained to call a Parliament to meet at Westminster the 13 th day of April 1640. B. Methinks a Parliament of England if upon any occasion should furnish the King with Money now in a War against the Scots out of an inveterate dissaffection to that Nation that had always anciently taken part with their Enemies the French and which always esteemed the Glory of England for an abatement of their own A. 'T is indeed commonly seen that neighbour Nations envy one anothers Honour and that the less potent bears the greater malice but that hinders them not from agreeing in those things which their common ambition leads them to And therefore the King found not the more but the less help from this Parliament and most of the Members thereof in their ordinary Discourses seemed to wonder why the King should make a War upon Scotland and in that Parliament sometimes called them Their Brethren the Scots But in stead of taking the Kings business which was the raising of Money into their Consideration they fell upon the redressing of Grievances and especially such ways of levying Money as in the late Intermission of Parliaments the King had been forced to use such as were Ship-Money for Knighthood and such other Vails as one may call them of the Regal Office which Lawyers had found justifiable by the Ancient Records of the Kingdom Besides they fell upon the Actions of divers Ministers of State though done by the King 's own Command and Warrant in so much that before they were to come to the business for which they were called the Money which was necessary for this War if they had given any as they never meant to do had come too late It is true there was mention of a Sum of Money to be given the King by way of bargain for the relinquishing of his Right to Ship-Money and some other of his Prerogatives but so seldom and without determining any Sum that it was in vain for the King to hope for any success and therefore upon the 5 th of May following he dissolved it B. Where then had the King Money to raise and pay his Army A. He was forced the second time to make use of the Nobility and Gentry who contributed some more some less according to the greatness of their Estates but amongst them all they made up a very sufficient Army B. It seems then that the same Men that crossed his business in the Parliament now out of Parliament advanced it all they could What was the reason of that A. The greatest part of the Lords in Parliament and of the Gentry throughout England were more affected to Monarchy than to a Popular Government but so as not to endure to hear of the King 's Absolute Power which made them in time of Parliament easily to condescend to abridge it and bring the Government to a mixt Monarchy as they call'd it wherein the absolute Sovereignty should be divided between the King the House of Lords and the House of Commons B. But how if they cannot agree A. I think they never thought of that but I am sure they never meant the Sovereignty should be wholly either in one or both Houses Besides they were loth to desert the King when he was invaded by Forreigners for the Scots were esteemed by them as a Forreign Nation B. It is strange to me that England and Scotland being but one Island and their Language almost the same and being governed by one King should be thought Forreigners to one another The Romans were Masters of many Nations and to oblige them the more to obey the Edicts and Laws sent unto them from the City of Rome they thought fit to make them all Romans and out of divers Nations as Spain Germany Italy and France to advance some that
but no knowledge of what they are nor any method of obtaining Vertue nor of avoiding Vice The end of Moral Philosophy is to teach men of all sorts their duty both to the Publick and to one another They estimate Vertue partly by a Mediocrity of the Passions of men and partly by that that they are praised whereas it is not the Much or Little Praise that makes an Action vertuous but the Cause nor much or little blame that makes an Action vitious but its being unconformable to the Laws in such men as are subject to the Law or its being unconformable to Equity or Charity in all men whatsoever B. It seems you make a difference between the Ethicks of Subjects and the Ethicks of Sovereigns A. So I do The Vertue of a Subject is comprehended wholly in obedience to the Laws of the Common-wealth To obey the Laws is Justice and Equity which is the Law of Nature and consequently is Civil Law in all Nations of the World and nothing is Injustice or Iniquity otherwise than it is against the Law Likewise to obey the Laws is the Prudence of a Subject for without such obedience the Common-wealth which is every Subject's safety and protection cannot subsist And though it be prudence also in private men justly and moderately to enrich themselves yet craftily to with-hold from the Publick or defraud it of such part of their wealth as is by Law requir'd is no sign of prudence but of want of knowledge of what is necessary for their own defence The Vertues of Sovereigns are such as tend to the maintenance of peace at home and to the resistance of Forreign Enemies Fortitude is a Royal Vertue and though it be necessary in such private men as shall be Soldiers yet for other men the less they dare the better it is both for the Common-wealth and for themselves Frugality though perhaps you will think it strange is also a Royal Vertue for it increases the Publick Stock which cannot be too great for the Publick Use nor any man too sparing of what he has in trust for the good of others Liberality also is a Royal Vertue for the Common-wealth cannot be well served without extraordinary diligence and service of Ministers and great fidelity to their Sovereigns who ought therefore to be encouraged and especially those that do him service in the Wars In sum all Actions and Habits are to be esteemed good or evil by their causes and usefulness in reference to the Common-wealth and not by their Mediocrity nor by their being commended for several men praise several Customs and that which is Vertue with one is blamed by others and contrarily what one calls Vice another calls Vertue as their present affections lead them B. Methinks you should have placed among the Vertues that which in my opinion is the greatest of all Vertues Religion A. So I have though it seems you did not observe it But whither do we digress from the way we were in B. I think you have not digressed at all for I suppose your purpose was to acquaint me with the History not so much of those Actions that pass'd in the time of the late Troubles as of their Causes and of the Councels and Artifice by which they were brought to pass There be divers men that have written the History out of whom I might have learned what they did and somewhat also of the Contrivance but I find little in them of what I would ask Therefore since you were pleas'd to enter into this discourse at my request be pleased also to inform me after my own method and for the danger of confusion that may arise from that I will take care to bring you back to the place from whence I drew you for I well remember where it was A. Well then To your question concerning Religion in as much as I told you that all Vertue is comprehended in Obedience to the Laws of the Common-wealth whereof Religion is one I have placed Religion amongst the Vertues B. Is Religion then the Law of a Common-wealth A. There is no Nation in the World whose Religion is not established and receives not its Authority from the Laws of that Nation It is true that the Law of God receives no evidence from the Laws of Men but because Men can never by their own wisdom come to the knowledge of what God hath spoken and commanded to be observ'd nor be obliged to obey the Laws whose Author they know not they are to acquiesce in some Humane Authority or other So that the Question will be whether a Man ought in matter of Religion that is to say when there is question of his duty to God and the King to rely upon the preaching of their Fellow-Subjects or of a Stranger or upon the Voice of the Law B. There is no great difficulty in that Point for there is none that preach here or any where else at least ought to preach but such as have Authority so to do from him or them that have the Sovereign Power so that if the King gives us leave you or I may as lawfully preach as them that do and I believe we should perform that Office a great deal better than they that preached us into the Rebellion A. The Church Morals are in many Points very different from these that I have here set down for the Doctrine of Vertue and Vice and yet without any conformity with that of Aristotle For in the Church of Rome the principal Vertues are to obey their Doctrine though it be Treason and that is to be Religious To be beneficial to the Clergy that is their Piety and Liberality and to believe upon their word that which a man knows in his Conscience to be false which is the Faith they require I could name a great many more such Points of their Morals but that I know you know them already being so well versed in the Cases of Conscience written by their School-men who measure the goodness and wickedness of all Actions by their congruity with the Doctrine of the Roman Clergy B. But what is the Moral Philosophy of the Protestant Clergy in England A. So much as they shew of it in their Life and Conversation is for the most part very good and of very good example much better than their Writings B. It happens many times that men live honestly for fear who if they had power would live according to their own Opinions that is if their Opinions be not right unrighteously A. Do the Clergy in England pretend as the Pope does or as the Presbyterians do to have a Right from God immediately to govern the King and his Subjects in all Points of Religion and Manners if they do you cannot doubt but that if they had number and strength which they are never like to have they would attempt to obtain that Power as the others have done B. I would be glad to see a Systeme of the present Morals written by
as being a thing contrary to nature or to pay them any reverence or to care what they say except some few that may be delighted with their jingling I wish with all my heart there were enough of such discreet and ancient men as might suffice for all the Parishes of England and that they would undertake it But this is but a wish I leave it to the Wisdom of the State to do what it pleaseth B. What did they next A. Whereas the King had sent Prisoners into places remote from London three Persons that had been condemn'd for publishing seditious Doctrine some in writing some in publick Sermons the Parliament whether with his Majesties consent or no I have forgotten caused them to be released and to return to London meaning I think to try how the People would be pleas'd therewith and by consequence how their endeavours to draw the Peoples affections from the King had already prospered When these three came through London it was a kind of Triumph the People flocking together to behold them and receiving them with such Acclamations and almost Adoration as if they had been let down from Heaven In so much as the Parliament was now sufficiently assur'd of a great and tumultuous Party whensoever they should have occasion to use it On confidence whereof they proceeded to their next Plot which was to deprive the King of such Ministers as by their Wisdom Courage and Authority they thought most able to prevent or oppose their farther Designs against the King And first the House of Commons resolv'd to impeach the Earl of Strafford Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of High Treason B. What was that Earl of Strafford before he had that place And how had he offended the Parliament or given them cause to think he would be their Enemy for I have heard that in former Parliaments he had been as Parliamentary as any other A. His name was Sir Thomas Wentworth a Gentleman both for Birth and Estate very considerable in his own Countrey which was York-shire but more considerable for his Judgment in the publick Affairs not only of that Countrey but generally of the Kingdom and was therefore often chosen for the Parliament either as Burgess for some Burrough or Knight of the Shire For his Principles of Politicks they were the same that were generally proceeded upon by all men else that were thought fit to be chosen for the Parliament which are commonly these To take for the Rule of Justice and Government the Judgments and Acts of former Parliaments which are commonly called Presidents To endeavour to keep the People from being subject to Extra-parliamentary Taxes of Money and from being with Parliamentary Taxes too much oppressed To preserve to the People their Liberty of body from the Arbitrary Power of the King out of Parliament To seek redress of Grievances B. What Grievances A. The Grievances commonly were such as these The King 's too much Liberality to some Favorite The too much power of some Minister or Officer of the Common-wealth The misdemeanour of Judges Civil or Spiritual but especially all unparliamentary raising of Money upon the Subjects And commonly of late till such Grievances be redressed they refuse or at least make great difficulty to furnish the King with Money necessary for the most urgent occasions of the Common-wealth B. How then can a King discharge his Duty as he ought to do or the Subject know which of his Masters he is to obey for here are manifestly two Powers which when they chance to differ cannot both be obeyed A. 'T is true but they have not often differed so much to the danger of the Common-wealth as they have done in this Parliament 1640. In all the Parliaments of the late King Charles before the Year 1640. my Lord of Strafford did appear in opposition to the King's demands as much as any man and was for that cause very much esteem'd and cried up by the People as a good Patriot and one that couragiously stood up in defence of their Liberties and for the same cause was so much the more hated when afterwards he endeavoured to maintain the Royal and just Authority of his Majesty B. How came he to change his mind so much as it seems he did A. After the dissolution of the Parliament holden in the Year 1627. and 1628. the King finding no Money to be gotten from Parliaments which he was not to buy with the Blood of such Servants and Ministers as he loved best abstained a long time from calling any more and had abstained longer if the Rebellion of the Scotch had not forced him to it During that Parliament the King made Sir Thomas Wentworth a Baron recommended to him for his great ability which was generally taken notice of by the disservice he had done the King in former Parliaments but which might be useful also for him in the times that came on and not long after he made him of the Council and after that again Lieutenant of Ireland which Place he discharged with great satisfaction and benefit to his Majesty and continued in that Office till by the Envy and Violence of the Lords and Commons of that unlucky Parliament of 1640. he dyed In which Year he was made General of the King's Forces against the Scots that then entred into England and the Year before Earl of Strafford The Pacification being made and the Forces on both sides disbanded and the Parliament at Westminster now sitting it was not long before the House of Commons accused him to the House of Lords for High-Treason B. There was no great probability of his being a Traitor to the King from whose favour he had received his Greatness and from whose Protection he was to expect his safety What was the Treason they laid to his charge A. Many Articles were drawn up against him but the sum of them was contained in these two First That he had traiterously endeavoured to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of the Realm and in stead thereof to introduce an Arbitrary and Tyrannical Government against Law Secondly That he had laboured to subvert the Rights of Parliaments and the ancient course of Parliamentary Proceedings B. Was this done by him without the knowledge of the King A. No. B. Why then if it were Treason did not the King himself call him in question by his Attorney What had the House of Commons to do without his Command to accuse him to the House of Lords They might have complained to the King if he had not known it before I understand not this Law A. Nor I. B. Had this been by any former Statutes made Treason A. Not that I ever heard of nor do I understand how any thing can be Treason against the King that the King hearing and knowing does not think Treason But it was a piece of that Parliaments Artifice to put the word Traiterously to any Article exhibited against any Man whose Life they meant to take away B. Was
