That all Kings are the Lord 's Anointed it were yet absurd to think that the Anointment of God should be as it were a Charm against Law I know not what he means by that all Kings Saul was David was and particularly laments the fall of Saul As if he had not been anointed with Oil. 2 Sam. 1.11 And I never found any reason to doubt but that all Christian Hereditary Kings are the same too and consequently exempt from the Law forasmuch as concerneth the coactive force of the Law though not forasmuch as concerneth the directive Power of the Law Lord â—leâ—meâ—'s post â—â—ti 106. Subjects are bound to fullfil the Law by necessity of Compulsion but the Prince only by his own Will in regard of the common good For seeing the Law is but a kind of Organ or Instrument of the Power that governeth Hist of the World 29â— it seems saith Sir Walter Rawleigh that it cannot extend it self to bind any one whom no humane power can controul or lay hold of And therefore till I find better Authority for this his Iustice than he has yet given I shall look upon it as I do on the rest of his Book a thing meerly stuffed out to deceive the People If Subjects also by the Law of the Church so much approv'd by this King be invested with a Power of Judicature both without and against their King it will be firm and valid against him though pretending and by them acknowledg'd next and immediately under Christ Supream Head and Governour But what King or Queen of England besides Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Mary for her two first Years ever us'd that word Head Or in what Age was it that the Church of England ever pretended a power of Judicature both without and against their Kings He says if they are invested with such a Power but shews not that they are and instead thereof tells us that St. Ambrose excommunicated Theodosius the Emperour which he calls a Spiritual putting to death The like did St. German by Vortiger And two other Kings of Wales excommunicated by their respective Bishops Subjects of those Kings And admitting it I never heard that any of those Bishops ever perswaded the People that it was lawful to Murther those Kings or how does it make out this his Iustice against the King 'T is a shrewd sign a Man is sinking when he takes hold of Twigs Then he comes up with the particular Laws and Acts of Greece Athens Sparta Rome c. But what 's that to England must we be govern'd as they were Their Laws were for it the Laws of England directly against it Nor is there any Country whatever but has its particular Laws or Customs If a Man steal an Oxe or a Horse in the Isle of Man it is no Felony 4 Inst 285. for having no Woods the Offender cannot hide them but if he steal a Capon or a Pig he shall be hang'd for it But what need we saith he search after the Laws of other Lands for what is so fully and so plainly set down lawful in our own Where antient Books tell us Bracton Fleta and others that the King is under the Law and inferiour to his Parliament As for Bracton the Words that he means may be perhaps these Rex habet Superiorem Deum scilicet Item Legem per quam factus est Rex Item curiam suam viz. Comites Barones The King hath a Superiour to wit God But doth not say Superiours in the Plural Number Also a Law by which he is made King i. e. He hath a Law but says not a word of Punishment Also his Court to wit his Earls and Barons Not a Court as if it were of some others Constitution but a Court of his own Where the word habet in Propriety of Latin is necessarily understood 1 Inst 1. Or otherwise he would be contradictory to himself when he saith Omnis sub Rege Bra. l. 4. c. 24. S. 5. c. Every Man is under the King and he is under none but God He is not inferiour to his Subjects and hath no Peer in his Realm But saith no where that he is under the Law and inferiour to his Parliament which word his sufficiently denotes where the Superiority lies And for Fleta he saith Lib. 1. c. 17. f. 16. None can judge in Temporal Matters but only the King and his Substitutes Id. F. 66. And he hath his Court in his Council in his Parliaments c. And for the Mirrour of Justice a Book written in Edward the First 's time that says Mirâ— 232. Jurisdiction is the chief Dignity that appertains to the King And for what concerns the King's Oath it has been several times altered since that And what this King's Oath was I have particularly shewn before Chap. 6 Those objected Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy we swore not to his Person but as it was invested with his Authority The same said the Spencers in Edward the Second's time but it was condemned for Treason by two Acts of Parliament 7 Coke 11 12. And Sir Edw. Coke calls it a damnable detestable and execrable Treason For Corps