VERITAS INCONCUSSA OR A most certain Truth asserted THAT KING CHARLES THE FIRST Was no MAN OF BLOOD But a MARTYR For His People Together with a sad and impartial enquiry whether the King or Parliament began the War which hath so much ruined and undone the Kingdom of England and who was in the defensive part of it By FABIAN PHILIPPS Esq Exoritur aliquod majus è magno malum Nondum ruentis Ilii fatum stetit SENEC Tragoed in Troade Act. 3. LONDON Printed by Richard Hodgkinson in the Year 1649. and reprinted by Thomas Newcomb and are to be Sold by William Place at Grayes-Inn-Gate 1660. Though CHARLES be added to their heaps of slain They cannot prove that Abel murder'd Cain He dy'd a Martyr for his Peoples good Vote what they can they 're guilty of his blood But their 's the sin His the eternall Glory And Truth commends to Time his lasting Story TO THE KING' 's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY Most Gracious Soveraign IT having been the Cardo quaestionis or too much a question betwixt your Royal Father and His Parliament to whom the sin of our late Civil Wars and miseries with the bloody and horrid consequences thereof did belong though without question He was no way guilty of it but was a Martyr and sufferer in it and the guilt and profit of that great and crying sin being so inlaid and riveted in the promoters thereof as it was not only by time and successes which are not seldom the encouragers and supporters of it become to be the interest of a great part of that Faction or people but to be miscalled Piety Religion good affection and Godliness it self and yet sticks as a Leprosie to those and their seed that were more wicked then the covetous but unbloody Gehazi and if God of his mercy do not cleanse them from it will transmit it with an impenitency to boote which we do not finde entailed upon Gehazi's to their posterities The ensuing vindication of your Royal Father that he was not the Contriver Author and Beginner of that War which hath so undone and Harassed these three Nations was for the most part written by me a little before His Martyrdom and finished and published about the moneth of April 1649. in the midst of a fiery persecution and ruining of all that did but act or write or do any thing on His behalf and now re-printed and come abroad again may if publiquely owned under your Majesties gracious Patronage after Your happy restauration and the peoples sense and sight of their sin and follies be more instrumental in the conviction converting of many of those misguided zelots or thriving sinners then it was or could be before they had tasted and been so long acquainted with miseries and release them out of the prisons of that self-conceitedness and opiniastretè wherein Satan hath cunningly lodged and imprisoned their deluded Souls making them believe that they are in the Church way to Heaven when as without a timely repentance they are but going down to the place of everlasting burnings and is now the more necessary for that no longer ago then in April last a printed and publique Address was as impudently as wickedly made by a Seditious party calling themselves the most faithful friends and servants in the Common-cause to the Lord General Monck and the Officers of the Army under his Command to perswade them upon false and mistaken grounds out of their Loyalty by telling them That though it were possible that they should forget the publique Interest and their own yet certainly God would not all the injuries and oppressions done by that Family which pretends to the Government of these Nations to His Church and people in these and other Nations And though the Inscription of Exit Tyrannus which was fixed over the place where the Statue of the late King formerly stood at the Exchange hath been blotted out by the Rabble yet it was written with the Pen of a Diamond in the hearts of many thousands and will be so hereafter in the Adamantine Roles of Fame and History And that one of the great Incendiaries and Capital Offenders could very lately and since the Parliaments voting of him to be excepted desire and make means for a Pardon but being put to shew his repentance by a publique retractation in order to the obtaining of your Majesties favor would rather be without it then forsake his former opinions and that there are too many amongst those many that made acclamations and seemed to rejoyce in Your Majesties return to Your Throne and most ancient and undoubted Rights who have not changed their Spots but counterfeiting Loyalty to get blessings they never deserved can outdo a Proteus or the greatest of Dissemblers and onely keep their vomit to make a Cordial of when they shall but espy an opportunity to lick it up again and think themselves as infallible as they fancied the Spirit to be which deluded them To convert whom if possible and those too too many who have exceeded the gain-sayings of Korah Dathan and Abiram been greater gainers by it and to lead them into the right way and guard as well as I could Piissimi Regis Cineres the ashes and memory of my late Soveraign from the violation scandals and injuries which those who are rightly called Phanaticks are never a weary to put and cast upon them hath been and is the design aswell as the duty of him who having not come in only at the eleventh hour but laboured all that he could in the other part of the morning or day in the vineyard of Loyalty shall never cease to be a lover and servant of that Truth and Reason which enjoyns it And Your MAJESTIES Loyal and Obedient Subject FABIAN PHILIPPS TO HENRY BELL A PRINTER Arrogating to himself to be the Author of this Book HENRY BELL YOu might have contented your self with that unjust and now too common liberty taken by some Printers and Booksellers in abusing of Authors