there no particular instance of action or words out of which they argued that endeavour of his to subvert the fundamental Laws of Parliament whereof they accused him A Yes they said he gave the King counsel to reduce the Parliament to their Duty by the Irish Army which not long before my Lord of Strafford himself had caused to be Levied there for the King's Service but it was never proved against him that he advised the King to use it against the Parliament B. What are those Laws that are called fundamental for I understand not how one Law can be more fundamental than another except only that Law of Nature that binds us all to obey him whosoever he be whom lawfully and for our own safety we have promised to obey nor any other fundamental Law to a King but Salus Populi the safety and well-being of his People A. This Parliament in the use of their words when they accused any man never regarded the signification of them but the weight they had to aggravate their accusation to the ignorant multitude which think all faults hainous that are express'd in hainous terms if they hate the Person accus'd as they did this man not only for being of the King's Party but also for deserting the Parliaments Party as an Apostate B. I pray you tell me also what they meant by Arbitrary Government which they seemed so much to hate Is there any Governour of a People in the World that is forced to govern them or forced to make this and that Law whether he will or no I think not or if any be he that forces him does certainly make Laws and govern arbitrarily A. That 's true and the true meaning of the Parliament was that not the King but they themselves should have the Arbitrary Government not only of England but of Ireland and as it appeared by the event of Scotland also B. How the King came by the Government of Scotland and Ireland by descent from his Ancestors every body can tell but if the King of England and his Heirs should chance which God forbid to fail I cannot imagine what Title the Parliament of England can acquire thereby to either of those Nations A. Yes they 'l say they had been conquer'd anciently by the English Subjects Money B. Like enough and suitable to the rest of their impudence A. Impudence in Democratical Assemblies does almost all that 's done 't is the Goddess of Rhetorick and carries proof with it for what ordinary man will not from so great boldness of affirmation conclude there is great probability in the thing affirmed Upon this Accusation he was brought to his Tryal in Westminster-Hall before the House of Lords and found guilty and presently after declared Traitor by a Bill of Attainder that is by Act of Parliament B. It is a strange thing that the Lords should be induced upon so light grounds to give a Sentence or give their Assent to a Bill so prejudicial to themselves and their Posterity A. 'T was not well done and yet as it seems not ignorantly for there is a Clause in the Bill that it should not be taken hereafter for an example that is for a prejudice in the like Case hereafter B. That 's worse than the Bill it self and is a plain Confession that their Sentence was unjust for what harm is there in the Examples of just Sentences Besides if hereafter the like Case should happen the Sentence is not at all made weaker by such a Provision A. Indeed I believe that the Lords most of them were not of themselves willing to condemn him of Treason they were awed to it by the clamor of Common People that came to Westminster crying out Justice Justice against the Earl of Strafford the which were caused to flock thither by some of the House of Commons that were well assur'd after the triumphant welcome of Prin Burton and Bastwick to put the People into tumult upon any occasion they desir'd They were awed unto it partly also by the House of Commons it self which if it desir'd to undo a Lord had no more to do but to vote him a Delinquent B. A Delinquent what 's that A Sinner is 't not Did they mean to undo all Sinners A. By Delinquent they meant only a Man to whom they would do all the hurt they could but the Lords did not yet I think suspect they meant to cashiere their whole House B. It 's a strange thing the whole House of Lords should not perceive that the ruin of the King's Power and the weakening of it was the ruin or weakening of themselves for they could not think it likely that the People ever meant to take the Sovereignty from the King to give it to them who were few in number and less in power than so many Commoners because less beloved by the People A. But it seems not so strange to me for the Lords for their personal abilities as they were no less so also they were no more skilful in the Publick Affairs than the Knights and Burgesses for there is no reason to think that if one that is to day a Knight of the Shire in the Lower House be to morrow made a Lord and a Member of the Higher House is therefore wiser than he was before They are all of both Houses prudent and able Men as any in the Land in the business of their private Estates which require nothing but diligence and natural Wit to govern them but for the Government of a Common-wealth neither wit nor prudence nor diligence is enough without infallible Rules and the true Science of Equity and Justice B. If this be true it is impossible any Common-wealth in the World whether Monarchy Aristocratie or Democratie should continue long without change or Sedition tending to change either of the Government or of the Governors A. 'T is true nor have any the greatest Common-wealths in the World been long free from Sedition The Greeks had for a while their petty Kings and then by Sedition came to be petty Common-wealths and then growing to be greater Common-wealths by Sedition again became Monarchies and all for want of Rules of Justice for the Common People to take notice of which if the People had known in the beginning of every of these Seditions the Ambitious Persons could never had the hope to disturb their Government after it had been once setled for Ambition can do little without hands and few hands it would have if the Common People were as diligently instructed in the true Principles of their Duty as they are terrified and amazed by Preachers with fruitless and dangerous Doctrines concerning the Nature of Man's Will and many other Philosophical Points that tend not at all to the salvation of the Soul in the World to come nor to their ease in this life but only to the direction towards the Clergy of that Duty which they ought to perform to the King B. For ought I see all the States of
Christendome will be subject to these fits of Rebellion as long as the World lasteth A. Like enough and yet the fault as I have said may be easily mended by mending the Universities B. How long had the Parliament now sitten A. It began November the third 1640. My Lord of Strafford was impeached of Treason before the Lords November the 12 th sent to the Tower November the 22 d his Tryal began March the 22 d and ended April the 13 th After his Tryal he was voted guilty of High Treason in the House of Commons and after that in the House of Lords May the 6 th and on the 12 th of May beheaded B. Great Expedition but could not the King for all that have saved him by a Pardon A. The King had heard all that passed at his Tryal and had declared he was unsatisfied concerning the Justice of their Sentence and I think notwithstanding the danger of his own Person from the fury of the People and that he was counsel'd to give way to his Execution not only by such as he most relied on but also by the Earl of Strafford himself he would have pardoned him if that could have preserved him against the Tumult raised and countenanced by the Parliament it self for the terrifying of those they thought might favour him and yet the King himself did not stick to confess afterwards that he had done amiss in that he did not rescue him B. 'T was an Argument of good Disposition in the King but I never read that Augustus Caesar acknowledged that he had done a fault in abandoning Cicero to the fury of his Enemy Antonius Perhaps because Cicero having been of the contrary Faction to his Father had done Augustus no service at all out of favour to him but only out of enmity to Antonius and out of love to the Senate that is indeed out of love to himself that swayed the Senate as it is very likely the Earl of Strafford came over to the King's Party for his own ends having been so much against the King in former Parliaments A. We cannot safely judge of mens Intentions but I have observed often that such as seek preferment by their stubbornness have miss'd of their aim and on the other side that those Princes that with preferment are forced to buy the obedience of their Subjects are already or must be soon after in a very weak condition for in a Market where Honour and Power is to be bought with stubbornness there will be a great many as able to buy as my Lord Strafford was B. You have read that when Hercules fighting with the Hydra had cut off any one of his many heads there still arose two other heads in its place and yet at last he cut them off all A. The Story is told false for Hercules at first did not cut off those heads but bought them off and afterwards when he saw it did him no good then he cut them off and got the Victory B. What did they next A. After the first Impeachment of the Earl of Strafford the House of Commons upon December the 18 th accused the Arch-bishop of Canterbury also of High Treason that is of Design to introduce Arbitrary Government c. for which he was February the 18 th sent to the Tower but his Trial and Execution were deferr'd a long time till January the 10 th 1643. for the Entertainment of the Scots that were come into England to aid the Parliament B. Why did the Scots think there was so much danger in the Arch-bishop of Canterbury He was not a Man of War nor a Man able to bring an Army into the Field but he was perhaps a very great Politician A. That did not appear by any remarkable event of his Counsels I never heard but he was a very honest man for his Morals and a very zealous promoter of the Church-Government by Bishops and that desired to have the Service of God performed and the House of God adorned as suitably as was possible to the Honour we ought to do to the Divine Majesty But to bring as he did into the State his former Controversies I mean his squablings in the University about Free-will and his standing upon Punctilio's concerning the Service-Book and its Rubricks was not in my opinion an Argument of his sufficiency in Affairs of State About the same time they passed an Act which the King consented to for a Triennial Parliament wherein was Enacted That after the present Parliament there should be a Parliament called by the King within the space of three years and so from three years to three years to meet at Westminster upon a certain day named in the Act. B. But what if the King did not call it finding it perhaps inconvenient or hurtful to the safety or peace of his People which God hath put into his charge For I do not well comprehend how any Sovereign can well keep a People in order when his Hands are tied or when he hath any other obligation upon him than the benefit of those he governs and at this time for any thing you have told me they acknowledged the King for their Sovereign A. I know not but such was the Act. And it was farther Enacted That if the King did it not by his own Command then the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper for the time being should send out the Writs of Summons and if the Chancellor refused then the Sheriffs of the several Counties should of themselves in their next County-Courts before the day set down for the Parliaments meeting proceed to the Election of the Members for the said Parliament B. But what if the Sheriffs refus'd A. I think they were to be sworn to it but for that and other particulars I refer you to the Act. B. To whom should they be sworn when there is no Parliament A. No doubt but to the King whether there be a Parliament sitting or no. B. Then the King may release them of their Oath A. Besides they obtained of the King the putting down the Star-Chamber and the High-Commission-Courts B. Besides if the King upon the refusal should fall upon them in anger who shall the Parliament not sitting protect either the Chancellor or the Sheriffs in their disobedience A. I pray you do not ask me any reason of such things I understand no better than you I tell you only an Act passed to that purpose and was signed by the King in the middle of February a little before the Arch-bishop was sent to the Tower Besides this Bill the two Houses of Parliament agreed upon another wherein it was Enacted That the present Parliament should continue till both the Houses did consent to the Dissolution of it which Bill also the King signed the same day he signed the Warrant for the Execution of the Earl of Strafford B. What a great Progress made the Parliament towards the ends of the most seditious Members of both Houses in so little time
They sate down in November and now it was May in this space of time which is but half a year they won from the King the adherence which was due to him from his People they drave his faithfulest Servants from him beheaded the Earl of Strafford imprison'd the Arch-bishop of Canterbury obtain'd a Triennial Parliament after their own Dissolution and a continuance of their own sitting as long as they listed which last amounted to a total Extinction of the King 's Right in case that such a Grant were valid which I think it is not unless the Sovereignty it self be in plain terms renounced which it was not But what Money by way of Subsidy or otherwise did they grant the King in recompence of all these his large Concessions A. None at all but often promised they would make him the most glorious King that ever was in England which were words that passed well enough for well meaning with the Common People B. But the Parliament was contented now for I cannot imagine what they should desire more from the King than he had now granted them A. Yes they desir'd the whole and absolute Sovereignty and to change the Monarchical Government into an Oligarchie that is to say to make the Parliament consisting of a few Lords and about 400 Commoners absolute in the Sovereignty for the present and shortly after to lay the House of Lords aside for this was the Design of the Presbyterian Ministers who taking themselves to be by Divine Right the only lawful Governors of the Church endeavoured to bring the same form of Government into the Civil State And as the Spiritual Laws were to be made by their Synods so the Civil Laws should be made by the House of Commons who as they thought would no less be ruled by them afterwards than they formerly had been wherein they were deceived and found themselves out-gone by their own Disciples though not in Malice yet in Wit B. What followed after this A. In August following the King supposing he had now sufficiently obliged the Parliament to proceed no farther against him took a Journey into Scotland to satisfie his Subjects there as he had done here intending perhaps so to gain their good Wills that in case the Parliament here should Levy Arms against him they should not be aided by the Scots wherein he also was deceiv'd for though they seemed satisfied with what he did whereof one thing was his giving way to the abolition of Episcopacy yet afterwards they made a League with the Parliament and for Money when the King began to have the better of the Parliament invaded England in the Parliaments quarrel but this was a year or two after B. Before you go any farther I desire to know the Ground and Original of that Right which either the House of Lords or House of Commons or both together now pretend to A. It is a Question of things so long past that they are now forgotten Nor have we any thing to conjecture by but the Records of our own Nation and some small and obscure fragments of Roman Histories And for the Records seeing they are of things done only sometimes justly sometimes unjustly you can never by them know what Right they had but only what Right they pretended B. Howsoever let me know what light we have in this matter from the Roman Histories A. It would be too long and an useless digression to cite all the Ancient Authors that speak of the forms of those Common-wealths which were amongst our first Ancestors the Saxons and other Germans and of other Nations from whom we derive the Titles of Honour now in use in England nor will it be possible to derive from them any Argument of Right but only Examples of Fact which by the Ambition of potent Subjects have been oftner unjust than otherwise And for those Saxons or Angles that in Ancient times by several Invasions made themselves Masters of this Nation they were not in themselves one Body of a Common-wealth but only a League of divers petty German Lords and States such as was the Grecian Army in the Trojan War without other obligation than that which proceeded from their own fear and weakness Nor were those Lords for the most part the Sovereigns at home in their own Country but chosen by the People for the Captains of the Forces they brought with them And therefore it was not without Equity when they had conquered any part of the Land and made some one of them King thereof that the rest should have greater priviledges than the Common People and Soldiers amongst which priviledges a man may easily conjecture this to be one That they should be made acquainted and be of Councel with him that hath the Sovereignty in matter of Government and have the greatest and most honourable Offices both in Peace and War But because there can be no Government where there is more than one Sovereign it cannot be inferr'd that they had a Right to oppose the King's Resolutions by force nor to enjoy those Honours and Places longer than they should continue good Subjects And we find that the Kings of England did upon every great occasion call them together by the name of discreet and wise Men of the Kingdom and hear their Counsel and make them Judges of all Causes that during their sitting were brought before them But as he summon'd them at his own pleasure so had he also ever the power at his pleasure to dissolve them The Normans also that descended from the Germans as we did had the same Customs in this particular and by this means this priviledge of the Lords to be of the King 's Great Councel and when they were assembled to be the Highest of the King's Courts of Justice continued still after the Conquest to this day But though there be amongst the Lords divers Names or Titles of Honour yet they have their Priviledge by the only Name of Baron a Name receiv'd from the Ancient Gaules amongst whom that Name signified the King's Man or rather one of his Great Men By which it seems to me that though they gave him Counsel when he requir'd it yet they had no Right to make War upon him if he did not follow it B. When began first the House of Commons to be part of the King 's Great Councel A. I do not doubt but that before the Conquest some discreet Men and known to be so by the King were called by special Writ to be of the same Councel though they were not Lords but that is nothing to the House of Commons The Knights of Shires and Burgesses were never called to Parliament for ought that I know till the beginning of the Reign of Edward the first or the latter end of the Reign of Henry the third immediately after the misbehaviour of the Barons and for ought any man knows were called on purpose to weaken that Power of the Lords which they had so freshly abused Before the time
