VERITAS INCONCUSSA OR A most certain Truth asserted THAT KING CHARLES THE FIRST Was no MAN OF BLOOD But a MARTYR For His People Together with a sad and impartial enquiry whether the King or Parliament began the War which hath so much ruined and undone the Kingdom of England and who was in the defensive part of it By FABIAN PHILIPPS Esq Exoritur aliquod majus è magno malum Nondum ruentis Ilii fatum stetit SENEC Tragoed in Troade Act. 3. LONDON Printed by Richard Hodgkinson in the Year 1649. and reprinted by Thomas Newcomb and are to be Sold by William Place at Grayes-Inn-Gate 1660. Though CHARLES be added to their heaps of slain They cannot prove that Abel murder'd Cain He dy'd a Martyr for his Peoples good Vote what they can they 're guilty of his blood But their 's the sin His the eternall Glory And Truth commends to Time his lasting Story TO THE KING' 's MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY Most Gracious Soveraign IT having been the Cardo quaestionis or too much a question betwixt your Royal Father and His Parliament to whom the sin of our late Civil Wars and miseries with the bloody and horrid consequences thereof did belong though without question He was no way guilty of it but was a Martyr and sufferer in it and the guilt and profit of that great and crying sin being so inlaid and riveted in the promoters thereof as it was not only by time and successes which are not seldom the encouragers and supporters of it become to be the interest of a great part of that Faction or people but to be miscalled Piety Religion good affection and Godliness it self and yet sticks as a Leprosie to those and their seed that were more wicked then the covetous but unbloody Gehazi and if God of his mercy do not cleanse them from it will transmit it with an impenitency to boote which we do not finde entailed upon Gehazi's to their posterities The ensuing vindication of your Royal Father that he was not the Contriver Author and Beginner of that War which hath so undone and Harassed these three Nations was for the most part written by me a little before His Martyrdom and finished and published about the moneth of April 1649. in the midst of a fiery persecution and ruining of all that did but act or write or do any thing on His behalf and now re-printed and come abroad again may if publiquely owned under your Majesties gracious Patronage after Your happy restauration and the peoples sense and sight of their sin and follies be more instrumental in the conviction converting of many of those misguided zelots or thriving sinners then it was or could be before they had tasted and been so long acquainted with miseries and release them out of the prisons of that self-conceitedness and opiniastretè wherein Satan hath cunningly lodged and imprisoned their deluded Souls making them believe that they are in the Church way to Heaven when as without a timely repentance they are but going down to the place of everlasting burnings and is now the more necessary for that no longer ago then in April last a printed and publique Address was as impudently as wickedly made by a Seditious party calling themselves the most faithful friends and servants in the Common-cause to the Lord General Monck and the Officers of the Army under his Command to perswade them upon false and mistaken grounds out of their Loyalty by telling them That though it were possible that they should forget the publique Interest and their own yet certainly God would not all the injuries and oppressions done by that Family which pretends to the Government of these Nations to His Church and people in these and other Nations And though the Inscription of Exit Tyrannus which was fixed over the place where the Statue of the late King formerly stood at the Exchange hath been blotted out by the Rabble yet it was written with the Pen of a Diamond in the hearts of many thousands and will be so hereafter in the Adamantine Roles of Fame and History And that one of the great Incendiaries and Capital Offenders could very lately and since the Parliaments voting of him to be excepted desire and make means for a Pardon but being put to shew his repentance by a publique retractation in order to the obtaining of your Majesties favor would rather be without it then forsake his former opinions and that there are too many amongst those many that made acclamations and seemed to rejoyce in Your Majesties return to Your Throne and most ancient and undoubted Rights who have not changed their Spots but counterfeiting Loyalty to get blessings they never deserved can outdo a Proteus or the greatest of Dissemblers and onely keep their vomit to make a Cordial of when they shall but espy an opportunity to lick it up again and think themselves as infallible as they fancied the Spirit to be which deluded them To convert whom if possible and those too too many who have exceeded the gain-sayings of Korah Dathan and Abiram been greater gainers by it and to lead them into the right way and guard as well as I could Piissimi Regis Cineres the ashes and memory of my late Soveraign from the violation scandals and injuries which those who are rightly called Phanaticks are never a weary to put and cast upon them hath been and is the design aswell as the duty of him who having not come in only at the eleventh hour but laboured all that he could in the other part of the morning or day in the vineyard of Loyalty shall never cease to be a lover and servant of that Truth and Reason which enjoyns it And Your MAJESTIES Loyal and Obedient Subject FABIAN PHILIPPS TO HENRY BELL A PRINTER Arrogating to himself to be the Author of this Book HENRY BELL YOu might have contented your self with that unjust and now too common liberty taken by some Printers and Booksellers in abusing of Authors Readers and People by a false imposition of names and many counterfeit pieces and selling of one thing for another which in the want and absence of the good and Kingly Government of England and a Court of Star-Chamber which in the thirteenth year of the Reign of King Charles the Martyr had limited the Printers in the City of London not to exceed the number of twenty two of which who were then named are now only left alive our late unruly and licencious Times allowed you for in our formerly well-ordered dayes of a peaceable subjection to a most gracious King Books were as in most other Kingdoms of Europe to be licenced before they could be printed and the Printers and Stationers knew not at least durst not put in practise those grand Cheates which of late too many of them have put upon the people nor did use as many tricks in their Trades as the devil could invent or provide for them by printing and publishing books manuscripts
him If he would not grant it they would settle and dispose it without him And the morrow after Resolve upon the Question That the Kingdom be forthwith put in a posture of Defence in such a way as was already agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament and Order the Earl of Northumberland Lord High-Admiral to Rig and send to Sea His Majesties Navy and notwithstanding that the King 4 March 1641. by His Letter directed to the Lord Keeper Littleton had signified that He would wholly desist from any proceedings against the five Members and Kimbolton Sir John Hotham a Member of the House of Commons who before the King had accused the five Members and Kimbolton k had by Order of Parliament seized upon the Town of Hull the onely fortified place of strength in the Kingdom and made a Garison of it summoned and forced in many of the trained Soldiers of the County of York to help him to guard it Eighth of March 1641. Before the King could get to York it was Voted That whatsoever the two Houses of Parliament should Vote or Declare to be Law the People were bound to obey And when not long after the King offered to go in person to suppresse the Irish Rebellion That was Voted to be against the Law and an encouragement to the Rebels and they Declared that whosoever should assist him in his Voyage thither should be taken for an enemy to the Common-weale And 15 of March 1641. Resolved upon the Question That the several Commissions granted under the great Seal to the Lieutenants of the several Counties were illegal and void and that whosoever should execute any power over the Militia by colour of any such Commission without consent of both Houses of Parliament should be accounted a disturber of the peace of the Kingdom l April 1642. Sir John Hotham seizeth the Kings Magazine at Hull and when the King went but with a small attendance to demand an entrance into the Town denies him though he had then no Order to do it Notwithstanding all which the 28 of April 1642. they Vote That what he had done was in obedience to the commands of both Houses of Parliament and that the Kings proclaiming him to be a Traytor was a high breath of Priviledge of Parliament And Ordered All Sheriffs and Difficers to assist their Committees sent down with those their Votes to Sir John Hotham In the mean time the Pulpits flame with seditious invectives against the King and incitements to Rebellion and the People running headlong into it had all maner of countenance and encouragement unto it but those Ministers that preached Obedience and sought to prevent it were sure to be imprisoned and put out of their places for it Sir Henry Ludlow could be heard to say in the House of Commons m That the King was not worthy to Reign in England And Henry s Marten That the Kingly Office waâ— forfeitable and the happiness of the Kingdom did not depend upon him and his Progeny And though the King demanded justice of them were neither punished nor put out of the House nor so much as questioned or blamed for it The Militia the principal part of the Kings regality without which it was impossible either to be a King or to govern and the sword which God had given him and his Ancestors for more then a thousand years together had enjoyed and none in the Barons wars nor any Rebellion of the Kingdom since the very being or essence of it durst ever heretofore presume to ask for must now be wrestled for and taken away from him The Commissions of Array being the old legal way by which the Kings of England had a power to raise and levy men for the defence of themselves and the Kingdom Voted to be illegal The passage at Sea defended against him and his Navy kept from him by the Earl of Warwick whilest the King all this while contenting himself to be meerly passive and only busying himself in giving answers to some Parliament Messages Declarations to wooe and intreat them out of this distemper cannot be proved to have done any one action like a war or to have so much as an intention to do it unless they can make his demanding an entrance into Hull with about twenty of His followers unarmed in His company and undertaking to return and leave the Governor in possession of it to be otherwise then it ought to be 5. of May 1642. The King being informed n That Sir John Hotham sent out Warrants to Constables to raise the Trained bands of York-shire writes His Letter to the Sheriff of that Country to forbid the Trained bands and commands them to repair to their dwelling houses 12. of May 1642. Perceiving himself every where endangered and a most horrid Rebellion framing against Him and Sir John Hotham so near Him at Hull as within a dayes journey of Him moves the o Country of York for a Troop of horse consisting of the prime Gentry of that Country and a Regiment of the Trained bands of foot