Readers and People by a false imposition of names and many counterfeit pieces and selling of one thing for another which in the want and absence of the good and Kingly Government of England and a Court of Star-Chamber which in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr had limited the Printers in the City of London not to exceed the number of twenty two of which who were then named are now only left alive our late unruly and licencious Times allowed you for in our formerly well-ordered dayes of a peaceable subjection to a most gracious King Books were as in most other Kingdoms of Europe to be licenced before they could be printed and the Printers and Stationers knew not at least durst not put in practise those grand Cheates which of late too many of them have put upon the people nor did use as many tricks in their Trades as the devil could invent or provide for them by printing and publishing books manuscripts
day before to murther him but before he went out of the field sent Sir William Le-neve Clarencieux King at Arms to Warwick whither the Earl of Essex was fled with a Proclamation of Pardon to all that would lay down arms which though they scornfully received and the Herald threatned to be hanged if he did not depart the sooner cannot perswade him from sending a Declaration or Message to the Parliament to offer them all that could be requested by Subjects but all the use they made of it was to make the City of London believe they were in greater danger then ever if they lent them not more moneys and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army and to cousen and put the people on the more to seek their own misery a day of thanksgiving was publiquely kept for the great Victory obtained against the King And Stephen Marshal a Factious bloody minister though he confessed he was so carried on in the crowd of those that fled from the battel as he knew not where he was till he came to a Market Town which was some miles from Edge-hill where the Battel was fought preaches to the people too little believing the Word of God and too much believing him That to his knowledge there was not above 200. men lost on the Parliaments side that he picked up bullets in his black Velvet cap and that a very small supply would now serve to reduce the King and bring Him to His Parliament And here ye may see Janus Temple wide open though the doors of it were not lift off the hinges or broken open at once but pickt open by those either knew not the misery of War or knowing it will prove to be the more guilty promoters of it That we may the better therefore find out though the matter of Fact already represented may be evidence enough of it self who it was that let out the fury and rage of War upon us we shall consider CHAP. III. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the People be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War if it were made between equals WAr where it is made by any rules of justice between equals is to be for necessity where the determining of controversies cannot otherwise be obtained or when between two Princes of equal power it cannot be had because they have no superiour A Rebel therefore cannot properly be called an enemy for Hostis nomen notat aequalitatem and when any such arms are born against Rebels it is not to be called a War but an exercise of jurisdiction upon traiterous and dis-loyal persons y atque est ratio manifesta saith Albericus Gentilis qui enim jure judex est superior non jure cogitur ad subeundas partes partis aequalis non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant exercitus proinde nec ulla cum illis belli jura saith z Besoldus The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publique denouncing of War and sending Ambassadors before they made War against any other Nation did not do it in cases of rebellion and defection and therefore a Fidenatibus Campanis non denunciant Romani And Cicero that was of opinion that nullum bellum justum haberi videtur nisi nunciatum nisi indictum nisi repetitis rebus stood not upon those solemnities in the Cataline conspiracy for the rules of justifying a War against an enemy or equals as demanding restitution denunciation and the like are not requisite in that of punishing of Rebels b Pompey justifies the war maintained by the Senate against Caesar not then their Soveraign with neque enim vocari praelia justa decet c. Cicero did not think it convenient to send Ambassadors to Anthony nor intreat him by fair words but that it was meet to enforce him by Arms to raise his siege from Mutina for he said c They had not to do with Hannibal an enemy to the Common-wealth but with a Rebellious Citizen The resisting of the Kings Authority when the Sheriff of a County goes with the posse Comitatus to execute it was never yet so much as called a War but Rebellion insurrection or commotion were the best terms which were bestowed upon it For such attempts are not called wars but robberies of which the Law taketh no other care of but to punish them And the haste that all our Kings and Princes in England have made in suppressing Rebellions as that of the Barons Wars by Henry the 3. and his sending his son the Prince to besiege Warren Earl of Surrey in his Castle of Rygate for affronting the Kings Justices saying That he would hold his Lands by the Sword That which Ri. 2. made to suppresse Wat. Tiler H. 6. Jack Cade H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels and Queen Eliz. to suppress the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland may tell us that they understood it no otherwise then all the Kings and Magistrates of the World have ever practised it by the d Laws of England if Englishmen that are Traytors go into France and confederate with Aliens or