the best belovedst King that ever was if to call all the aspersions that possibly could be devised upon his government by publique elaborate remonstrances if to suffer and give Texts to the strongest lung'd Pulpiteers to poyson the hearts of his subjects to intoxicate their braines with fumes of forg'd jealousies to possesse them with an opinion that he is a Papist in his heart and consequently hath a designe to introduce Popery if to sleight his words his promises if to his Asseverations Oaths and Protestations when he calls heaven and earth to witnesse when he desires no blessing otherwise to fall upon himselfe his wife and children with other pathetick deep-fetcht expressions that would have made the meanest of those millions of Christians which are his vessals to be believed if to protect Delinquants and proclaim'd Traytors against him if to suscitate authorise and encourage all sorts of subjects to heave up their hands against and levie armes to emancipate themselves from that naturall allegeance loyalty and subjection wherein they and their fore-fathers were ever tied to his royall Progenitors if to make them sweare and damne themselves into a rebellion if this be to make a King beloved then this Parliament hath made King Charles the best belovedst King that ever was in England Pereg. I cannot compare this Rebellion in England more properly then to that in this Kingdome in King Iohn's time which in our French Cronicle beares to this day the infamous name of Iaqerie de Beauvoisin Then Peasans then out of a surfet of plenty had growne up to that heighth of insolenco that they confronted the Gentcie and gathered in multitudes and put themselves in armes to suppresse them and this popular tumult never ceased till Charles le Sage suppressed it and it made the Kings of France more puissant ever since for it much increased their Finances in regard that these extraordinary taxes which the people imposed upon themselves for the support of the war hath continued ever since a firme revenue to the Crowne which makes me thinke of a fractious speech of the late Henry the Great to them of Orleans for whereas a new imposition was laid upon them during the league by Monseur de la Chastre who was a great stickler in those wars they petitioned Henry the fourth that he would be pleased to take of that taxe the King asked them Who had laid that taxe upon them they said Mons de la Castres during the time of the League the King replyed Puis que Monsieur de la Chatre vous à ligue qu'il vous dessligue and so the said taxe continueth to this day I have observed in your Cronicles that it hath been the fate of your Kings to be baffled often by petty companions as Iack Stpawe Wat Tyler Cade Warbecke and Symnel A Waspe may sometimes doe a shrew turne to the Eagle as you said before your Island hath been fruitfull for Rebellions for I thinke there hapned neere upon a hundred since the last Conquest the City of London as I remember in your Storie hath rebelled seven times at least and forfeited her Charter I know not how often but she bled soundly for it at last and commonly the better your Princes tre worse your people have been or the case stands I see no way for the King to establish a setled peace the by making a fifth Conquest of you and for London there must be a way found to prick that tympany of pride wherewith the swells Patr. 'T is true there hath been from time to time many odde Insurrections in England but our Kings gathered a greater strength out of them the inconstant people are alwayes accessary to their miseries Kings Prerogatives are like the Ocean which as the Civilians tell us if he lose in one place he gets in another Care and Crosse ride behind Kings and the same they say may be eclypsed awhile but they will shine afterwards with a stronger lustre Our gracious Soveraigne hath these three or foure yeeres passed a kind of Ordeal or fiery triall hee hath been matriculated and serv'd halfe an Appretiship in the Schoole of Affliction I hope God will please shortly to cancell the Indenture and restore him to a sweeter liberty then
A DISCOURSE or PARLY continued betwixt Partricius and Peregrine upon their landing in France touching the civill Wars of England and Ireland Peregrine GEntle Sir you are happily arrived on this shore we are now upon firme ground upon the faire Continent of France we are not circumscrib'd or coopt up within the narrow bounds of a rheumatick Island we have all Europe before us Truely I am not a little glad to have shaken hands with that tumbling Element the Sea And for England I never intend to see her againe unlesse it be in a Map nay In statu quo nunc while this Faction reignes had I left one eye behind me I should hardly returne thither to fetch it therefore if I be missing at any time never looke for me there There is an old Proverb From a blacke German a white Italian a red Frenchman I may adde one member more and from a Round-headed Englishman The Lord deliver us Partricius I have often crossed these Seas and I found my selfe alwayes pitifully sicke I did ever and anone tell what Wood the Ship was made of but in this passage I did not feele the least motion or distemper in my humors for indeed I had no time to thinke on sicknesse I was so wholly taken up and transported with such a pleasing conceit to have left yonder miserable Island Pereg. Miserable Island indeed for I thinke there was never such a tyrannie exercised in any Christian Countrey under Heaven a tyrannie that extends not onely to the body but the braine also not only to mens fortunes and estates but it reaches to their very soules and consciences by violented new coercive Oaths and Protestations compos'd by Lay-men inconsistent with the liberty of Christians Never was there a Nation carried away by such a strong spirit of delusion never was there a poore people so