to be for a guard unto Him caused the oath of Allegiance to be administred unto them But the Parliament thereupon Vote p That it appeared the King seduced by wicked Councel intended to make a war against them and till then if their own Votes should be true must acquite Him from any thing more then an intention as they call it to do it And that whosoever should assist him are Lraytors by the fundamental Laws of the Kingdom The Earl of Essex Lord-Chamberlain of the Kings houshold and all other of the Kings houshold servants forbid to go to him and the Kings putting some of them out and others in their places Voted to be an injury to the Parliament Messengers were sent for the apprehending some Earls and Barons about Him and some of His Bed-Chamber as if they had been Felons The Lord Keepers going to Him with the Great-Seal when He sent for him Voted To be a breach of Priviledge and pursued with a Warrant directed to all Mayors and Bayliffs to apprehend him Caused the Kings Rents and Revenues to be brought in to them and forbid any to be paid Him Many of His Officers and Servants put out of their places for being Loyal unto Him and those that were ill affected to Him put in their rooms and many of His own Servants tempted and procured by rewards and maintenance to tarry with them and be false and active against Him The twenty sixth day of May 1642. A Declaration is sent to the King but printed and published before he could receive it That q Whatsoever they should Vote is not by Law to be questioned either by the King or Subjects No precedent can limit or bound their proceedings A Parliament may dispose of any thing wherein the King or People have any right The Soveraign power resides in both Houses of Parliament The King hath no Negative voice The levying of
they have brought to pass against Him 25 August 1642. being some dayes after the Earl of Bedford had marched with great forces into the West that His Subjects might be informed of His danger and repair to His succour setteth up His Standard at Nottingham r being a thing of a meer legal necessity if He would have any at all to come to help Him and not forfeit and surprise those that by tenure of their Lands or by reason of offices fees or annuities enjoyed under Him were more immediately bound to assist Him And yet here He must weep over Jerusalem and once again intreat the Parliament and His Rebellious subjects to prevent their own miseries and therefore sends the Earls of Southampton and Dorset to the Parliament to desire a Treaty offering to do all on His own part which might advance the Protestant Religion oppose Popery and Superstition and secure the Laws and Liberties of his Subjects and just priviledges of Parliament Which after several scornes put upon those Noble Messengers as denying the Earl of Southampton to come and sit in the House of Peers a right by birth and inheritance due unto him and causing the Serjeant at Arms of the House of Commons to go before him with the Mace as they use to do before Delinquents They refuse to accept of unless the King would first take down His Standard and recal His Declarations and Proclamations against them To which the King the 5. Septemb. 1642. notwithstanding the Earl of Bedford had with great forces in the mean time besieged the Marquis of Hartford in the Castle of Sherborn in Dorset-shire replying That He never did Declare nor ever intended to Declare both His Houses of Parliament to be Traytors or set up His Standard against them much less to put them and the Kingdom out of His protection And utterly s protesting against it before God and the World offered to recal His Declarations and Proclamations with all cheerfulness the same day that they should revoke their Declarations against those that had assisted Him and desiring a Treaty and conjuring them to consider the bleeding condition of Ireland and the danger of England undertakes to be ready to grant any thing shall be really good for His Subjects which being brought by the Lord Falkland one of His Majesties Secretaries of State and a Member of the House of Commons and not long before in a very great esteem with them all the respect could be afforded him being to stand at the Bar of the House of Commons and deliver his Message unto them had onely an answer in a printed Declaration of the Lords and Commons returned unto him That it was Ordered and Declared by the Lords and Commons in Parliament That the Arms which they have been forced to take up or shall be forced to take up for the preservation of the Parliament Religion and the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom shall not be laid down until His Majesty shall withdraw His protection from such persons as have been voted by both Houses of Parliament to be Delinquents or that shall by t both Houses of Parliament be voted to be Delinquents which after their mad way of voting migâ—â— have been himself his Queen or His Heir apparent and leave them to the Iustice of Parliament according to their demerites to the end that those great Charges and damages wherewithal the Common wealth hath been burdened since His Majesty departed from the Parliament might be born by the Delinquents and other Malignant and dis-affected persons and that those who by Loans of money or otherwise at their charges have assisted the Common-wealth or shall in like maner hereafter assist the Common-wealth in times of extream danger and here they would also provide for future friends and quarrels may be re-paid all sums of money leâ—â— for those purposes and satisfied their charges susteined out of the Estates of the said Delinquents and of the Malignant and dis-affected party in this Kingdom And to make good their words 8. of September 1642. Before their answer could come unto the Kings hands Ordered certain numbers of horse and foot to be sent to Garrison and secure Oxford and the morrow after before the King could possibly reply unto it their Lord General the Earl of Essex marched out of London against him with an Army of 20000. men horse and foot gallantly Armed and a great train of Artillery to attend him Notwithstanding all which and those huge impossibilities which every day more and more appeared of obtaining a Peace with those who were so much afraid to be loosers by it as they never at all intended it The King must needs send one message more unto them to try if that might not give them some occasion to send Him gentler conditions and therefore 13. September 1642. Being the same day they had impeached the Lord Strange of High-Treason for executing the Kings Commission of Array and Ordered the propositions for furnishing of horse plate and money to be tendred from house to house in the Cities of London Westminster to be sent into all the Shires Counties of England to be tendred for the same purpose and the names of the refusers to be certified Mr. May one of the Pages to the King comes to the Lords House in Parliament with a message from Him bearing date but two dayes before u That although He had used all ways and means to prevent the present distractions and dangers of the Kingdom all His labours have been fruitless that not so much as a Treaty earnestly desired by Him can be obtained though He disclaimed all His Proclamations and Declarations and the erecting of His Standard as against His Parliament unless He should denude himself of all force to defend Him from a visible strength marching against Him That now He had nothing left in His power but to express the deep sense He had of the publique misery of the Kingdom and to apply himself to a necessary defence wherein He whoily relied upon the providence of God and the affection of His good people and was so far from putting them out of His protection as when the Parliament should desire a treaty He would piously remember whose blood is to be spilt in this quarrel and cheerfully embrace it But this must also leave them as it found them in their ungodly purposes for the morrow after being the 14. day of Septemb. 1642. Mr. Hampden one of the 5. Members by this time a Collonel of the Army brings letters to the House of Commons from the Parliaments General that he was at Northampton in a very good posture and that great numbers of the Countreys thereabouts came in dayly unto him and offered to march under him and that so soon as all his forces that are about London shall come unto him which he desires may be hastened he intended to advance towards His Majesty and it was the same day voted That all things sealed by
killed upon no provocation women and maids ravished and their fingers cut off for their rings old Best of Canterbury hanged up by the privities others tortured and had burning matches tied to their fingers to make them confess where their money was women and children and sick and aged persons starved for want of the sustenance they had taken from them husbandmen had their corn and hay spoiled in the fields and barns their sheep cattel and provisions devoured houses ruined or burnt and their horses that should help to plough and do other works of husbandry taken away in so much as some were inforced to blinde and put out their horses eyes that they might not be taken from them Churches that escaped defacing prophaned and made Stables or Gaoles or Victualing or Bawdy houses Monuments defaced and Sepulchers opened as were those of the Saxon Kings at Winchester and the Priests and Ministers not so much as suffered to weep betwixt the Porch and the Altar but their benefices and livelyhoods taken from them by Wolves put in the Shepherds places had their bookes burned and all their means and maintenance plundred from them and those that were newtrals and medled on neither side but lived as quietly as they could either totally undone or cast in prison not for that they did them any hurt but because they might do it and if they were not imprisoned their Lands Money or goods were sure to be in the fault and taken away from them u Ut bellum illaesa conscientia geratur necesse est ut adsit intentio bona There ought to be a good intention to make the War conscionable which in this appears to fail also For the Charge against the five Members is now as true as it was then they meant to ruine the King and they have done it and to alter the Government and subvert the Religion Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom and they have done a great part of it and as fast as they can are pulling down the remainder x Quaerere debemus victoriam rationibus honestis ne salutem quidem turpibus We ought to pursue victory and the just ends of War by honest and lawful means and not to do soul and dishonest things to procure our safety from which they made fears and jealousies which the Parliament made use of to usher in their pretences their faining of victories and scandaling the King and his actions not to insist upon their buying the Kings servants and secrets Battels Towns and Garrisons and making too many Judases of all that were about him will hardly be able to free them or if they could the making use of men and money intended for the support of Ireland and leaving them wallowing in their blood for seven yeares together whilst they were ruining their King that would have helped them violating of their oathes of Allegiance and Supremacy which many of their members had taken six or seven times over breaking their oathes taken in their Protestation and Nationall Covenant and not so few as one hundred solemn promises and undertakings in their severall Petitions Remonstrances