natural le Roy politique sont un Corps Plowd 213.234.242 and are inseparable and indivisible for both make but one King 4 Inst 46. The death of the King dissolveâ— a Parliament Now if this referr'd only to his politick Capacity the Parliament would continue after his Death because a Body Politick never dies And now as the Covenant once help'd the Houses at a dead lift it must do our Accuser the like Job at parting or this his Iustice will be little beholding to it Certainly no discreet Person can imagine it should bind us to him in any stricter Sense than those Oaths formerly And truly I must approve him when he deals ingenuously no certainly it did not for they broke all three The intent of the Covenant as it was to extirpate Prelacy to preserve the Rights of Parliament and the Liberties of the Kingdom so they intended so far as it might consist with these to preserve the King's Person and Authority but not otherwise for that had been to swear us into Labirynths and Repugnancies We vow'd farther to bring Delinquents to open Tryal and condign Punishment So that to have done so by the King hath not broke the Covenant but it would have broke the Covenant to have sav'd him the chief Actor as they thought him at the time of taking that Covenant Ye have heard what he says and I leave it to every Man to apply it as he pleases But because this matter has already taken up a whole Chapter between us I referr my Reader to what I have there said Chap. 14 And now to close all and if there be any Man has a Mind to learn how to break Oaths by Providence and forswear himself to the Glory of God To say Grace to the action be it never so ungodly and give Thanks for the Success be it never so wicked To carry on a Design under the name of Publick Good and make the slavery of a Nation the liberty of the People Or in a word to hold forth any useful though notorious Untruth with convenient Obstinacy until he believes it himself and so renders it no Sin let him read this Book of Mr. Milton's and if he does not improve upon it he may thank God for it FINIS
His Majesty says He hop'd by his Freedom and their Moderation to prevent Mis understandings See how Spider-like he draws Poison from what the Beâ— would have suck'd Honey And wherefore saith he not by their Freedom and his Moderation But Freedom he thought too high a Word for them and Moderation too mean a Word for him Insolence and if this as it seems to be were the early Moderation of his Masters I the less wonder how they broke down that Wall which at once adorn'd and defended their way However for reply to it the Kingdom was fallen into a Distemper that required a Cordiaâ— more than a Corrosive somewhat to cool not heighten the Fever And if His Majesty did not contribute his part to it let any Man judge When besides his granting The Petition of Right of which before he denied this Parliament nothing they had the confidence to ask him Witness his passing the Bill for a Triennial Parliament Vid. Scobel's Collection of Acts and Ordinances from 1640. and the Statutes at large 16 and 17 Car. 1. For the continuance of this Parliament during the Pleasure of both Houses than which what more could they have demanded but the Kingdom also For the raising Moneys for the disbanding of the Armies of England and Scotland It was but a modest disarming the King and for the Scots they wanted not the Bait to get them together again The taking away the several Courts of the Star-chamber the Presidencies of Wales and the North Dutchy of Lancaster and the Exchequer of the County Palatine of Chester The High Commission and Oath Ex Officio Limiting the Stannary Courts Setting Bounds to Forests The Bill against Ship-Money And what our Answerer calls compulsive Knighthoods Add to this his Consent to a Bill for Two Hundred and Twenty Thousand Pounds for the Supply of the Occasions of our Brethren of Scotland For pressing Soldiers for Ireland Borrowing Four Hundred Thousand Pounds for the necessary defence and great affairs of England and Ireland And another for the encouragement of Adventurers for Ireland So that in effect there remain'd little more for them to ask or His Majesty to grant And now to use the Parable of the Prophet touching his Vineyard Isa 1. v. 1. to v. 8. A Vineyard in a very fruitful Soil He fenced it and gathered out the Stones thereof and planted it with the choicest Vine c. And he looked that it should bring forth Grapes and it brought forth Wild Grapes Judge I pray between the King and his Vineyard the Kingdom What could have been done more to it thaâ— he had not done in it And he look'd foâ— Judgment but behold Oppression for Righteousness but behold a Cry Judge I say between the King and them when they had no sooner gotten an Army