his losses with a thorough subjection of their persons and suppression of their liberties I need relate no more of this King nor make observations the Reader will be amazed at the repetition he at least 20 times gave his promise for the confirmation execution of these just decrees contained in Magna Charta and as many times was perjured notwithstanding all the solemnities both Civil Moral and Ecclesiastical used in the acts of ratification this may learn us how to trust the most positive Engagements of Princes which cross their own interest and what to think of that word and promise they call Royall this King reigned fifty six years the longest of any King of England But we have had too much of the story of him as he had too long a time to rule considering his temper and design It s well if we can be wary for the future and be more cautious then to trust the most promising and insinuating Princes with our liberties and priviledges which can be no longer expected to be preserved by them then they may serve as footstools to advance them in the Throne of absolute Majesty But no more of this King never were there more hard strivings and wrestlings between tyranny and liberty with such bad success to the people I onely conclude his raign with the exhortation of the Psalmist Psal. 146. 3. O put not your confidence in Princes surely men of high degree are a lye King Henry is by this time layd in his grave and one would think Magna Charta buried with him His Son Edward who was his right-hand in his wars against the Barons and the principal Agent in their ruine succeeds him in the throne and instead of lessening goes on and makes an higher improvement of that royalty which his Father left him having in his own person got the victory over the Peoples Libertyes in his Fathers time and having wonne or worne out the greatest of those which opposed and being long experienced in the world so secured and advanced the Prerogative that as one sayth he seemed to be the first conqueror after the Conqueror that got the domination of this State in so absolute and eminent a manner as by his government appears He layd unsupportable Taxes both on the Clergy and Laity even unto Fiveteens and halfs of their Estates As for Tenths that was comparatively accounted easy the Barons and People for a long time durst not move for removal of greivances untill that the King being always in wars in France Flanders Wales and Scotland and so needed continually vast sums of mony called a Parliament wherein he demanded a great treasure of mony from the People that he might give them somewhat in lieu of their expences confirmed the two great Charters on the Petition of the Barons and People and so stopped their mouths and this he did as often as he had extraordinary occasions for mony But like all other royall promises they were performed by leasure Never was Royalty more Majestick and glorious then in this Kings raign and the people less able to oppose he was always so watchful and eager to enlarge his own power I shall end his raign also with what Daniel that impartiall and witty Historian saith of him He was more for the greatness of the Kingdom then the quiet of it and never King before or since except our last Charls shed so much Christian bloud within this Isle of Britain and was the cause of more in that following and not one grain of benefit procured unto the people by all their expences on him which was but to make themselves more perfect slayes The next King was Edward the Second his Son who though more vicious then the Father yet not more tyrannicall he gave more advantage to the people thorough his lewd life and unmartiall nature to seek the confirmation and establishment of Magna Charta and other good Laws which were utterly supprest and darkened in his Fathers reign This Prince gave himself over to all wicked courses and surrendred his Judgement and the management of all affairs of State unto evill and corrupt Counsellors especially to one Peirce Gaveston who had both his ear and heart unto whom he was so much endeared that he ventured the loss of Kingdom and all the hearts of his Subjects for his company and preservation and though the Barons had by often Petitions and earnest sollicitations prevailed with the King to banish him yet he soon after sent for him home and laid him more nigh his bosom then before on this the Barons raise an army against the King and send him word that unless he would observe the late Articles which they had formerly by much ado got him to sign in Parliament and put from him Pierce Gaveston they would rise in Arms against him as a perjured Prince the King whom they found was apt to be terrified yeilds again to his banishment with this clause that if he were found again within the Kingdom he should be condemned to death as an enemy of the State All places were now dangerous to Gaveston both Ireland where he formerly was protected France also too hot for him in this extremity finding no security anywhere else he again adventures on England and puts himself once again into the Kings bosom a Sanctuary which he thought would not be polluted with blood and there he is received with as great joy as ever man could be the Lords with more violence prosecute their suite to the King for delivering up or removing him once more but to no purpose they therefore set forwards with an Army say siege to the Castle wherein Gaveston was took him and notwithstanding the Kings earnest sollicitation for his life they condemned him to the block and took off his head this obstacle being removed out of the way the Lords having now the better end of the staff make advantages of it for demanding the confirmation and execution of all those Articles formerly granted threatning the King that if he would not consent to it they would force him by a strong hand with this message they had their swords also drawn and march towards London A Parliament is called where the King after a submission by the Lords to him for that act done against Gaveston contrary to his consent and will grants the Articles and pardon to them But the King goes on his old way adheres to wicked counsel waving the grave advice of his Parliament and is ruled by the two Spencers who acted with mighty strain of injustice which caused the Lords again to take up arms and stand for their Liberties but are through the revolt of some and the treachery of others overthrown at Burton upon Trent and two and twenty Noblemen the greatest Peers in the Realm executed in several places for nothing but opposing his evil Counsellors this was the first blood of Nobility that ever was shed in this manner in England since William the first which being so
smarted for their credulity renewing their sense of their misery under the two former tyrants take heart once again and refuse to admit any after his death until as Judge Thorpe well expresseth it in that forementioned discourse they were cheated into a second election of Hen. the first his youngest brother for the people standing for their Liberties and yet alas but negatively rather to be freed from excess of oppression then knowing what true freedom was having felt the misery of their loss in the two former persons shall I call them Kings Raign denied any consent to another person of that stock without solemn capitulations and covenants to settle just Laws and to ingage for the execution of them with abrogation of all former mischievous and inconvenient ones which Matthew Paris calls unworthily a Politique but trayterous way of capitulating Whereupon Henry who had nothing of title made friends by his engagements and Roberts absence in the Holy-land and doth absolutely promise to begin all anew constitute just laws reform his Fathers and brothers exorbitancies and to be as a Nursing Father both to Church and State these fair insinuations got him the Crown though Robert was to have it first by his own right and next by his Brothers Covenant and Will And that he might not seem altogether disproportionable to his engagement the first action of his government was to bait the people and sugar their subjection as his predecessor in the like interposition had done but with more moderation and advisedness but having once secured his title from his Brothers jus and setled some affairs abroad began much after the old strain yet not altogether