A SHORT VIEW OF THE LIFE and REIGN OF King Charles The second MONARCH OF GREAT BRITAIN From his Birth to his Burial Tacit. Hist. Lib. I. Alii diutius imperium tenuerunt Nemo tam fortiter reliquit LONDON Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivy-lane 1658. A SHORT VIEW OF THE Life and Reign of KING CHARLES The second Monarch of Great BRITAIN from his Birth to his Burial OUr Chronicles tell us of a Man in Queen Elizabeth's time that wrote the Ten Commandments the Creed the Pater-noster the Queens Name and the year of our Lord within the compasse of a Peny and gave the Queen a paire of Spectacles of such an Artificiall making that by the help thereof she did plainly and distinctly discern every Letter The contracting of the Life and Reign of King Charles in so narrow a compasse as I have limited to my self may seem to be a work of no lesse difficulty And yet I hope to do it in such a plain and perspicuous manner that every one who runs may read it without the help of any such Spectacles as our Chronicles speak of To Brevity I am injoyned and it must be my businesse to avoid all Obscurity though I am conscious to my self that I shall draw this Picture with too much shadow But I take the Pencil into my hand and thus form my lines 1600. CHARLES the third Son of James the sixth King of the Scots and of Anne his Wife Daughter of Frederick the second and Sister of Christiern the fourth Kings of Denmark was born at Dunfermeling one of the principall towns of Fife in Scotland on the nineteenth day of November Anno 1600. derived by a long descent of Royall Ancestors from Malcolm Conmor King of the Scots and the Lady Margaret his Wife Sister and sole Heir of Edgar Atheling the last surviving Prince of the English Saxons So that his Title had been good to the Crown of England though he had borrowed no part of his Claim from the Norman Conquerour Which I observe the better to encounter the extravagant follies of some men in the book called Antinormanisme and some other Pamphlets of that time in which it is affirmed that this King had no other Right to the Crown then what he claimed from that Conquest and therefore that the English Nation having got the better of him by the Sword might lawfully free themselves from that subjection which by no other Title then the Sword of the Normans had been laid upon them At his first coming into the world he was so weak and unlike to live that his Christening was dispatcht in haste without attending the performance of those solemnities which are accustomably used at the Baptisme of such Princely infants And as the name of Henry was given to the Prince his Elder Brother with reference to Henry Lord Darnlie the Father of King James by Mary Queen of Scots so was this younger Son called Charles in relation to Charles Earle of Lenox the younger Brother of that Henry and by consequence Uncle to King James 1602. Having received some measure of strength he was at the Age of two years created Duke of Albany Marquesse of Ormond Earle of Rosse and Baron of Ardmanock of which four Titles the two first and the last are wholly at the Kings disposing to be bestowed on whom he pleaseth But the Earldom of Rosse falling unto the Crown in the time of King James the third was so setled in the Crown by Act of Parliament that it is not lawfull for the King to sell alienate or dispose the same unto any other then to the second Son of Scotland 1603. On the 26. of March next following Anno 1603. King James had news by Sir Robert Cary one of the younger Sons of the Lord Hunsdon who had stole a posting journey thither that Queen Elizabeth was dead contrary to the opinion of many of his Scottish Courtiers who being wearied with the tediousnesse of their expectation did believe at last that it should never be acknowledged by the Lords of England that the Queen was dead as long as there was any old woman of that Nation left to weare good Clothes and take the name of Queen upon her For bringing which news the Duke of Albany as if he were more concerned in it then all the rest of the Kings Children as indeed he was was afterwards committed to the Governance of Sir Roberts Lady and he himself from that time forwards of principall esteem and place about him This news being seconded by that of the Proclaiming of King James for her true and lawfull Successor in the Imperiall Crown of this Realm the King prepared himself for England At what time as I have been told by some Persons of Quality a certain Laird of the Highlands though of very great Age came to his Court to take his leave of him whom he found accompanied with all his Children the young Duke being then held in his Nurses Armes His Addresse unto the King consisted of Prayers for his long life and Prosperity and those Prayers intermixt with some desires that in the midst of the Felicities and Glories of the English Court he would not be unmindfull of his Native Countrey Which having said without taking any great notice of the Prince he applyed himself wholly to the Duke whose hands he kist with such an Ardency of Affection as if he meant they should grow for ever to his lips And when the King told him that he had mistook himself in his Addresses to the infant as not being his eldest Son and Prince of Scotland he answered that he knew well enough what he did and that it was this Child in whom his Name and Memory was to be perpetuated to