anâ— Money together and that for the reducement 〈◊〉 Ireland Vid. His Majesty's Answer to their Irish Papers as was pretended than they drove thâ— King from While hall by Tumults and fought hiâ— at Edge-Hill with those individual Forces They tax'd the King of illegal exactions anâ— grievances which he readily redressed Weâ— see now how they mended it themselves Shiâ— Money which was about Ten Shillings a Month out of a Thousand Pounds a Year was a greaâ— Burthen to the Country and the King took it of They set up the Excise in the room of it whicâ— was Two Hundred Thousand and Ninety fiâ—â— Pounds for one Year besides Eight Thousand Sixty three Pounds paid in the Country to thâ— Army The Country groan'd under Coat aâ—â— Conduct-Money See more of this chap. 13.15 They brought in an Army oâ— One and Twenty Thousand Scots instead oâ— ' em The King granted that Right be donâ— They secur'd Property in Sequestring Mens Estates In a word the Court went awaâ— in the City's Debt They made an Ordinancâ— for the Publick Faith of the Kingdom for the repayment of publick Debts that is such Moneys as they had borrow'd for the carrying oâ— of their Rebellion And for fear the King lightning their Burthens should make the People grow wanton they began with an Assesâ—ment for the twentieth part of their Estates and all this too for the Ease of the Nation And lastly to consider what return they made him Quis talia fando Temperet They first stripp'd him of his Royal Authority and having dealt with the Monarchy it self like Gold-beaters beaten it so thin that there remain'd no more of the Substance than the empty appearance They accuse him in the name of all the Commons of England in which case how could any of them be as Witness when they were both Accusers and Judges Try him with a ridiculous Pageantry that had neither Equal nor Superiour in his Realm Traiterously sentence him and as ignominiously murther him before his own Palace And to fill up the measure of their Wickedness abolish Kingly Government and proscribe his Posterity And so judge also whoever he be that reads me whether they deserv'd not what the Prophet says he will do to his Vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the Wall thereof and it shall be trodden down I will lay it waste it shall not be pruned nor digged but there shall come up Briars and Thorns I will also command the Clouds that they rain no Rain upon it But to return to our Answerer The King in his wonted Sincerity says The Odium and Offences which some Mens rigour or remissness in Church and State had contracted upon his Government he resolved to have expiated with better Laws and Regulations A healing Proposition one would have thought and a fair step to an Accommodation A King said it nor is it for Princes that they should Lye and therefore could not but be credited by every Honest Man for he that is Vertuous himself believes the same of another But this Answerer according to the fullness of his Heart vomits out these and the like Expressions And yet saith he the work of Misdemeanours committed by the worst of all his Favourites he hath from time to time continued owned and taken upon himself by publick Declarations as often as any of his Instruments felt themselveâ— over-burthen'd with the Peoples Hatred And ye as publick as they are he instances not in any one Particular by which to have examin'd it A Favourite is the same to a King that a Friend is to a Private Man he may unburthen himself to him and it is not the Crowd but agreement makes the Company Nor are all Men of like Merit more than they are of Face and therefore if a King say Euge bone Serve must our Answerer's Eye be evil because the King 's is good But the point lies not there They are not piqu'd that the King might have Favourites but that themselves are not those Favourites and consequently wanting Vertue in themselves not only envy it in others but strike at the Prince through the Sides
Governour and upon the King 's coming before Hull attended only with his own Servants and some Gentlemen of the Country audaciously shut the Gates against Him and standing upon the Wall denied him Entrance Upon which the King as by Law he might proclaim'd him Traytor A Cholerick and revengeful Act says our Answerer to proclaim him Traytor before due process of Law having been convinc'd so lately before of his Illegallity with the five Members Goodly goodly and yet at the same time doubts not to tax the King of a Treasonable Act in borrowing Moneys upon his own Jewels Not unlike the Parliament 41 Hen. 3. who took notice of the Lye given to Montfort Daniel's Hist of Eng. 171. and 175. Earl of Leicester by William of Clarence but not of the Lye given the King by the said Leicester But the Point