purblinded and Puppified if I may say so as I finde them to be so that I am at a stand with my selfe whether I shall pitie them more or laugh at them They not onely kisse the stone that hurts them but the hands of them that hurle it they are come to that passive stupidity that they adore their very persecutors who from polling fall now a shaving them and will flay them at last if they continue this popular reigne I cannot compare England as the case stands with her more properly then to a poore beast sicke of the staggers who cannot be cur'd without an incision The Astronomers I remember affirme that the Moone which predominates over all humid bodies hath a more powerfull influence o're your British Seas then any other so that according to the observation of some Navigators they swell at a spring tide in some places above threescore cubits high I am of opinion that that inconstant humorous Planet hath also an extraordinany dominion over the braines of the Inhabitants for when they attempt any Innovation whereunto all Insulary people are more subject then other Citizens of the world which are fixed upon the Continent they swell higher their fancies worke stronglier and so commit stranger extravagancies then any other witnesse these monstrous barbarismes and violences which have been and are daily offered to Religion and Iustice the two grand supporters of all States yea to humane Reason it selfe since the beginning of these tumults And now noble Sir give me leave to render you my humble thanks for that true and solid information you pleased to give me in London of these commotions During my short sojourne there I lighted on divers odde Pamphlets upon the Seamstresses stalls whom I wondred to see selling Paper sheets in lieu of Holland one the one side I found the most impudent untruths vouch'd by publike authority the basest scurrillities and poorest gingles of wit that ever I read in my life on the other side I met with many pieces that had good stuffe in them but gave mee not being a stranger a full satisfaction they look'd no further then the beginning of this Parliament and the particular emergences thereof But you have by your methodicall relation so perfectly instructed and rectified my understanding by bringing mee to the very source of these distempers and led me all along the side of the current by so streight a line that I believe whosoever will venture upon the most intricate task of penning the story of these vertiginous times will find himselfe not a little beholden to that piece which in deed may be term'd a short Chronicle rather then a Relation Wee are come now under another clime and here we may mingle words and vent our conceptions more securely it being as matters stand in your Countrey more safe to speake under the Lilly then the Rose wee may here take in and put out freer ayre I meane we may discourse with more liberty for words are nought els but ayre articulated and coagulated as it were into letters and syllables Patr. Sir I deserve not these high expressions of your favourable censure touching that poore piece but this I will be bold to say That whosoever doth reade it impartially will discover in the Author the Genius of an honest Patriot and a Gentleman And now me thinks I looke on you unfortunate Island as if one did looke upon a Ship toss'd up and downe in distresse of wind and weather by a furious tempest which the more she tugs and wrastles with the foamie waves of the angry Ocean the more the fury of the storme encreaseth and puts her in danger of shipwrack and you must needs thinke Sir it would move compassion in any heart to behold a poore Ship in such a desperate case specially when all his kindred friends and fortunes yea his Religion the most precious Treasure of all are aboard of her and upon point of sincking Alas I can contribute nothing now to my poore countrey but my prayers and teares that it would please God to allay this tempest and cast over board those that are the true causers of it and bring the people to the right use of Reason againe It was well observed by you Sir That there is a Nationall kinde of indisposition and obliquity of mind that rageth now amongst our people and I feare it will be long ere they returne to their old English temper to that rare loyalty and love which they were used to shew to their Soveraigne for all the Principles of Monarchie are quite lost amongst us those ancient and sacred flowers of the English Diadem are trampled under foot nay matters are come to that horrid confusion that not onely the Prerogative of the Crowne but the foundamentall Priviledge of the free-borne subject is utterly overthrowne by those whose Predecessors were used to be the main supporters of it so that our King is necessitated to put himself in Armes for the preservation not only of his own Regall rights but of Magna Charta it selfe which was never so invaded and violated in any age by such causlesse tyrannicall imprisonments by
such unexampled destructive taxes by stopping the ordinary processes in Law and awing all the Courts of Justice by unheard of forced oaths and Associations and a thousand other acts which neither president Book case or Statute can warrant whereof if the King had done but the twentieth part hee had been cryed up to be the greatest Tyrant that ever was Pereg. Sir I am an Alien and so can speake with more freedome of your Countrey The short time that I did eate my bread there I felt the pulse of the people with as much judgement as I could and I find that this very word Parliament is become a kind of Idoll amongst them they doe as it were pin their salvation upon 't it is held blasphemie to speake against it The old English Maxime was The King can doe no wrong another Nominative case is now stept in That the Parliament can do no wrong nor the King receive any And whereas there was