succeeding Ages with other Speeches of like nature Which being then either unregarded or imputed unto age and dotage were called to mind after the death of Prince Henry and then believed to have something in them of a Prophetical spirit 1603. But to proceed On the fifth day of April in the year 1603. King James began his journey for England and in the end of May the Queen accompanied with Prince Henry and the Lady Elizabeth set forwards also finding at Berwick a Noble Train of Lords and Ladies sent thither from the Court to attend her coming and wait upon her in her journey 1604. The next year order was given for bringing the young Duke to the Court of England But before such as had the Charge of him could begin their journey the young Duke was taken with a feaver Which being signified to the King he sent thither Doctor Atkins one of his Physicians who in six weeks restored him to such a degree of health as made him fit to be removed to a Warmer Aire and a more comfortable Climate On the sixteenth of July this Remove began which brought him by short and easie stages in the first week of October to Windsor Castle where the King then was by whom
a present order taken for the sending of some of his Servants of all sorts to attend upon him in that Court that so he might appear amongst them in the greater Lustre But this lessened not the Cares and Feares of the English Subjects who could not be more glad to hear of his safety then they were afraid of the danger which he had incurred For having put himself into the power of the King of Spain it was at the Courtesie of that King whether he should ever return or no it being a Maxime amongst Princes That if any one without leave sets foot on the Ground of another he makes himself his Prisoner Philip the first of Spain and Duke of Burgundy being cast by Tempest on the Coast of England was here detained by King Henry the seventh till he had delivered up the Earle of Suffolk who had fled for Refuge to his Court and Mary Queen of the Scots being forced by her Rebellious Subjects to fly into this Realm was presently seized on as a Prisoner and so continued till her lamentable and calamitous death So in like manner Richard the first of England passing in disguise through some part of the dominions of the Arch-Duke of Austria was by him took Prisoner and put unto an heavy Ransome and not long since Charles Lodowick the now Prince Elector Palatine posting through France in hope to get the Command of Duke Bernards Army was stayed in the middle of his journey by the Kings command and kept so long under Restraint that he lost the opportunity of effecting his purprose This though it was the generall Fear and apprehension of the English Subjects yet no body durst acquaint the King with it but Archee the fool who going boldly to the King as he found him once in a good humour told him that he was come to change Caps with him Why said the King Marry saies Archee because thou hast sent the Prince into Spain from whence he is never like to returne But said the King what wilt thou say when thou seest him come back again Marry saies Archee I will then take off the fools Cap which I put upon thy head for sending him thither and put it on the King of Spains for letting him return At which words it is reported that the King became exceeding pensive never before so much apprehending the Danger of that Adventure as then and afterwards he did 1623. But the generous Spaniard intended to make no such Market of him but gave him all the Royall entertainment which a Princely Suitor might expect Nor was the Prince wanting for his part in all fit Compliances by which he might both gain on them and preserve himself For by his Courtly Garb he won so much on the Affections of the Infanta and by his grave and circumspect behaviour got so much ground upon the King and his Councel that the match went forward in good earnest The Articles of the Marriage with all the Circumstances thereof were agreed upon and solemnly sworn to by both Kings Nor was the Pope wanting in the grant of a dispensation without which nothing could be done writing a Letter to the Prince who returned to him a Civil answer which afterwards was reckoned amongst his Crimes by such as rather would not then did not know the necessity which lay upon him of keeping at that time a plausible Correspondence with the Catholick party But as for his Religion the change whereof was moved by the Pope and much hoped for by the Court of Spain at his first coming thither he shewed so many strong evidences of his constancy in it that those hopes soon vanished And that it might appear that he professed no other Religion then what was agreeable to the Rules of Antiquity and not much abhorrent from the formes then used in the Church of Rome the English Liturgie was by the care of the Lord Keeper Williams translated into the Spanish Tongue and so many Copies of the Book then printed sent into Spain as gave great satisfaction in that point to the Court and Clergy And this I must needs say was very seasonably done the Spaniards being till then perswaded by their Priests and Jesuits that when the English had cast off the Pope they had cast off also all Religion and became meer Atheists the name of God being never used amongst them but with a purpose to expose it unto scorn and prophanation Insomuch that the Constable of Castile being sent to swear the