Frenchmen and come afterwards and make a War in England and be taken prisoners the strangers may be ransomed but not the English for they were the Kings Subjects and are to be reckoned as Traytors not strangers And the Parliaments own advise to the King to suppress the Irish Rebels that ploughed but with their own Heyfer and pretended as they did to defend their Religion Laws and Liberties and the opinion also of Mr. President Bradshaw as Sir John Owen called him in his late sentence given against the Earls of Cambridge Holland and Norwich Lord Capel and Sir John Owen whom he mistakenly God and the Law knows would make to be the subjects of their worser fellow subjects may be enough toturn the question out of doors But lest all this should not be thought sufficient to satisfie those who can like nothing but what there is Scripture for we shall a little turn over the leaves of that Sacred Volume and see what is to be found therein concerning this matter Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the World and better acquainted with Him that made the fifth Commandment then these that now pretend Revelations against it thought fit to suppress the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram as soon as he could and for no greater offence then a desire to be co-ordinate with him procured them to be buried alive with all that appertained unto them When Absalon had Rebelled against his father David and it was told him e That the hearts of the men of Israel were after him David a man after Gods own heart without any Message of Peace or Declaration sent unto his dear son Absalon or offering half or any part of his Kingdom to him sent three several armies
notwithstanding all that made shift to throw a message or Declaration to his people made up like a ball out of the place of his close Imprisonment at Carisbrook was not like to desire the lengthening that war wch he did all he could to avoid and offered so much to make an end of but on the contrary if we take inour consideration the more then Gothish unheard of inhumane cruelties acted and done by the Parliament against their better fellow Subjects their Plundrings Sequestrations and racking of every mans estate they pleased to call Delinquents severities in all their actions standing upon every punctilio or word or superscription of a Letter and not abating a tittle of their demands as if they had been the Decalogue or some other place of Scripture though rivolets of blood hundred thousand of ruined families and thronged hospitals of sick and wounded men Widows and Fatherless cryed aloud to them for peace and their killing and murthering those that but Petitioned for it and a foundation laid of a new War may last as long as that of the Netherlands and Germany There will be enough and enough again to insure us of this most cleer and evident truth That the King did all he could and more then any man else would have done to obtain peace and the Faction or Parliment all they could to avoid it for certainly if there be any rules of Learning Truth or Reason left us to judge by He must be sequestred of all his brains that can but endeavour to make a doubt whether the King did not more resemble the true mother of the Child in the case before Solomon who did so much and offered to part with so much to save the life of it then the Parliament that would have it more divided and to be cut and torn all to bits and pieces and would do nothing at all to save but every thing to destroy it And now we have seen a King undone and imprisoned for his endeavours to protect his people and bring again beloved Peace to those that would not entertain it and heard the report of his murther for most of the peoples eyes have not seen it nor have their hearts acted in it we shall as most men do after they have lost a good offer or oportunity enquire CHAP. VIII Whether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have goâ— instead of them IN order to which though so woful and over-and-over-bitterly-Tasted Seen Felt Heard and Understood-experiences of the miseries wch have come unto us by the Parliaments not accepting the gracious offers conditions wch the King made unto them may make it to be as needless to enquire of them as for a man to ask where to find Pauls Steeple in London when he is in Pauls Church-yard or to enquire for the Sun in the Dog-dayes when he and every man else may see or feel the effects of it we shall be content to consider what the King offered and what the Parliament would have had him to grant What the King would have done and what the Parliament have done and by that see which would have been the better bargain The King like a pater patriae offered over and over to grant all manner of Laws and Liberties which might be good and wholsome for his people and only denyed to grant those things the granting whereof as he said himself vvould alter the Fundamental Lavvs and endanger the very foundations upon vvhich the publick happiness and vvelfare of his people were founded and constituted or to give them stones instead of bread or Scorpions instead of Fishes But the Parliament meaning to feed the people neither vvith bread nor fishes ask the Royal Svvord Crown and Scepter Coronation-Oath and Conscience and an Arbitrary povver to Govern and Domineere over their fellow Subjects and to enslave those that trusted them And though the King had already granted enough to preserve the Lavvs Lives Religion and Liberty of the people and vvas so vvilling almost at any rate to purchase a peace for himself and his people as he vvas content to part vvith his Svvord and Militia and divers other parts of his Regality during his life Yet that vvould not serve the turne t vvas Naboths Vineyard not Ahabs Fast wch made all the business The Faction