so violent yet these cruel and savage Laws of the forrest he revived and put in execution yea urged as the most fundamentall Law of the Realm and many sore in positions he levied which the people were not able to bear that these two sons though they ended the direct line yet they propagated their Fathers tyranny onely he got the throne by force they by subtilty and delusive engagements and now the poor people who had still been cozened and are commonly passive begin in the next Kings reign viz. of Stephen another Usurper to be active and to struggle for their liberties more seriously and thorowly and not contented with promises of abating former pressures drew up the summ of their desires in a more exact method and demand publikely the restoring and re-establishing of St. Edwards Laws for such a rarity was that former Prince as they Canonized him a Saint which were many years before granted but by new and strange successions buried and Stephen who came in odly to the Crown and was continually in various motions to maintain it confirmed all these laws and to gain the people ratified them by Parliament the best security in these cases But soon after Prerogative like a Lion in chains breaks forth again with fuller rage and devours all these grants with the hopes and expectations of the people for though in the two next Kings raigns these grants were not actually repeled yet were laid by and only wrapt up in parchments and husht by the noise of Drums and Trumpets For Henry the Second the next King spent most of his time in cleering the controversie between Regnum Sacerdotium the Crown and the Mitre as in setling his own Title both here and in Normandy and Ireland a while he and Thomas Becket were standing in the special rights and priviledges of the Church and State the liberties of the people were laid asleep and certainly he hated the former grants because made by Stephen who had stoln the Crown both from his Mother and himself the notablest story in this Kings reign setting by his warlike atchievements is that after Becket had often foiled him in his authority he was handsomly whipt by the Monks in going to visit Beckets shrine which was part of his pennance for giving secret order to Assasinats to make him away And that he kept Rosamond as his Concubine to the vexation of Elenor his Wife who at last vented her revenge on her having found her out in that intricate Labyrinth made on purpose for her at Woodstock by the clew which Rosamond had carelesly untwisted The next that laid claim to this Crown was his son Richard the first surnamed Ceur de Lion as before who was to be commended rather for his personal valour in other Nations then for any good done to this He began well in enlarging his Mother Elenor whom his Father had imprisoned because she could not abide his lascivious living with his wanton Paragon Rosamond and advanced many persons by speciall favours yet these respects were more particular then of any publike advantage to the State for out of a blind zeal in those times after he had been in England but four months after his Coronation he went into the Holy-land against the Turks leaving the Regency of the Kingdom to an Ecclesiasticall Person William Longchampe Bishop of Ely who to please the King and by speciall command undid the people and committed great exactions and as Hoveden says Clerum populum opprimebat confundens fasque nefasque did all as he listed and little cared by what means he filled the Kings Coffers and his own acting but by Proxie and in imitation of what his Master would have done if at home by many a private command as it afterwards proved for when Richard undertook this voyage that he might not seem at first burthensom to the people when he left them and to maintain both his design and absence on their purses and so alienate their affections from him when at so great a distance and give grounds to his Brother John to try an experiment for the title wifely sold much of his own estate to raise him monies as the Castles of Berwick and Roxborough to the King of Scots for ten thousand pounds and the Lordship and Earldom of Durham to Hugh then Bishop of that See for much mony as also many Honors Lordships Mannors Offices Priviledges Royalties to many of the Nobles and rich Commoners whereby he furnished himself with a vast treasurie of mony for that service and that you may see what interest he and his companions think they have in his peoples goods however they dissemble it he often protested that he would sell his City of London as my Author saith to any that would by it rather then be chargeable unto others but notwithstanding all this as the people were sadly opprest in his absence by his Viceroy so much more when he returned by himself for he then began to redeem his time and to play Rex with a witness he fell presently to plunder all religious houses laid on new and unheard of Taxes on the people and resumed into his hands again all the Lordships Mannors Castles c. which he had sold to his subjects and confirmed it by all the security they could have from
THE TRVE PORTRAITVRE of the KINGS OF ENGLAND Drawn from their Titles Successions Raigns and Ends OR A Short and Exact Historical description of every King with the Right they have had to the Crown and the manner of their wearing of it especially from WILLIAM the Conqueror Wherein is Demonstated that there hath been no direct succession in the line to create an hereditary right for six or seven hundred yeers faithfully collected out of our best Histories and humbly presented to the Parliament of England By an impartial Friend to Iustice and Truth Psal. 146. 3. Put not your trust in Princes Psal. 62. 9. Men of high degree are a lye to be laid in the Ballance they are altogether lighter then vanitie Nihil est imperium ut sapientes definiunt nisi cura salutis alienae Ammianus lib. 39. LONDON Printed by R. W. for Francis Tyton at the three Daggers in Fleet-street neer the Inner Temple-Gate 1650. To the READER READER IN the Study of Politicks the more confident we are commonly the less proficient we are For there is no other study wherein the Passions of men do more impetuously contravene and overturn right Reason Men born in popular States think themselves bound to abhor all Kings as being De genere Bestiarum rapacium So Rome it self pronounced from the mouth of Cato the Censor Others on the contrary born under Monarchs speak as odiously of Democracies and make this reply to Cato That even Rome her self when she plundred a third part of the world and graced her own Captains with the pompous titles of Africanus Asiaticus Achaicus c. was as ravenous a beast as any other See what strong Byasses wisemen have and obey The Question is not Whether this or that form be free from oppression and injustice or not we know well all Forms have their peculiar advantages and disadvantages and that at some times they all transgress their own Rules and Interests as it were by accident and not out of misconstitution The question is Whether the one constitution or the other be more free {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} from oppression and injustice Now for solution of this greater light shines and breaks in upon us from demonstration and sensual proof then from Syllogisms and logical inductions Reading assures us that Rome was not so just to other Nations nor so constant to the Interest of her own Citizens when she was under Kings and Emperors as she was when she chose her own Consuls and limited Magistrates T is as apparent also at this day that the people of Venice the German Hans-Towns Switzerland the United Provinces c. do more flourish and truly injoy the due benefits of Liberty there the French Turkish or any Royalists whatsoever T is further as visible by the publike banks of Treasure kept in Democracies and the strange splendor which Traffick brings to them beyond Monarchies that Faith is not kept so sacred and inviolable where one raigns as where Majesty and Supream Power remains vested in the people and most sure it is the sanctity and untemerated chastity of publike Faith is the best and firmest basis of all Government To dispute these things is to undervalue the report of our own senses and to deny our own senses is to deny our selves to be men The enemies of our present Government ubraide this our popular