of Henry the third the Lords were descended most of them from such as in the Invasions and Conquests of the Germans were Peers and Fellow-Kings till one was made King of them all and their Tenants were their Subjects as it is at this day with the Lords of France but after the time of Henry the third the Kings began to make Lords in the place of them whose Issue failed Titulary only without the Lands belonging to their Title and by that means their Tenants being no longer bound to serve them in the Wars they grew every day less and less able to make a Party against the King though they continued still to be his Great Councel And as their Power decreased so the Power of the House of Commons increased but I do not find they were part of the King's Councel at all nor Judges over other men though it cannot be denied but a King may ask their advice as well as the advice of any other but I do not find that the end of their summoning was to give advice but only in case they had any Petitions for redress of Grievances to be ready there with them whilst the King had his Great Councel about him But neither they nor the Lords could present to the King as a Grievance That the King took upon him to make the Laws To choose his own Privy-Councellors To raise Money and Soldiers To defend the Peace and Honour of the Kingdom To make Captains in his Army To make Governours of his Castles whom he pleased for this had been to tell the King that it was one of their Grievances that he was King B. What did the Parliament do whilst the King was in Scotland A. The King went in August after which the Parliament September the 8 th adjourned till the 20 th of October and the King return'd about the end of November following in which time the most seditious of both Houses and which had design'd the change of Government and to cast off Monarchy but yet had not wit enough to set up any other Government in its place and consequently left it to the chance of War made a Cabal amongst themselves in which they projected how by seconding one another to govern the House of Commons and invented how to put the Kingdom by the power of that House into a Rebellion which they then called a posture of Defence against such dangers from abroad as they themselves should feign and publish Besides whilst the King was in Scotland the Irish Papists got together a great Party with an intention to Massacre the Protestants there and had laid a Design for the seizing of Dublin Castle in October the 20 th where the King's Officers of the Government of that Countrey made their Residence and had effected it had it not been discovered the night before The manner of the Discovery and the Murders they committed in the Country afterwards I need not tell you since the whole Story of it is extant B. I wonder they did not expect and provide for a Rebellion in Ireland as soon as they began to quarrel with the King in England for was there any body so ignorant as not to know that the Irish Papists did long for a change of Religion there as well as the Presbyterians in England Or that in general the Irish Nation did hate the name of Subjection to England Or would longer be quiet than they feared an Army out of England to chastise them What better time then could they take for their Rebellion than this wherein they were encouraged not only by our weakness caused by this division between the King and his Parliament but also by the Example of the Presbyterians both of the Scotch and English Nation But what did the Parliament do upon this occasion in the King's absence A. Nothing but consider what use they might make of it to their own ends partly by imputing it to the King 's evil Counsellors and partly by occasion thereof to demand of the King the power of pressing and ordering of Soldiers which power whosoever has has also without doubt the whole Sovereignty B. When came the King back A. He came back the 25 th of November and was welcomed with the Acclamations of the Common People as much as if he had been the most beloved of all the Kings that were before him but found not a Reception by the Parliament answerable to it They presently began to pick new quarrels against him out of every thing he said to them December the second the King called together both Houses of Parliament and then did only recommend unto them the raising of Succors for Ireland B. What quarrel could they pick out of that A. None but in order thereto as they may pretend they had a Bill in agitation to assert the Power of Levying and Pressing Soldiers to the two Houses of the Lords and Commons which was as much as to take from the King the Power of the Militia which is in effect the whole Sovereign Power for he that hath the power of Levying and Commanding of the Soldiers has all other Rights of Sovereignty which he shall please to claim The King hearing of it called the Houses of Parliament together again on December the 14 th and then pressed again the business of Ireland as there was need for all this while the Irish were murdering of the English in Ireland and strengthening themselves against the Forces they expected to come out of England and withal told them he took notice of the Bill in agitation for pressing of Soldiers and that he was contented it should pass with a Salvo Jure both for him and them because the present time was unseasonable to dispute it in B. What was there unreasonable in this A. Nothing What 's unreasonable is one question what they quarrel'd at is another They quarrel'd at this That his Majesty took notice of the Bill while it was in debate in the House of Lords before it was presented to him in the course of Parliament and also that he shewed himself displeas'd with those that propounded the said Bill both which they declared to be against the Priviledges of Parliament and petitioned the King to give them reparation against those by whose evil Counsel he was induced to it that they might receive condign punishment B. This was cruel proceeding Do not the Kings of England use to sit in the Lords House when they please And was not this Bill in debate then in the House of Lords It is a strange thing that a Man should be lawfully in the company of Men where he must needs hear and see what they say and do and yet must not take notice of it so much as to the same company for though the King was not present at the Debate it self yet it was lawful for any of the Lords to make him acquainted with it Any one of the House of Commons though not present at a Proposition or Debate in
when the Parliament was ended and the favour shewed to Papists by Secretary Windebank and others B. All this will go current with common People for misgovernment and for faults of the King 's though some of them were misfortunes and both the misfortunes and the misgovernment if any were were the faults of the Parliament who by denying to give him Money did both frustrate his Attempts abroad and put him upon those extraordinary ways which they call Illegal of raising Money at home A. You see what a heap of evils they have raised to make a shew of ill government to the People which they second with an enumeration of the many Services they have done the King in overcoming a great many of them though not all and in divers other things and say that though they had contracted a Debt to the Scots of 2200 l. and granted six Subsidies and a Bill of Pole-Money worth six Subsidies more yet that God had so blessed the endeavours of this Parliament that the Kingdom was a gainer by it and then follows the Catalogue of those good things they had done for the King and Kingdom For the Kingdom they had done they said these things They had abolished Ship-Money They had taken away Coat and Conduct-Money and other Military Charges which they said amounted to little less than the Ship-Money That they suppress'd all Monopolies which they reckoned above a Million yearly saved by the Subject That they had quelled living Grievances meaning evil Counsellors and Actors by the death of my Lord of Strafford by the flight of the Chancellor Finch and of Secretary Windebank by the Imprisonment of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and of Judge Bartlet and the Impeachment of other Bishops and Judges That they had pass'd a Bill for a Triennial Parliament and another for the Continuance of the present Parliament till they should think fit to dissolve themselves B. That is to say for ever if they be suffered But the sum of all these things which they had done for the Kingdom is that they had left it without Government without Strength without Money without Law and without good Councel A. They reckoned also putting down of the High-Commission and the abating of the power of the Council-Table and of the Bishops and their Courts The taking away of unnecessary Ceremonies in Religion Removing of Ministers from their Livings that were not of their Faction and putting in such as were B. All this was but their own and not the Kingdoms Business A. The good they had done the King was first they said The giving of 25000 l. a month for the relief of the Northern Counties B. What need of relief had the Northern more than the rest of the Counties of England A Yes in the Northern Counties were quartered the Scotch Army which the Parliament called in to oppose the King and consequently their Quarter was to be discharged B. True but by the Parliament that call'd them in A. But they say no and that this Money was given to the King because he is bound to protect his Subjects B. He is no farther bound to that than they to give him Money wherewithal to do it This is very great impudence to raise an Army against the King and with that Army to oppress their Fellow-Subjects and then require that the King should relieve them that is to say be at the charge of paying the Army that was raised to fight against him A. Nay farther They put to the King's Account the 300000 l. given to the Scots without which they would not have invaded England besides many other things that I now remember not B. I did not think there had been so great impudence and villany in mankind A. You have not observ'd the World long enough to see all that 's ill Such was their Remonstrance as I have told you With it they sent a Petition containing three Points 1. That his Majesty would deprive the Bishops of their Votes in Parliament and remove such Oppressions in Religion Church Government and Discipline as they had brought in 2. That he would remove from his Council all such as should promote the Peoples Grievances and employ in his Great and Publick Affairs such as the Parliament should confide in 3. That he would not give away the Lands Escheated to the Crown by the Rebellion in Ireland B. This last Point methinks was not wisely put in at this time it should have been reserv'd till they had subdued the Rebels against whom there were yet no Forces sent over 'T is like selling the Lyons Skin before they had kill'd him But what answer was made to the other two Propositions A. What answer should be made but a Denial About the same time the King himself exhibited Articles against six Persons of the Parliament five whereof were of the House of Commons and one of the House of Lords accusing them of High Treason and upon the 4 th of January went himself to the House of Commons to demand those five of them but private notice having been given by some Treacherous Person about the King they had absented themselves and by that means frustrated his Majesties Intentions and after he was gone the House making a hainous matter of it and a high breach of their Priviledges adjourned themselves into London there to sit as a General Committee pretending they were not safe at Westminster for the King when he went to the House to demand those Persons had somewhat more attendance with him but not otherwise armed than his Servants used to be than he ordinarily had and would not be pacified though the King did afterward wave the prosecution of those persons unless he would also discover to them those that gave him Counsel to go in that manner to the Parliament House to the end they might receive condign punishment which was the word they used in stead of cruelty B. This was a harsh demand Was it not enough that the King should forbear his Enemies but also that he must betray his Friends If they thus tyrannize over the King before they have gotten the Sovereign Power into their hands how will they tyrannize over their Fellow-Subjects when they have gotten it A. So as they did B. How long staid that Committee in London A. Not above two or three days and then were brought from London to the Parliament House by Water in great triumph guarded with a tumultuous number of Armed Men there to sit in security in despite of the King and make traiterous Acts against him such and as many as they listed and under favour of these tumults to frighten away from the House of Peers all such as were not of their own Faction For at this time the Rabble was so insolent that scarce any of the Bishops durst go to the House for fear of violence upon their persons in so much as twelve of them excused themselves of coming thither and by way of Petition to the King remonstrated That they were
shall approve of that the Servants then about them against whom the Houses have just exception should be removed 5. That no Marriage be concluded or treated of for any of the King's Children without consent of Parliament 6. That the Laws in force against Jesuits Priests and Popish Recusants be strictly put in execution 7. That the Votes of Popish Lords in the House of Peers be taken away and that a Bill be passed for the education of the Children of Papists in the Protestant Religion 8. That the King will be pleased to reform the Church-Government and Lyturgy in such manner as both Houses of Parliament shall advise 9. That he would be pleased to rest satisfied with that Course that the Lords and Commons have appointed for ordering the Militia and recall his Declarations and Proclamations against it 10. That such Members as have been put out of any Place or Office since this Parliament began may be restored or have satisfaction 11. That all Privy-Councellors and Judges take an Oath the form whereof shall be agreed on and setled by Act of Parliament for the maintaining the Petition of Right and of certain Statutes made by the Parliament 12. That all the Judges and Officers placed by Approbation of both Houses of Parliament may hold their places quam diu bene se gesserint 13. That the Justice of Parliament may pass upon all Delinquents whether they be within the Kingdom or fled out of it and that all persons cited by either House of Parliament may appear and abide the Censure of Parliament 14. That the General Pardon offered by his Majesty be granted with such Exceptions as shall be advised by both Houses of Parliament B. What a spiteful Article was this All the rest proceeded from Ambition which many times well-natur'd men are subject to but this proceeded from an inhumane and devilish cruelty A. 15. That the Forts and Castles be put under the Command of such persons as with the Approbation of the Parliament the King shall appoint 16. That the extraordinary Guards about the King be discharged and for the future none raised but according to the Law in case of actual Rebellion or Invasion B. Methinks these very Propositions sent to the King are an actual Rebellion A. 17. That his Majesty enter into a more strict Alliance with the United Provinces and other Neighbour Protestant Princes and States 18. That his Majesty be pleased by Act of Parliament to clear the Lord Kimbolton and the five Members of the House of Commons in such manner as that future Parliaments may be secur'd from the consequence of that evil President 19. That his Majesty be pleased to pass a Bill for restraining Peers made hereafter from sitting or voting in Parliament unless they be admitted with consent of both Houses of Parliament These Propositions granted they promise to apply themselves to regulate his Majesties Revenue to his best advantage and to settle it to the support of his Royal Dignity in Honour and Plenty and also to put the Town of Hull into such Hands as his Majesty shall appoint with consent of Parliament B. Is not that to put it into such hands as his Majesty shall appoint by the consent of the Petitioners which is no more than to keep it in their hands as it is Did they want or think the King wanted common sense so as not to perceive that their promise herein was worth nothing A. After the sending of these Propositions to the King and his Majesties refusal to grant them they began on both sides to prepare for War The King raising a Guard for his Person in York-shire and the Parliament thereupon having Voted that the King intended to make War upon his Parliament gave order for the mustering and exercising the People in Arms and published Propositions to invite and incourage them to bring in either ready Money or Plate or to promise under their hands to furnish and maintain certain numbers of Horse Horse-men and Arms for the defence of the King and Parliament meaning by King as they had formerly declar'd not his Person but his Laws promising to repay their Money with Interest of 8 l. in the 100 l. and the value of their Plate with 12 d. the Ounce for the fashion On the other side the King came to Nottingham and there did set up his Standard Royal and sent out Commissions of Array to call those to him which by the Ancient Laws of England were bound to serve him in the Wars Upon this occasion there passed divers Declarations between the King and Parliament concerning the Legality of this Array which are too long to tell you at this time B. Nor do I desire to hear any Mooting about this Question for I think that general Law of Salus Populi and the Right of defending himself against those that had taken from him the Sovereign Power are sufficient to make legal whatsoever he should do in order to the recovery of his Kingdom or to the punishing of the Rebels A. In the mean time the Parliament raised an Army and made the Earl of Essex General thereof by which Act they declared what they meant formerly when they petition'd the King for a Guard to be commanded by the said Earl of Essex and now the King sends out his Proclamations forbidding obedience to the Orders of the Parliament concerning the Militia and the Parliament send out Orders against the Execution of the Commissions of Array Hitherto though it were a War before yet there was no Blood shed they shot at one another nothing but paper B. I understand now how the Parliament destroyed the Peace of the Kingdom and how easily by the help of seditious Presbyterian Ministers and of Ambitious Ignorant Orators they reduced this Government into Anarchy but I believe it will be a harder Task for them to bring in Peace again and settle the Government either in themselves or any other Governor or form of Government For granting that they obtained the Victory in this War they must be beholding for it to the Valor good Conduct or Felicity of those to whom they give the Command of their Armies especially to the General whose good success will without doubt draw with it the Love and Admiration of the Soldiers so that it will be in his power either to take the Government upon himself or to place it where himself thinks good In which case if he take it not to himself he will be thought a Fool and if he do he shall be sure to have the envy of his subordinate Commanders who look for a share either in the present Government or in the Succession to it for they will say has he obtain'd this power by his own without our Danger Valor and Counsel and must we be his Slaves whom we have thus raised Or is not there as much Justice on our side against him as was on his side against the King A They will and did in so much that the reason why
