〈…〉 unsel being present keeping my Intention from my Chancellor himself from whom I never kept any of my weightiest Business Because if I had made him of my Counsel in that purpose he had been blamed for putting the same into my Head which had not been his Duty For it becometh no Subject to give his Prince Advice in such Matters In this Story it appears that the Father-King trod the way to his Son to undergo such an Audacious Journey in the pursuance of his Love Quid non effraeno captus amore Audeat Ovid. Then that he Persisted in his Principles of Secrecy for a generous End that he might not draw his Chief and Best Servants whom he loved most into a Snare of Guiltiness 127. Let Provision be made to the most that could be for the safety of all others yet Sir Ant. W. in his Court and Character of K. James hath one Exception That the King set this Wheel on Running to destroy Buckingham for the hatred which he had long bore him and would not think it ill to loose his Son so Buckingham might be lost also Pag. 149. O Horrid But the best is the Foundation is Rotten For Buckingham as all Men about the King would Testifie was in as high Favour at that time as any Subject was ever with his Sovereign But when Sir A. to make out the Proof he lays it upon Sir H. Yelverton displaced from the Office of Attorney General to the King and committed to the Tower 't was he that assured the Marquess that the King hated him more than any man Living pag. 159. Sir Harry was Unfortunate but too honest a Man to sow Discord between the King and his principal Peer and Attendant Now mark upon what Bottom the Contriver of this Tale doth wind his Forgery Sir W. Balfore at the time of his Lieutenancy of the Tower brought the Marquess at Midnight to Sir H. Yelverton's Chamber being then his close Prisoner Where Sir William heard those Passages and a great deal more between them And by one or other who came to the knowledge of it but this Sir Anthony O Wicked Servant to thy good Master O fowl Bird that defilest the Nest wherein thâ—u wert hatch'd and well fledg'd Thou art catch'd in thine own Lime for thou never couldst have Conserence with Sir W. Balfore or Sir H. Yelverton about such a matter For Learned Yelverton was never Prisoner to Valiant Balfore Sir Allen Apsley was Lieutenant all the time of that worthy man's restraint And Sir W. Balfore was not preferr'd to that Office of great Trust in more than four years after Sir Harry had obtain'd his Liberty when Knaves will turn Fools it is not amiss to be merry with them And I will fit Sir Anthony with a Jest out of Illustrius the Pythagorean p. 23. One Daphidas came to the Pythian Deity to beseech his Oracleship to tell him when he should find a Gelding of his that was gone astray You shall find him very shortly says Apollo's Minister I thank you for your good News says Daphidas but I have neither lost a Horse nor have a Horse to loose So I turn Sir Anthony over to the Committee of Oracles and proceed After the Princes Out Leap the King lingred at New-market till the time was nigh that every day Tidings were expected of his safe Arrival in Spain that he might shew himself to the Lords at White-hall with better Confidence which he did March 30. being the first day that the Lord Keeper spake with the King about his dear Sons Planetary Absence No sooner had he made most humble sign of his Majesties Welcome by Kissing his Hand but the King Laugh'd out this Question to him Whether he thought this Knight-Errant Pilgrimage would be lucky to win the Spanish Lady and to convey her shortly into England Sir says the Lord Keeper If my Lord Marquess will give Honour to Conde Duke Olivares and Remember he is the Favourite of Spain Or if Olivares will shew Honourable Civility to my Lord Marquess Remembring he is a Favourite of England the Woing may be Prosperous But if my Lord Marquess should forget where he is and not stoop to Olivares or if Olivares forgetting what Guest he hath Received with the Prince bear himself haughtily and like a Castilian Grandee to my Lord Marquess the Provocation may be Dangerous to Cross your Majesties good Intentions And I pray God that either one or both of them do not run into that Errour The King drew a Smile at the Answer but bit his Lip at the presage Discourse being Enlarg'd between them the King perceiv'd that his Counsellor had other Fears and that his Brain teemed with Jealousies of very hard Encounters which he knock'd upon softly that his Majesty might discern them and not seem to apprehend them Only thus far the King proceeded to ask him If he had wrote to his Son and to the Lord Marquess clearly and upon what Guard they should stand Yes Sir says he for that purpose I have dispatch'd some Packets Then continue says the King to help me and themin those difficulties with your best Powers and Abilities and serve me faithfully in this motion which like the highest Orbe carries all my Raccolta's my Counsels at the present and my prospects upon the Future with it and I will never part with you The Cause which made His Majesty so solicitous made the Lord Keeper need no Provocation to diligence He was before hand And upon the 25 of February by a Currier that was at Madrid almost as soon as the Prince he wrote two Letters following to his Highness and to the Lord Marquess A Letter to the Prince May it please your Highness 128 ALthough Prayer is all the Service That at this time either I the most obliged or any other the wisest of your Servants can perform unto you yet I Humbly beseech your Higness to pardon true Affections that cannot stay there but will be expressing of it self though peradventure neither wisely nor discreetly The Comick Writer held these two scarce competent