and Declarations forcing the People to take the Protestation and Covenant and compel them as soon as they had taken it to break them and by cousening and forcing them into Rebellions and perjuries cheat them out of their Religion Loyalty Laws and Liberties will be sure enough to condemn them and if the great Turk carrying the Covenant which Ladâ—staus the unfortunate King of Hungary was perswaded to break with him as an ensigne of publique detestation in the battel wherein he slew him invoked the God of the Christians to help him to revenge so great a treachery there will be more reason now for all that are but Christians or but pretend to any morality to carry in their banner the pourtraict of the Kings bleeding head as it was cut from His shoulders and make War in revenge of the masterpiece and totum aggregatum of all maner of wickedness and perfidiousness who besides all their own and the peoples oaths taken to defend him when those they called Delinquents some few onely which were specially named and excepted for obeying the known Laws of the Land as well as their Oaths and Consciences were never questioned for their lives but suffered to compound for their Estates would not suffer the King that was neither a Delinquent or Excepted Person to enjoy either His Life or Estate though to save his people and keep them from killing one another He had yielded himself and became a Prisoner upon the publique faiâ—h of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland Pax aequa non est recusanda licet victoriae spes adsit y saith Besoldus A good or fitting Peace is not to be refused though the victory were certain And in this also the Parliament will be as far to seek for a justification as in the other For in stead of offering any thing which was likely to bring it they caused men and women in the first year of their War to be killed because they did but petition them to accept of a Peace and in the third and fourth year of their War plundred and robbed others that petitioned them but to hearken to it and put out of office and made all as Delinquents in the seventh year of their War that did but petition them for a Treaty with the King and refused all the Kings many very many Messages for Peace not onely when He was at the highest of His success in the war but when he was at the lowest and a prisoner to them and conjured them as they would answer at the dreadful day of Judgement to pity the bleeding conditions of His Kingdoms and people and send propositions of Peace unto Him and quarters and half years and more then a whole year together after the battel of Naseby insomuch as their fellow Rebels the Scotch Commissioners did heavily complain of it were at several times trifled away and spent before any propositions could be made ready though those which they sent to Oxford Uxbridge Newcastle and Hampton-Court were but substantially and materially the same with their nineteen Propositions which they made unto the King before the Earl of Essex was made their General and in all the Treaties made Propositions for themselves and the Soveraignty and great offices and places of the Kingdom but would neither for Gods sake or their Kings sake or their Oaths or Consciences sake or the Peoples sake or Peace sake which the people petitioned and hungred and thirsted for alter or abate one Iota or tittle of them but were so unwilling to have any Peace at all as six or seven Messengers or Trumpeters could come from the King before they could be at leisure or so manerly as to answer one of them but this or that Message from the King was received and read and laid by till a week or when they would after and the Kings Commissioners in the Treaties must
accusers themselves were only guilty of When Bradshaw himself like the Jews High Priest confessing a truth against his will in the words which he gave in stead of reason for murthering the King against the will and good liking of more then 9. parts in every â—0 of the people of England could make his Masters that call themselves the Parliament of England to be no better then the Tribuni plebis of Rome and the Ephori of Sparta the former of which for manifold mischiefs and inconveniences were abrogated and laid aside and never more thought fit to be used and the latter not being half so bad as our new State Gipsies killed and made away to restore the people again to their Liberties But the opinion and judgement of the Learned Lord Chief Justice Popham who then little thought his grand-child Collonel Popham should joyn with those that sat with their Hats on their heads and directed the murther of their Soveraign and if he were now living would sure enough have hanged him for it and those other learned Judges in the case and Tryal of the Earl of Essex in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth That b an intent to hurt the Soveraign Prince as well as the Act of it was Treason And that the Laws of England do interpret every act of Rebellion or Treason to aim at the death or deposing the Prince For that Rebels by their good will never suffer that King or Prince to live or Reign that understands their purposes and may revenge them agreeable to that of the Civil Law That they that go about to give Law to their Prince will never suffer him to recover Authority to punish it and the opinion of Mr. St. John the late Kings Sollicitor General in his argument against the Earl of Strafford at a conference in a Committee of both Houses of Parliament That the intending advising or declaring of a War is Treason of compassing the Kings death that an endeavour to subvert the fundamental Laws and Government of England and introduce a Tyrannical Government against Law is Treason that an intention to alter Laws or Government is Treason that the insurrection of Wat Tiler and some of the Commons in the Reign of King R. 2. though varnished and coloured over with an oath quod Regi Communibus fidelitatem servarent That they would be true and faithful to the King and Commonalty was in Parliament declared to be Treason and that a machination or plotting a War is a compassing the death of the King as that which necessarily tends to the destruction both of the King and of the people That it is Treason to counterfeit the great Seal and that the exciting of people to take Arms and throw down all the inclosures of the Kingdom though nothing was done in pursuance thereof was in Easter Term 39. Eliz. resolved by all the Iudges of England to be a war intended against the Queen are now written in the blood of the King those many iterated complaints of the King in several of His Declarations published to the people in the midst of the Parliaments greatest pretences and promises that they intended to take away His life and ruine Him are now gone beyond suspicion and every man may know the meaning of their Canoneers levelling at the King with perspective glasses at Copredy bridge the acquitting of Pym the In-keeper who said he would wash his hands in the Kings Heart Blood stifling of 15. or 16. several indictments for treasonable words Rolfe rewarded for his purpose to kill him and the prosecutors checqued and some of them imprisoned for it For the Sun in the Firmament and the four great quarters of the Earth and the Shapes and Lineaments of man are not so universally known seen or spoken of as this will be most certain to the present as well as after ages The end hath now verified the beginning and Quod primum suit in intentione ultimo loco agitur Seven years hypocritical Promises and Practises seven years Pretences and seven years mistaken preaching and pratling have now brought us all to this conclusion as well as Confusion The blood of old England is let out by a greater witchcraft and cousenage then that of Medea when she set Pelias daughters to let out his old blood that young might come in the place of it the Cedars of Lebanon are devoured and the Trees have made the Bramble King and are like to speed as well with it as the Frogs did with the Stork that devoured them they have not only slain the King who was their Father but like Nero ript up the belly of the Common-Wealth which was their Mother The light of Israel is put out and the King Laws Religion and Liberties of the people murdered an action so horrid and a sin of so great a magnitude and complication as if we shall ask the days that are past and enquire from the one end of the Earth to the other there will not be found any wickedness like to this great wickedness or hath been heard like it The Seavern Thames Trent and Humber four of the greatest Rivers of the Kingdom with all their lesser running streams of the Island in their continual courses and those huge heaps of water in the Ocean and girdle of it in their restless agitations will never be able to scour and wash away the guilt and stain of it though all the rain which the clouds shall ever bring forth and impart to this Nation and the tears of those that bewail the loss of a King of so eminent graces and perfection shall be added to it Quis cladem illius diei quis funera fando Explicet aut possit lachrymis aequare dolores Gens antiqua ruit multos dominata per Annos FINIS a Order 3. Jan. 1641. b Camden Annals Eliz. 99. 103. c Ibidem p. 391. 394 395. d Vide the vote in Mr. Viccars book entituled God in the Mount p. 78. e Collect. of Parl. and Decl. and Kings Mess. and Decl. p. 50. f Ibid. 51. g Ibid. 52. h Ibid. 53. i Ibid. 77. 78. k Vide the Petition of some Holderness men to the King 6 July 1642. l Ibid. 153. m Ibid. 550. n Ibid. 169. 170. o Collect. Par. Decl. 183. p Ibid. 259. q Ibid. p. 297. 298. r Ibid. 301. s Ibid. 305. t Ibid. 328. u Ibid. 333. x Ibid. 339. 340. 342. y Collect. of Parl. Mess. and Declar. 307 308 309. z Ibid. 346 348. a Ibid. 349. 350. b Ibid. 350. c Ibid. 356 357. d Collect. Par. Decl. 373 374. e Ibid. 376. f Ibid. 442. g Ibid. 449. h Ibid. 450. i Ibid. 453 k Ibid. 459. l Ibid. 452. m Ibid. 457. n Ibid. 457. o Ibid. 465. 483. p Ibid. 509. q Ibid. 573 574 575 576. r Vide the Kings Declaration printed at Oxford and ordered to be read in Churches and Chappels Cokes 1. part Institutes 65. 11. H. 7. 18 19. H 7. 1. Collect. Kings Messages 579. s Ibid. 583. t Ibid. 585. u Ibid. 586. x Ibid. 614. y Alber. Gentil 223. z Besoldus in dissert. de jure Belli 77. 78. a Albert Gent. 23. b Lucan lib. 2. c Cicero Philippic. 5. d Per Prisot e 2 Sam. 15. f 2 Sam. 20. g Bodin pag. 736. h H. Grotius de jure pacis belli i Collect. of Mess Remonst and Decl. 15. k Ibid. 45. 50. 52. 55. 67. 98. 91. 94. 103. 104. 106. 109. 110. 114. 127. 255. 327. 353. 442. 472. 562. 580. 484. 686. l Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 58. m 32. Hen. 6. n 18 Eliz. o Besoldus dissert. philog pa 88. p C. an quid culpatur 23. q Dn. D. Bocer de bello cap. 5. Besoldus de juribus Majestatis cap. 6. r 7. Ed. 1. s Facius axiom 35. t Besoldus dissert. philolog 88. u Besoldus Ibid. 95. x Dn. Picart observat. decad 10. code Facius axiom bell 10. y Besoldus in dissert. philolog p. 83. z Cic. 1â— de offi a Jov. lib. 1. b Polydor. 13. 20. c Albericus Gentilis cap. 3. d Jerom. ep. 47. e Cicero pro milone f Baldus 3. consid. 485. confid 5. g Alberic Genti lib. 1. 25. h Bald. 5. Cons. p. 439. i Genes 14. k Judges 20. l 1 Sam. 30. m 2 Sam. 6. n 1 Reg. 20. o 1 Mac. 3. v. 43. p 8. June 1644. q {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} ca. 28. r History of the Marquis Montrosse his actions in Scotland Collect. Kings Messages and Answers a Weavers Funeral Monuments pa. 605. b Camdens Annals Eliz. pa. 798.