Cromwel after he had gotten into his own hands the absolute power of England Scotland and Ireland by the Name of Protector did never dare to take upon him the Title of King nor was ever able to settle it upon his Children His Officers would not suffer it as pretending after his death to succeed him nor would the Army consent to it because he had ever declared to them against the Government of a single person B. But to return to the King What Means had he to pay What Provision had he to Arm nay Means to Levy an Army able to resist the Army of the Parliament maintained by the great Purse of the City of London and Contributions of almost all the Towns Corporate in England and furnished with Arms as fully as they could require A. 'T is true the King had great disadvantages and yet by little and little he got a considerable Army with which he so prospered as to grow stronger every day and the Parliament weaker till they had gotten the Scotch with an Army of 21000 Men to come into England to their Assistance But to enter into the particular Narration of what was done in the War I have not now time B. Well then we will talk of that at next meeting Behemoth PART III. B. WE left at the Preparations on both sides for War which when I considered by my self I was mightily puzled to find out what possibility there was for the King to equal the Parliament in such a course and what hopes he had of Money Men Arms Fortified places Shipping Councel and Military Officers sufficient for such an Enterprize against the Parliament that had Men and Money as much at command as the City of London and other Corporation Towns were able to furnish which was more than they needed And for the Men they should set forth for Soldiers they were almost all of them spightfully bent against the King and his whole Party whom they took to be either Papists or Flatterers of the King or that had designed to raise their Fortunes by the plunder of the City and other Corporation Towns And though I believe not that they were more valiant than other Men nor that they had so much experience in the War as to be accounted good Soldiers yet they had that in them which in time of Battle is more conducing to Victory than Valor and Experience both together and that was spight And for Arms they had in their hands the Chief Magazines the Tower of London and the Town of Kingston upon Hull besides most of the Powder and Shot that lay in several Towns for the use of the Train'd Bands Fortified places there were not many then in England and most of them in the hands of the Parliament The King's Fleet was wholly in their Command under the Earl of Warwick Councellors they needed no more than such as were of their own Body so that the King was every way inferior to them except it were perhaps in Officers A. I cannot compare their Chief Officers for the Parliament the Earl of Essex after the Parliament had voted the War was made General of all their Forces both in England and Ireland from whom all other Commanders were to receive their Commissions B. What moved them to make General the Earl of Essex And for what cause was the Earl of Essex so displeased with the King as to accept that Office A. I do not certainly know what to answer to either of those Questions but the Earl of Essex had been in the Wars abroad and wanted neither Experience Judgment nor Courage to perform such an undertaking And besides that you have heard I believe how great a Darling of the People his Father had been before him and what Honour he had gotten by the Success of his Enterprize upon Cales and in some other Military Actions To which I may add that this Earl himself was not held by the people to be so great a Favorite at Court as that they might not trust him with their Army against the King And by this you may perhaps conjecture the Cause for which the Parliament made choice of him for General B. But why did they think him discontented with the Court A. I know not that nor indeed that he was so He came to the Court as other Noble-men did when occasion was to wait upon the King but had no Office till a little before this time to oblige him to be there continually but I believe verily that the unfortunateness of his Marriages had so discountenanced his Conversation with Ladies that the Court could not be his proper Element unless he had had some extraordinary favour there to ballance that Calamity but for particular discontent from the King or intention of revenge for any supposed disgrace I think he had none nor that he was any ways addicted to Presbyterian Doctrines or other Fanatick Tenets in Church or State saving only that he was carried away with the Stream in a manner of the whole Nation to think that England was not an absolute but a mixt Monarchy not considering that the Supream Power must always be absolute whether it be in the King or in the Parliament B. Who was General of the King's Army A. None yet but himself nor indeed had he yet any Army but there coming to him at that time his two Nephews the Princes Rupert and Maurice he put the Command of his Horse into the Hands of Prince Rupert a Man than whom no man living has a better Courage nor was more active and diligent in prosecuting his Commissions and though but a young man then was not without experience in the conducting of Soldiers as having been an Actor in part of his Fathers Wars in Germany B. But how could the King find Money to pay such an Army as was necessary for him against the Parliament A. Neither the King nor Parliament had much Money at that time in their own Hands but were fain to rely upon the Benevolence of those that took their parts Wherein I confess the Parliament had a mighty great advantage Those that helped the King in that kind were only Lords and Gentlemen which not approving the proceedings of the Parliament were willing to undertake the payment every one of a certain number of Horse which cannot be thought any very great assistance the persons that payed them being so few For other Moneys that the King then had I have not heard of any but what he borrowed upon Jewels in the Low Countries Whereas the Parliament had a very plentiful Contribution not only from London but generally from their Faction in all other places of England upon certain Propositions published by the Lords and Commons in June 1642. at what time they had newly voted that the King intended to make War upon them for bringing in of Money or Plate to maintain Horse and Horse-men and to buy Arms for the preservation of the publick Peace and for the defence of the
King and both Houses of Parliament For the re-payment of which Money and Plate they were to have the Publick Faith B. What Publick Faith is there when there is no Publick What is it that can be called Publick in a Civil War without the King A. The Truth is the Security was nothing worth but served well enough to gull those seditious Blockheads that were more fond of Change than either of their Peace or Profit Having by this means gotten Contributions from those that were the well-affected to their Cause they made use of it afterwards to force the like Contribution from others For in November following they made an Ordinance for Assessing also of those that had not contributed then or had contributed but not proportionably to their Estates And yet this was contrary to what the Parliament promised and declar'd in the Propositions themselves for they declar'd in the first Proposition That no man's affection should be measured by the proportion of his Offer so that he expressed his good will to the Service in any proportion whatsoever Besides this in the beginning of March following they made an Ordinance to Levy weekly a great Sum of Money upon every County City Town Place and Person of any Estate almost in England which weekly Sum as may appear by the Ordinance it self printed and published in March 1642. by Order of both Houses comes to almost 33000 l. and consequently to above 1700000 l. for the year They had besides all this the profits of the Kings Lands and Woods and whatsoever was remaining unpaid of any Subsidy formerly granted him and the Tonnage and Poundage usually received by the King besides the profit of the Sequestrations of great Persons whom they pleased to vote Delinquents and the profits of the Bishops Lands which they took to themselves a year or a little more after B. Seeing then the Parliament had such advantage of the King in Money and Arms and Multitude of Men and had in their Hands the King's Fleet I cannot imagine what hope the King could have either of Victory unless he resigned into their Hands the Sovereignty or subsisting for I cannot well believe he had any advantage of them either in Councellors Conductors or in the Resolutions of his Soldiers A. On the contrary I think he had also some disadvantage in that for though he had as good Officers at least as any then served the Parliament yet I doubt he had not so useful Councel as was necessary and for his Soldiers though they were men as stout as theirs yet because their Valor was not sharpned so with malice as theirs was of the other side they fought not so keenly as their Enemies did amongst whom there were a great many London Apprentices who for want of Experience in the War would have been fearful enough of Death and Wounds approaching visibly in glistering Swords but for want of Judgment scarce thought of such death as comes invisibly in a Bullet and therefore were very hardly to be driven out of the Field B. But what fault do you find in the King's Councellors Lords and other Persons of Quality and Experience A. Only that fault which was generally in the whole Nation which was that they thought the Government of England was not an absolute but a mixt Monarchy and that if the King should clearly subdue this Parliament that his Power would be what he pleased and theirs as little as he pleased which they counted Tyranny This opinion though it did not lessen their endeavour to gain the Victory for the King in a Battle when a Battle could not be avoided yet it weakned their endeavour to procure him an absolute Victory in the War And for this Cause notwithstanding that they saw that the Parliament was firmly resolv'd to take all Kingly Power whatsoever out of his Hands yet their Counsel to the King was upon all occasions to offer Propositions to them of Treaty and Accommodation and to make and publish Declarations which any man might easily have foreseen would be fruitless and not only so but also of great disadvantage to those Actions by which the King was to recover his Crown and preserve his Life for it took off the Courage of the best and forwardest of his Soldiers that looked for great benefit by their Service out of the Estates of the Rebels in case they could subdue them but none at all if the business should be ended by a Treaty B. And they had reason for a Civil War never ends by Treaty without the Sacrifice of those who were on both sides the sharpest You know well enough how things pass'd at the Reconciliation of Augustus and Antonius in Rome but I thought that after they once began to Levy Soldiers one against another that they would not any more have return'd of either side to Declarations or other Paper War which if it could have done any good would have done it long before this A. But seeing the Parliament continued writing and set forth their Declarations to the People against the Lawfulness of the King's Commission of Array and sent Petitions to the King as fierce and rebellious as ever they had done before demanding of him That he would disband his Soldiers and come up to the Parliament and leave those whom the Parliament called Delinquents which were none but the King 's best Subjects to their Mercy and pass such Bills as they should advise him would you not have the King set forth Declarations and Proclamations against the Illegality of their Ordinances by which they Levied Soldiers against him and answer those insolent Petitions of theirs B. No it had done him no good before and therefore was not likely to do him any afterwards for the common people whose hands were to decide the Controversie understood not the Reasons of either Party and for those that by Ambition were once set upon the Enterprize of changing the Government they cared not much what was Reason and Justice in the Cause but what strength they might procure by reducing the Multitude with Remonstrances from the Parliament House or by Sermons in the Churches And to their Petitions I would not have had any Answer made at all more than this that if they would disband their Army and put themselves upon his Mercy they should find him more Gratious than they expected A. That had been a gallant Answer indeed if it had proceeded from him after some extraordinary great Victory in Battle or some extraordinary assurance of a Victory at last in the whole War B. Why What could have hap'ned to him worse than at length he suffered notwithstanding his gentle Answers and all his reasonable Declarations A. Nothing but who knew that B. Any man might see that he was never like to be restored to his Right without Victory and such his stoutness being known to the People would have brought to his assistance many more hands than all the Arguments of Law or force of Eloquence couched in Declarations
large in English I shall only make use of such a thread as is necessary for the filling up of such knavery and folly also as I shall observe in their several Actions From York the King went to Hull where was his Magazine of Arms for the Northern parts of England to try if they would admit him The Parliament had made Sir John Hotham Governour of the Town who caused the Gates to be shut and presenting himself upon the Walls flatly denied him entrance for which the King caused him to be proclaimed Traitor and sent a Message to the Parliament to know if they owned the Action B. Upon what Grounds A. Their pretence was this that neither this nor any other Town in England was otherwise the King 's than in trust for the People of England B. But what was that to the Parliament B. Yes say they for we are the Representatives of the People of England B. I cannot see the force of this Argument We represent the People ergo all that the People has is ours The Major of Hull did represent the King is therefore all that the King had in Hull the Major's The People of England may be represented with Limitations as to deliver a Petition or the like Does it follow that they who deliver the Petition have right to all the Towns in England When began this Parliament to be a Representative of England Was it not November 3. 1640. Who was it the day before that is November 2. that had the Right to keep the King out of Hull and possess it for themselves for there was then no Parliament Whose was Hull then A. I think it was the King's not only because it was called the King's Town upon Hull but because the King himself did then and ever represent the Person of the People of England If he did not who then did the Parliament having no being B. They might perhaps say the People had then no Representative A. Then there was no Common-wealth and consequently all the Towns of England being the Peoples you and I and any man else might have put in for his share You may see by this what weak People they were that were carried into the Rebellion by such reasoning as the Parliament used and how impudent they were that did put such fallacies upon them B. Surely they were such as were esteemed the wisest Men in England being upon that account chosen to be of the Parliament A. And were they also esteemed the wisest Men of England that chose them B. I cannot tell that for I know it is usual with the Free-holders in the Counties and the Trades-men in the Cities and Burroughs to choose as near as they can such as are most repugnant to the giving of Subsidies A. The King in the beginning of August after he had summoned Hull and tried some of the Counties thereabout what they would do for him sets up his Standard at Nottingham but there came not in thither men enough to make an Army sufficient to give battle to the Earl of Essex From thence he went to Shrewsbury where he was quickly furnished and appointing the Earl of Lindsey to be General he resolved to march towards London The Earl of Essex was now at Worcester with the Parliaments Army making no offer to stop him in his passage but as soon as he was gone by marched close after him The King therefore to avoid being inclosed between the Army of the Earl of Essex and the City of London turned upon him and gave him battle at Edgehill where though he got not an entire Victory yet he had the better if either had the better and had certainly the fruit of a Victory which was to march on in his intended way towards London in which the next morning he took Banbury Castle and from thence went to Oxford and thence to Brainford where he gave a great defeat to three Regiments of the Parliaments Forces and so returned to Oxford B. Why did not the King go on from Brainford A. The Parliament upon the first notice of the King 's marching from Shrewsbury caused all the Train'd-Bands and the Auxiliaries of the City of London which was so frighted as to shut up all their Shops to be drawn forth so that there was a most compleat and numerous Army ready for the Earl of Essex that was crept into London just at the time to head it and this was it that made the King retire to Oxford In the beginning of February after Prince Rupert took Cirencester from the Parliament with many Prisoners and many Arms for it was newly made a Magazine And thus stood the business between the King 's and the Parliaments greatest Forces The Parliament in the mean time caused a Line of Communication to be made about London and the Suburbs of twelve miles in compass and constituted a Committee for the Association and the putting into a posture of defence of the Counties of Essex Cambridge Suffolk and some others and one of these Commissioners was Oliver Cromwel from which Employment he came to his following greatness B. What was done during this time in other parts of the Country A. In the West the Earl of Stamford had the Employment of putting in execution the Ordinance of Parliament for the Militia and Sir Ralph Hopton for the King executed the Commission of Array Between these two was fought a Battle at Liscard in Cornwal wherein Sir Ralph Hopton had the Victory and presently took a Town called Saltash with many Arms and much Ordnance and many Prisoners Sir William Waller in the mean time seized Winchester and Chichester for the Parliament In the North for the Commission of Array my Lord of New-Castle and for the Militia of the Parliament was my Lord Fairfax My Lord of New-Castle took from the Parliament Tadcaster in which were a great part of the Parliaments Forces for that Country and had made himself in a manner Master of all the North. About this time that is to say in February the Queen landed at Barlington and was conducted by my Lord of New-Castle and the Marquess of Montrosse to York and not long after to the King Divers other little advantages besides these the King's Party had of the Parliaments in the North. There happened also between the Militia of the Parliament and the Commission of Array in Stafford-shire under my Lord Brook for the Parliament and my Lord of Northampton for the King great contention wherein both these Commanders were slain for my Lord Brook besieging Litchfield-Close was killed with a Shot notwithstanding which they gave not over the Siege till they were Masters of the Close but presently after my Lord of Northampton besieged it again for the King which to relieve Sir William Brereton and Sir John Gell advanced towards Litchfield and were met at Hopton Heath by the Earl of Northampton and routed the Earl himself was slain but his Forces 〈…〉 Victory returned to the Siege again and shortly after