between us lies narrow A Man with Train'd-Bands holds and defends a place of Strength against the King The question is whether this be a levying of War within the Statute of the 25th of Edward the 3d. Sir Edward Coke shall answer for me 2 Inst 10. If any with Strength and Weapons invasive and defensive doth hold and defend a Castle or Fort against the King and his Power this is levying of War against the King within the Statute of 25 Edward 3. And in the leaf before he says It was High Treason by the Common Law to levy War for no Subject can levy War within the Realm without Authority from the King for to him only it belongeth Le Roy de droit doit saver defender son Realm Fitz. N. B. 113. a. c. And therefore this being the Case wherein may it be said that the King was to blame And lastly for what concerns this Gentleman's Catastrophe and whether Hotham were more infamous at Hull or at Tower-Hill no less ignominiously pretended to be answer'd it may be enough to satisfie any Impartial Man that he repented and came in though it were at the last Hour and for the rest he stood and fell to his own Master CHAP. IX Vpon the Listing and raising Armies against the King I Find saith His Majesty I am at the same Point and Posture I was when they forced me to leave Whitehall What Tumults could not do an Army must which is but Tumults listed and enroll'd to a better order but as bad an end To which our Answerer thus replies It were an endless work to walk side by side with the verbosity of this Chapter only to what already hath not been spoken convenient Answer shall be given But what that Answer is see He begins again with Tumults all the demonstration of the Peoples Love to the Parliament was Tumult their Petitioning Tumult their defensive Armies were but listed Tumults and will take no notice that those about him those in a time of Peace lifted in his own House were the beginners of all these Tumults abusing and assaulting not only such as came peaceably to the Parliament at London but those that came Petitioning to the King himself at York Neither abstaining from doing Violence and Outrage to the Messengers sent from Parliament himself countenancing or conniving at them Which is the Substance of what our Accuser says to this verbose Chapter as he calls it An old Figure in Politicks to Calumniate stoutly till somewhat stick to a Prejudice But where lay this Love of the People that they must needs express it in such a Tumultuary way God Almighty is more pleased with Adverbs than Nouns and respects not so much the Justice or Lawfullness of the thing as that it be Justly and Lawfully done and I think the Case was not such here Three or more gather'd together do breed a disturbance of the Peace Mr. Lambert ' s â—irenarchâ— Lib. 2. c. 5. either by signification of Speech shew of Armour turbulent Gesture or express Violence so that the peaceable sort of Men be disturbed or the lighter sort embolden'd by the Example It is Turba a Rout And it has been said Decem So Kitchen page 20. multitudinem faciunt Ten make a Multitude What then must ten times ten not to say Hundreds and Thousands arm'd with Swords Clubbs Staves as many of these Demonstrators of their Love were Chap. 4 and throwing out Seditious Language as I have shewn before the did O but their Business was Petition The same said the Barons and Commonalty at Running-Mead in the 17th of King John But what came these for What but Matters that no way concern'd them Justice Justice against the Earl of Strafford Chap. 2 yet the Parliament of the 14th of Char. the 2d calls them arm'd Tumults as before For putting the Tower of London into confiding Hands Chap. 4 A City Guard for the Parliament And the Kingdom into a Posture of Defence c. But still what was this to them As if a Parliament must be beholding to a Fescue And their defensive Armies saith he were but listed Tumults So that now as a last Shift he turns the Question to a Quis prior induit arma When all the World knows That the Defensive part of it was the King's and the Parliament were the Aggressor's in that they had made their Associations rais'd an Army some Months before and made Essex General thereof the 12th of July 1642. Whereas the King set not up his Standard until the August following But stay say the King in defence of his Right had first drawn his Sword what Law of England warranted theirs When besides what Sir Edward Coke of whom so lately says No Subject can levy War without Authority from the King it appears that the ancient Law of England was ever such or the Parliament had never declar'd That both 1 Cat. 2. c. 2 or either of the Houses of Parliament neither can or lawfully may raise or levy War offensive or defensive against the King c. And will take no