Peace concluded with Spain when he understood the businesse was to be performed in the Chappel where some Anthems were to be sung desired that whatsoever was sung Gods name might not be used in it and that being forborn he was content they should sing what they listed King James himself so relates the story in Arch-Bishop Spotswood fol. 530. But the Prince had another game to play namely the Restitution of the Palatinate which the Spaniard would not suffer to be brought under the Treaty reserving it as they pretended to be bestowed by the Infanta after the Marriage the better to ingratiate her self with the English Nation Which being a point of too great moment to depend upon no other assurance then a Court-Complement he concluded with himself that since he could not prevaile in the one he would not proceed unto the Consummation of the other And hereupon he was much edged on by the Duke of Buckingham who having conceived some deep displeasure against the Conde de Olivarez the speciall Favourite of that King desired rather that all Treaties should be broken off then that any Alliance should be made in which that Conde had appeared so instrumentall But it did concern the Prince so to provide for his own safety that no intimation might be made of the intended Rupture till he had unwinded himself out of that Labyrinth into which he was cast For which cause having desired of his Father that some ships might be sent to bring him home he shewed himself a more passionate lover then ever formerly and made a Proxie to the Catholick King and Don Charles his Brother in his name to espouse the Lady Infanta which Proxie he left with Digby not long before made Earl of Bristol by him to be delivered within some few daies after the coming of the expected dispensation But no sooner had he took his leave and was out of danger but he dispatcht a Post unto him commanding him not to deliver up the Proxie untill further order And having so done he hois'd Sails and came for England arriving at Portsmouth on Sunday the fifth of October Anno 1623. From whence by Post-Horses he past to London the next morning and so by Coach to the King at Royston to the great content of all the Kingdome declared by Bells Bonfires and all other the accustomed expressions of a publick joy The King being made acquainted with all particulars and that no Assurance could be had of the Restitution of the Palatinate by
noise of a Declaration which they had then upon the Anvil he dissolved the Parliament on the eighteenth day of June then following No sooner was he freed from this but the necessity of his Affairs involved him in another Embroylment The French Priests and Domesticks of that Nation which came into England with the Queen were grown so insolent and had put so many affronts upon him that he was forced to send them home in which he did no more then what the French King had done before him in sending back all the Spanish Courtiers which his Queen brought with her But the French King not looking on his own example and knowing on what ill termes the King stood both at home and abroad first seized on all the Merchants ships which lay on the River of Burdeaux and then brake out into open war So that the King was fain to make use of those Forces against the French which were designed to have been used against the Spaniard and to comply with the desires of the Rochelers who humbly sued for his protection and Defence But the Fleet not going out till after Michaelmas found greater opposition at the Sea then they feared from the Land being encountred with strong Tempests and thereby necessitated to return without doing any thing but onely shewing the Kings good-will and readinesse toward their assistance 1627. But the next yeare this design was followed with greater vigour by the Duke of Buckingham who hoped thereby to make himself of some consideration in the eyes of the people The gaining of the Isle of Re which lay before the Town of Rochel and imbarred their Trade was the matter aimed at and he had strength enough both for Sea and Land to have done the work if he had not followed it more like a Courtier then a Souldier suffering himself to be complemented out of the taking of their chief Fort when it was almost at his mercy and standing upon points of Honour in facing those Forces which were sent from the French King to raise the siege when he might have made a safe retreat unto his ships without losse or danger In the mean time his Majesty neither neglected his Affairs at home nor his Friends abroad At home he found the Puritan faction to be much increased by the remisnesse of the goverment of Archbishop Abbot whom therefore he suspended from all his Metropoliticall Jurisdiction and confined him to his House at Ford in Kent committing the exercise thereof to the Bishops of London Durham Rochester Oxford Bath and Wells by Letters Patents bearing date the 9. day of October Anno 1627. Abroad he found the Princes of Germany wormed out of their Estates one after another by the Emperours Forces the King of Denmark whom they had made the Head of their League being driven out of the Countrey by Count Tilly and hardly able to defend his own Dominions No Prince so fit for the prosecution of that cause as Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden whom therefore he elects into the Noble Order of the Garter and solemnly invests him with it