and broken pieces or fragments of manuscripts under the name of some worthy men that were long before dead or were meer strangers to them to make them sell the better insomuch as old books are usually set forth with new Titles and the Titles of unsaleable books changed and altered a part of one book and a part of another clapt together under the name of an Author which had no acquaintance at all with them several old Pamphlets bound together under a new Title of one of them to carry of the other and deceive the heedless or hasty buyer which with many other deceipts not here enumerated for it must be onely some Renegado knavish Printer or Stationer that can discover all of them are no better then forgeries and cheatings which are almost weekly dressed and sent abroad by them or by the means of some who at pityfull rates are hired to be their Epistle makers and Title contrivers and deserve a mark to be set upon them for Spurious and illegitimate And not have done that which you or he which confederated with you for you said there was a Citizen which went a share with you have adventured to do unto me whilest the second edition of this book was almost finished by printing of it and calling it your own thereby exceeding them all in villany for though your servant confessed that you had onely printed this book by a book formerly printed and that your self acknowledged to me and Mr. Newcomb the Printer that you were not the Author of it and understood not Latine and that other men of your trade can tell as well as your self that you understood so little of English as that you were formerly onely a Press-man and had not abilities enough to be a COMPOSITER yet you could have the impudence in the printing and publishing of my book which two Eminent and Learned Gentlemen now His Majesties servants in the Court of England can attest to have been a fruit and effect of my Loyalty in the beginning of the year 1649. when you would not have been so forward to have stollen the danger and hazard of the Author and Printer to leave out half the Title and make some additional title of your own or some other mans composing and dedicate it to his Majesty as a mite of your loyalty and say that it was written in the midst of his and our sufferings wheras it was in the very beginning of his now Majesties Reign and finished within few weeks after his Royal Fathers death And though you as if your conscience had forbid you directly to own that which was none of yours did onely subscribe your self W. H. B. and to make the book and the price the bigger had bound up with it a Lift very often before printed of the Names of the late Kings Tryers and the thirty five witnesses which swore against Him and some Orders made in that business yet adding to that also a short History as you call it of His now Royal Majesty Charles the Second you are found in the beginning thereof to use these words Having I hope sufficiently cleared His late Royal Majesty from that execrable sin of Blood guiltiness And the History beginning with what you or some other for you have picked and taken out of other mens works and relations when you came to mention the Kings escape out of England after Worcester fight by the help of Mrs. Jane Lane you have stollen out of Mr. James Davies the Author of the History of our gracious Soveraign King Charles the Second from the later end of page 177. unto the beginning of 185. more then seven whole pages with scarce four or five words difference which might be only the Errata's of the Press by which your abuse of me in taking from me that which was mine own and of His Majesty in dedicating that unto Him which was none of your own and your falsities and ill dealing with me you have as all men may perceive inforced me to bestow this Epistle upon you wherein doing my self right I shall do you no wrong to give notice to the world how much you have gone beyond your last what a Lurcher a Kite and Filcher of other mens labours you are and seeing you cannot be taken to be like the mad man of Argos who would make it his business to go every day to the Haven and when he saw any ships come in rejoyce very much and call them his own but rather to be like one of the Spirits as in detestation they are called who steal away children to sell them away to forreign plantations and will needs act again the part of Aesops Crow in the fable who making himself very gallant with the feathers of other Birds was by them at last dispoiled left a ridiculousnaked Squob You may now measure your shadow and see how much bigger this your doughty exploit hath made it and are only to thank your self for being thus exposed to a naked view and if you be capable of any blushing or credit may be ashamed of it and forbear to walk any more in the sinful paths of those men of your Trade who being to Schollers and men of learning like those foul and Ravenous birds the Harpies do by such or the like Tricks so abuse pollute and stain all kind of learning as no man knows how to write or any man how to buy without being grossely abused or cheated and he which is or hath been the careful and painful Author of a book be it never so good or profitable for the Common-wealth of learning shall be in danger to have it transposed or owned when and by whomsoever a naughty and jugling Printer or Stationer pleaseth which calls for a speedy remedy as well as punishment in part whereof you and your fellow Gipsies may receive this animadversion until a more smart and legal one may be provided for you THE CONTENTS OF THE CHAPTERS CHAP. I. WHo first of all raised the fears and jealousies pag. 6 CHAP. II. THe proceedings betwixt the King and Parliament from the Tumultuous and Seditious coming of some people to the Parliament and White-hall until the 13. of September 1642. being 18. days after the King had set up His Standard at Nottingham 13 CHAP. III. WHether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the people be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a war if it were made between equals 83 CHAP. IV. SUppose the War to be made with a neighbour Prince or between equals whether the King or Parliament were in the defensive or justifiable part of it 93 CHAP. V. WHether the Parliament in their pretended Magistracy have not taken lesser occasions to punish or provide against Insurrections Treasons and Rebellions as they are pleased to call them 177 CHAP. VI WHo most desired Peace and offered fairliest for it 186 CHAP. VII VVHo laboured to shorten the War and who to lengthen
beginning of this Parliament accepted of one for the County of York Gave his People to understand That He had awarded the like Commissions into all the Counties of England and Dominion of Wales to provide for and secure them in a legal way lest under a pretence of danger and want of Authority from His Majesty to put them into a Military posture they should be drawn and engaged in any opposition against Him or His just Authority But 21 June 1642. e The Lords and Commons in Parliament Declaring The design of their Propositions of raising horse and moneys was to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Kings Authority and Person and that the Forces already attending His Majesty and His preparations at first coloured under the pretence of a guard being not so great a guard as they themselves had constantly for 6. moneths before did evidently appear to be intended for some great and extraordinary disign so as at this time also they do not charge the King with any maner of action of War or any thing done in a way or course of War against them and gave just cause of fear and jealousie to the Parliament being never yet by any Law of God or man accounted to be a sufficient cause or ground for Subjects to make a War against their Soveraign did forbid all Mayors Sheriffs Bayliffs and other Officers to publish His Majesties said Letter to the City of London And declare that if He should use any force for the recovery of Hull or suppressing of their Ordinance for the Militia it should be held a levying War against the Parliament and all this done before His Majesty had granted any Commission for the levying or raising of a man and lest the King should have any maner or provision of War to defend himself when their Army or Sir John Hotham should come to assault Him Powder and Armes were every where seized on and Cutlers Gun-smiths Sadlers and all Warlike Trades ordered not to send any to York but to give a weekly account what was made or sold by them And an Order made the 24. day of June 1642. That the Horses which should be sent in for the Service of the Parliament when they came to the number of 60. should be trained and so still as the number increased 4. July 1642. The King by His Letter under His signe Manual commanded all the Judges of England in their circuits f to use all means to suppresse Popery Riots and unlawful assemblies and to give the People to understand His Resolution to maintain the Protestant Religion and the Laws of the Kingdom and not to govern by any Arbitrary way and that if any should give the King or them to understand of any thing wherein they held themselves grieved and desired a just reformation He would speedily give them such an answer as they should have cause to thank Him for His Justice and favour But the same day a Declaration was published by both Houses of Parliament commanding g That no Sheriff Mayor Bayliff Parson Vicar Curate or other Sir Richard Gurney the Lord Mayor of London not many dayes before having been imprisoned for proclaiming the Kings Proclamation against the bringing in of Plate c. should publish or Proclaim any Proclamation Declaration or other Paper in the Kings Name which should be contrary to any Order Ordinance or Declaration of both Houses of Parliament or the proceedings thereof and Order h That in case any forces should be brought out of one County into another to disturb the Peace thereof they should be suppressed by the Trained bands and Voluntiers of the adjacent Counties Shortly after Sir John Hotham fortifieth the Town of Hull whilest the King is at York i seizeth on a Ship coming to Him with provisions for His houshold takes Mr. Ashburnham one of the Kings Servants prisoner intercepts Letters sent from the Queen to the King and drowneth part of the Countrey round about the Town k which the Parliament allows of and promise satisfaction to the owners 5 July 1642. They Order a subscription of Plate and Horse to be made in every Countey and list