seconded by Prince Rupert who was then abroad in that Countrey carried the Place These were the chief Actions of this year 1642. wherein the King's Party had not much the worse B. But the Parliament had now a better Army in so much that if the Earl of Essex had immediately followed the King to Oxford not yet well fortified he might in all likelihood have taken it for he could not want either Men or Ammunition whereof the City of London which was wholly at the Parliaments Devotion had store enough A. I cannot judge of that but this is manifest considering the estate the King was in at his first marching from York when he had neither Money nor Men nor Arms enough to put them in hope of Victory that this year take it all together was very prosperous B. But what great folly or wickedness do you observe in the Parliaments Actions for this first year A. All that can be said against them in that Point will be excused with the pretext of War and come under one name of Rebellion saving that when they summoned any Town it was always in the name of King and Parliament the King being in the contrary Army and many times beating them from the Siege I do not see how the right of War can justifie such Impudence as that But they pretended that the King was always virtually in the two Houses of Parliament making a distinction between his Person Natural and Politick which made the Impudence the greater besides the folly of it for this was but an University quibble such as Boys make use of in maintaining in the Schools such Tenents as they cannot otherwise defend In the end of this year they solicited also the Scots to enter England with an Army to suppress the Power of the Earl of New-Castle in the North which was a plain Confession that the Parliaments Forces were at this time inferior to the King 's and most men thought that if the Earl of New-Castle had then marched Southward and joyned his Forces with the King 's that most of the Members of Parliament would have fled out of England In the beginning of 1643. the Parliament seeing the Earl of New Castle 's Power in the North grown so formidable sent to the Scots to hire them to an Invasion of England and to complement them in the mean time made a Covenant amongst themselves such as the Scots had before taken against Episcopacy and demolished Crosses and Church windows such as had in them any Images of Saints throughout all England Also in the middle of the year they made a solemn League with the Nation which was called the Solemn League and Covenant B. Are not the Scots as properly to be called Forreigners as the Irish Seeing then they persecuted the Earl of Strafford even to death for advising the King to make use of Irish Forces against the Parliament with what face could they call in a Scoth Army against the King A. The King's Party might easily here have discerned their Design to make themselves absolute Masters of the Kingdom and to dethrone the King Another great Impudence or rather a bestial incivility it was of theirs that they voted the Queen a Traitor for helping the King with some Ammunition and English Forces from Holland B. Was it possible that all this could be done and men not see that Papers and Declarations must be useless and that nothing could satisfie them but the deposing of the King and setting up of themselves in his place A. Yes very possible For who was there of them though knowing that the King had the Sovereign Power that knew the Essential Rights of Sovereignty They dreamt of a mixt Power of the King and the two Houses That it was a divided Power in which there could be no peace was above their understanding Therefore they were always urging the King to Declarations and Treaties for fear of subjecting themselves to the King in an absolute obedience which increased the hope and courage of the Rebels but did the King little good for the People either understand not or will not trouble themselves with Controversies in writing but rather by his Compliance and Messages go away with an opinion that the Parliament was likely to have the Victory in the War Besides seeing the Penners and Contrivers of these Papers were formerly Members of the Parliament and of another mind and now revolted from the Parliament because they could not bear that sway in the House which they expected men were apt to think they believed not what they writ As for Military Actions to begin at the Head Quarters Prince Rupert took Brimingiam a Garrison of the Parliaments In July after the King's Forces had a great Victory over the Parliaments near Devizes on Roundway-down where they took 2000 Prisoners four Brass Pieces of Ordnance 28 Colours and all their Baggage and shortly after Bristol was surrendred to Prince Rupert for the King and the King himself marching into the West took from the Parliament many other considerable places But this good fortune was not a little allayed by his besieging of Glocester which after it was reduced to the last gasp was relieved by the Earl of Essex whose Army was before greatly wasted but now suddenly recruited with the Train'd-Bands and Apprentices of London B. It seems not only by this but also by many Examples in History that there can hardly arise a long or dangerous Rebellion that has not some such overgrown City with an Army or two in its belly to foment it A. Nay more those great Capital Cities when Rebellion is upon pretence of Grievances must needs be of the Rebel-party because the Grievances are but Taxes to which Citizens that is Merchants whose profession is their private gain are naturally mortal Enemies their only glory being to grow excessively rich by the wisdom of buying and selling B. But they are said to be of all Callings the most beneficial to the Common-wealth by setting the poorer sort of People on work A. That is to say by making poor People sell their labour to them at their own prizes so that poor People for the most part might get a better Living by working in Bridewel than by spinning weaving and other such labour as they can do saving that by working slightly they may help themselves a little to the disgrace of our Manufacture And as most commonly they are the first Encouragers of Rebellion presuming of their strength so also are they for the most part the first to repent deceived by them that command their strength But to return to the War though the King withdrew from Glocester yet it was not to fly from but to fight with the Earl of Essex which presently after he did at Newbury where the Battle was bloody and the King had not the worst unless Cirencester be put into the Scale which the Earl of Essex had in his way a few days before surprized But in the North and the
to perform July the 11 th the Parliament sent their Propositions to the King at New-Castle which Propositions they pretended to be the only way to a setled and well grounded Peace They were brought by the Earl of Pembroke the Earl of Suffolk Sir Walter Earle Sir John Hyppesly Mr. Goodwin and Mr. Robinson whom the King asked if they had power to Treat and when they said no why they might not as well have been sent by a Trumpeter The Propositions were the same dethroning ones which they used to send and therefore the King would not assent to them Nor did the Scots swallow them at first but made some exceptions against them only it seems to make the Parliament perceive they meant not to put the King into their hands gratis And so at last the bargain was made between them and upon the payment of 200000 l. the King was put into the hands of the Commissioners which the English Parliament sent down to receive him B. What a vile Complexion has this Action compounded of feigned Religion and very Covetousness Cowardice Perjury and Treachery A. Now the War that seemed to justifie many unseemly things is ended you will see almost nothing else in these Rebels but baseness and falseness besides their folly By this time the Parliament had taken in all the rest of the Kings Garrisons whereof the last was Pendennis Castle whither Duke Hamilton had been sent Prisoner by the King B. What was done during this time in Ireland and Scotland A. In Ireland there had been a Peace made by order from his Majesty for a time which by Divisions amongst the Irish was ill kept the Popish Party the Pope's Nuntio being then there took this to be the time for delivering themselves from their subjection to the English Besides the time of the Peace was now expir'd B. How were they subject to the English more than the English to the Irish They were subject to the King of England but so also were the English to the King of Ireland A. This Distinction is somewhat too subtil for common Understandings In Scotland the Marquess of Montrosse for the King with a very few Men and miraculous Victories had over-run all Scotland where many of his Forces out of too much security were permitted to be absent for a while of which the Enemy having Intelligence suddenly came upon them and forced them to fly back into the Highlands to recruit where he began to recover strength when he was commanded by the King then in the hands of the Scots at New-Castle to disband and he departed from Scotland by Sea In the end of the same year 1646. the Parliament caused the Kings Great Seal to be broken also the King was brought to Holmeby and there kept by the Parliaments Commissioners and here was an end of that War as to England and Scotland but not to Ireland About this time also died the Earl of Essex whom the Parliament had discarded B. Now that there was peace in England and the King in prison in whom was the Sovereign Power A. The Right was certainly in the King but the Exercise was yet in no body but contended for as in a Game at Cards without fighting all the years 1647. and 1648. between the Parliament and Oliver Cromwel Lieutenant-General to Sir Thomas Fairfax You must know that when King Henry the 8 th abolished the Popes Authority here and took upon him to be the Head of the Church the Bishops as they could not resist him so neither were they discontented with it For whereas before the Pope allowed not the Bishops to claim Jurisdiction in their Diocesses Jure Divino that is of Right immediately from God but by the Gift and Authority of the Pope now that the Pope was outed they made no doubt but the Divine Right was in themselves After this the City of Geneva and divers other places beyond Sea having revolted from the Papacy set up Presbyteries for the Government of their several Churches and divers English Scholars that went beyond Sea during the persecution in the time of Queen Mary were much taken with this Government and at their return in the time of Queen Elizabeth and ever since have endeavour'd to the great trouble of the Church and Nation to set up that Government here wherein they might domineer and applaud their own Wit and Learning and these took upon them not only a Divine Right but also a Divine Inspiration and having been connived at and countenanced sometimes in their frequent preaching they introduced many strange and many pernicious Doctrines out-doing the Reformation as they pretended both of Luther and Calvin receding from the former Divinity or Church-Philosophy for Religion is another thing as much as Luther and Calvin had receded from the Pope and distracted their Auditors into a great number of Sects as Brownists Anabaptists Independents Fifth-monarchy-men Quakers and divers others all commonly called by the name of Fanaticks in so much as there was no so dangerous an Enemy to the Presbyterians as this brood of their own hatching These were Cromwel's best Cards whereof he had a very great number in the Army and some in the House whereof he himself was thought one though he were nothing certain but applying himself always to the Faction that was strongest was of a colour like it There were in the Army a great number if not the greatest part that aimed only at rapine and sharing the Lands and Goods of their Enemies and these also upon the opinion they had of Cromwel's Valor and Conduct thought they could not any way better arrive at their ends than by adhering to him Lastly in the Parliament it self though not the Major part yet a considerable number were Fanaticks enough to put in doubts and cause delay in the resolutions of the House and sometimes also by advantage of a thin House to carry a Vote in favour of Cromwel as they did upon the 26 th of July For whereas on the fourth of May precedent the Parliament had voted that the Militia of London should be in the hands of a Committee of Citizens whereof the Lord Major for the time being should be one shortly after the Independents chancing to be the major made an Ordinance by which it was put into hands more favourable to the Army The best Cards the Parliament had were the City of London and the Person of the King The General Sir Tho. Fairfax was right Presbyterian but in the hands of the Army and the Army in the hands of Cromwel but which Party should prevail depended on the playing of the Game Cromwel protested still obedience and fidelity to the Parliament but meaning nothing less bethought him and resolv'd on a way to excuse himself of all that he should do to the contrary upon the Army Therefore he and his Son-in-law Commissary-General Ireton as good at contriving as himself and at speaking and writing better contrive how to mutiny the Army against the Parliament To
6000 Horse for themselves To relieve Ireland the Rump had resolved to send eleven Regiments thither out of the Army in England This hap'ned well for Cromwel for the Levelling Soldiers which were in every Regiment many and in some the major part finding that in stead of dividing the Land at home they were to venture their Lives in Ireland flatly denied to go and one Regiment having cashier'd their Collonel about Salisbury was marching to joyn with three Regiments more of the same Resolution but both the General and Cromwel falling upon them at Burford utterly defeated them and soon after reduced the whole Army to their obedience And thus another of the Impediments to Cromwel's Advancement was soon removed This done they came to Oxford and thence to London and at Oxford both the General and Cromwel were made Doctors of the Civil Law and at London feasted and presented by the City B. Were they not first made Masters and then Doctors A. They had made themselves already Masters both of the Laws and Parliament The Army being now obedient the Rump sent over those eleven Regiments into Ireland under the Command of Dr. Cromwel intituled Governour of that Kingdom the Lord Fairfax being still General of all the Forces both here and there The Marquess now Duke of Ormond was the King's Lieutenant of Ireland and the Rebels had made a Confederacy amongst themselves and these Confederates had made a kind of League with the Lieutenant wherein they agreed upon liberty given them in the exercise of their Religion to be faithful to and assist the King To these also were joyned some Forces raised by the Earls of Castlehaven and Clanricard and my Lord Inchiquin so that they were the greatest united strength in the Island but there were amongst them a great many other Papists that would by no means subject themselves to Protestants and these were called the Nuntio's Party as the other were called the Confederate Party These Parties not agreeing and the Confederate Party having broken their Articles the Lord-Lieutenant seeing them ready to besiege him in Dublin and not able to defend it did to preserve the Place for the Protestants surrender it to the Parliament of England and came over to the King at that time when he was carried from place to place by the Army From England he went over to the Prince now King residing then at Paris But the Confederates affrighted with the News that the Rump was sending over an Army thither desir'd the Prince by Letters to send back my Lord of Ormond engaging themselves to submit absolutely to the King's Authority and to obey my Lord of Ormond as his Lieutenant And hereupon he was sent back this was about a year before the going over of Cromwel In which time by the Dissentions in Ireland between the Confederate Party and the Nuntio's Party and discontents about Command this otherwise sufficient power effected nothing and was at last defeated August the second by a Sally out of Dublin which they were besieging Within a few days after arrived Cromwel who with extraordinary diligence and horrid executions in less than a twelvemonth that he stayed there subdued in a manner the whole Nation having killed or exterminated a great part of them and leaving his Son-in-law Ireton to subdue the rest But Ireton dyed there before the business was quite done of the Plague This was one step more towards Cromwel's exaltation to the Throne B. What a miserable condition was Ireland reduced to by the Learning of the Roman as well as England was by the Learning of the Presbyterian Clergy A. In the latter end of the preceding year the King was come from Paris to the Hague and shortly after came thither from the Rump their Agent Dorislaus Doctor of the Civil Law who had been employed in the drawing up of the Charge against the late King but the first night he came as he was at Supper a Company of Cavaliers near a dozen entred his Chamber killed him and got away Not long after also their Agent at Madrid one Ascham one that had written in defence of his Masters was killed in the same manner About this time came out two Books one written by Salmasius a Presbyterian against the Murder of the King another written by Milton an English Independent in answer to it B. I have seen them both They are very good Latin both and hardly to be judged which is better and both very ill reasoning hardly to be judged which is worse like two Declamations Pro and Con made for exercise only in a Rhetorick School by one and the same Man So like is a Presbyterian to an Independent A. In this year the Rump did not much at home save that in the beginning they made England a Free State by an Act which runs thus Be it enacted and declar'd by this present Parliament and by the Authority thereof That the People of England and all the Dominions and Territories thereunto belonging are and shall be and are hereby constituted made and declared a Common-wealth and Free State c. B. What did they mean by a Free State and Common-wealth Were the People no longer to be subject to Laws They could not mean that for the Parliament meant to govern them by their own Laws and punish such as broke them Did they mean that England should not be subject to any Forreign Kingdom or Common-wealth That needed not be enacted seeing there was no King nor People pretended to be their Masters What did they mean then A. They meant that neither this King nor any King nor any single person but only that they themselves would be the Peoples Masters and would have set it down in those plain words if the People could have been cozned with words intelligible as easily as with words not intelligible After this they gave one another Money and Estates out of the Lands and Goods of the Loyal Party They enacted also an Engagement to be taken by every man in these words You shall promise to be true and faithful to the Common-wealth of England as it is now established without King or House of Lords They banished also from within 20 Miles of London all the Royal Party forbidding also every one of them to depart more than five Miles from his Dwelling house B. They meant perhaps to have them ready if need were for a Massacre But what did the Scots in this time A. They were considering of the Officers of the Army which they were Levying for the King how they might exclude from Command all such as had loyally serv'd his Father and all Independents and all such as commanded in Duke Hamilton's Army and these were the main things that passed this year The Marquess of Montrosse that in the year 1645. had with a few men and in little time done things almost incredible against the late King's Enemies in Scotland landed now again in the beginning of the year 1650. in the North of Scotland with