in the midst of his Army then lying at the Siege of Darsaw a Town of Pomerella belonging to the Crown of Poland on Sunday the twenty third of October of the same year also At which time he laid the grounds of that Confederacy which being seconded by the French the States of the Vnited Provinces and the distressed Princes of the Empire brought that King into Germany where he gave the first great check to the Emperours fortunes and had restored the Prince Elector Palatine to his ancient Patrimony if he had not fallen unfortunately at the Battell of Lutzen 1628. Being thus ingaged and embroiled he gave a beginning to his third Parliament on the seventeenth of March and freely declares to them the necessities under which he lay in Answer whereunto the Commons voted five Subsidies but meant he should pay dearly for them before he had them Such grievances as they thought fit to insist upon were cast into the mold of a petition by them called a Petition of Right which if the King granted he must lose his prerogative if he denied it he must lose all hopes of their supply in his great extremities The consideration of which last induced him to yield to their desires and confirm that petition by Act of Parliament the Prerogative never so much descending from Perch to popular Lure as by that concession But though this Act of grace might have given satisfacton even to supererogation as one well observeth yet the Commons were not so contented but were preparing a Remonstance to take away his Right of Tonnage and Poundage as disclaimed by him in that Act which coming to the Kings knowledge on the twenty sixth of June he adjourns the Parliament till the twentieth day of October then next ensuing In the mean time the Duke prepares for the relief of Rochel both by Sea and Land and being ready to set sail was suddenly cut off at Ports-muth by the hand of one John Felton a discontented Officer of the last years Army alledging no other reason for that bloody act but that the Duke had been declared an Enemy to the Common-wealth in a Remonstrance tendred to the King in the former Session But such was the constancy of the Kings temper and the known evenness of his spirit that this sad Accident made little or no stop in the proceedings of the Fleet which at the last set forwards under the command of the Earl of Lindsey who found the Haven of Rochel so strongly barred that it was utterly impossible for his Ships to force their way though it was gallantly attempted and give relief to the besieged who thereupon set open their Gates and received their King into their Town without more delay To smooth his way to the next Session of Parliament adjourned again till the twentieth of January Arch-bishop Abbot is admitted to kisse his hand by whom he is commanded not to fail of his attendance at the Councel table Dr. Barnaby Potter a through-paced Calvinian is made Bishop of Carlisle and Mr. Mountagues book called Appello Caesarem for which he had been questioned and molested in the beginning of the Kings first Parliament must be supprest and called in by Proclamation But this little edified with the faction in the house of Commons who not onely took upon them the reforming of the Church and State but called the Customers in question for levying Tonnage and Poundage not then granted nor ever likely to be granted as it had been formerly by Act of Parliament and distraining such Merchants goods as refused to pay it And in this point they went so high that fearing they should be dissolved before they had vented their own passions in that particular upon the second day of March they lockt the Doors of the Parliament-house kept the key thereof in one of their pockets and held the Speaker by strong hand in his Chair till they had
Kingdom also into severall factions each labouring to advance their own though to the Ruine and Destruction of the publick Peace Onely to take off somewhat of the imputation he made so much use of his power and interesse with the King as to prefer three of his servants unto Titles of Honour Anno 1621. viz. Sir Robert Cary Chamberlain of his Houshold to the Title of Lord Cary of Lepington Sir Thomas Howard second Son to the Earl of Suffolk and Master of his Horse to the Honour of Viscount Andover and Lord Howard of Charlton and Sir John Vaughan Controller of his Houshold to the Honour of Lord Vaughan of Molingar in the Realm of Ireland 1618. On the eighteenth day of November Anno 1618. There appeared a great blazing Star the fore-runner of many woful events in these parts of Christendom But the first sad effect thereof which we found in England was the death of Queen Anne which hapned on Tuesday the second of March next following A losse which the Prince bare with great equanimity or evennesse of Spirit neither banishing all shews of grief with a Stoical Apathie nor spending his time in too much womanish lamentation At the Funerall of this great Queen he was principall Mourner and it became him so to be she having always been to him a tender and indulgent Mother expressing more affection to him then to all the rest of her Children 1619. Not long after the death of the Queen King James fell very sick at Newmarket and having a desire to come to London advanced on his way as far as Royston where he was fain to stay till his sickness was over which at last became so dangerous that his death was feared At what time