the Horse under Commanders and the morrow after Order 2000. men should be sent to relieve Sir John Hotham in case the King should besiege him to which purpose Drums were beat up in London and the adjacent parts to Hull The Earl of Warwick Ordered to send Ships to Humber to his assistance instructions drawn up to be sent to the Deputy-Lieutenants of the several Counties to tender the Propositions for the raising of Horses Plate and Money Mr. Hastings and divers of the Kings Commissioners of Array impeached for supposed high Crimes and misdemeanours and a Committee of five Lords and ten of the House of Commons ordered to meet every morning for the laying out of ten thousand pounds of the Guild-hall moneys for the buying of 700. Horse and that 10000. Foot to be raised in London and the Countrey be imployed by direction of the Parliament and the Lord Brook is furnished with 6. pieces of Ordinance out of the Tower of London to fortifie the Castle of Warwick And 9. July 1642. Order That in case the Earl of Northampton should come into that County with a Commission of Array they should raise the Militia to suppresse him And that the Common Councel of London should consider of a way for the speedy raising of the 10000. Foot and that they should be listed and put in pay within four dayes after 11. July 1642. l The King sends to the Parliament to cause the Town of Hull to be delivered unto Him and desires to have their answer by the 15. of that moneth and as then had used no force against it But m the morrow after before that message could come unto them they resolve upon the Question That an Army shall be forthwith raised for the defence of the Kings Person and both Houses of Parliament and n those who have obeyed their Orders Commands in preserving the true Religion the Laws Liberties and the Peace of the Kingdom and that they would live and dye with the Earl of Essex whom they nominate General in that Cause 12. July 1642. Declare That they will protect all that shall be imployed in their assistance and Militia And 16. July 1642. Petition the King o to forbear any preparations or actions of War and to dismisse His extraordinary guards to come nearer to them and hearken to their advice but before that Petition could be answered wherein the King offered when the Town of Hull should be delivered to Him He would no longer have an Army before it and should be assured that the same pretence which took Hull from him may not put a Garrison into Newcastle into which after the Parliaments surprise of Hull He was inforced to place a Governour and a small Garrison He would also remove that Garrison and so as His Magizine and Navy
day before to murther him but before he went out of the field sent Sir William Le-neve Clarencieux King at Arms to Warwick whither the Earl of Essex was fled with a Proclamation of Pardon to all that would lay down arms which though they scornfully received and the Herald threatned to be hanged if he did not depart the sooner cannot perswade him from sending a Declaration or Message to the Parliament to offer them all that could be requested by Subjects but all the use they made of it was to make the City of London believe they were in greater danger then ever if they lent them not more moneys and recruited the Earl of Essex his broken Army and to cousen and put the people on the more to seek their own misery a day of thanksgiving was publiquely kept for the great Victory obtained against the King And Stephen Marshal a Factious bloody minister though he confessed he was so carried on in the crowd of those that fled from the battel as he knew not where he was till he came to a Market Town which was some miles from Edge-hill where the Battel was fought preaches to the people too little believing the Word of God and too much believing him That to his knowledge there was not above 200. men lost on the Parliaments side that he picked up bullets in his black Velvet cap and that a very small supply would now serve to reduce the King and bring Him to His Parliament And here ye may see Janus Temple wide open though the doors of it were not lift off the hinges or broken open at once but pickt open by those either knew not the misery of War or knowing it will prove to be the more guilty promoters of it That we may the better therefore find out though the matter of Fact already represented may be evidence enough of it self who it was that let out the fury and rage of War upon us we shall consider CHAP. III. Whether a Prince or other Magistrate labouring to suppress or punish a Rebellion of the People be tyed to those rules are necessary for the justifying of a War if it were made between equals WAr where it is made by any rules of justice between equals is to be for necessity where the determining of controversies cannot otherwise be obtained or when between two Princes of equal power it cannot be had because they have no superiour A Rebel therefore cannot properly be called an enemy for Hostis nomen notat aequalitatem and when any such arms are born against Rebels it is not to be called a War but an exercise of jurisdiction upon traiterous and dis-loyal persons y atque est ratio manifesta saith Albericus Gentilis qui enim jure judex est superior non jure cogitur ad subeundas partes partis aequalis non est bellum cum latronibus praedonibus aut piratis quanquam magnos habeant exercitus proinde nec ulla cum illis belli jura saith z Besoldus The Romans who were so exact and curious in their publique denouncing of War and sending Ambassadors before they made War against any other Nation did not do it in cases of rebellion and defection and therefore a Fidenatibus Campanis non denunciant Romani And Cicero that was of opinion that nullum bellum justum haberi videtur nisi nunciatum nisi indictum nisi repetitis rebus stood not upon those solemnities in the Cataline conspiracy for the rules of justifying a War against an enemy or equals as demanding restitution denunciation and the like are not requisite in that of punishing of Rebels b Pompey justifies the war maintained by the Senate against Caesar not then their Soveraign with neque enim vocari praelia justa decet c. Cicero did not think it convenient to send Ambassadors to Anthony nor intreat him by fair words but that it was meet to enforce him by Arms to raise his siege from Mutina for he said c They had not to do with Hannibal an enemy to the Common-wealth but with a Rebellious Citizen The resisting of the Kings Authority when the Sheriff of a County goes with the posse Comitatus to execute it was never yet so much as called a War but Rebellion insurrection or commotion were the best terms which were bestowed upon it For such attempts are not called wars but robberies of which the Law taketh no other care of but to punish them And the haste that all our Kings and Princes in England have made in suppressing Rebellions as that of the Barons Wars by Henry the 3. and his sending his son the Prince to besiege Warren Earl of Surrey in his Castle of Rygate for affronting the Kings Justices saying That he would hold his Lands by the Sword That which Ri. 2. made to suppresse Wat. Tiler H. 6. Jack Cade H. 8. Ket and the Norfolk Rebels and Queen Eliz. to suppress the Earls of Northumberland and Westmerland may tell us that they understood it no otherwise then all the Kings and Magistrates of the World have ever practised it by the d Laws of England if Englishmen that are Traytors go into France and confederate with Aliens or Frenchmen and come afterwards and make a War in England and be taken prisoners the strangers may be ransomed but not the English for they were the Kings Subjects and are to be reckoned as Traytors not strangers And the Parliaments own advise to the King to suppress the Irish Rebels that ploughed but with their own Heyfer and pretended as they did to defend their Religion Laws and Liberties and the opinion also of Mr. President Bradshaw as Sir John Owen called him in his late sentence given against the Earls of Cambridge Holland and Norwich Lord Capel and Sir John Owen whom he mistakenly God and the Law knows would make to be the subjects of their worser fellow subjects may be enough toturn the question out of doors But lest all this should not be thought sufficient to satisfie those who can like nothing but what there is Scripture for we shall a little turn over the leaves of that Sacred Volume and see what is to be found therein concerning this matter Moses who was the meekest Magistrate in the World and better acquainted with Him that made the fifth Commandment then these that now pretend Revelations against it thought fit to suppress the Rebellion of Corah Dathan and Abiram as soon as he could and for no greater offence then a desire to be co-ordinate with him procured them to be buried alive with all that appertained unto them When Absalon had Rebelled against his father David and it was told him e That the hearts of the men of Israel were after him David a man after Gods own heart without any Message of Peace or Declaration sent unto his dear son Absalon or offering half or any part of his Kingdom to him sent three several armies