or Partie in the Parliament that pretended so much to deny themselves and to dote upon the people do notwithstanding all they can to continue the War and to cozen and force the peoples blood estates and conscience out of them and they must never give over paying of Taxes fighting and fooling till they enable them to imprison their King and not only murder him but thousands and many ten thousands of their fellow Subjects and the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people And now that they have done more then the men of the Gunpowder-treason ever intended to do and that all England are become like sheep without a Shephard wandring on the mountains and thousands of Wolves by Votes and Ordinances and mis-called Acts of Parliament appointed to feed them four or five years sad experience in the Wars of the Parliament against the King and almost as much more time spent in setling subduing the people making them like Camels to kneel down to take up their burdens labour and travel hard and endure hunger and thirst under them yet yield up the veines to be pricked for blood to enable their drivers to furnish them with a new supply of burdens when they shall be discharged of what they have laid upon them may easily shew us a difference as big as a mountain betwixt our old good Laws and Liberties enjoyed under a gracious King who had an Estate of inheritance large enough of his own besides an Oath to oblige Him to protect us and a Hell upon Earth and the most Slavish of all the governments which were ever yet put upon a Nation by men of as little Wit and Estates as they have honesty having no other obligations upon them but their own abhominable designs and interests For which of the people unless those that have traded in their neighbours blood and ruine but hath made their complaints of their undoing The Religion of the Kingdom once so glorious is now cut into fancies and blasphemies the Churches where God was wont to be worshipped either defaced pulled down or made Stables for horses the Laws of the Kingdom which were consonant to the Word of God and had in them the Quintessence of all which could be found to be extant in the Laws of Nature Nations Civil Laws or rectified Reason and whatsoever the wisdom and care of all former Kings in Parliament or the usage and customes of this or any other neighbouring Nations could bring to its perfection and were wont to nourish and preserve peace and property among us voted out or into that sense or the other
accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every â—0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1â— de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.
and broken pieces or fragments of manuscripts under the name of some worthy men that were long before dead or were meer strangers to them to make them sell the better insomuch as old books are usually set forth with new Titles and the Titles of unsaleable books changed and altered a part of one book and a part of another clapt together under the name of an Author which had no acquaintance at all with them several old Pamphlets bound together under a new Title of one of them to carry of the other and deceive the heedless or hasty buyer which with many other deceipts not here enumerated for it must be onely some Renegado knavish Printer or Stationer that can discover all of them are no better then forgeries and cheatings which are almost weekly dressed and sent abroad by them or by the means of some who at pityfull rates are hired to be their Epistle makers and Title contrivers and deserve a mark to be set upon them for Spurious and illegitimate And not have done that which you or he which confederated with you for you said there was a Citizen which went a share with you have adventured to do unto me whilest the second edition of this book was almost finished by printing of it and calling it your own thereby exceeding them all in villany for though your servant confessed that you had onely printed this book by a book formerly printed and that your self acknowledged to me and Mr. Newcomb the Printer that you were not the Author of it and understood not Latine and that other men of your trade can tell as well as your self that you understood so little of English as that you were formerly onely a Press-man and had not abilities enough to be a COMPOSITER yet you could have the impudence in the printing and publishing of my book which two Eminent and Learned Gentlemen now His Majesties servants in the Court of England can attest to have been a fruit and effect of my Loyalty in the beginning of the year 1649. when you would not have been so forward to have stollen the danger and hazard of the Author and Printer to leave out half the Title and make some additional title of your own or some other mans composing and dedicate it to his Majesty as a mite of your loyalty and say that it was written in the midst of his and our sufferings wheras it was in the very beginning of his now Majesties Reign and finished within few weeks after his Royal Fathers death And though you as if your conscience had forbid you directly to own that which was none of yours did onely subscribe your self W. H. B. and to make the book and the price the bigger had bound up with it a Lift very often before printed of the Names of the late Kings Tryers and the thirty five witnesses which swore against Him and some Orders made in that business yet adding to that also a short History as you call it of His now Royal Majesty Charles the Second you are found in the beginning thereof to use these words Having I hope sufficiently cleared His late Royal Majesty from that execrable sin of Blood guiltiness And the History beginning with what you or some other for you have picked and taken out of other