used to be but one Defender of the Faith there are now started up amongst you I cannot tell how many hundreds of them And as in the sacred profession of Priest-hood wee hold or at leastwise should hold That after the Imposition of hands the Minister is inspired with the Holy Ghost in an extraordinary manner for the enabling of him to exercise that Divine Function so the English are growne to such a fond conceit of their Parliament members that as soone as any is chosen by the confus'd cry of the Common people to sit within the walls of that House an inerring spirit a spirit of infallibility presently entereth into him so that he is thereby become like the Pope a Canon animatus though some of them may haply be such flat and simple animals that they are as fit to be Counsellors there as Caligula's Horse was to be Consull as the Historian tells us Patr. Touching Parliament there breaths not a Subject under Englands Crowne who hath a higher esteeme of it then I it makes that dainty mixture in our government of Monarchie Optimacie and Democracy betwixt whom though there be a kind of co-ordination of power during the sitting of Parliament yet the two last which are composed of Peers and People have no power but what is derived from the first which may be called the soul that animates them and by whose authority they meet consult and depart They come there to propose not to impose Lawes they come not to make Lawes by the sword they must not be like Draco's Lawes written in blood Their King calls them thither to be his Counsellors not Controllers and the Office of Counsell is to advise not to inforce they come thither to intreat not to treat with their Liege Lord they come to throw their Petitions at his feet that so they may find a way to his heart 'T is true I have read of high things that our Parliaments have done but 't was either during the nonage and minority of our Kings when they were under protectorship or when they were absent in a forraigne war or in time of confusion when there were competitors of the blood-royall for the Crowne and when the number of both Houses was compleat and individed but I never reade of any Parliament that did arrogate to it selfe such a power Paramount such a Superlative superintendence as to checke the Prerogative of their Soveraigne to question his negative voyce to passe things not onely without but expresly against his advice and royall command I never heard of Parliament that would have their King being come to the meridian of his age to transmit his intellectualls and whole faculty of reason to them I finde some Parliaments have been so modest and moderate And moderation is the Rudder that should steere the course of all great Councells that they have declined the agitation and cognizance of some state affaires humbly transferring them to their Soveraigne and his privie Counsell a Parliament man then held it to be the adaequate object of his duty to study the welfare to redresse the grievances and supply the defects of that place for which he served the Burgeois of Linne studied to find out something that might advance the trade of Fishing he of Norwich what might advantage the making of Stuffe he of Rye what might preserve their Harbour from being choaked up with Sand he of Taveston what might further the Manufacture of Kerseyes and they thought to have complyed with the Obligation and discharged the consciences of honest Patriots without soaring above their reach and roving at randome to treat of universals to bring Religion to their barre to prie into the Arcana Imperii the cognizance of the one belonging to the King and his interne Counsell of State the other to Divines who according to the Etymologie of the word use to be still conversant in the exercise and speculation of holy and heavenly things Pereg. I am clearely of your opinion in these two particulars for secrecie being the soule of policie matters of State should be communicated but to few and touching Religion I cannot see how it may quadrat with the calling and be homogeneous to the profession of Laymen to determine matters of Divinity who out of their incapacity and unaptnesse to the worke being not pares negotio and being carried away by a wilde kind of Conscience without Science like a Ship without a Helme fall upon dangerous quick-sands so that whilest they labour to mend her they mar her whilst they thinke to settle her they confound her whilest they plot to prevent the growth of Poperie they pauce the way to bring it in by conniving at and countenancing those monstrous Schismes I observed to have crept into your Chruch since the reigne of this Parliament so that one may justly say These your Reformers are but the executioners of the old project of the Jesuits the main part whereof was and is still to hurle the ball of discord and hatch new opinions still 'twixt the Protestants to make fractions and scissures betweene them and so render their Religion more despicable and ridiculous But me thinks matters are come to a strange passe with you in England that the Iudges cannot be trusted with the Law nor the Prelats with the Gospell whereas from all times out of their long experience and yeeres these two degrees were of men used to be reverenced for the chiefe Ttruch-men and unquestionable Expositors of both which another power seemes now to arrogate to it selfe as the inerring Oracle of both but I pray God that these grand Refiners of Religion prove not Quacksalvers at last that these upstart Polititians prove not Impostors for I have heard of some things they have done that if Machiavell himselfe were alive he would be reputed a Saint in comparison of them The Roman ten and Athenian thirty were Babies to these nay the Spanish Inquisition and the Bloet-Rade that Councell of blood which the Duke of Alva erected in Flanders when he swore That hee would