model the rather because it exasperates all our neighbours against us whereas this is a great argument for us that our neighbours are troubled at the ejection of Monarchy For neighbours are more apt to envie then pitty and the condition of him that is envied is far better then his that is pitied The main advantage that commends Hereditary Monarchy is the unity of it for that it is not so liable to civil broils and commotions as other temperaments where the Magistrate is elective Yet Reader if thou wilt strip thy self of thy passions and prejudices and peruse this Treatise thou shalt see that even Hereditary Monarchy it self is far from being a soveraign a remedy against civil breaches and divisions The Author of this Book is unknown to me and the Book it self came casually to my hands but I have been induced to publish it because it invites thee not to Precepts but Precedents not to Disputable but to visible Politicks I need say no more by the Work rather then report judge of the Author and by Experiment rather then Logick judge of the Work HENRY PARKER The true Portraiture of the Kings of England drawn from their Titles Successions Reigns and Ends c. TO treat of the nature and difference of Governments the distinction and preheminence of Monarchy or Aristocracie with the other kinds and forms which have according to the temper of the People and the necessity of providence had their course in the world will be useless in this discourse which is calculated only for this Nation and to describe not so much the Government as the Persons who have ruled among us and is onely suited to Monarchy as it hath had the sway of the English Throne a Discourse not so pleasing as profitable we are loth to have our old soars launced or to think of change though it be of misery the temper of this Nation being apt to be pleased with any thing that is stately and costly though never so dangerous and miserable yet something must be said in generall to prepare the way for the particulars of this Treatise which is not intended as controversall or definitive of the nature of things but meerly practical and demonstrative fit for every eye that means not to shut himself up in blindness and darkness As the foundation and originall of Government is confest to be of equall Antiquity with the generation and multiplication of mankind so doubless the just and methodicall use and due management of it is as necessary to the well-being of men as the exact proportions and orderly motions of the Heavens are to the preservation of the Globes and certainly without it the rationall world would be more miserable then the materiall without Sun Moon and Stars with all coelestiall influences which as they do beautifie and bespangle the world so they do preserve it from returning to its first Chaos and rude mass of matter nothing being more contrary to that unity and harmony which the God of nature hath moulded and disposed all things at first in then disorder and confusion in which as there is nothing of a deity to be discerned so nothing of peace or happiness can possibly be found And notwithstanding all this the world hath scarce known what the natural sweetness and true benefits of government are but only as comparative and rather as opposite to Anarchy then as advancing really and effectually the just liberties and freedoms of societies or propagating the Commonwealth of mankind for what through the ignorance and sloath of the people and the pride and ambition of Governors the whole order and
a little back to those which preceded the Norman race especially among the Saxons and Danes the ancient competitors for the Government of this Nation and it will appear that the right Heir hath been commonly past by and Strangers or Usurpers preferred to go no further back then to Alfred King of the West Saxons and the twenty fourth Monarch of the Englishmen as soon as he died Athelstan his Bastard was preferred before his legitimate son Edmond after him got his own brother Edmond to succeed him and though this Edmond left two sons Edwin and Edgar yet as he his former brother had usurped the Goverment so Edred his brother stept into the Throne and put them by until he had finished his Raign then they took their turns Edwin first and Edgar after him this Edgar had two wives Ethelfled his first and Elfrida the second by the first he had issue Edward sirnamed the Martyr who succeeded his father in title but having hardly felt the Crown warm and fast on his head was cruelly murthered to make way for the second wives son Ethelred who succeeded him as Daniel well expresseth it whose entrance into his Raign was blood the middle misery and the end confusion and though he left his son Edmond sirnamed Ironside to succeed him yet Canutus the Dane by compact got half of the Kingdom from him and soon after the whole setting up his Danish title and murthering the two sons Edmund had left with his brother Edwin that no further pretence might be made by them of their title and now come the Danes to convey their title by Canutus and yet Harold his bastard gets the Crown before Hardicanute who was his legitimate son and among these three Kings for the Government under the Danes continued but twenty six years and only under these three was aone Usurper immediatly interrupted the right of succession And the Danes Government being ended which was but an intervall of conquest the Saxons regain their title and Edward called the Confessor the seventh son of Elthelred who came in with the murther of the right heir being kept as a reserve in Normandy is elected King and the Saxons title now begins to revive but soon it s extinguished not onely by the Norman pretence but by the next successor Harold the second son to Goodwin Earl of Kent who came in with the expulsion of Edgar Athlings the proper successor And with Harold ended the Saxon race which had lasted about five hundred years after the coming in of Hengist and their Plantation in this Kingdom and yet you see what have been the titles successively of these former Kings wherein the Line hath not onely been now and then through force and violence cut off and discontinued but usurpation solemnized with as much ceremony as any natural pretence but these Instances are but as representations of objects afar off which may seem otherwise then they are we will go on and review the title of our Kings from William the Norman Sirnamed the Conqueror and by whom not onely the line but all the whole fram of Laws and Liberties were not onely curtail'd but changed for though in the raigns of the former Kings every Conqueror made his impression and drew his Picture in England yet never was the whole Scene of State changed untill now and a new Modell so peremptorily and without repeal introduced as by him The first jus or right of his title the onely foundation of all the rest of our latter Kings we all know was by meer Conquest which as it is a disseisin in Law so an unjust title in Reason and common to one as unto another yet he though a Bastard and so had less title to his Dukedom then to England which he won by the Sword made himself the principal of that divine Succession we now stand upon and all our Kings have no other pretence then by the succession of his Sword and certainly if the Fountain and Head-Spring be corrupt the stream cannot be Christall and pure and yet as Baron Thorpe declares in his Charge given at the Assizes holden at Yorke the twentieth of March 1648. and now in Print of all these twenty four Kings which have King'd it amongst us since that William there are but seven of them that could pretend legalty to succeed their former predecessors either by lineal or collaterall title and he might have contracted that number and have been modest enough But that the Reader may not be prejudiced or wrap up his understanding in any expression let him but follow the discents of the Kings of England in the line and pardon the first strange and exotick way of right and he will discover that as the first title was created by force so the succession hath been continued by usurpation Speed too Royall a Writer gives us a hint to go on upon in the Life of Henry the Fourth page 746. asketh by way of Interrogation What right had Will the Conqueror the Father of all our glorious Tyrants What right we speak saith he of a right of equity