mens works and relations when you came to mention the Kings escape out of England after Worcester fight by the help of Mrs. Jane Lane you have stollen out of Mr. James Davies the Author of the History of our gracious Soveraign King Charles the Second from the later end of page 177. unto the beginning of 185. more then seven whole pages with scarce four or five words difference which might be only the Errata's of the Press by which your abuse of me in taking from me that which was mine own and of His Majesty in dedicating that unto Him which was none of your own and your falsities and ill dealing with me you have as all men may perceive inforced me to bestow this Epistle upon you wherein doing my self right I shall do you no wrong to give notice to the world how much you have gone beyond your last what a Lurcher a Kite and Filcher of other mens labours you are and seeing you cannot be taken to be like the mad man of Argos who would make it his business to go every day to the Haven and when he saw any ships come in rejoyce very much and call them his own but rather to be like one of the Spirits as in detestation they are called who steal away children to sell them away to forreign plantations and will needs act again the part of Aesops Crow in the fable who making himself very gallant with the feathers of other Birds was by them at last dispoiled left a ridiculousnaked Squob You may now measure your shadow and see how much bigger this your doughty exploit hath made it and are only to thank your self for being thus exposed to a naked view and if you be capable of any blushing or credit may be ashamed of it and forbear to walk any more in the sinful paths of those men of your Trade who being to Schollers and men of learning like those foul and Ravenous birds the Harpies do by such or the like Tricks so abuse pollute and stain all kind of learning as no man knows how to write or any man how to buy without being grossely abused or cheated and he which is or hath been the careful and painful Author of a book be it never so good or profitable for the Common-wealth of learning shall be in danger to have it transposed or owned when and by whomsoever a naughty and jugling Printer or Stationer pleaseth which calls for a speedy remedy as well as punishment in part whereof you and your fellow Gipsies may receive this animadversion until a more smart and legal one may be provided for you THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. I. WHo first of all raised the fears and jealousies pag. 6 CHAP. II. THe proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the Tumultuous and Seditious coming of some people to the Parliament and White-hall until the 13. of September 1642. being 18. days after the King had set up His Standard at Nottingham 13 CHAP. III. WHether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the people be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a war if it were made between equals 83 CHAP. IV. SUppose the War to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it 93 CHAP. V. WHether the Parliament in their pretended Magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against Insurrections Treasons and Rebellions as they are pleased to call them 177 CHAP. VI WHo most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it 186 CHAP. VII VVHo laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen
be argument enough to conclude They vvere more likely to loose by a peace then a vvar therefore the more vvilling to continue it And if their own interests vvould not put them so far upon it their vain glory and ambition vvould be forvvard enough to persvvade them to it and if not that the success of their arms or miscalled Providence vvould make them look as experience tels us they did upon any tenders of peace as Alexander the Great did upon Darius his offer of halfe his kingdome and if not that their feares and iealousies now growne greater by wronginge of the King then ever they were when they without any cause suspected him could never think it safe to let an inraged Lion into his Den they had so long kept out of it But the King could not fight for his owne but hee must adventure the undoeiug of his owne and could not but know that so much as was lost of his Subjects would be so much lost of a King and therefore doth all hee can to preserve a People who had no minde to preserve themselves and the morniug before he was inforced to fight in his own defence at Edg-hill did not only scnd his Proclamation of Pardon to all except the Earl of Essex wch would lay down their Arms but before hee had gathered up the Bayes which he had there won sends afterwards a like Proclamation of pardon to all those that the day before did all they could to kill him And in all his actions of War afterward behaved himself like a weeping Father defending himself against the strokes and violence of disobedient Children For had the Parliament accepted of his offers before he came to Beverley or besieged Hull he had never set up his Standard at Nottingham or had they loved his people but half so much as he did their Armies had never seen his Banners display'd at Edge-hill Had they hearkned to his many endeavours for peace after that battel and not sought to surround or ruine him when he came so neer as to their very doors to intreat for it they had never been troubled to frame an accusation against him for defending himself at Braynford had his Treaty at Oxford been proceeded in with the same desires of peace he brought to it the blood that was shed at Caversham bridge had been kept for better purposes had he sought his own advantages he had not besieged Glcoester or had he not been so unwilling to put the people in it to the hazard of a storm might have taken it had they