notice that those about him were the beginners of those Tumults That the King had his Guards about him was no more than what became the Majesty of a King and that the Loyal Gentry made their Appearances at Whitehall when they saw it beset with a kind of Gebal and Ammon and Ameleck a confus'd conflux of People which also the King had forbidden was but the least of their Duty But when he talks of listing and abusing and assaulting such as came peaceably to the Parliament and doing Violence to the Messengers sent from them it is such a Rapsodie of Stuff that no Man can credit upon his single Authority And therefore I leave it as I do the rest of this Matter it being either such as I have before spoken to or such as no Man that had not a hand in those Mischiefs had ever vented Yet before I go off to another I cannot but take notice how he says The King twits them with his Acts of Grace Proud and unself-knowing Words in the Mouth of any King who
Alij diutius Imperium tenuerunt nemo tam fortiter reliquit Tacit. Histor Lib. 2. c. 47. p. 417 VINDICIAE CAROLINAE OR A DEFENCE OF ἘΙΚΩΠΒΑΣΙΛΙΚΗ THE Portraicture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitudes and Sufferings IN REPLY To a BOOK Intituled ἘΙΚΟÎΟΚΛΑΣΤΗΣ Written by Mr. Milton and lately Re-printed at Amsterdam Vere magnum habere fragilitatem hominis securitatem Dei Seneca London Printed by J. L. for Luke Meredith at the Angel in Amen-Corner MDCXCII THE PREFACE OUR Author has forespoken his Reader with a long Preface and Custom has so obtain'd that not to take notice of it were to allow it for Truth yet as long soever as it is I may be the shorter in mine in regard there are some things we shall not much differ about As when he begins to discant on the Misfortunes of a Person fallen from so high a Dignity who has also paid his final Debt both to Nature and his Faults is not of it self a thing commendable And I come so near him that I deem it in no wise commendable much less to defend a Party by whose Injustice he fell For Revenge and Envy stop at the Grave and however our Lives are at the Mercy of others even Fortune herself has no Dominion over the Dead But when he says And his Faults and that it is not the intention of his Discourse I referr my Reader to this of mine wherein from the Ordinances of that time and the Law of the Land I have I hope acquitted the King and for the other whatever his intention might be prov'd his Book contrary to what he gives out here He further supposes it no Injury to the Dead but a good Deed rather to the Living to better inform them by remembring them the Truth of what they themselves know to be mis-affirm'd And I agree with him for if a Man may not make the Blind to go out of his way there is this Charity due to a Short-sighted Multitude to point them at least where they first went astray and by bringing them back to the old Paths both shew them how they lost their Way and set them right for the future Yet agree as we will we must part at last for instead of not discanting on the Misfortunes of his murther'd Sovereign and of better informing the People of what he slily insinuates themselves know to be mis-affirm'd by the King the whole drift of his Book is to blast the one and spread a Mist before the other whereas mine is to vindicate the King and what in me lies to clear the Air of that Pestilent Vapour In the mean time and until I come to it I shall briefly consider the matter of his Preface and the manner of putting it together As to the former it is an abstract of his Book written in Scandal to the King's Book and himself And saith he for their Sakes who thro' Custom Simplicity or want of better Teaching have not more seriously consider'd Kings than in the gaudy name of Majesty in behalf of Liberty and the Commonwealth That is to say Licentiousness and Democracy words altogether foreign to the English whose Constitutions know nothing but an Hereditary Imperial Monarchy recognizing no Superiour under God but only the King unto whom both Spiritualty and Temporalty are bound and owe a Natural Obedience Unto which his Notions are directly contrary for if the Soveraignty lay in the People the King were not Supream but himself subject to that Power which is transcendent to his as appertaining to them and then the State of England were Democratical if it lay in the Nobles then were it Aristocratical or if in either or all of them it were in no wise Monarchical which both the Common-Law and Statute-Law of England have ever declar'd this Kingdom to be as shall be shewn in its proper place And yet he doubts not to impose upon his Reader That the People heretofore were wont to repute for Saints those faithful and couragious Barons as he calls them who lost their Lives in the