fight and have been told that the King shot at them for the safety of His own Person and that they also shot against Him for the safety of His own Person and being asked which of the two parties he believed did really or most of all intend the safety of it we cannot tell how to think any man such a stranger to nature reason or understanding as to think the King should not fight as the Dictates of nature perswaded him to or that the King could tell how to fight against those that fought for him or that if he should be so hugely mistaken in that one year or Battel he should be in several other years and Battels after To fight for the defence of the Religion established as they made also the people believe was as needless when the King offered to do every thing might help to promote it and they are so little also to be credited in that pretence as we know they did all they could from the beginning to ruine it took away Episcopacy the hedge and bounds of it brought in Presbytery to preach up and aid their Rebellion and when their own turns were served encouraged Conventicles and Tub-preachers to pull down the Presbytery And being demanded at the treaty at Uxbridge by the Kings Commissioners what Religion they would have the King to establish were so unprovided of an answer as they could not resolve what to nominate nor in any of their propositions afterwards sent to the King though ofted urged and complained of by the Scottish Commissioners could ever finde the way to do it but have now set up an Independent extemporary enthusiastick kinde of worshipping God if there were any such thing in it or rather a religious Chaos or gallimaufrey of all maner of heresies errours blasphemies and opinions put together not any of the owners of which we can be confident will subscribe to that opinion that Wars may be made for Religion or that conscience ought to be forced by it As for the restrictive part of the Laws to keep the people in subjection we can very well perswade our selves no such War was ever made yet in the World nor any people ever found that would engage in a War for that they obeyed but against their wills And for that part of the Law that gives them the Kings protection priviledges immunities and certainties of deciding controversies which are more fitly to be called the Liberties of the people then to have 45. of the House of Commons or a Faction to make daily and hourly Laws Religion and Government and vote their estates in and out to pay an Army to force their obedience to it if we had not out-lived the Parliaments disguises and pretences saw them now tearing them up by the roots that there may be no hope of their growing up again and setting up their own as well as the ignorant and illiterate fancies of Mechaniques and Souldiers in stead of them we might have said that also had been needless when the King had done abundantly enough already and offered to grant any thing more that could in reason be demanded of Him And as touching their priviledges of Parliament They that understand but any thing of the Laws of England or have but looked into the Records and Journals of Parliament can tell that all priviledges of Parliament as King James said were at first bestowed upon them by the Kings and Princes of this Kingdom That priviledges of Parliament extended not to Treason or Felony or breach of the Peace That m 32. Hen. 6. Sir Thomas Thorpe Speaker of the House of Commons being arrested in execution in the time of the prorogation of the Parliament the Commons demanded he might be set at liberty according to their priviledges whereupon the Judges being asked their Councel therein made answer that general supersedeas of Parliament there were none but special supersedeas there was in which case of special supersedeas every Member of the House of Commons ought to enjoy the same unless in cases of Treason Felony or breach of the Peace After which answer it was determined that the said Sir Thomas Thorpe should lye in execution and the Commons were required on the behalf of the King to choose a new Speaker which they did and presented to the King accordingly That Queen Elizabeth was assured by her Judges that she might commit any of her Parliament during the Parliament for any offence committed against her Crown and dignity and they shewed her precedents for it and that primo tertio Caroli Regis upon search of precedents in the several great cases of the Earls of Arundel and Bristol very much insisted and stood upon the House of Peers in Parliament allowed of the exception of Treason Felony and breach of the Peace For indeed it is as impossible to think that there can be any priviledge to commit Treason as to think that a King should priviledge all his Nobility and every one of his Subjects that could get to be elected into the House of Commons in Parliament to commit Treason and to take away his life in the time of Parliament whensoever their revenge or malice or interest should find the opportunity to do it or that if it could be so any King or Prince would ever call or summon a Parliament to expose himself to such a latitude of danger or give them leave to sit as long as they would to breed it or that priviledges of Treason can be consistent with the name or being of a Parliament to consult and advise with the King for the defence of him and his Kingdom or that when Felony and breach of Peace are excepted out of their priviledge Treason that is of a far higher nature consequence and punishment should be allowed them or if there could have been any such priviledge and a meaner man then their Soveraign had broke it a small understanding may inform them that they could not without breach of the Peace have fought for it against a fellow Subject and then also could not their priviledges have reached to it but the King might have punished them for it and if they cannot upon a breach of priviledge n as it was adjudged in Halls case without the Kings writ and the cause first certified in Chancery deliver one of their own servants arrested It is not likely any warrant can be found in Law to inforce the King to reparation though he himself should have broken it but to petition the King for an allowance of that or any other priviledge as well in the middle or any other time of their sitting in Parliament as they alwayes do at the presenting of their Speaker in the beginning of it Wherefore certainly the People never gave the Parliament Commission if they could have given a Commission to make a War against their Soveraign to claim that was never due to them or to fight for that was never yet fought for by any of their
forget their due titles of Earls Lords or Knights because the King had made them so since the beginning of the War or else there must be neither Treaty nor Peace At Uxbridge the time of the Treaty limited for 20. days and at Newcastle for 10. and though the King and His Commissioners at Uxbridge almost petitioned for a cessation in the interim of that Treaty as they had done before in that which was at Oxford it could not be granted nor have a few days added to it and if the King could in Honor and Conscience have granted all the other parts of the Propositions must grant them an Act not onely to confiscate the Estates of His Friends and those that took Arms to save his Life and Estate but to take away their Lives also and not only that but to condemn them of high Treason and attaint their blood when they fought against them which were onely guilty of it a thing so unfitting unusually stood upon as it was never asked in any treaty or pacification among the civilized or more barbarous heathen and amounts to more then Adonibezeks causing the thumbs and great toes of his captive Kings to be cut off and making them to gather the crumbs from under his table or Benhadads demand of Ahabs silver and gold his wives and children and whatsoever else was pleasant in his eyes which the elders and people of Israel perswaded Ahab not to consent unto but was a thing purposely contrived and stood upon to hinder a Peace and was not to be asked or granted by any that could but entitle themselves to the least part of reason or humanity a demand Bajazet would not leave his Iron cage to yield unto a thing nature it self would abhor and the worst of villains and reprobates rather lose their lives then yield to would never be demanded by any but a Devil nor granted by any but his Equals And if their desiring of a War more then a peace and to keep the King out of his own had not been the only cause of such unnatural and barbarous propositions it may well be wondred why they that have made to themselves for we cannot believe they have found any law or warrant to ground it upon a power to take away the Kings life upon a colour or pretence of an unread as well as unheard of piece of Justice should need to strive so hard with the King to give them a power to do that which they are now so busie to do of themselves and as if they had been afraid all this would not be enough to keep the doores of Janus or the Devil open for fear lest the King should trouble them with any more offers or Messages for peace a vote must be made in February 1647. that it should be treason in any man to bring or receive any more Messages from him without consent of Parliament But suppose that which is not that the Parliament could have but found any thing but somewhat like a cause or justification of a war against their Soveraign for notwithstanding all their hypocritical pretences so it was at first intended and so it hath proved to be ever since to whom their Masters the people we mean as to the House of Commons had sent them to consult with not to make a War against him they might have remembred that saying of Cicero if they had found nothing in the book of God and their own consciences to perswade them to it That z duo sunt genera decertandi unum per disceptationem alterum per vim ad hoc confugiendum non est si uti superiori licebit There are other ways to come by pretended rights then by a War and we ought never to make use of a War which is the worst of all remedies if we may obtain it by a better Hen. 2. King of England was made a Judge betwixt the Kings of Castile and Navarre a The Rebellious Barons of England in the raign of King Hen. 3. referred their controversies to the decision of the King of France and his Parliament at Paris And the blood of this Kingdom which ran so plentifully in those unhappy differences was by that means only stopped Charles b the 4. Emperor was made a Judge of the differences betwixt the English and the French Kings For as Albericus Gentilis saith well c Intelligendum est eos qui diffugiunt genus hoc decertandi per disceptationem ad alterum quod est per vim currunt ilico eos a justitia ab humanitate a probis exemplis refugere ruere in arma volentes qui subire judicium nullius velint They that rush into a War without assaying all other just means of deciding the controversie for which it is made and will judge onely according to their own will and opinion do turn their backs to Justice Humanity and all good Examples And in that also the Parliament will be found faulty For the French King and the States of the United Provinces did by more then one Request and Embassy severally and earnestly mediate to make an accord betwixt the King and His Parliament and desired to have all things in difference left to their arbitrement but their Ambassadors returned home again with a report how much they found the King inclined to it how satisfactorily he had offered and how much the Parliament was averse to their interposition and altogether refused it But we have tarried long enough among the Parliament partie from thence therefore for it is time to leave the company of so much wickedness we shall remove to the Kings party and yet that may cause a Sequestration and examine for a fuller satisfaction of that which by the rule of contraries is clear enough already if he were not on the defensive and more justifiable part of the business The King as He was defensor protector subditorum suorum and sworn to see the Law executed had not the sword nor his authority committed to him in vain And if he had no maner of just cause of fear either in His own Person or authority or no cause given him in re laesae Majestatis the imprisoning of His Subjects and plundring and taking away their Estates from them long before He had either armed himself or had wherewithal to do it had been cause as sufficient as to cause a Hue and Cry to be made after a fellon or raise the posse Comitatus to bring Him to Justice and might by the same reason do it in the case of more and by the same reason he might do it by the help of one nothing can hinder but by the same reason he might do it by the help of more When Nathan came to David with a parable and told him of the rich man that had taken the poor mans onely Sheep he that understood well enough the duty of a King was exceeding wroth against the man and said As sure