had his son William Rufus and Henry the first while their elder brother lived and so he goes on But to give a more particular account to the Reader how every King came to his Crown Let us begin with the first of the first After that the first William who laid the foundation of his right in the blood of the English had left this world as well as his Kingdom great strivings there were who should succeed and though he left three sons Robert William and Henry yet could leave but one Heir which was Robert yet William surnamed Rufus gets the crown set on his head notwithstanding the elder brothers title and though Robert fights for his right yet being too weak in the field is fore't to a composition on these terms that he should injoy it after his decease if he hapned to survive and yet notwithstanding Henry the youngest brother called Henry the first steps in and makes use of his brothers absence to set up himself in his place and Robert yet surviving he weares it in his stead and however he strove to regain his right he at last was fain to yield up not only his title but his person to Henry who not only unjustly excluded him from the succession to the Kingdom but cruelly put out his eyes that he might only feel his misery and never see his remedy The line male of the Conqueror is now extinct as well as it was irregularly diverted as William got his right by his Sword so all his successors maintained it in imitation of him rather then by any legal pretence they could derive from him But Henry the first though he had come in over the back of his elder brother that he might make more sure work for a succession wanting issue male living pitcheth on Maud his daughter formerly married to the Emperor Henry the fourth who left her a
widow and died without issue and having sworn all the Nobility especially Stephen to her ordained her her issue to be his successors in Englands Throne and married her again to Jeoffrey Plantagenet the son and heir apparent of Fulk then Earl of Anjou by whom she had three sons Henry Jeffrey and William to Henry the Crown belonged as next heir after his mother by the usurped title of his father yet Stephen Earl of Mortain and Bulloign son to Adelincia the third daughter of William the Conqueror by Maud his wife notwithstanding his oath to the last King gets the Crown set on his own head and excludes her and her issue for the present yet after he died Henry called the second sirnamed Shortmantle though his mother was alive enjoys it This Henry had six sons William Henry Richard Jeoffrey Philip John the two first dying Richard the third son the first of that name Sirnamed Ceur de Lyon succeeded his father this Richard dying without issue his yongest brother John usurps the Crown notwithstanding Jeoffrey his elder brother had left a young son named Arthur Plantaganet King of Brittain who was heir apparant to the Crown and after he dyed Henry his son the third of that name succeedes him though Arthurs sister was then alive though in prison who was next to the title such as it was after him Edward sirnamed Longshankes called Edward the first layes hold on the Crown and wore it with much majesty and after him Edward the second his son goes on but still on the old account and on the ruine of the most proper heirs this Edward was deposed by the Parliament for his ill government as anon shall be more fully related and his son Edward the third of that name set up in his room after him followed Richard the second son to the black Prince who was also deposed after whose dethroning Henry called the fourth son to John of Gant Duke of Lancaster and uncle to the former King snatcheth up the Crown though of right it was to discend to Edmund Mortimer Earle of March the son and heir of Lionel Duke of Clarence the third son of Edward the third and an elder brother of John Duke of Lancaster and thus we have nothing hitherto but interruption and usurpation and those which in their own reigns can pretend a divine title by succession which must not be altered can for their advantage put by the succession of the issue of others But to go on Here now began the bloody wars and contests between the house of Lancaster and York which made the world to ring of the misery of the civill wars of England and all about a title and neither of them if seriously weighed had a right title by succession if the first title of their Ancestors were to be the originall But that custome might be the best right he got in his son Henry who was the fifth of that name to succeed and his son Henry the sixt though an infant takes his place untill Edward Duke of York overthrew his Army in the battle at Towton Field and got him deposed and was proclaimed King by the name of Edward the fourth though the title had been carried on in the House of Lancaster thorow three discents thus favor and fortune not lineall succession alwayes gave the best title this Edward left two sons behind him to maintain the succession of the House of York Edward and Richard Duke of York and five daughters His eldest Son Edward who was the fifth of that name succeeded him in claim title but rather lived then raigned being an infant had never any actuall exercise of his government for Ric. Duke of Glocester and Uncle to this Infant and made his Protector that he might set up himself causeth both the young titular King his Brother these two Royall Infants to be barbarously murthered in their beds and so wears the Crown himself by the name of Richard the Third untill Henry Earl of Richmond a twigg of a Bastard of John of Gaunt by his valour at Bosworth field having overthrown his Army slew the Tyrant himself and created by his sword for other he had none a new title to himself and was Crowned King by the name of Henry the Seventh who what by his power and by a marriage of the Lady Eliz. the eldest daughter of Ed. the Fourth confirmed his succession from him do all our later Princes derive their Title as Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth Queen Mary Queen Elizabeth King James and our last Tyrant Charls This Henry the foundation of our great ones was himself but a private man who as Speed says had scarce any thing of a just title or of a warrantable intention but to remove an Usurper besides there were many naturall heirs of the house of York which were children of Edward the Fourth and George Duke of Clarence Richards elder brother who had better right but when once a title is made it must be maintained and if it can but get thorow two or three Successors it s presently proclaimed to be jure divino and pleaded as the onely just title and right Thus you have a faithfull and true account of the succession of our Norman Monarchs we can onely say we have had so many persons raigning and as Kings of England but for a title by lineal succession there is none but what every man may make aswell as any man and what is as proper to a stranger as to an heir power and favour murther and deceit being the most common principles of the right of most of our Kings to their government over us If it be asked as Speed doth What right had William the Conqueror then it must follow What right had all the rest but supposing his right What right had these who so many times cut off the line and made themselves the Stock of future succession and what misery is it that this broken and usurped title must still be forced on us even by an Ecclesiasticall and Divine Institution who have now a way of redeeming our liberties and bettering our conditions and following the direct line of just and true titles the Election and choice of the people Is not five or six hundred year enough for England to be under the succession of a Norman Bastard pardon the expression its true though plain and to be sold with all its liberties from usurpation to usurpation as well as from generation to generation I need not be very zealous in application the history is enough to make all wise men consider by whom we have all this while been governed and upon what terms How tyranny and usurpation comes to be adored if it have but a royall name added to it Shall the Parliament of England be now blamed for cutting off that race of usurpers and tyrants and reducing affairs to their first naturall and right principle or will the people of England after all their experiences centre