Field making glorious War against Tyrants for the common Liberty As Simon de Monfort Earl of Leicester against Henry the Third Thomas Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster against Edward the Second And truly Siqua est ea Gloria England wants not wherein to Glory though I think neither of these comes under his Character For the first of them a Frenchman by Extraction ran into open Rebellion against Henry the Third whose Sister he had first vitiated then Married Took the King Prisoner and carried him about in the Army as Cromwell did this King and made him own all his the Earl's Actions as the Parliament but ineffectually endeavour'd it also and was at last slain in actual Rebellion at the Battle of Evesham by the Prince our English Justinian the Man who by rescuing oppress'd Laws taught the Crown of England not to serve and first deliver'd it from the Wardship of the Barons These Barons the Descendants of those where the Devil in the Father turn'd Monk in the Son for being conscious to themselves that whatever they had whether of Honour or Possessions had been commenc'd in Conquest and Rapine what better way of securing both than by siding with the People who had by this time forgotten they were the Posterity of those who had beggar'd their Ancestors And for the other of Lancaster he also was taken in a like Rebellion against Edward the Second and being thereof Convicted was Beheaded at Pomfrect nor other than Rebellion do I find any Remark of him but that his Name was Plantagenet and the Mobb call'd him King Arthur And therefore the most that can be said of them is what Aaron of his Calf These be thy Gods O Israel And having laid this Foundation for Matter who could expect his manner of doing it should be better more than that Grapes may be gathered of Thorns or Figs of Thistles Nor has he in the least deceiv'd me in it when though there 's a decency of Language due to the meanest of Men and Mankind insults not over a Slave in Misery yet neither in his Preface or his whole Book doâ—s he ever mention the King or his â—ctions without that irreverence as would put a modest Man to the Blush in reading it What the particular Expressions are I forbear to mention them where I may possibly avoid it and referr the Reader to them as they every where occur lest otherwise I be like him that pretends to answer a Seditious Book and Prints that with his answer that it may be remembred cum Privilegio However this from the whole though the Scripture calls Princes Gods that Prince is yet to be born whose some action or other did not confess Humanity and require Candour Moses was King among the Righteous and David a Man after God's own Heart and yet it cannot be said of either of them In nullo erratum est And therefore instead of raking the Graves of Princes we
it the better which was as much as if they had been bidden to tell no body but Folk of it This Foundation thus laid they suppress the Vertue and lay open the defects of the Government The dissolution of Parliaments The Cales Expedition The Peace with Spain Loan-Money Ship-Money Enlargement of Forests Fines Imprisonments c. by the Star-Chamber Acts of Council-Table Selling of Offices Insolence of Bishops and muzzling the Mouths of painful Teachers and what not So that where lay the difficulty of raising what Super structure they pleas'd or wonder as it is said of Absalom's Rebellion that the People went with them in their Simplicity â— Sam. 15.11 and knew not any thing Till from one thing to another they came at last to devolve the pretended faults of the Officer upon the Office Nor was the matter yet come from Words to Blows when his Majesty had gratified them in most of those Particulars but now that they had gotten an Army it is not what the King would grant but what the Houses will be pleased to accept The King also begins to have an Army which because it appear'd more considerable than they imagin'd Loyalty without Money could have ever brought together they take up another Artifice and clamour it to the People That the King made use of Papists against them That all might be at Peace if it were not for Evil Counsellors And for themselves that their Intentions were the liberties of the Kingdom as the King in this Chapter particularly takes notice of and our Answerer in his wonted Scurrility runs off to other matter yet e're he was aware confesses The Sum is they thought to regulate and limit his Negative Voice and share with him in the Militia which in the Eighty fifth Page of his Book he owns to have been wrung out of his Hands And yet while they thus charge the King with making use of Papists against them they stifle that Army of Sectaries themselves brought against him An Army so diversified in Opinion