Dr. Andrews Bishop of Winchester attending on him bewailed with great Affliction the sad condition which the Church was like to fall into if God should take away his life the Prince being in the hands of the Scots which made up the greatest part of his Houshold and not well principled by those which had the tutelage of him either as to the Government or Liturgie of the Church of England The King acknowledgeing this sad truth and condemning his own negligence in it made a solemn vow that if God would be pleased to restore him to his health he would take the Prince into his own immediate care instruct him in the Controversies of Religion and set him on so right a bottome that there should be no fear of his disaffection either unto the Hierarchy or the rites and Ceremonies of the Church which he did accordingly And he did it so effectually that at such time as the Prince made his journey into Spain and that some principal persons in all the Places and Offices belonging to him were to follow after Dr. Maw and Dr. Wren two of his Chaplains being appointed for that service came to King James to know his pleasure and commands The King advised them not to put themselves upon any unnecessary Disputations but to be onely on the defensive part if they should be challenged And when it was answered that there could be no reason to engage in such Disputations where there could be no Moderator the King replied that Charles should moderate between them and the opposite party At which when one of them seemed to smile on the other the King proceeded and told them that Charles should manage a point in Controversie with the best studied Divine of them all and that he had trained up George so far as to hold the conclusion though he had not yet made him able to prove the Premisses 1619. On Friday the twenty fourth of March Anno 1619. The Prince with the Marquesse of Hamilton Marquesse of Buckingham divers Earls and others performed great Justing at White-Hall in honour of the day being the day of King James his happy coming to the Crown of England 1620 And on the Sunday after being Mid-lent Sunday he attended his Father to S. Pauls Crosse conducted in a most solemn manner from Temple Bar to that Church by the Lord Major and Aldermen and at the entrance into the Church received by the Dean and Chapter in their rich Copes and other Ecclesiasticall Habits and by them conducted into the Quire where having heard the Divine service for that day most solemnly performed with Organs Cornets and Sagbots they went to a prepared place where they heard the Sermon at the Crosse preacht by Dr. King then Lord Bishop of London and from thence unto the Bishops Palace where they were entertained with a Banquet Infinite was the concourse of People at both those Solemnities and all of them returned with great joy and comfort to see him so bravely accomplisht in the one so devoutly reverent in the other 1622. On Tuesday the eighteenth of February Anno 1622. Accompanied with the Duke of Buckingham M. Erdimion Porter and M. Francis Cottington he took ship at Dover arrived at Bulloign in France and from thence rode Post to the Court of Spain The occasion this Frederick Prince Elector Palatine had inconsiderately taken on himself the Crown of Bohemia An. 1619. and for so doing was by the Emperor deprived of his Ancient Patrimony the Electorall dignity together with the upper Palatinate being conferred on the Duke of Bavaria and the lower on the K. of Spain who possest himself of all of it except the towns of Heidelberg Frankendale and Manheim well manned and Garrisoned by the English For the preserving of which places and the recovery of the whole when all means else had proved ineffectuall it was held most expedient to negotiate a Marriage betwixt Prince Charles and the Daughter of Spain Which being first managed by the Leiger Embassadors in both Courts was afterwards prosecuted with more particular instructions by John Lord Digby well verst and studied in that Court whom the King sent as his Embassador extraordinary to conclude the match But Digby being fed with delaies from one time to another it was resolved by King James without making any of his Councel acquainted with it that the Prince himself should go in Person that he might either speed the Businesse or break off the Treaty According to this Resolution he began his journey no otherwise accompanied or attended then with those three persons above mentioned all of them passing in disguise to avoid discovery Being come to Paris they adventured to see the Court where at a Mask he had a view of that most excellent Princesse whom he after married But no sooner had he left the City then the French King had Advertisement of his being there who thereupon dispatcht away severall Posts to stay him in his journey and bring him back but the Prince had past beyond Bayonne the last Town in France without being overtaken by them and posting speedily to Madrid entred the Lord Embassadors Lodging without being known to any but his Confidents onely News of his safe Arrivall there being brought to the King there was