their liberties and freedoms in a customary usurpation of succession and lose their Common-wealth for the personall glory of a young Pretender especially when they have fought against the Father and cut him off as a Tyrant endeavour to set up the Son to follow on both the first cause and revenge meerly because he was supposed to be proceeded of his polluted loyns this blindness will be our misery and endear us to a more perfect and more tyrannicall slavery then ever yet England felt But to go on the Reader hath seen what a line we have had in England and how pure a title our Kings have had to their Crowns Le ts now but have patience to view their actings successively and yet shortly and we shall better guess of their right by their raigns for though one would think that they should endeavour to make good a bad title by a good raign yet it hath been far otherwise every man having made his right by force maintained it by tyranny and when they have gotten power never remembered how or to what end they attained it if we look back again and make a new and strict survey of their severall actings in their Government and go over every Kings head since Willam the Conqueror we shall not much mistake if we pass by Turkie Russia the Moors and yet call Englands Kings Tyrants and their Subjects Slaves and however in the theory and System it have been limited and bounded by good and distinguishing Laws yet in the exercise and practique part almost of every Kings Raign we shall find it deserve as bad a name as others who are called most absolute for the Laws and Priviledges which this poor Nation hath enjoyed as they have been but complementally granted for the most part and with much design so they have ever upon any occasion proved but weak and low hedges against the Spring-tides and Land floods of the Prerogative of the Prince which hath always gained more on the priviledges of the people then ever the Sea by all its washing and beatings of its boysterous and unmerciful waves hath gained on the Land for if at any time the poor Commons through much strugling and a good and present necessitous mood of the Prince have got off any present oppressions and forced out the promise for enacting of any good and seasonable Laws yet either the next advantage or at least the next successor hath been sure either to silence or diannul it and incroached upon it and never was Priviledge or good Law enacted or gained to the people but by hard pressure of the Subject and with a predominant ingredient of the Kings advantage and still rather out of courtesie then right We shall finde also that England for three or four hundred years together some lucida intervalla excepted hath been a stage of blood and the astonishment of all Nations in civil wars and that meerly either for the clearing of the title to the Crown which yet at last was onely made lawfull by the prevailing power and as soon made illegall when another side got the better or else by the Subject and Barons taking up arms to defend themselves and make Rampiers if possible against the inundation of Prerogative and rather preserving then obtaining any additions of liberties and yet they were commonly defeated at last for if for the present by some eminent advantage they got a little ground they soon lost it again by royal stratagems and were either forced or complemented into their old miseries with a worse remembrance of former actings But to enter into the particulars of this sad Story All men know or may the tyrannical domination of that first William who behaved himself as a Conqueror indeed and a most perfect tyrant since whom we have never had an English man but one who hath been naturalized by the succession of his Conquest as King of England he presently changed most of our Laws especially those wherein the English liberties were most transparent and preserved and made new Laws and those which he left writ them all in French disweaponed all the Natives sent the children of the best and most faithful of the Nobility into Normandy as Hostages and the most gallant of the English were transported by him into France to serve his wars that he might extinguish their Families he advanced his Normans into all places of the Nation and kept them as a guard over the English brought in the cruel Forrest Laws and dispeopled for thirty miles together in Hampshire pulling down many Towns and Villages with Churches Chappels and Gentlemens Houses making it a Forrest for wilde beasts which is ever since named the New Forrest but was the old ensign of our misery and slavery he laid on innumerable taxes and made Laws royal very severe and in an unknown Language that the English offending might forfeit their states and lands to him which they often did through ignorance But alas what need I mention these who ever reads but our Histories and the most favorable and fawning Royalist will see more then now can be expressed and yet here is the first fruits of our Kings and of their righteous title whose succession hath been as much in tyranny after him as in title and yet we must by a sacred obligation be bound to maintain with our blood and lives the branches of this rotten root notwithstanding all the providential and divine opportunities of casting off that miserable yoak which our forefathers so sadly groaned under and would have triumphed in the pouring out their blood which they shed freely but to little purpose but to have foreseen their childrens children might have but the hopes of attaining to But although William the first made sure his Conquest to his own person yet by his tyranny he gave ground of designs and hopes of recovery after his death therefore the people who but murmured and mourned in secret formerly consider now their condition and that Robert the right heir was wanting and his second son endeavored to be set up begin to capitulate and repeat their former grievances and to stand upon their terms with the next Successors But William Rufus who longed for the Crown and saw what advantage he had by his brothers absence through the mediation of Lanke-Frank the Arch-bishop of Canterbury a man for his vertue and learning in great esteem with the people got himself to be accepted and crowned King with exclusion of his elder brother by fair promises and engagements to repeal his fathers Laws and of promoting the liberties of the English any probability being then taking to the poor people But no sooner had he got the Crown fastned on his head and defeated his brother in battle but he forgat all his own promises follows directly his fathers steps grows excessive covetous lays on intolerable taxes and merciless exactions returns their longings and hopes after their just libertie into a sad bondage and slavery The poor people having thus
beams attracted most dazled others the Barons and people who were then unanimous through mutual oppressions fall more close and severe on their principles and wil not endure either delays or delusions and therefore effectually to redress their grievances came very well armed to a Parliament then holden at Oxford intended rather for getting Subsidies then removing oppressions in which Assembly they put the King to it urge their former complaints with more zeal and reason and with an addition of a mighty Spirit demand the absolute confirmation of Magna Charta and in a larger edition wherein are comprised those gallant priviledges of the Commons of England which have yet been but kept by Ink and Parchment and not trusting the King got his son Prince Edward to seal it with an addition of twenty four some write twelve Peers which Fabian stiles the douze Peeres not only to see these priviledges truly observed but to be as joynt Regents with the King and all the Lords and Bishops in Parliament took a like Oath to maintain these Articles inviolable yea and all that would have any benefit of residence in the Kingdom were enjoyned to take the same But these were too strict bonds for such a Princes wil he soon finding advantages as he sought them recals all gets a dispensation from the Pope for his forced Oath and to countenance his perjurie and acts in the old account the Barons again stand up with the people stoutly for the performance of the Articles of Oxford and sometimes brought him into straits yea fully defeated him in many bloody battles and regained the confirmation of the