that had any one Regiment of them been to have entred the Ark the Flood might have sooner come than Noah suited them into Pairs And now Clodius accusat Moechos Does Simeon accuse Levi I should think he ought not especially if we come to the order of the House that admits no Man to criminate another till he shall have first clear'd himself But allowing it to be true Those Papists were the King's Subjects and by the Law of the Land equally oblig'd to serve the King as well as Protestants who yet fought against him But did the Houses never make use of Papists I am sure they would have done it or otherwise what means that Declaration of theirs That if any Papists would bring in any considerable Sums of Money upon the Propositions Oct. 6. 1642. it should be receiv'd and for matter of Fact that they did so They hired Owen Roe O Neal to raise the Siege of London-Derry in Ireland then beleagur'd by His Majesty's Forces And then for his hearkning to Evil Counsellors a thing so often charg'd upon him by the Parliament But who were these Evil Counsellors during His Majesty's Imprisonment and when they lock'd him up so that no-body could come at him and yet still the same Man But we are off the Scent Themselves were not those Counsellors and if they had been perhaps we had heard no more of it The Lord Cottington was a desperate Delinquent but had the Grace to know where his Delinquency lay He gave up his Mastership of the Court of Wards to a confiding Lord and for that time Cantavit vacuus The Beast Castor takes his Name a Castrando and when the Hunters have gotten what they Hunted him for they take off their Dogs And lastly for what concerns their own so much boasted Preservation of the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom it may be much doubted whether they did so or not but this I dare say if they merited Heaven by it it was by an Antiperistasis for how strong soever they found the Blessing of Judah upon this Land they brought it down to that other of Issachar As besides what I have said before witness their Committees in every County under their Power for the seizing and imprisoning Malignants i. e. Such as refused to give them the 25th part of their Estates and because the County Gaols were too few to hold them erecting others in most Cities and throwing the most considerable of them on Ship-board Their Sequestring the Estates of the Royal Party and denying them the benefit of the Statute that indempnified them 11 Hen. 7. c. 1. Forcing some to Compound and selling the Estates of such as refus'd it Their frequent Headings and Gibbettings Their Sale of King's Queen's Princes Church-Lands c. Add to this those heavy Burthens which without any Authority and contrary to Law they laid upon the People with a saving nevertheless to the Members of either House and the almost incredible Sums of Money they rais'd thereby Contin of R. Baker Fol. 610. See the Ordin of both Houses Mar. 1642. As witness that their Weekly Assessment of Thirty three Thousand Nine Hundred Eighty one Pounds Thirteen Shillings upon England and Wales which for the Year came to One Million Seven Hundred Sixty Seven Thousand Forty five Pounds Sixteen Shillings The vast Sums of Money they made of the Plate Rings nay even Sir W. Dugd. Short View Fol. 96. Bodkins and Thimbles brought into Goldsmiths-Hall which in London Essex and Middlesex came to eleven Millions The Moneys lent upon publick Faith The Profits of those Lands and Estates so seiz'd and the many Millions they got by the Sale of them Besides those By-jobbs through most Counties for the raising Horse Foot and Dragoons See Hughes 's Abridg. for the years 1643 1644 1645. the maintaining of them the defence of some Garrisons and the reducing of others And all this for the preserving the Rights and Liberties of the Kingdom which puts me in mind of that of Tully Nomina rerum perdidimus Ad Attiâ—um Licentia Libertas vocatur we have lost saith he the names of things and Licentiousness is call'd Liberty And yet the Tabernacle of the Robbers prosper'd Job 12.6 and those that provok'd God were secure CHAP XVI Vpon the Ordinance against the Common-Prayer-Book IT is no News saith his Majesty to have all Innovations usher'd in with the name of Reformations in Church and State by those who seeking to gain Reputation with the Vulgar for their extraordinary Parts or Piety must needs undo whatever was formerly settled never so well and wisely And less News it is saith our Answerer to have all Reformation censur'd and oppos'd under the name of Innovation by those who being exalted in high Places above their Merit fear all change though of things never so ill or so unwisely settled Which is no more than so many Words stitch'd together without he had