following And it was intimated so long before-hand for these two reasons First that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland might in the mean time hold a Parliament in that Kingdome which he did and managed so much to the Kings advantage that an Army of 8000 Horse and Foot was speedily raised and money granted by the Parliament to keep them in pay and furnish them with Ammunition Arms and all other necessaries Secondly that by the Reputation of a following Parliament he might be the better enabled to borrow money for the carrying on of the war in case the Parliament should fail him as it after did For being come together at the time appointed instead of Acting any thing in order to his Majesties service they were at the point of passing a Vote for blasting his war against the Scots To prevent which his Majesty was forced to dissolve them on the fifth of May the Convocation still continuing who granted him a Benevolence of foure shillings in the pound for all their Ecclesiasticall promotions to be paid six years together then next ensuing The Members of the dissolved Parliament inflamed the people in all parts of the Kingdome with such discontentments which actually brake out in Southwark into open sedition not pacified without much danger and the executing of the principal Leader In the middle of which Distempers his Majesty was blest with a third Son born on the eight of July Christned by the name of Henry and by his Majesties command called Duke of Glocester 1640. To welcome this young Prince into the world the Scots put themselves into Armes again and backt by a strong faction here thought that they could not do enough by standing on their defence at home unlesse they entred England also as they did accordingly But they took not his Majesty unprovided who had raised another gallant Army under the command of the Earl of Northumberland as chief Generall and the Earl of Strafford as the chief Commander under him himself with all speed posting towards the North as soon as the News of this invasion had been brought unto him But scarce was he well setled in the head of his Army but he was followed by a Petition from some Lords of England conformable in the main points of it to a Declaration of the Scots which they called the Intention of their Army So that the Cloud which gathered behind him in the South threatned more danger to him then the Northern Tempest which blew directly in his teeth Sailing thus between Scylla and Charybdis it concerned him to steer as even a course as he could and thereupon he summoned the great Councel of his Peers to attend him at York that doing nothing in this great businesse without their advice he might give himself the better hopes of their assistance as his occasions should require By their advice Commissioners are appointed to treat with the Scots to understand their Grievances the reasonablenesse or unreasonablenesse of their Demands and finally to make up the breach by such an Accommodation as might conduce to the peace and happinesse of both Kingdomes and his Majesties honour In the mean time he calls a Parliament to begin at Westminster the third day of November then next following which if it had been held at York as lying nearest to the danger and Scene of action might not have proved so fatall and destructive to him as it after did In the beginning of this Parliament he cast himself on the love and loyalty of his English Subjects in which he found himself deceived of his expectation For the first thing they did was to deprive him of the Counsels of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Archbishop of Canterbury and thereby to terrifie all others from adhering to him in the times of his greatest need These they impeacht of High Treason removed them from the House of Peers and committed them to the Tower of London where the Archbishop staid four years before any particular charge or any prosecution upon that charge was brought against him But with the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland they made quicker work inviting the People of all the three Kingdomes to bring them in such matter as they had or could devise against him and having made all things ready for a publick Tryal they brought him to the Bar before the Peers sitting in VVestminster-Hall on the sixth of April then next following but he so rationally pleaded in his own behalf and so fully satisfyed all objections which were made against him that the Commons were fain to desist from the Course which they had begun and to proceed against him in a Bill of Attainder For the better passing whereof the Commons framed a Protestation on the third of May in many things not unlike the Scotish Covenant before mentioned by which they bound themselves among other things to maintain and defend the Power and Priviledges of Parliament the lawfull Rights and Liberties of the Subject to endeavour to bring to condigne punishment all such as shall either by Force Practice Plots Counsels and Conspiracies or otherwise do any thing to the contrary amongst which they reckon the Earl of Strafford to be one and finally to stand unto one another and to every other person whatsoever in any thing he shall do in pursuance of the said Protestation Which Protestation being first taken by themselves was the next day taken also by the House of Peers and not long after obtruded on all the rest of the Kingdom But not finding this sufficient to effect their purpose they first forced the Lords by Tumults and afterwards the King by their importunities to passe that unhappy Bill of Attainder which having obtained they brought him to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill on the thirteenth of May where with as much Christian confidence and magnanimity as could be exprest by flesh and blood he delivered up his neck to the Executioner In order to this great work which they knew the Scots much laboured for and had declared so much in a Pamphlet called The intentions of their Army at their first coming into England the leading men in the house of Commons held a strict correspondency with the Scots Commissioners then residing in London and voted no lesse then three hundred thousand pounds by the name of a brotherly Assistance to be given to the Scots in generall under colour of repairing such damages as they had sustained in the time of this breach but in plain truth to bind them fast unto themselves And having made sure work with them they deprived the King by little and little of almost all the ancient and undoubted prerogatives which of right belonged unto his Crown The power of calling Parliaments in case of his neglect or refusall is put into the hands of Sheriffs and Constables his right to Tonnage and Poundage must be disclaimed by Act of Parliament the Bill of the Attainder of the Earl of Strafford and that for the continuance of this Parliament during
soon as he is once full he begins to howl and such a howling fit fell at this time on the Presbyterians They had carried on this Tragedy to the very last Act from the first bringing in of the Scots to the beginning of the war and from the beginning of the war till they had brought him prisoner into Holmby-House and then quarrelled with the Independents for taking the work out of their hands and robbing them of the long-expected fruits of their Plots and Practises They cried out against them in their Pulpits and clamoured against them in their Pamphlets for this most execrable fact of which themselves were parcel-guilty at the least Et si non re at voto pariter Regicidae c. On the other side the Independents who had washt their hands in the blood of the King seemed as desirous as the Presbyterians to wash their hands of it By them it was alledged more calmly that they had put Charles Stuart to death against whom they had proceeded as the sole cause of so much bloodshed but that the King had been murthered a long time before by the Presbyterians when they deprived him of his Crown his Sword and his Scepter of his Crown by forcing from him those Prerogatives which placed him in a Throne of Eminence above his People of his Sword by wresting the Militia out of his hands by which he was made unable to protect them and finally of his Scepter in divesting him of the power of calling Parliaments and of his Negative voice in making those Laws by which he was to govern all estates of men under his Dominion And more then so that they had deprived him of his naturall Liberty as he was a Man of the society of his Wife as he was a Husband of conversation with his Children as he was a Father of the attendance of his Servants as he was a Master and in a word of all those comforts which might make life valued for a Blessing So that there was nothing left for the Independents to do but to put an end to those Calamities into which this miserable man this vir dolorum as he might very well be called had been so accursedly plunged by the Presbyterians Thus did each party seek to shift the guilt of this most execrable Act upon one another and thus fell CHARLES the meekest of Men and the best of Princes leaving behind him an example of Christian fortitude in suffering patiently that blow which neither the Law of God or man nor any deservings of his own could inflict upon him His body being removed to VVindsor was there interred in the same Vault with K. Henry the 8. but not interred with that solemnity nor in that publick form and manner which is appointed in the Liturgy of the Church of England of which he had been alwayes a devout Observer and to the last a resolute Patron and Defender His Funerall solemnized and his Death lamented with fewer tears than can be easily imagined men bleeding inwardly from their hearts when their eyes durst not expresse outwardly what grief they felt So dangerous were the times Vt suspiria etiam subscriberentur as Tacitus affirmeth of the times of Domitian a most cruell Tyrant that mens very sighs were registred and kept upon account toward the undoing of many in the time to come But though he died thus in the strength of his years he still lives in the memories of all good men and by that most excellent Portraiture which he hath made of himself will be preserved alive amongst all Nations and unto all succeeding Ages The Pourtraiture of King Charles in his Solitudes and Sufferings will be a Character of his Parts and Piety beyond all expressions but his own a Monument of richer metall than all the Tombs of Brasse or Marble erected to the honour of his Predecessors which no Inscription whatsoever though in Letters of Gold and engraven with a pen of Diamonds can be able to parallel And so I shut up this short View of the Life and Reign of this glorious King as Tacitus doth the Life of Julius Agricola a right noble Roman the names of the persons onely changed viz. Quiquid ex Carolo amavimus quicquid mirati sumus manet mansurumque est in animis hominum in aeternitate temporum fama rerum Horat. Carm. lib. 1. Ode 24. Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit Nulli flebilior quam mihi THE END