Commission from the present King hoping to do him as good Service as he had formerly done his Father but the Case was altered for the Scotch Forces were then in England in the Service of the Parliament whereas now they were in Scotland and many more for their intended Invasion newly raised Besides the Soldiers which the Marquess brought over were few and Forreigners nor did the Highlanders come in to him as he expected in so much as he was soon defeated and shortly after taken and with more spightful usage than revenge requir'd executed by the Covenanters at Edenburgh May 2. B. What good could the King expect from joyning with these men who during the Treaty discovered so much malice to him in one of his best Servants A. No doubt their Church-men being then prevalent they would have done as much to this King as the English Parliament had done to his Father if they could have gotten by it that which they foolishly aspir'd to the Government of the Nation I do not believe that the Independents were worse than the Presbyterians both the one and the other were resolv'd to destroy whatsoever should stand in the way to their Ambition but necessity made the King pass over both this and many other Indignities from them rather than suffer the pursuit of his Right in England to cool and be little better than extinguished B. Indeed I believe a Kingdom if suffered to become an old Debt will hardly ever be recover'd Besides the King was sure wheresoever the Victory lighted he could lose nothing in the War but Enemies A. About the time of Montrosse his death which was in May Cromwel was yet in Ireland and his work unfinished but finding or by his Friends advertised that his presence in the Expedition now preparing against the Scots would be necessary to his design sent to the Rump to know their pleasure concerning his return but for all that he knew or thought it was not necessary to stay for their Answer but came away and arriv'd at London the sixth of June following and was welcomed by the Rump Now had General Fairfax who was truly what he pretended to be a Presbyterian been so catechis'd by the Presbyterian Ministers here that he refus'd to fight against the Brethren in Scotland nor did the Rump nor Cromwel go about to rectifie his Conscience in that Point and thus Fairfax laying down his Commission Cromwel was now made General of all the Forces in England and Ireland which was another Step to the Sovereign Power B. Where was the King A. In Scotland newly come over He landed in the North and was honourably conducted to Edenburgh though all things were not yet well agreed on between the Scots and him for though he had yielded to as hard Conditions as the late King had yielded to in the Isle of Wight yet they had still somewhat to add till the King enduring no more departed from them towards the North again But they sent Messengers after him to pray him to return but they furnished these Messengers with strength enough to bring him back if he should have refused In fine they agreed but would not suffer either the King or any Royalist to have Command in the Army B. The sum of all is the King was there a Prisoner A. Cromwel from Barwick sends a Declaration to the Scots telling them he had no quarrel against the People of Scotland but against the Malignant Party that had brought in the King to the disturbance of the Peace between the two Nations and that he was willing either by Conference to give and receive satisfaction or to decide the Justice of the Cause by Battle To which the Scots answering declare That they will not prosecute the King's Interest before and without his acknowledgment of the sins of his House and his former ways and satisfaction given to God's People in both Kingdoms Judge by this whether the present King were not in as bad a condition here as his Father was in the hands of the Presbyterians of England B. Presbyterians are every where the same they would fain be absolute Governours of all they converse with and have nothing to plead for it but that where they Reign 't is God that Reigns and no where else but I observe one strange Demand that the King should acknowledge the sins of his House for I thought it had been certainly held by all Divines that no man was bound to acknowledge any man's sins but his own A. The King having yielded to all that the Church requir'd the Scots proceeded in their intended War Cromwel marched on to Edenburgh provoking them all he could to Battle which they declining and Provisions growing scarce in the English Army Cromwel retir'd to Dunbar despairing of success and intending by Sea or Land to get back into England And such was the Condition which this General Cromwel so much magnified for Conduct had brought his Army to that all his Glories had ended in Shame and Punishment if Fortune and the faults of his Enemies had not relieved him For as he retir'd the Scots followed him close all the way till within a Mile of Dunbar There is a ridge of Hills that from beyond Edenburgh goes winding to the Sea and crosses the High-way between Dunbar and Barwick at a Village called Copperspeith where the passage is so difficult that had the Scots sent timely thither a very few men to guard it the English could never have gotten home For the Scots kept the Hills and needed not have fought but upon great advantage and were almost two to one Cromwell's Army was at the foot of those Hills on the North side and there was a great Ditch or Channel of a Torrent between the Hills and it so that he could never have got home by Land nor without utter ruine of the Army attempted to Ship it nor have stayed where he was for want of Provisions Now Cromwel knowing the Pass was free and commanding a good Party of Horse and foot to possess it it was necessary for the Scots to let them go whom they bragged they had impounded or else to fight and therefore with the best of their Horse charged the English and made them at first to shrink a little but the English Foot coming on the Scots were put to flight and the flight of the Horse hindered the Foot from engaging who therefore fled as did also the rest of their Horse Thus the folly of the Scottish Commanders brought all their odds to an even Lay between two small and equal Parties wherein Fortune gave the Victory to the English who were not many more in number than those that were killed and taken Prisoners of the Scots and the Church lost their Canon Bag and Baggage with 10000 Arms and almost their whole Army The rest were got together by Lesly to Sterling B. This Victory happened well for the King for had the Scots been Victors the Presbyterians both here and there would
to signifie the Declaration of the War and to get them to their Party recalled their Ambassadors from England and the Rump without delay gave them their parting Audience without abating a Syllable of their former severe Propositions And presently to maintain the War for the next year laid a Tax upon the People of 120000 l. per Mensem B. What was done in the mean time at home A. Cromwel was now quarreling the last and greatest obstacle to his Design the Rump And to that end there came out daily from the Army Petitions Addresses Remonstrances and other such Papers some of them urging the Rump to dissolve themselves and make way for another Parliament To which the Rump unwilling to yield and not daring to refuse determined for the end of their sitting the fifth of November 1654. But Cromwel meant not to stay so long In the mean time the Army in Ireland was taking Submissions and granting Transportations of the Irish and condemning whom they pleas'd in a High Court of Justice erected there for that purpose Amongst those that were executed was hang'd Sir Phelim Oneale who first began the Rebellion In Scotland the English built some Citadels for the bridling of that stubborn Nation and thus ended the year 1652. B. Come we then to the year 1653. A. Cromwel wanted now but one step to the end of his Ambition and that was to set his Foot upon the Neck of this Long Parliament which he did April the 23 d of this present year 1653. a time very seasonable For though the Dutch were not mastered yet they were much weakned and what with Prizes from the Enemy and squeezing the Royal Party the Treasury was pretty full and the Tax of 120000 l. a month began to come in all which was his own in right of the Army Therefore without more ado attended by the Major-Generals Lambert and Harrison and some other Officers and as many Soldiers as he thought fit he went to the Parliament-house and dissolv'd them turned them out and locked up the doors And for this Action he was more applauded by the People than for any of his Victories in the War and the Parliament-men as much scorned and derided B. Now that there was no Parliament who had the Supream Power A. If by Power you mean the Right to govern no body had it if you mean the Supream Strength it was clearly in Cromwel who was obeyed as General of all the Forces in England Scotland and Ireland B. Did he pretend that for Title A. No but presently after he invented a Title which was this That he was necessitated for the defence of the Cause for which at first the Parliament had taken up Arms that is to say rebelled to have recourse to extraordinary Actions You know the pretence of the Long Parliaments Rebellion was Salus Populi The safety of the Nation against a dangerous Conspiracy of Papists and a Malignant Party at home and that every man is bound as far as his Power extends to procure the safety of the whole Nation which none but the Army were able to do and the Parliament had hitherto neglected was it not then the General 's Duty to do it Had he not therefore Right For that Law of Salus Populi is directed only to those that have Power enough to defend the People that is to them that have the Supream Power B. Yes certainly he had as good a Title as the Long Parliament But the Long Parliament did represent the People and it seems to me that the Sovereign Power is essentially annexed to the Representative of the People A. Yes if he that makes a Representative that is in the present Case the King do call them together to receive the Sovereign Power and he divest himself thereof otherwise not Nor was ever the Lower House of Parliament the Representative of the whole Nation but of the Commons only nor had that House the power to oblige by their Acts or Ordinances any Lord or any Priest B. Did Cromwel come in upon the only Title of Salus Populi A. This is a Title that very few men understand His way was to get the Supream Power confer'd upon him by Parliament Therefore he call'd a Parliament and gave it the Supream Power to the end that they should give it to him again Was not this witty First therefore he published a Declaration of the Causes why he dissolv'd the Parliament The sum whereof was that in stead of endeavouring to promote the good of God's People they endeavour'd by a Bill then ready to pass to recruit the House and perpetuate their own Power Next he constituted a Councel of State of his own Creatures to be the Supream Authority of England but no longer than till the next Parliament should be called and met Thirdly he summoned 142 Persons such as he himself or his Trusty Officers made choice of the greatest part of whom were instructed what to do obscure Persons and most of them Fanaticks though stiled by Cromwel men of approved fidelity and honesty To these the Councel of State surrendred the Supream Authority and not long after these men surrendred it to Cromwel July the fourth this Parliament met and chose for the Speaker one Mr. Rous and called themselves from that time forward the Parliament of England but Cromwel for the more surety constituted also a Councel of State not of such petty fellows as most of these were but of himself and his principal Officers These did all the business both publick and private making Ordinances and giving Audience to Forreign Ambassadors But he had now more Enemies than before Harrison who was the Head of the Fifth-monarchy-men laying down his Commission did nothing but animate his Party against him for which afterwards he was imprison'd This little Parliament in the mean time were making of Acts so ridiculous and displeasing to the People that it was thought he chose them on purpose to bring all Ruling Parliaments into contempt and Monarchy again into credit B. What Acts were these A. One of them was That all Marriages should be made by a Justice of Peace and the Banes asked three several days in the next Market None were forbidden to be married by a Minister but without a Justice of Peace the Marriage was to be void So that divers wary Couples to be sure of one another howsoever they might repent it afterwards were married both ways Also they abrogated the Engagement whereby no man was admitted to sue in any Court of Law that had not taken it that is that had not acknowledged the late Rump B. Neither of these did any hurt to Cromwel A. They were also in hand with an Act to cancel all the present Laws and Law-Books and to make a new Code more suitable to the humor of the Fifth-monarchy-men of whom there were many in this Parliament Their Tenent being that there ought none to be Sovereign but King Jesus nor any to govern under him but the Saints
Silver whereof they thought there was great abundance in the Town of Santo Domingo but were well beaten by a few Spaniards and with the loss of near 1000 men went off to Jamaica and possessed it This year also the Royal Party made another attempt in the West and proclaimed there King Charles the Second but few joyning with them and some falling off they were soon suppressed and many of the principal Persons executed B. In these many Insurrections the Royalists though they meant well yet they did but disservice to the King by their Impatience What hope had they to prevail against so great an Army as the Protector had ready What cause was there to despair of seeing the King's business done better by the Dissention and Ambition of the great Commanders in that Army whereof many had the favour to be as well esteemed amongst them as Cromwel himself A. That was somewhat uncertain The Protector being frustrated of his hope of Money at Santo Domingo resolved to take from the Royalists the tenth part yearly of their Estates And to this end chiefly he divided England into eleven Major-Generalships with Commission to every Major-General to make a Roll of the Names of all suspected Persons of the King's Party and to receive the tenth part of their Estates within his Precinct as also to take Caution from them not to act against the State and to reveal all Plots that should come to their knowledge and to make them engage the like for their Servants They had Commission also to forbid Horse-races and Concourse of People and to receive and account for this Decimation B. By this the Usurper might easily inform himself of the value of all the Estates in England and of the behaviour and affection of every Person of Quality which has heretofore been taken for very great Tyranny A. The year 1656. was a Parliament year by the Instrument between the beginning of this year and the day of the Parliaments sitting which was September the 17 th these Major-Generals resided in several Provinces behaving themselves most tyrannically Amongst other of their Tyrannies was the awing of Elections and making themselves and whom they pleas'd to be return'd Members for the Parliament which was also thought a part of Cromwel's Design in their Constitution for he had need of a giving Parliament having lately upon a Peace made with the French drawn upon himself a War with Spain This year it was that Captain Stainer set upon the Spanish Plate-Fleet being eight in number near Cadiz whereof he funk two and took two there being in one of them two Millions of Pieces of Eight which amounts to 400000 l. Sterling This year also it was that James Naylor appeared at Bristol and would be taken for Jesus Christ. He wore his Beard forked and his Hair composed to the likeness of that in the Volto Santo and being question'd would sometimes answer Thou sayest it He had also his Disciples that would go by his Horse side to the mid-leg in dirt Being sent for by the Parliament he was sentenced to stand on the Pillory to have his Tongue bored through and to be marked in the Forehead with the Letter B. for Blasphemy and to remain in Bridewel Lambert a great Favorite of the Army endeavour'd to save him partly because he had been his Soldier and partly to curry favour with the Sectaries of the Army for he was now no more in the Protector 's favour but meditating how he might succeed him in his Power About two years before this there appeared in Cornwal a Prophetess much fam'd for her Dreams and Visions and hearkned to by many whereof some were eminent Officers but she and some of her Complices being imprison'd we heard no more of her B. I have heard of another one Lilly that prophecied all the time of the Long Parliament What did they to him A. His Prophecies were of another kind he was a writer of Almanacks and a pretender to a pretended Art of Judicial Astrology a meer Cozener to get maintenance from a multitude of ignorant People and no doubt had been called in question if his Prophecies had been any way disadvantageous to that Parliament B. I understand not how the Dreams and Prognostications of Mad-men for such I take to be all those that foretel future Contingencies can be of any great disadvantage to the Common-wealth A. Yes yes know there is nothing that renders Humane Counsels difficult but the incertainty of future time nor that so well directs men in their Deliberations as the fore-sight of the Sequels of their Actions Prophecie being many times the principal Cause of the Event foretold If upon some prediction the People should have been made confident that Oliver Cromwel and his Army should be upon a day to come utterly defeated would not every one have endeavoured to assist and to deserve well of the Party that should give him that Defeat Upon this account it was that Fortune tellers and Astrologers were so often banished out of Rome The last memorable thing of this year was a Motion made by a Member of the House an Alderman of London that the Protector might be petition'd and advis'd by the House to leave the Title of Protector and take upon him that of King B. That was indeed a bold Motion and which would if prosperous have put an end to many mens ambition and to the licentiousness of the whole Army I think the Motion was made on purpose to ruine both the Protector himself and his Ambitious Officers A. It may be so In the year 1657. the first thing the Parliament did was the drawing up of this Petition to the Protector to take upon him the Government of the three Nations with the Title of King As of other Parliaments so of this the greatest part had been either kept out of the House by force or else themselves had forborn to sit and became guilty of setting up this King Oliver But those few that sate presented their Petition to the Protector April the ninth in the Banqueting-house at White-hall where Sir Thomas Widdrington the Speaker used the first Arguments and the Protector desir'd some time to seek God the business being weighty The next day they sent a Committee to him to receive his Answer which Answer being not very clear they pressed him again for a Resolution to which he made answer in a long Speech that ended in a peremptory refusal and so retaining still the Title of Protector he took upon him the Government according to certain Articles contained in the said Petition B. What made him refuse the Title of King A. Because he durst not take it at that time the Army being addicted to their great Officers and amongst their great Officers many hoping to succeed him and the Succession having been promised to Major-General Lambert would have mutinied against him He was therefore forced to stay for a more propitious Conjuncture B. What were those Articles A. The most