same laws with security that all the Castles throughout England should be delivered to the keeping of the Barons that the provisions of Oxford be inviolably preserved that all strangers should be dismist the Kingdom but those which by generall consent should be thought fit to remain this necessitous act though as it gave the people some peace and hopes so it gave the King time to consider of new mediums and therefore still to delay and blind he Assembles a new Parliament at London where having by the sprinkling of Court water won many Lords to take his part begins to surprise as many of the Barons as he could get and spoiled their Castles and Houses that success and authority grows strong on his side and the Barons with some calme provisoes mediate a peace insisting onely in generall that the Articles of Oxford might be observed But the King relying on his strength defies them as Traitors which done the peoples two Generals the Earls of Leicester and Glocester seeing no other means but to put it to a day supply their want of strength by their wit and diligence and carefully and artificially placing their battel which was fought at the Town of Lewis in Sussex overthrew the Kings Army took the King the Prince the Earl of Cornwal and his son Henry the Earls of Arundel Hereford with many other Lords and Gentlemen both English and Scottish And now having the King and Prince and most of the Nobles and a new confirmation of all one would think the great Charter was out of danger either of blotting or razing especially if we consider the solemnities formerly used in the ratification of it as Daniel excellently relates it in his history p. 169. The people knowing that no civil promises or verbal professions would hold in Kings raptured by Prerogative devoted to perjury to maintain their tyranny take a more Ecclesiasticall and divine way of obligation swearing to excommunicate all that should be found infringers of that Charter when the people with the King and all the great Nobility were assembled with all the Prelates and the chief Bishops in their reverent ornaments with burning Candles in their hands to receive that dreadfull sentence the King having one great Candle in his hand gives it to a Prelate that stood by saying it becomes not me being no Priest to hold this Candle my heart shall be a greater testimony and withall laid his hand spred on his breast all the while the sentence was pronouncing which was Authoritato omnipotentis Dei c. which done he caused the Charter of King John his Father to be read and in the end having thrown away their Candles which lay smoaking on the ground they cryed out so let them that incurre this sentence be extinct and stinck in Hell And the King with a loud voice said As God help I will as I am a man a Christian a Knight a King Crowned and Annointed inviolably observe these things Never were Laws saith he whose words express the thing most emphatically amongst men except those holy Commandments from the Mount established with more Majestie of Ceremony to make them reverenced and respected then these were they wanted but thunder and lightning from heaven which likewise if prayers could have effected they would have had it to make the sentence ghastly and hideous to the breakers of it the greatest security that could be given was an Oath the onely chain on earth besides love to tye the conscience of a man and humane societie together which should it not hold us all the frame of Government must needs fall quite asunder yet so almost a miracle though over common among our Kings saith Master Prin out of Mat. Paris the Parliament being thus dissolved by a sacred and most solemn conclusion the King presently studies how to infringe all the premises his Parasites telling him the Pope could soon absolve him for a summ of mony which afterwards the Pope did and the King returned to his former oppressive courses with more violence and hardness and taking advantage by the division of the Barons two Generals the Earls of Leicester and Glocester the latter of which joyned with the young Prince Edward and Sir Roger Mortimer the Kings wicked Counsellor a new and potent Army is raised by them against the Earl of Leicester who had the King prisoner and those which kept constant with him for the Peoples Liberties and he with the rest of the Barons are overthrown and immediately after a Parliament is called and all these laws and decrees made voyd and that Parliament held at Oxford wherein all these Laws were first confirmed by him called Insanum Parliamentum the mad Parliament and all these Patents Commissions or Instruments made to ratifie these Articles were brought forth and solemnly damned and so bright and resplendent did Prerogative break forth that it was Proclaimed Treason in any but to speak or mention any of these Grants with the least approbation and because the City of London had engaged with the Barons and People as a principal part of the whole he would needs have burnt the City had not some wise and potent Favorites interposed and yet they could hardly disswade him from that barbarous and impolitick wickednesse But what he spared in their houses that he gott out of their purses and made up all
the name of a King being an Infant and his reign may wel be called an Inter-regnum for ere he came to know what government was he was cruelly murthered with his Infant Brother by his Uncle Rich. Duke of Glocester who reigned both for him and afterwards for himself by the name of Richard the Third a bloody and cruel man rather a monster then a Prince his name stincks in the English dialect the shortness of his reign was the happiness of the people for after three yeers usurpation he was slain in the field by the Earl of Richmond who by his valour more then his Title got the Crown by the name of Henry the Seventh this was the best act that was done by him in easing the Kingdom of such a viper In his reign who is the first root of our Kings since the people had more hopes then benefits and were rejoyced and made happy more by expectations then enjoyments of any reall priviledge or liberty For though he took all the ways to secure his title by his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth daughter to Edward the Fourth yet many stratagems were laid to disturbe his peace which put him on acts of policy and diligence which he excellently demonstrated to free and extricate himself out of dangers and designs many sad divisions were stil in the Kingdom all men were not pleased either with his title or government and that they might but disturbe him or hazard his Crown they made Stage Kings drest up pretty lads in Princely robes and carried them up and down the Kingdom as puppets for the people to gaze one and admire all this while King Henry had not time to advance his prerogative while he was but securing his Title but after he had done that and now began to look on himself as free from either forraign or home competitors and the coast of State seeming cleer from all thickning weather he thinks of redeeming what he had lost by factions and imployes his wit for bringing down the height of the English Nation and plucking down their courage and was especially saith one jealous over his Nobility as remembring how himself was set up and how much more did this humor encrease in him after he had conflicted with such idols and counterfeits as Lambert Simnel Perkin Warbeck the strangeness of which dangers made him think nothing safe and thinking that the riches of the English occasioned their rebellions he took a course to empty their Coffers into his and the plot whereby he meant to effect it was by taking the advantage of the breach of penal Laws which he both found and made for that purpose his Instruments which for this work were pickt and qualified sufficiently were Sir Richard Empson and Edmund Dudley men learned in the Law and of desperate and subtle heads and forward in executing the Kings commands these two attended by troops of base Informers Promoters Catchpoles Cheaters Knights of the Post c. went up and down the Kingdom cruelly polled and taxed all sorts of people and prosecute in every Shire the most deserving and generous men that the Kingdom in a little time was more beggard then by most of the former Civil wars and all this done by the Kings speciall command and countenance