notwithstanding all that made shift to throw a message or Declaration to his people made up like a ball out of the place of his close Imprisonment at Carisbrook was not like to desire the lengthening that war wch he did all he could to avoid and offered so much to make an end of but on the contrary if we take inour consideration the more then Gothish unheard of inhumane cruelties acted and done by the Parliament against their better fellow Subjects their Plundrings Sequestrations and racking of every mans estate they pleased to call Delinquents severities in all their actions standing upon every punctilio or word or superscription of a Letter and not abating a tittle of their demands as if they had been the Decalogue or some other place of Scripture though rivolets of blood hundred thousand of ruined families and thronged hospitals of sick and wounded men Widows and Fatherless cryed aloud to them for peace and their killing and murthering those that but Petitioned for it and a foundation laid of a new War may last as long as that of the Netherlands and Germany There will be enough and enough again to insure us of this most cleer and evident truth That the King did all he could and more then any man else would have done to obtain peace and the Faction or Parliment all they could to avoid it for certainly if there be any rules of Learning Truth or Reason left us to judge by He must be sequestred of all his brains that can but endeavour to make a doubt whether the King did not more resemble the true mother of the Child in the case before Solomon who did so much and offered to part with so much to save the life of it then the Parliament that would have it more divided and to be cut and torn all to bits and pieces and would do nothing at all to save but every thing to destroy it And now we have seen a King undone and imprisoned for his endeavours to protect his people and bring again beloved Peace to those that would not entertain it and heard the report of his murther for most of the peoples eyes have not seen it nor have their hearts acted in it we shall as most men do after they have lost a good offer or oportunity enquire CHAP. VIII Whether the conditions offered by the King would not have been more profitable if they had been accepted and what the people have goâ— instead of them IN order to which though so woful and over-and-over-bitterly-Tasted Seen Felt Heard and Understood-experiences of the miseries wch have come unto us by the Parliaments not accepting the gracious offers conditions wch the King made unto them may make it to be as needless to enquire of them as for a man to ask where to find Pauls Steeple in London when he is in Pauls Church-yard or to enquire for the Sun in the Dog-dayes when he and every man else may see or feel the effects of it we shall be content to consider what the King offered and what the Parliament would have had him to grant What the King would have done and what the Parliament have done and by that see which would have been the better bargain The King like a pater patriae offered over and over to grant all manner of Laws and Liberties which might be good and wholsome for his people and only denyed to grant those things the granting whereof as he said himself vvould alter the Fundamental Lavvs and endanger the very foundations upon vvhich the publick happiness and vvelfare of his people were founded and constituted or to give them stones instead of bread or Scorpions instead of Fishes But the Parliament meaning to feed the people neither vvith bread nor fishes ask the Royal Svvord Crown and Scepter Coronation-Oath and Conscience and an Arbitrary povver to Govern and Domineere over their fellow Subjects and to enslave those that trusted them And though the King had already granted enough to preserve the Lavvs Lives Religion and Liberty of the people and vvas so vvilling almost at any rate to purchase a peace for himself and his people as he vvas content to part vvith his Svvord and Militia and divers other parts of his Regality during his life Yet that vvould not serve the turne t vvas Naboths Vineyard not Ahabs Fast wch made all the business The Faction or Partie in the Parliament that pretended so much to deny themselves and to dote upon the people do notwithstanding all they can to continue the War and to cozen and force the peoples blood estates and conscience out of them and they must never give over paying of Taxes fighting and fooling till they enable them to imprison their King and not only murder him but thousands and many ten thousands of their fellow Subjects and the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people And now that they have done more then the men of the Gunpowder-treason ever intended to do and that all England are become like sheep without a Shephard wandring on the mountains and thousands of Wolves by Votes and Ordinances and mis-called Acts of Parliament appointed to feed them four or five years sad experience in the Wars of the Parliament against the King and almost as much more time spent in setling subduing the people making them like Camels to kneel down to take up their burdens labour and travel hard and endure hunger and thirst under them yet yield up the veines to be pricked for blood to enable their drivers to furnish them with a new supply of burdens when they shall be discharged of what they have laid upon them may easily shew us a difference as big as a mountain betwixt our old good Laws and Liberties enjoyed under a gracious King who had an Estate of inheritance large enough of his own besides an Oath to oblige Him to protect us and a Hell upon Earth and the most Slavish of all the governments which were ever yet put upon a Nation by men of as little Wit and Estates as they have honesty having no other obligations upon them but their own abhominable designs and interests For which of the people unless those that have traded in their neighbours blood and ruine but hath made their complaints of their undoing The Religion of the Kingdom once so glorious is now cut into fancies and blasphemies the Churches where God was wont to be worshipped either defaced pulled down or made Stables for horses the Laws of the Kingdom which were consonant to the Word of God and had in them the Quintessence of all which could be found to be extant in the Laws of Nature Nations Civil Laws or rectified Reason and whatsoever the wisdom and care of all former Kings in Parliament or the usage and customes of this or any other neighbouring Nations could bring to its perfection and were wont to nourish and preserve peace and property among us voted out or into that sense or the other
interest to that every thing or nothing or to that non-sense according as the Lawless Unlimited Unjust and Ignorant will of fellow subjects shall please to mis-use them in the Voting-house or place of bandying aies or noes For a Parliament which in its legal and primitive institution consisting of King Lords and Commons and the right use of it is so venerable as no man as our Laws say ought so much as to speak or think dishonorably of it we cannot without violence to the Laws and our own reason and understanding call it where Publique orders are made without hearing of all or any parties interessed a piece of a cause heard by some and none at all of it by others votes and parties made and packed and lent to one another before-hand and the best of the Faction and juglers carry all the business as they have a mind to it A way of Justice worse then that if there were any in it of a lawless Court said to be kept yearly on a Hill betwixt Raleigh and Rochford in Essex the Wednesday after every Michaelmas-day where the Steward or Judge sitteth a in the night after the first Cockcrowing without any light or Candle and calleth all that are bound to attend the Court with as low a voice as possibly he may writes orders with a coal and they that answer not are deeply amerced For that being a particular punishment long ago inflicted upon the tenants of certain Mannors in Raleigh hundred for a conspiracy against a King is but once a year and some shift change or mercy of the Steward or an appeal may take away the inconveniency of it A vvay of government vvorse then to be subject to the rule of so many fools for they might perchance do that vvould be just or so many Knaves vvho but in playing the Knaves one vvith another or for reward might sometimes do that vvhich vvas right or Mad-men vvhich at intervals might do something vvhich vvas reasonable vvorse then for every subject of England to be put to play at dice for his Life or Estate or any thing else which he should crave a Justice to get or keep for then he might by skill or chance obtain some thing In fine vvorse then any example or vvay of Government the World hath as yet produced and can have nothing vvorse but Hell it self The Parliament and priviledges of it are destroyed and every mans Life and Estate in no better a condition then at the pleasure of the next pretenders to it All the Charters and Liberties of Cities and corporate Tovvns Corporations of Trade and Companies of Merchants made void all Merchandise Trade and manufacture of the Kingdom laid open and in common to every one that will intrude upon it all that is in the Law concerning our Lives Estates Liberties and Religion made voide and dependent upon