the contrary Was it not the Protector that made the Parliament Why did they not acknowledge their Maker A. I believe it is the desire of most men to bear Rule but few of them know what Title one has to it more than another besides the Right of the Sword B. If they acknowledged the Right of the Sword they were neither just nor wise to oppose the present Government set up and approved by all the Forces of the three Kingdoms The Principles of this House of Commons were no doubt the very same with theirs who began the Rebellion and would if they could have raised a sufficient Army have done the same against the Protector and the General of their Army would in like manner have reduced them to a Rump for they that keep an Army and cannot master it must be subject to it as much as he that keeps a Lion in his House The temper of all the Parliaments since the time of Queen Elizabeth has been the same with the temper of this Parliament and shall always be such as long as the Presbyterians and men of Democratical Principles have the like Influence upon the Elections A. After they resolv'd concerning the other House that during this Parliament they would transact with it but without intrenching upon the Right of the Peers to have Writs sent to them in all future Parliaments These Votes being passed they proceed to another wherein they assume to themselves the Power of the Militia Also to shew their Supream Power they deliver'd out of prison some of those that had been they said illegally committed by the former Protector Other Points concerning Civil Rights and concerning Religion very pleasing to the People were now also under their Consideration So that in the end of this year the Protector was no less jealous of the Parliament than of the Councel of Officers at Wallingford-house B. Thus 't is when ignorant men will undertake Reformation Here are three Parties the Protector the Parliament and the Army The Protector against Parliament and Army the Parliament against Army and Protector and the Army against Protector and Parliament A. In the beginning of 1659. the Parliament passed divers other Acts one was to forbid the Meetings in Councel of the Army-Officers without order from the Protector and both Houses Another That no man shall have any Command or Trust in the Army who did not first under his hand engage himself never to interrupt any of the Members but that they might freely meet and debate in the House And to please the Soldiers they voted to take presently into their Consideration the means of paying them their Arrears But whilst they were considering this the Protector according to the first of those Acts forbad the meeting of Officers at Wallingford-house This made the Government which by the disagreement of the Protector and Army was already loose to fall in pieces For the Officers from Wallingford-house with Soldiers enough came over to White-hall and brought with them a Commission ready drawn giving power to Desborough to dissolve the Parliament for the Protector to sign which also his Heart and his Party sailing him he signed The Parliament nevertheless continued sitting but at the end of the Week the House adjourned till the Monday after being April the 25 th At their coming on Monday morning they found the door of the House shut up and the passages to it filled with Soldiers who plainly told them they must sit no longer Richard's Authority and business in Town being thus at an end he retir'd into the Country where within a few days upon promise of the payment of his Debts which his Father's Funeral had made great he signed a Resignation of his Protectorship B. To whom A. To no body But after ten days Cessation of the Sovereign Power some of the Rumpers that were in Town together with the old Speaker Mr. William Lenthal resolv'd amongst themselves and with Lambert Heslerig and other Officers who were also Rumpers in all 42 to go into the House which they did and were by the Army declared to be the Parliament There were also in Westminster-hall at that time about their private business some few of those whom the Army had secluded in 1648. and were called the Secluded Members These knowing themselves to have been elected by the same Authority and to have the same Right to sit attempted to get into the House but were kept out by the Soldiers The first Vote of the Rump re-seated was That such persons as heretofore Members of this Parliament have not sitten in this Parliament since the year 1648. shall not sit in this House till farther order of the Parliament and thus the Rump recovered their Authority May the seventh 1659. which they lost in April 1653. B. Seeing there have been so many Shiftings of the Supream Authority I pray you for memories sake repeat them briefly in times and order A. First from 1640. to 1648. when the King was murdered the Sovereignty was disputed between King Charles the first and the Presbyterian-Parliament Secondly from 1648. to 1653. the Power was in that part of the Parliament which voted the Tryal of the King and declar'd themselves without King or House of Lords to have the Supream Authority of England and Ireland For there were in the Long Parliament two Factions the Presbyterian and Independent the former whereof sought only the subjection of the King not his destruction directly the latter sought directly his destruction and this part is it which was called the Rump Thirdly from April the 20 th to July the fourth the Supream Power was in the hands of a Councel of State constituted by Cromwel Fourthly from July the 4 th to December the 12 th of the same year it was in the hands of men called unto it by Cromwel whom he termed Men of Fidelity and Integrity and made them a Parliament which was called in contempt of one of the Members Barebone's Parliament Fifthly from December the 12 th 1653. to September the third 1658. it was in the hands of Oliver Cromwel with the Title of Protector Sixthly from September the third 1658. to April the 25 th 1659. Richard Cromwel had it as Successor to his Father Seventhly from April the 25 th 1659. to May the seventh of the same year it was no where Eighthly from May the seventh 1659. the Rump which was turned out of doors in 1653. recover'd it again and shall lose it again to a Committee of Safety and again recover it and again lose it to the Right Owner B. By whom and by what Art came the Rump to be turned out the second time A. One would think them safe enough the Army in Scotland which when it was in London had helped Oliver to put down the Rump submitted now begg'd pardon and promised obedience The Soldiers in Town had their pay mended and the Commanders every where took the old Engagement whereby they had acknowledged their Authority heretofore They
also receiv'd their Commissions in the House it self from the Speaker who was Generalissimo Fleetwood was made Lieutenant General with such and so many Limitations as were thought necessary by the Rump that remembred how they had been served by the General Oliver Also Henry Cromwel Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland having resigned his Commission by Command returned into England But Lambert to whom as was said Oliver had promised the Succession and as well as the Rump knew the way to the Protectorship by Oliver's own foot-steps was resolv'd to proceed in it upon the first opportunity which presented it self presently after Besides some Plots of Royalists whom after the old fashion they again persecuted there was an Insurrection made against them by Presbyterians in Cheshire headed by Sir George Booth one of the Secluded Members they were in number about 3000 and their pretence was for a Free Parliament there was a great talk of another Rising or endeavour to rise in Devonshire and Cornwal at the same time To suppress Sir George Booth the Rump sent down more than a sufficient Army under Lambert which quickly defeated the Cheshire Party and recovered Chester Leverpool and all the other places they had seized Divers also of their Commanders in and after the Battle were taken Prisoners whereof Sir George Booth himself was one This Exploit done Lambert before his return Caressed his Soldiers with an Entertainment at his own House in York-shire and got their consent to a Petition to be made to the House that a General might be set up in the Army as being unfit that the Army should be judged by any power extrinsick to it self B. I do not see that unfitness A. Nor I. But it was as I have heard an Axiom of Sir Henry Vane's but it so much displeased the Rump that they voted That the having of more Generals in the Army than were already setled was unnecessary burthensome and dangerous to the Common wealth B. This was not Oliver's method for though this Cheshire-Victory had been as glorious as that of Oliver at Dunbar yet it was not the Victory that made Oliver General but the Resignation of Fairfax and the profer of it to Cromwel by the Parliament A. But Lambert thought so well of himself as to expect it therefore at his return to London he and other Officers Assembling at Wallingford-house drew their Petition into form and call'd it a Representation wherein the Chief Point was to have a General but many other of less Importance were added and this they represented to the House October the fourth by Major-General Desborough and this so far forth awed them as to teach them so much good manners as to promise to take it presently into debate Which they did and October the 12 th having recovered their Spirits voted That the Commissions of Lambert Desborough and others of the Councel at Wallingford-house should be void Item That the Army should be govern'd by a Commission to Fleetwood Monk Haslerig Walton Morley and Overton till February the 12 th following And to make this good against the force they expected from Lambert they ordered Haslerig and Morley to issue Warrants to such Officers as they could trust to bring their Soldiers next morning into Westminster which was done somewhat too late for Lambert had first brought his Soldiers thither and beset the House and turned back the Speaker which was then coming to it but Haslerig's Forces marching about St. James's Park-wall came into St. Margaret's Church-yard and so both Parties looked all day one upon another like Enemies but offered not to fight whereby the Rump was put out of possession of the House and the Officers continued their Meeting as before at Wallingford-house There they chose from among themselves with some few of the City a Committee which they called the Committee of Safety whereof the Chief were Lambert and Vane who with the advice of a General Councel of Officers had power to call Delinquents to Trial. To suppress Rebellions To treat with Forreign States c. You see now the Rump cut off and the Supream Power which is charged with Salus Populi transfer'd to a Councel of Officers And yet Lambert hopes for it in the end But one of their Limitations was That they should within six weeks present to the Army a new Model of the Government if they had done so do you think they would have prefer'd Lambert or any other to the Supream Authority therein rather than themselves B. I think not When the Rump had put into Commission amongst a few others for the Government of the Army that is to say for the Government of the three Nations General Monk already Commander in Chief of the Army in Scotland and that had done much greater things in this War than Lambert how durst they leave him out of this Committee of Safety Or how could Lambert think that General Monk would forgive it and not endeavour to fasten the Rump again A. They thought not of him his Gallantry had been shewn on remote Stages Ireland and Scotland His Ambition had not appear'd here in their Contentions for the Government but he had complied both with Richard and the Rump After General Monk had signified by Letter his dislike of the Proceedings of Lambert and his Fellows they were much surpriz'd and began to think him more considerable than they had done but it was too late B. Why His Army was too small for so great an Enterprize A. The General knew very well his own and their Forces both what they were then and how they might be augmented and what generally City and Country wished for which was the Restitution of the King which to bring about there needed no more but to come with his Army though not very great to London To the doing whereof there was no obstacle but the Army with Lambert What could he do in this Case If he had declar'd presently for the King or for a Free-Parliament all the Armies in England would have joyned against him and assuming the Title of a Parliament would have furnished themselves with Money General Monk after he had thus quarrelled by his Letter with the Councel-Officers secur'd first those Officers of his own Army which were Anabaptists and therefore not to be trusted and put others into their places then drawing his Forces together marched to Barwick Being there he indicted a Convention of the Scots of whom he desir'd that they would take order for the security of that Nation in his absence and raise some maintenance for his Army in their March The Convention promised for the security of the Nation their best endeavour and raised him a Sum of Money not great but enough for this purpose excusing themselves upon their present wants On the other side the Committee of Safety with the greatest and best part of their Army sent Lambert to oppose him but at the same time by divers Messages and Mediators urged him to a Treaty which he consented
the House of Commons to shew they had not changed their Principles which after six readings in the House was voted to be printed and once a year to be read publickly in every Church B. I say again this re-establishing of the Long Parliament was no good service to the King A. Have a little patience They were re-established with two Conditions One to determine their sitting before the end of March another to send out Writs before their rising for new Elections B. That qualifies A. That brought in the King for few of this Long Parliament the Country having felt the smart of their former Service could get themselves chosen again This New Parliament began to sit April the 25 th 1660. How soon these called in the King with what Joy and Triumph he was receiv'd how earnestly his Majesty pressed the Parliament for the Act of Oblivion and how few were excepted out of it you know as well as I. B. But I have not yet observed in the Presbyterians any oblivion of their former Principles We are but returned to the state we were in at the beginning of the Sedition A. Not so for before that time though the Kings of England had the Right of the Militia in vertue of the Sovereignty and without dispute and without any particular Act of Parliament directly to that purpose yet now after this bloody dispute the next which is the present Parliament in proper and express terms hath declar'd the same to be the Right of the King only without either of his Houses of Parliament which Act is more instructive to the People than any Arguments drawn from the Title of Sovereign and consequently fitter to disarm the Ambition of all seditious Haranguers for the time to come B. I pray God it prove so Howsoever I must confess that this Parliament has done all that a Parliament can do for the security of our Peace which I think also would be enough if Preachers would take heed of instilling evil Principles into their Auditory I have seen in this Revolution a circular motion of the Sovereign Power through two Usurpers from the late King to this his Son for leaving out the Power of the Councel of Officers which was but temporary and no otherwise owned by them but in trust it moved from King Charles the First to the Long Parliament from thence to the Rump from the Rump to Oliver Cromwel and then back again from Richard Cromwel to the Rump thence to the Long Parliament and thence to King Charles the Second where long may it remain A. Amen And may he have as often as there shall be need such a General B. You have told me little of the General till now in the end but truly I think the bringing of his little Army intirely out of Scotland up to London was the greatest Stratagem that is extant in History FINIS Books lately printed for William Crooke at the Green Dragon without Temple-Bar 1682. DIVINITY SIxty one Sermons preached mostly upon publick occasions whereof five formerly Printed by A. Littleton D. D. Folio Brevis Demonstratio being the truth of Christian Religion proved by reason in Twelves p. 10 d. The primitive Institution shewing the Antiquity and usefulness of Catechizing by the Author of this Book price 12 d. A Funeral Sermon for a drown'd Man Octavo Mr. Howel's Visitation Sermon Quarto Dr. Hascard's two Sermons Quarto Mr. Maningham's Sermon Quarto A Sermon preached at the Savoy accused for Heretical French and English A modest Plea for the Clergy wherein is briefly considered the Reasons why the Clergy are so neglected by the Author of this Book Octavo H. 