that we may see what was the reason he began not sooner to play Rex want of opportunity and fear of loosing his Crown while he was advancing it but the latter end of his raign was too soon and too long for such actings This King ends his raign with the greatest acts of tyranny he made himself a rich King by beggaring his Subjects after he had freed his own person out of danger he imploys all his wits to enslave the English the fruits both of his title and tyranny we have felt ever sence in these that followed him His son Henry the eighth of that name succeeds him in his first beginnings he seemed to be tenderly affected to the Common-wealth and redressed many grievances especially those which were laid on by his father and executed by Empson and Dudley doing Justice on them for their cruelty and oppression But those affections were too good and too violent to last long the sound of Drums and Trumpets soon quasht them and many encroachments grew on the peoples Liberties many tempestuous storms and controversies there were in this Kings raign but they were more Ecclesiastical then Civil and so more dangerous and strong In a word he was accounted a better Souldier then a Governor and more fit for a General then a King to govern by just and equal Laws the best act he did was the discovery of the wickedness of the Clergy and casting off the Popes Supremacy which yet he took to himself and annexed it to his own Crown as the most of his raign was ful of controversies and tempests so all affairs were managed in a ranting and turbulent maner not with that gravity soberness as becomes civil and prudentiall transactions he was very lascivious and delighted much in variety and changes of Laws as wives he oftentimes much pleased himself to be in the company and was over-familiar with swaggering and loose fellows and the people ever and anon found the power of his Prerogative at home as his enemies did of his Sword abroad Edward the sixth his onely son succeeds him a Prince that was too good to live long the Phoenix of English Kings had he had time to prosecute his intentions and mature his genius but the Sun in him did shine too bright in the morning God gave England onely the representation of a good King but would not in judgement let us be blest long with him Religion began to revive Liberty to bud forth the people to peep out of their graves of slavery and bondage and to have their blood fresh and blushing in their cheeks but all is presently blasted by his death and the people who have seldom more then hopes for their comforts are now fainting for fear England is benighted and hung with black Queen Mary that Alecto and fury of women succeeds and now both souls and bodies of the people are enslaved and nothing but bone fires made of the flesh and bones of the best Christians But it s too much to name her in the English tongue Queen Elizabeth succeedes her who being prepared for the Crown by suffering came in a most seasonable time both for her self and the people who were made fuel for the flames of her sisters devotion And now England begins to flourish again and to recover its strength many inlargements were granted both to the consciences and estates of the people yet if we speak impartially we were kept further off Rome then royalty yet doubtless she may be Chronicled for the best Princess and her raign the most even and best mannaged with more fruits to the people then any of the former Kings especially if we consider how long she governed this Nation I
end her raign with this Character That she was the best Queen that ever England had and the glory of her Sexe to all Ages The English Line is now ended we must go into Scotland to seek for a King because a daughter of Henry the seventh was married to James the fourth King of Scotland but I will not question his title King James the sixth of Scotland and first of England succeeded on the English Throne A Prince that had many advantages to set up Prerogative which he improved he was too timorous to act but most subtile in Councel and designs and no King did more insensibly and closely undermine the Liberties of England then himself he gave us cause to remember from whence he came but his peaceable raign was the rail to his design and did choak suspition we were brought by him very nigh Rome and Spain and yet knew it not he had an inveterate hatred against Puritans as he had a fear of Papists and made more of Bishops then ordinary by remembrance of the Scots Presbytery He had as much of Royalty in his Eye as any Prince could have but had not so much courage to prosecute it the Puritan alwayes lay in his Spleen the Papist on his Lungs that he durst not that he could not breath so clearely and strongly against them but the Bishops lay in his heart I will not rip up his personal failings after his death he was the most profane King for oaths and blasphemies that England had besides c. He now grows old and was judged only fit to lay the Plot but not to execute it the design being now ripe and his person and life the only obstacle and Remora to the next Instrument he is conveyed away suddenly into another world as his son Henry was because thought unsuteable to the Plot it being too long to waite untill Nature and Distemper had done the deed We are now come to our last Charls who is like to end both that race and its tyranny the perfect Idea of all the rest and the most zealous prosecutor of the designs of all his ancestors who if Divine Providence had not miraculously prevented had accomplished the utmost of their intentions and for ever darkned the glory of the English Sun so much I must say of him that he got more wisedom by action then could possibly be expected by his nature experience that teacheth fools made him wise he endeavoured to act what others designed he dissembled as long as he could and used all parties to the utmost But his zeal and hardiness brought him to his death He needed no physick for his body had he remembred his soul But what need I mention him he is the last of English Monarchs and the most absolute monument of Monarchy and example of tyranny and injustice that ever was known in England he would have been what other Kings are and endeavoured to attain what others would be he lived an enemy to the Common-wealth and died a martyr to Prerogative Thus you have seen a faithfull representation of the Norman race under which we have groaned for about six hundred years the first Title made onely by the Invasion and Conquest of a Stranger and Bastard continued by usurpation and tyranny that take away but two or three persons out of the list and yet these bad enough if we consider all things and all this while England neither had a right heir or good King to govern it and yet by delusion and deceit we must be bound to maintain that Title as Sacred and Divine which in the beginning was extorted and usurping as if gray hairs could adde reverence to injustice England hath now an advantage more then all its Ancestors of freeing it self from this successive slavery and interrupting that bloody line and after an apprentiship to bondage for so many hundred yeers Providence hath given us our own choice If we take it we are made if not the old judgement of God lies on us for our stupidity and blindness For my part as I do not give much to that Monkish Prophecy from Henry the Seventh times Mars Puer Alecto Virgo Vulpes Leo Nullus yet I wonder how the Devil could foresee so far off and must needs say that it hath yet been literally fulfilled both in the Characters of the persons and the issue yet I must so far give way to the power of divine actings on my faith as to think that either we shall never have a King more or else we shall have one sent of God in wrath as the Israelites had seeing we are not contented that way which God hath from Heaven led us to As for the Title of this Prince who would fain be accounted the right heir Let us but remember from whence he had it and how it s now tainted were it never so just the Treason of the Father hath cut off the Son and how unwise an act besides all other considerations will it be for England to set up the Son to propagate both his Fathers design and death We may prophecy soon what a Governor he is like to be which hath both suck't in his Fathers principles and his Mothers milk who hath been bred up under