not sent their General to assault him at Gloucester whil'st he was as David besieging the strong hold of the Jebusites that with-held it from his obedience and sought to ruine and undoe him as well as his Loyal Subjects he had not fought with them afterwards at Newbury had not his Olive branches been flung in the fire by those he sent them unto he had not been put to defend himself at Cropredy bridge had any thing been able to prevail with the Parliament to pitty their fellow Subjects he had not taken such a tedious and dangerous march to relieve those they would have ruined at Bodmin in Cornwal had the Treaty at Uxbridge taken effect he needed not afterwards have adventured so much to defend himself at Newbury had not the new model'd Army after so many tenders of peace refused by their masters been sent out to destroy him he had not been put to the trouble of taking Leicester for his security and had not he been surrounded and almost surprised by them he might have reserved himself to a better success and advantage then he had at Naseby had his voluntary resigning up of the remainder of his Armies and Garisons been able to perswade any thing with them there had not been so much as a Relique of War left in the Kingdome or could so many messages for peace and so many Petitions of the people for it have made but any impression on the Parliament so many divisions parties and insurrections had not since broken the Harps of the Children of Israel nor had the drums outgone the voice of the Turtle He that could not bring himself to the common actions of War to hang a Spie but when one was hanged before he knew of it was intreating the Governour of Oxford to spare him He that when he had in his power John Lilborne one of the most factious that were against him Wingate and Darley Parliament men Col. Ludlow an actor of that Treason his father had not long before spoken against him and Dr. Bastwick one of the bellows and principal factours of this horrid Rebellion did no more then imprison some of them and giving the rest a legal Tryal shewed them what the Law they made silly people believe they took up arms to maintain would judg of them and suffered them to be exchanged to do what they could afterwards against him He that when he had taken 400. Prentise-boies in the Fight at Brainford did but dismiss and pitty them and when he had compelled the Earl of Essex the Parliaments General at Lestithiel in Cornwal to fly away by Sea in a Cock-boat leave all the Artillery and foot of his Army to his mercy did no more but only disarm them and take an Oath of them never more to serve against him And being then in the hight of his prosperity sent a Message and offer of peace to the Parliament who were low enough at that time if their designes would have given them leave to have received it He that could say He should be more afraid to take away any mans life unjustly then to loose his own was not likely to be guilty of blood-seeking or the sheding of it He that had experience enough how much his Life and Crown were sought for yet to shew them the way to peace and to take off all pretences to hinder it could sheath his own sword and put himself into the hands of those he had so little reason to trust as he knew them to be the great contrivers of the War against him caused the Marquess of Montrosse one of his mighty men of war to disband when he was master of a strong and not long before fortunate Army in Scotland commanded Newarke Oxford Wallingford and Worcester very strong and almost impregnable Towns and Garrisons in England to be delivered up and all acts of hostility by sea and land and all the preparations his friends could make either in forraign parts or at home to cease He that could endure five years Ballading Libelling and preaching against him and such heaps of numberless affronts and injuries of all kinds done unto him and two years imprisonment afterwards yet so long as he enjoyed but the liberty of pen and inke or a messenger to carry it did so tire them with messages and offers of peace as they Voted it to be Treason for any to bring any message from him and
War against the Personal commands of the King though accompanied with His presence is not a levying of War against the King but a levying War against His Laws and Authority which they have power to declare is levying of War against the King Treason cannot be committed against His Person otherwise then as He was intrusted They have power to judge whether He discharge His trust or not that if they should follow the highest precedents of other Parliaments paterns there would be no cause to complain of want of modesty or duty in them and that it belonged onely to them to Judge of the Law r 27 of May The King by His Proclamation forbids all His Subjects and Trained bands of the Kingdom to Rise March or Muster But the Parliament on the same day Commanded all Sheriffs Justices of Peace Constables within one hundred and fifty miles of York to seize and make stay of all Arms and Ammunition going thither And Declaring the said Proclamation to be void in Law s command all men to Rise Muster and March and not to Muster or March by any other Authority or Commission and the Sheriffs of all Counties the morrow after commanded with the posse Comitatus to suppresse any of the Kings Subjects that should be drawn thither by His command secure and seize upon the Magazines of the Counties protected all that were Delinquents against Him make all to be Delinquents that attended him and put out of the House of Peers nine Lords at once for obeying the Kings summons and going to Him t 3. June 1642. The King summoning the Ministery Gentry and Free-holders of the County of York declared to them the reasons of providing himself a guard and u that he had no