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just disposition of Almighty God this Policy turned to a sin and was the utter destruction of Jeroboam and his Family It is not good jesting with edge-tools nor playing with holy things Where men make their greatest fastness many times they find most danger T. H. His Lordship either had a strange Conscience or understood not English Being at Paris when there was no Bishop nor Church in England and every man writ what he pleased I resolved when it should please God to restore the Authority Ecclesiastical to submit to that Authority in whatsoever it should determine This his Lordship construes for a temporizing and too much indifferency in Religion and says further that the last part of my words do smell of Jeroboam To the contrary I say my words were modest and such as in duty I ought to use And I profess still that whatsoever the Church of England the Church I say not every Doctor shall forbid me to say in matter of Faith I shall abstain from saying it excepting this point That Jesus Christ the Son of God dyed for my sins As for other Doctrins I think it unlawful if the Church define them for any Member of the Church to contradict them J. D. His sixth Paradox is a rapper the Civil Laws are the Rules of good and evil just and unjust honest and dishonest and therefore what the Lawgiver commands that is to be accounted good what he forbids bad And a little after before Empires were just and unjust were not as whose nature is Relative to a Command every action in its own nature is indifferent That it is just or unjust proceedeth from the right of him that commandeth Therefore lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them To this add his definition of a sin that which one doth or omitteth saith or willeth contrary to the reason of the Common-wealth that is the Civil Laws Where by the Laws he doth not understand the Written Laws elected and approved by the whole Common-wealth but the verbal Commands or Mandates of him that hath the Soveraign Power as we find in many places of his Writings The Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that is endowed with Soveraign Power in the Common-wealth concerning the future actions of his Subjects And the Civil Laws are fastned to the Lips of that man who hath the Soveraign Power Where are we In Europe or in Asia Where they ascribed a Divinity to their Kings and to use his own Phrase made them Mortal Gods O King live for ever Flatterers are the common Moths of great Pallaces where Alexander's friends are more numerous than the King's friends But such gross palpable pernicious flattery as this is I did never meet with so derogatory both to piety and policy What deserved he who should do his uttermost endeavour to poyson a common Fountain whereof all the Common-wealth must drink He doth the same who poisoneth the mind of a Soveraign Prince Are the Civil Laws the Rules of good and bad just and unjust honest and dishonest And what I pray your are the Rules of the Civil Law it self Even the Law of God and Nature If the Civil Laws swerve from these more authentick Laws they are Lesbian Rules What the Lawgiver commands is to be accounted good what he forbids bad This was just the garb of the Athenian Sophisters as they are described by Plato Whatsoever pleased the great Beast the Multitude they call holy and just and good And whatsoever the great Beast disliked they called evil unjust prophane But he is not yet arrived at the height of his flattery Lawful Kings make those things which they command just by commanding them At other times when he is in his right wits he talketh of sufferings and expecting their reward in Heaven And going to Christ by Martyrdome And if he had the fortitude to suffer death he should do better But I fear all this was but said in jest How should they expect their reward in Heaven if his Doctrine be true that there is no reward in Heaven Or how should they be Martyrs if his Doctrine be true that none can be Martyrs but those who conversed with Christ upon earth He addeth Before Empires were just and unjust were not Nothing could be written more false in his sence more dishonourable to God more inglorious to the humane nature That God should create Man and leave him presently without any Rules to his own ordering of himself as the Ostridg leaveth her Eggs in the sand But in truth there have been Empires in the World ever since Adam And Adam had a Law written in his heart by the finger of God before there was any Civil Law Thus they do endeavour to make goodness and justice and honesty and conscience and God himself to be empty names without any reality which signifie nothing further than they conduce to a man's interest Otherwise he would not he could not say That every action as it is invested with its circumstances is indifferent in its own nature T. H. My sixth Paradox he calls a Rapper A Rapper a Swapper and such like terms are his Lordships elegancies But let us see what this Rapper is 'T is this The Civil Laws are the Rules of Good and Evil Just and Unjust Honest and Dishonest Truly I see no other Rules they have The Scriptures themselves were made Law to us here by the Authority of the Common-wealth and are therefore part of the Law Civil If they were Laws in their own nature then were they Laws over all the World and men were obliged to obey them in America as soon as they should be shown there though without a Miracle by a Frier What is Injust but the Transgression of a Law Law therefore was before Unjust And the Law was made known by Soveraign Power before it was a Law Therefore Soveraign Power was antecedent both to Law and Injustice Who then made Injust but Soveraign Kings or Soveraign Assemblies Where is now the wonder of this Rapper That Lawful Kings make those things which they command Just by commanding them and those things which they forbid Vnjust by forbidding them Just and Unjust were surely made if the King made them not who made them else For certainly the breach of a Civil Law is a sin against God Another Calumny which he would fix upon me is That I make the King 's verbal Commands to be Laws How so Because I say the Civil Laws are nothing else but the Commands of him that hath the Soveraign Power concerning the future Actions of his Subjects What verbal Command of a King can arrive at the ears of all his Subjects which it must do ere it be a Law without the Seal of the Person of the Common-wealth which is here the Great Seal of England Who but his Lordship ever denyed that the command of England was a Law to English
out of his Writings and present them to the Reader who will easily distinguish them from healthful Plants by the rankness of their smell Such are these which follow T. H. As for the following Posie of Flowers there wants no more to make them sweet than to wipe off the Venome blown upon some of them by his Lordships breath J. D. 1. To be delighted in the imagination only of being possessed of another man's Goods Servants or Wife without any intention to take them from him by force or fraud is no breach of the Law which saith Thou shalt not covet T. H. What man was there ever whose imagination of any thing he thought would please him was not some delight Or what sin is there where there is not so much as an intention to do injustice But his Lordship would not distinguish between delight and purpose nor between a Wish and a Will This was venome I believe that his Lordship himself even before he was Married took some delight in the thought of it and yet the Woman then was not his own All love is delight but all love is not sin Without this love of that which is not yet a mans own the World had not been Peopled J. D. 2. If a Man by the terror of present death be compelled to do a Fact against the Law he is totally excused because no Law can oblige a Man to abandon his own preservation nature compelleth him to the Fact The like Doctrine he hath elsewhere When the Actor doth any thing against the Law of Nature by the Command of the Author if he be obliged by former Covenants to obey him not he but the Author breaketh the Law of Nature T. H. The second Flower is both sweet and wholsom J. D. 3. It is a Doctrine repugnant to Civil Society that whatsoever a man does against his Conscience is sin T. H. 'T is plain that to do what a man thinks in his own Conscience to be sin is sin for it is a contempt of the Law it self and from thence ignorant men out of an erroneous Conscience disobey the Law which is pernicious to all Government J. D. 4. The Kingdom of God is not shut but to them that sin that is to them who have not performed due obedience to the Laws of God nor to them if they believe the necessary Articles of the Christian Faith 5. We must know that the true acknowledging of sin is Repentance it self 6. An opinion publickly appointed to be taught cannot be Heresie nor the Soveraign Princes that Authorised the same Hereticks T. H. The 4 th 5 th and 6 th smell well But to say that the Soveraign Prince in England is a Heretick or that an Act of Parliament is Heretical stinks abominably as 't was thought Primo Elizabethae J. D. 7. Temporal and Spiritual government are but two words to make men see double and mistake their lawful Soveraign c. There is no other Government in this Life neither of State nor Religion but Temporal 8. It is manifest that they who permit a contrary Doctrine to that which themselves believe and think necessary to Salvation do against their Consciences and Will as much as in them lyeth the eternal destruction of their Subjects T. H. The 7 th and 8 th are Roses and Jassamin But his leaving out the words to Salvation was venome J. D. 9. Subjects sin if they do not worship God according to the Laws of the Common-wealth T. H. The 9 th he hath poisoned and made it not mine he quotes my Book de Cive Cap. 15.19 Where I say Regnante Deo per solam rationem naturalem that is Before the Scripture was given they sinned that refused to worship God according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Country which hath no ill scent but to undutiful Subjects J. D. 10. To believe in Jesus in Jesum is the same as to believe that Jesus is Christ. T. H. And so it is always in the Scripture J. D. 11. There can be no contradiction between the Laws of God and the Laws of a Christian Common-wealth Yet we see Christian Common-wealths daily contradict one another T. H. The 11 th is also good But his Lordship's instance That Christian Common-wealths contradict one another have nothing to do here Their Laws do indeed contradict one another but contradict not the Law of God For God Commands their Subjects to obey them in all things and his Lordship himself confesseth that their Laws though erroneous bind the Conscience But Christian Common-wealths would seldome contradict one another if they made no Doctrine Law but such as were necessary to Salvation J. D. 12. No man giveth but with intention of some good to himself Of all voluntary Acts the Object is to every man his own good Moses St. Paul and the Decij were not of his mind T. H. That which his Lordship adds to the 12 th namely that Moses St. Paul and the Decij were not of my mind is false For the two former did what they did for a good to themselves which was eternal Life and the Decij for a good Fame after death And his Lordship also if he had believed there is an eternal happiness to come or thought a good Fame after death to be any thing worth he would have directed all his actions towards them and have despised the Wealth and Titles of the present World J. D. 13. There is no natural knowledge of man's estate after death much less of reward which is then to be given to breach of Faith but only a belief grounded upon other mens saying that they know it supernaturally or that they know those that knew them that knew others that knew it supernaturally T. H. The 13 th is good and fresh J. D. 14. David's killing of Uriah was no injury to Uriah because the right to do what he pleased was given him by Uriah himself T. H. David himself makes this good in saying To thee only have I sinned J. D. 15. To whom it belongeth to determine controversies which may arise from the divers interpretations of Scripture he hath an imperial power over all men which acknowledge the Scripture to be the Word of God 16. What is Theft what is Murder what is Adultery and universally what is an injury is known by the Civil Law that is by the Commands of the Soveraign T. H. For the 15 th he should have disputed it with the Head of the Church And as to the 16 th I would have asked him by what other Law his Lordship would have it determined what is Theft or what is Injury than by the Laws made in Parliament or by the Laws which distinguish between Meum and Tuum His Lordships ignorance smells rankly 't is his own phrase in this and many other places which I have let pass of his own Interest The King tells us what is sin in that he tells us what is Law He hath authorised the Clergy to dehort the people
Act of Parliament for the abolishing the High Commission But though the High Commission were taken away yet the Parliament having other ends besides the setting up of the Presbyterate pursued the Rebellion and put down both Episcopacy and Monarchy erecting a power by them called The Common-wealth by others the Rump which men obeyed not out of Duty but for fear nor was there any humane Laws left in force to restrain any man from Preaching or Writing any Doctrine concerning Religion that he pleased and in this heat of the War it was impossible to disturb the Peace of the State which then was none And in this time it was that a Book called Leviathan was written in defence of the King's Power Temporal and Spiritual without any word against Episcopacy or against any Bishop or against the publick Doctrine of the Church It pleas'd God about Twelve years after the Usurpation of this Rump to restore His most Gracious Majesty that now is to his Fathers Throne and presently His Majesty restored the Bishops and pardoned the Presbyterians but then both the one and the other accused in Parliament this Book of Heresie when neither the Bishops before the War had declared what was Heresie when if they had it had been made void by the putting down of the High Commission at the importunity of the Presbyterians So fierce are men for the most part in dispute where either their Learning or Power is debated that they never think of the Laws but as soon as they are offended they cry out Crucifige forgetting what St. Paul saith even in case of obstinate holding of an Error 2 Tim. 2.24 25. The Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle unto all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose if God peradventure may give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Of which counsel such fierceness as hath appeared in the Disputation of Divines down from before the Council of Nice to this present time is a Violation FINIS SEVEN Philosophical Problems AND TWO PROPOSITIONS OF GEOMETRY By Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury With an Apology for Himself and his WRITINGS Dedicated to the KING in the year 1662. LONDON Printed for William Crook at the Green-Dragon without Temple-Bar 1682. TO THE KING THat which I do here most humbly present to Your Sacred Majesty is the best Part of my Meditations upon the Natural Causes of Events both of such as are commonly known and of such as have been of late artificially exhibited by the Curious They are ranged under seven Heads 1. Problems of Gravity 2. Problems of Tides 3. Problems of Vacuum 4. Problems of Heat 5. Problems of Hard and Soft 6. Problems of Wind and Weather 7. Problems of Motion Perpendicular and Oblique c. To which I have added Two Propositions of Geometry One is The Duplication of the Cube hitherto sought in vain The other A Detection of the absurd Use of Arithmetick as it is now applied to Geometry The Doctrine of Natural Causes hath not infallible and evident Principles For there is no Effect which the Power of God cannot produce by many several ways But seeing all Effects are produced by Motion he that supposing some one or more Motions can derive from them the necessity of that Effect whose Cause is required has done all that is to be expected from Natural Reason And though he prove not that the thing was thus produced yet he proves that thus it may be produced when the Materials and the power of Moving is in our hands which is as useful as if the Causes themselves were known And notwithstanding the absence of rigorous Demonstration this Contemplation of Nature if not rendred obscure by empty terms is the most Noble Imployment of the Mind that can be to such as are at leisure from their necessary Business This that I have done I know is an unworthy Present to be offered to a KING though considered as God considers Offerings together with the Mind and Fortune of the Offerer I hope will not be to Your Majesty unacceptable But that which I chiefly consider in it is that my Writing should be tryed by Your Majesties Excellent Reason untainted with the Language that has been invented or made use of by Men when they were puzzled and who is acquainted with all the Experiments of the time and whose approbation if I have the good Fortune to obtain it will protect my reasoning from the Contempt of my Adversaries I will not break the custom of joyning to my Offering a Prayer And it is That Your Majesty will be pleased to pardon this following short Apology for my Leviathan Not that I rely upon Apologies but upon Your Majesties most Gracious General Pardon That which is in it of Theology contrary to the general Current of Divines is not put there as my Opinion but propounded with submission to those that have the Power Ecclesiastical I did never after either in Writing or Discourse maintain it There is nothing in it against Episcopacy I cannot therefore imagine what reason any Episcopal-man can have to speak of me as I hear some of them do as of an Atheist or man of no Religion unless it be for making the Authority of the Church wholly upon the Regal Power which I hope Your Majesty will think is neither Atheism nor Heresie But what had I to do to meddle with matters of that nature seeing Religion is not Philosophy but Law It was written in a time when the pretence of Christ's Kingdom was made use of for the most horrid Actions that can be imagined And it was in just Indignation of that that I desired to see the bottom of that Doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ which divers Ministers then Preached for a Pretence to their Rebellion which may reasonably extenuate though not excuse the writing of it There is therefore no ground for so great a Calamny in my writing There is no sign of it in my Life and for my Religion when I was at the point of Death at St. Germains the Bishop of Durham can bear witness of it if he be asked Therefore I most humbly beseech Your Sacred Majesty not to believe so ill of me upon reports that proceed often and may do so now from the displeasure which commonly ariseth from difference in Opinion nor to think the worse of me if snatching up all the Weapons to fight against Your Enemies I lighted upon one that had a double edge Your Majesties Poor and most Loyal Subject THOMAS HOBBES PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS· CHAP. I. Problems of Gravity A. WHat may be the cause think you that stones and other bodies thrown upward or carried up and left to their liberty fall down again for ought a man can see of their own accord I do not think with the old Philosophers that they have any love to the Earth or are sullen that they will neither go nor stay And yet I cannot imagine what body there is above