the wings of Popery and Episcopacy and doubtless suckt both brests one who was engaged from the beginning in the last war against this Parliament who hath the same Counsellors his Father had to remember him both of the design and the best wayes of effecting it one who hath never yet given any testimony of hopefullness to this Nation who was in Armes when a Subject against the Libertyes which England and Scotland spilt much blood for to maintain one who hath both his Fathers and his own scores to cleer and is fain to make use of all Medium's though never so contrary attended with all the crew of Malignants of three Nations who is so relatively and personally engaged that both old and new reckonings are expected to be payd only by him To his Father He is endebted for His Crown and bound to pay His Debts both Ecclesiastical and Civil which will amount to no small summe To the Papists He is engaged for their old affections and hopes of new besides the obligation of duty to his Mother and freeing her from her Monastry and Hermitage To the Prince of Orange he owes more then his ransom besides the States courtesies to Ireland he is in more arrears then his Kingdom of Scotland will be able to pay and to Scotland for his entertainment and enstalment more then England for present or in many years can repay without a morgage or community of lands and liberties besides what he owes England for helping his Father to make the Parliament spend so many millions of treasure besides blood which would have weighed down all expences besides and helping as a prime Agent the utter destruction of England all which must be reckoned for with much seriousness and if men have so
much opened veines for more to follow and now the beam of power being turned regality weighs down all But by degrees through the continuation of his ill government whereby he daily lost the peoples hearts the Lords get an Army and take the King prisoner and by generall consent in Parliament deposed him as a tyrant and elected his son Edward the third to succeed and his son was crowned before his eyes Thus ended his raign but not his life Poor England which had laboured so long and successively under so many tyrants and had contested so long with Royalty for their dearly purchased liberties might now hopefully expect at least a dawning of Reformation especially when they had got so much power as to depose Authority and began as it were on a new account and the truth is affairs were now promising and distempers seemed to wear away with the former Governor yet the condition of the Kingdom had but a new face on it and grievances were rather not aggravated or multiplied then any whit removed and oppressions may be rather said to be changed from one shoulder to another then abolished Prince Edward who succeeded who was crowned in his fathers life had observance enough to remember his fate and was much warned by it both to prevent and suppress insurrections knowing by experience the full state of the controversie and therefore began his Government very fairely and with much applause onely to prevent factions and sidings he privately caused his father the deposed King to be cruelly murdered and so sate more securely though with more guilt upon the Throne his raign was fifty years odd months the longest next Hen. the third he spent most of his time in the wars of France to regain his titile to that Crown which the poor Subject felt in their estate and families and it was a happiness say some that he was so much abroad for when ever he came home as he wanted money to supply his expences so the people got ground to urge their Priviledges Magna Charta was at least twelve times ratified in this Kings Raign and so often broken yet because he goes under the name of the best Prince that raigned so long and so well let the Reader take but an Instance or two concerning his engagements to perform the grand Charter This King in the first Parliament made the fifteenth year of his raign had granted the enacting of divers wholsom and seasonable Laws which he willed and ingaged unto for him and his heirs that they should be firmly kept and remain inviolable for ever for the ratification of Magna Charta and other good Laws formerly enacted and that all the Officers of State as Chancellor Treasurer Barons of the Exchequer Judges c. should at that present in Parliament and for ever after take a solemn oath before their admission to their Offices to keep and maintain the point of the great Charter and the Charter of the Forrest c. But no sooner was the Parliament dissolved but the very same year he publikely revoked these Statutes pretending that they were contrary to the Laws and Customs of the Realm and to his Prerogative and Rights Royal c. wherefore we are willing saith he providently to revoke these things we have so improvidently done because saith he marke the dissimulation of Princes even in Parliaments We never really consented to the making of such Statutes but as then it behoved Vs We dissembled in the Premises by Protestations of revocation if indeed they should proceed to secure the dangers which by denying the same we feared to come with many more such passages and yet this King is the Phoenix of our more antient Monarchs but the Reader may still learn what the best of our Princes have been and what weak assurances any ingagements from them are where power is wanting from them and advantages present to them Another instance of his actings we may take up from the successe of his first siege of Tourney in France having laid on heavy and excessive taxes to maintain that war and the people seeing no fruits of all promises for executing the Articles of Magna Charta they refuse to pay any more without more faithfull performance of his Vows and solemn engagements to them whereby he wanting mony was fain to quit the place and return for England full of revengefull thoughts and in much fury breaths out destruction to all the refusers But the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury told him publikely but plainly that he had oftentimes as well as his Father offered manifest violences to the Liberties of the English Nation comprehended in that grand Charter and if he expected Subsidies from the people he must more carefully maintain their priviledges so justly due But the King vexed with such language both storms against the Arch-Bishop and as much as possibly he then could sought the ruine of all that had made any refusall of payment of these taxes although he had not in any manner performed his own promises Yet I will end his raign because he hath a name of a good King though as Speed saith by the Generall vote of Historians he committed many foul errors in his government with a good act he did at the fiftieth yeer of his age which he kept as his Jubilee he called a Parliament and there freely heard the grievances of the people and redressed many especially a Petition of the Commons against the doublings of Lawyers he caused the pleas which were before in French to be made in English a necessary Law saith Speed if it had been as carefully observed especially if he had ordered saith he that the same should not have been written in French That the Subject might understand the Law by which he holds what he hath and is to know what he doth But all this is not for nothing for as he imparted grace unto his people saith the same Auther for so all acts of Justice are termed whâ—n granted by Kings so he took a care to replenish his own purse by it that the poor Commons obtain not any thing which they pay not too dearly for Here ends the Life of the best reputed Prince and yet you see wherein his excellency lay the best happiness the people had in his raign was that they had more engagements for their liberties with more cost and the remembrances and sense of the goodness of them more fresh and sweet by the often repetition of them but for execution or addition to them they were as far to seek as in former times And if it do possibly happen that in one Kings raign either through the goodness of his nature or rather want of advantages there be an intermission of oppressions for that is the utmost to be expected yet the next King will be sure to make it up and if they give the people a little breath it s but that they may sow for the next to reap or as they do with men on