intention to make a War and the morrow after forbad the Lord Willough by of Parham to Muster and Trayn the County of Lincoln who under colour of an Ordinance of Parliament for the Militia had begun to do it x 10 June 1642. The Parliament by a Declaration signifying That the King intended to make a War against His Parliament invited the Citizens of London and all others well affected as they pleased to miscall them within 80 miles of the City to bring money or plate into the Guild Hall London and to subscribe for Men Horses and Arms to maintain the Protestant Religion the Kings Person and Authority free course of Justice Laws of the Land and priviledges of Parliament and the morrow after send 19. propositions to the King That the great affairs of the Kingdom and Militia may be managed by consent and approbation of Parliament all the great officers of Estate Privy Councel Ambassadors and Ministers of State and Judges be chosen by them that the Government Education and Marriage of the Kings Children be by their consent and approbation and all the Forts and Castles of the Kingdom put under the Command and Custody of such as they should approve of and that no Peers to be made hereafter should sit or vote in Parliament without the consent of Parliament y with several other demands which if the King should have granted would at once in effect not only have undone and put His Subjects out of His protection but have deposed both himself and his posterity and then they would proceed to regulate His Revenue and deliver up the Town of Hull into such hands as the King by consent and approbation of Parliament should appoint But the King having the same day before those goodly demands came to his hands being a greater breach of His Royal Priviledges then His demanding of the five Members and Kimbolton if it had not been Lawful for him so to do could be of theirs z granted a Commission of array for the County of Lecester to the Earl of Huntington and by a letter sent along with it directed it for the present onely to Muster and Array the Trained bands a And 13. June 1642. Declared to the Lords attending Him at York That He would not engage them in any War against the Parliament unless it were for His necessary defence whereupon the Lord keeper Littleton who a little before had either been affrighted or seduced by the Parliament to vote their new Militia The Duke of Richmond Marquis Hartford Earl of Salisbury Lord Gray of Ruthen now Earl of Kent and divers Earls and Barons engaged not to obey any Order or Ordinance concerning the Militia which had not the Royal assent to it 14 June 1642. Being informed b That the Parliament endeavoured to borrow great sums of money of the City of London and that there was great labour used to perswade His Subjects to furnish horse and money upon pretence of providing a guard for the Parliament By His Letter to the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Sheriffs of London disavowing any purpose of making a War declared That He had not the least thought of raising or using of forces unless He should be compelled to do it for His own defence forbiddeth therefore the lending of money or raising of horses Within two days after the Lord Keeper Duke of Richmond Marquis Hartford Earl of Salisbury Lord Gray of Ruthen with 17 Earls and 14. Barons the Lord Chief-Justice Bancks and sundry others of eminent quality and reputation attest His Majesties Declaration and profession that He had no intention to make a War but abhorred it and c That they perceived no Councels or preparations tending to any such design and send it with His Majesties Declaration to the Parliament In the mean time the Committee of Parliament appointed to make the propositions to the City of London for the raising of horse viz. 15 June 1642. Made report to the House of Commons That the Citizens did very cheerfully accept the same there being for indeed there had been some design and resolution a year before concerning the melting of plate to raise monies already great store of plate and monies brought into Guild-Hall for that purpose and an Ordinance of Parliament was made for the Earl of Warwick to be Lord Admiral and keep the Navy though the King had commanded him upon pain of Treason to deliver up the Ships to Him And the Lord Brook sent down into Warwich-shire to settle the Militia 17 June 1642. A Committee of both Houses was appointed to go to the City of London to inquire what store of Horse Monies and Plate were already raised upon the Propositions 18 June 1642. The King by His Proclamation Disclaiming any intention to make War against His Parliament forbiddeth all levies of Forces without His Majesties expresse pleasure signified under His Great Seal And 20 June 1642. Informing all His Subjects by His Proclamation of the Lawfulness of His Commissions of Array d That besides many other Warrants and Authorities of the Law Judge Hutton and Judge Crooke in their arguments against the Ship-money agreed them to be Lawful and the Earl of Essex himself had in the