their Arbitrary Independent power all that is in the Law concerning Navigation the Kings protection of His people certainty of Customes Trade and entercourse leagues and correspondencies with Forraigne Princes expired or anihilated and all that our forefathers have obtained by way of Laws and Settlement and certainty of Estate are now at the dispose of our Votemongers who instead of a most Pious and Gracious King governing by known Laws have set us up 43. or 50. Kings and ten times as many more Knaves and Fooles who will govern by no Law but such as they shall call Laws and make themselves can be accusers witnesses and Judges at one and the same time and if need be condemn and take away mens Estates first and try them after two or three years Petitioning for it a bondage and slavery in the general more then ever any of our ancestors tasted of For the Romans whose Justice and morality at home and vertue and temperance abroad made them free enough from Tyranny did but make them as Tributaries The Picts made but temporary incursions and a wall could be made against them The Saxons and Danes brought us good Laws and William the Conqueror was contented to restore them And all that succeeded him since understood a government by Laws to be their own as well as the peoples security but this which they have now brought upon us and would keep us under is a misery beyond that was suffered under the 30. Tyrants of Athens Spartan Ephori or Romes Decemvirat for there were something of Laws and Rules to govern by The Children of Israel in the Egyptian slavery had a property in their goods and cattel and were at liberty to serve a better God then that of their masters and though they had their burdens doubled upon them were not killed imprisoned or sequestred for petitioning against the sense of Pharaoh The Jews in captivity had so much liberty of conscience allowed to them as to play upon their Harps and sing the Songs of Sion in a strange Land The frozen Russians though so dull and ignorant as when they are asked any matter of State or difficulty make answer God and the great Duke knoweth breath not under so arbitrary and lawless a government The Grecians had not their Laws Religion and Liberties as we have all at once taken from them nor can the sufferings of them or any other vassals of the Ottoman part or those that live under the Crim Tartar equal the one half of our English Slavery Into which we had never fallen or come at all or so long groned under had we but served God and the King as we ought to have done and not wrested the sense as well as the plain words of the Scripture and the Laws of the Land to enable the sons of Zerviah to be too hard for us and bring all maner of mischief confusion and wickedness upon us more then Romes or Constantinoples Antichrist ever brought upon a people and from which the King had delivered us if we had not Cursed Reviled Prayed Contributed and fought against Him for endeavouring to Protect us How gracious then was he who endured the heat of the day and cold of the night to preserve a great deal more for us then Nabals Sheep could amount unto yet being worse used then ever David was for it could not tell how so much as to threaten to do that which David had so great a mind to do but fought as long as he could to protect them would not so much as defend themselves but did all they could to ruine those that defended him And how much was he beyond Codrus the Athenian King the Roman Curtius or Decii if all that the Ancients wrote of them were true who sacrificed themselves but not their Estates and Posterity to preserve the publique and how good beyond example or the Credit of any history who made himself a Martyr for His peoples lives and liberties and endured so many deaths and suffered more indignities then all the Kings of England put together have ever endured to preserve a people who have for a
great part of them either by Rebellion or an accursed Newtrality helped to ruine him and when he knew whatsoever Conditions or Propositions he should be forced to yield unto would by the Law of God as well as the Civil and Common Law the Laws of Nature and Nations and the dictates of every common mans reason and apprehension have been void in the very making of them and could not have reached to his posterity and that if he would but have surrendred up his people and gone along with their new masters in their Arbitrary and Tyrannical government as some of His last words upon the Scaffold plainly intimate and sided with 20. or 30. of the Faction and delivered up the Sheep to the Wolves he might no doubt have had a good part of the Fleece to his own share or but have pleased himself with revenge delivered up a people to Slavery who were at so much expence of Treasure and Blood and their own Souls to bring their Soveraign to it might have worn the title of a King and played the wanton with Sardanapalus in the company and delight of women pleased his palate with Vitellius his pride if he had any with Bassianus his cruelty if he could ever have been guilty of it with Commodus and with Childerick the lazy King of France in a Chariot deck't with garlands whilst others governed for him been at certain times of the year onely exhibited to the people and like the Minotaure of Creete wallowed in the labyrinth of Parliament priviledges and devoured his people did notwithstanding refuse to do any thing that might help himself either to purchase his own quiet or so great a Liberty and would neither for any good which might come to himself or any evil that might be cast upon him and his posterity be perswaded or threatned from the protection of His People who if He had not taken more care for them then they did for themselves must if He had yielded to all the Parliament Propositions for then they might have imagined mischief by a Law have from time to time been engaged in any War that their task-masters had a mind to put them upon must have been excised plundred sequestred ruined and undone sworn and forsworn constrayned to swear to do a thing to day and the next day swear not at all to do it The son set to kill his Father and brothers forced to fight one against another and have all their holy-dayes turned to thanks-giving days that they are undone or fasting dayes that they may be undone soon enough And if at any time that thing they call a Parliament should think it fit to make a directory to the Alchoran and to order every man to turn Turk and the King as their Henry Scobel or Town Cleark but subscribe it their Spiritual as well as their Temporal Estate and their Souls as well as their Bodies must be voted and forced to it And now let the People that have tasted too much of such a kind of happiness and are like to continue in it as long as their misery-makers can by any help of the Devil or his angels hold them to it consider whether they or their forefathers though some have thought themselves to have wit enough to adventure to call them fools were the wiser whether they that setled the government and were contented with it or they that pulled it in pieces and whether the tearing up of the fundamental Laws of Monarchy Peerage Parliament and Magna Charta ever since the day the King was murthered for defending of them which every one but themselves desired to uphold be not enough besides the Scottish combination and the plots to ruine Monarchy and the King His posterity before they had so far engaged themselves in it to inform them if nothing else had been demonstrated unto them That the King did all He could to preserve the Laws Religion and Liberties of the people which divers pieces of His coyn will help to perpetuate the truth as well as the memory of and the Parliament all they could to destroy them And that as He actually endeavoured to defend them so they have as actually undone and destroyed them And let the greatest search of History that can be made or time it self be Judge if ever any War was more made in the defensive or upon juster grounds or greater necessities or if ever any King before fought for the Liberties of those He was to govern and for Laws to restrain himself withall or if it were possible for him to suffer so much in any mans opinion as to have it thought to be unlawful or that He was a murderer of His people for seeking to protect them How shall any King or Magistrate be able to bear or use the sword when they themselves shall be in continual danger to be beaten with it King Edward the 2. of England was not murdered for the blood that was shed in the Barons wars though some of them had drawn their swords but in performance of his fathers will to take away his favorite Gaveston from him King Rich. 2. in those many devised Articles charged against him was not deposed for the blood was shed in Wat Tilers Commotion nor Hen. 6. publiquely accused for that of Jack Cades rebellion and the most bloody differences of the White and Red Roses nor Queen Elizabeth for all that was spilt in reducing Ireland when her favorite the Earl of Essex made it to be the more by his practises with Tyrone nor for the blood of Hacket who pretended to be Christ nor of Penry and other Sectaries lesser Incendiaries then Burton Bastwick their disciples for disturbing the Common-wealth the great Henry of France was not endeavoured by his Catholick Subjects to be brought to trial for shedding so much of their blood to reduce them to his obedience nor by his Protestant Subjects after he was turned Catholique for spending so much of their blood to another purpose then they intended it Nor have the stout-hearted Germans though many of them great and almost free Princes in their late peace and accord made betwixt the Swedes and the Emperor thought it any way reasonable or necessary to demand reparation for those millions of men women and children houses and estates which were ruined and spoiled by a 30. years war to reduce the Bohemians and Prince Elector Palatine to their obedience For what rules or bounds shall be put to every mans particular fancy or corrupted interest if they shall be at Liberty to question and call to account the authority which God hath placed over them Shall the son condemn or punish the father for his own disobedience the Wife her Husband for her own act of Adultery or the Servant the Master for his own unfaithfulness or can there be any thing in the reason or understanding of man to perswade him to think that the King was justly accused for the shedding of His Subjects blood which the