beginning of this Parliament accepted of one for the County of York Gave his People to understand That He had awarded the like Commissions into all the Counties of England and Dominion of Wales to provide for and secure them in a legal way lest under a pretence of danger and want of Authority from His Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should be drawn and engaged in any opposition against Him or His just Authority But 21 June 1642. e The Lords and Commons in Parliament Declaring The design of their Propositions of raising horse and moneys was to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Kings Authority and Person and that the Forces already attending His Majesty and His preparations at first coloured under the pretence of a guard being not so great a guard as they themselves had constantly for 6. moneths before did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary disign so as at this time also they do not charge the King with any maner of action of War or any thing done in a way or course of War against them and gave just cause of fear and jealousie to the Parliament being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make a War against their Soveraign did forbid all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and other Officers to publish His Majesties said Letter to the City of London And declare that if He should use any force for the recovery of Hull or suppressing of their Ordinance for the Militia it should be held a levying War against the Parliament and all this done before His Majesty had granted any Commission for the levying or raising of a man and lest the King should have any maner or provision of War to defend himself when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault Him Powder and Armes were every where seized on and Cutlers Gun-smiths Sadlers and all Warlike Trades ordered not to send any to York but to give a weekly account what was made or sold by them And an Order made the 24. day of June 1642. That the Horses which should be sent in for the Service of the Parliament when they came to the number of 60. should be trained and so still as the number increased 4. July 1642. The King by His Letter under His signe Manual commanded all the Judges of England in their circuits f to use all means to suppresse Popery Riots and unlawful assemblies and to give the People to understand His Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Kingdom and not to govern by any Arbitrary way and that if any should give the King or them to understand of any thing wherein they held themselves grieved and desired a just reformation He would speedily give them such an answer as they should have cause to thank Him for His Justice and favour But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parliament commanding g That no Sheriff Mayor Bayliff Parson Vicar Curate or other Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London not many dayes before having been imprisoned for proclaiming the Kings Proclamation against the bringing in of Plate c. should publish or Proclaim any Proclamation Declaration or other Paper in the Kings Name which should be contrary to any Order Ordinance or Declaration of both Houses of Parliament or the proceedings thereof and Order h That in case any forces should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the Peace thereof they should be suppressed by the Trained bands and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Hull whilest the King is at York i seizeth on a Ship coming to Him with provisions for His houshold takes Mr. Ashburnham one of the Kings Servants prisoner intercepts Letters sent from the Queen to the King and drowneth part of the Countrey round about the Town k which the Parliament allows of and promise satisfaction to the owners 5 July 1642. They Order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every Countey and list the Horse under Commanders and the morrow after Order 2000. men should be sent to relieve Sir John Hotham in case the King should besiege him to which purpose Drums were beat up in London and the adjacent parts to Hull The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance instructions drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lieutenants of the several Counties to tender the Propositions for the raising of Horses Plate and Money Mr. Hastings and divers of the Kings Commissioners of Array impeached for supposed high Crimes and misdemeanours and a Committee of five Lords and ten of the House of Commons ordered to meet every morning for the laying out of ten thousand pounds of the Guild-hall moneys for the buying of 700. Horse and that 10000. Foot to be raised in London and the Countrey be imployed by direction of the Parliament and the Lord Brook is furnished with 6. pieces of Ordinance out of the Tower of London to fortifie the Castle of Warwick And 9. July 1642. Order That in case the Earl of Northampton should come into that County with a Commission of Array they should raise the Militia to suppresse him And that the Common Councel of London should consider of a way for the speedy raising of the 10000. Foot and that they should be listed and put in pay within four dayes after 11. July 1642. l The King sends to the Parliament to cause the Town of Hull to be delivered unto Him and desires to have their answer by the 15. of that moneth and as then had used no force against it But m the morrow after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings Person and both Houses of Parliament and n those who have obeyed their Orders Commands in preserving the true Religion the Laws Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom and that they would live and dye with the Earl of Essex whom they nominate General in that Cause 12. July 1642. Declare That they will protect all that shall be imployed in their assistance and Militia And 16. July 1642. Petition the King o to forbear any preparations or actions of War and to dismisse His extraordinary guards to come nearer to them and hearken to their advice but before that Petition could be answered wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should be delivered to Him He would no longer have an Army before it and should be assured that the same pretence which took Hull from him may not put a Garrison into Newcastle into which after the Parliaments surprise of Hull He was inforced to place a Governour and a small Garrison He would also remove that Garrison and so as His Magizine and Navy