Amare sapere And to exclude all shew of discretion I presume to write this First Letter of mine to your Highness without so much as excribing or taking a Copy of the same this opportunity admitting no leisure at all to do the one or the other Your Journey is generally reputed the depth of your danger which in my Fears and Representations your Arrival should be You are in a strange State for ought we know uninvited business being scarce prepared subject to be staid upon many and contrary pretenses made a Plot for all the Wisdom of Spain and Rome for all the contemplations of that State and that Religion to work upon And peradventure the detaining of Your Highness his Person may serve their turn as amply as their Marriage at least wise for this time and the Exploits of the ensuing Summer I write not this to fright you who have Testified to all the
c. to forbear any Moleslation of his said Subjects in respect of their Religion To send them forth with as much speed as conveniently may be that his Majesty may be freed from the Complaints of the Ambassadors Thrice again he was charg'd with the same Command To all which he answer'd He could do nothing without a private Warrant for it and that it was not possible to be agreed upon till he spake with his Majesty On the 6th of September the same Secretary writes again That an Exemplification of the Pardon should be deliver'd to the Ambassadors under the Great Seal That 's not hard to be done But upon what Limits and Conditions So the Lord Keeper rejoyns Sir G. Calvert is troubled again to satisfie that Scruple That no Copy of it should go out to any of the Roman Catholicks nor any of them be permitted to sue out their Pardons until his Majesties Pleasure be further known This came Sept. 8. The Lord Keeper held back yet till he knew what Assurance he should have from the Ambassadors to keep those Conditions Which held a Contest till Sept. 19. When Mr. Secretary Conway writes from Theobalds His Majesties Pleasure is That you deliver unto the Marquiss Inoiosa an Exemplification of the Pardon and Dispensation And his Majesty would not that you should press him for a Note of his Hand for Secresie and Stanchness for giving of Copies of the Pardon or Dispensation but only by Word to refresh his Memory of the faithful Promises he hath made in that Point to the King upon which his Majesty will relie Indeed it was order'd at Windsor Sept. 7. as appears in a Letter of Secretary Conways that when Marquiss Iniosa had the Exemplication all the Crast was in Catching that he should communicate them to none nor give Copies of them till we had knowledge from Spain of the Marriage or Desponsories There was nothing about these days that mitigated the Embassador more than a Trick that in sine did him least good Properly and without Levity it may be called a Flop with a Fox-Tail The Lord Keeper closed in with him not to be so hasty for Exemplifications which the Clerks of the Crown must write over soft and fairly A Matter of more weight should presently be set on foot not of Words but of real Benefit and Performance to his Party and to the Choice of them a Pardon for the Romish Priests that were imprisoned about which there had been struggling and yet nothing effected As the Lord Keeper seemed forward so to see the ill Luck it was cramp'd by a Letter from Sir Edward Conway Sept. 6. Dat. Windsor Right Honorable HIS Majesty hath signed the Warrant that was sent for the enlarging of the Priests out of Prison that he may shew the Reality of Performance on his Part in all that is to be done Yet his Majesty commits the Warrant to your Keeping without further Use to be made save only to pass the Great Seal which you may be pleased to expedite till important Considerations be provided for and satisfied As First That his Majesty receive Advertisement of the Marriage or Desposories Secondly That Provision be taken for these Priests that have expressed their Duties to the King either in Writing in his Defence or in taking the Oaths whose Protection his Majesty holds himself bound to continue and not to suffer them to incur any Danger for that their Conformity Thirdly That Order be taken that such Priests enlarged be not left at Liberty to execute their Functions publickly or at their Pleasure but only under such Limitations and Restraints as by the Pardon and Dispensations are provided 166. Of these three Caveats entred to modifie the Liberty which was Petitioned for and promised to the Priests the middlemost was a brave one wherein the Lord Keeper revenged himself on Inoiosa for all his Forwardness It aimed at one man Mr. Preston a Secular Priest Honest and rarely Learned The Author of the Works under the Name of Roger Widrington for the Oath of Allegiance The Author of that solid Piece called The last Rejoynder to T. Fitzherbert Bellarmine's Sculckenius and Lessius his Singleton upon that Subject Printed An. 1619. This Man for his own Preservation lay quiet in the Marshalsea his Death being threatned by the rigid Papalins This was he that was set forth as the only Evidence of his Majesty's Royal Mercy toward those that were in Holy Orders of that Religion the present Pattern of his keeping Promise according to the Articles But such a Priest as that if Marq. Inoiosa had been consulted for his Release perhaps he would have cried out Not him but Barabbas Preston had Leave that Summer twice or thrice to come to the Lord Keeper at Nonsuch where I saw them together discoursing as long as Leisure and Business would permit That Interview procured the Warrant for his Pardon from the King as followeth James Rex TO the Reverend Father in God Our Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Counsellor Jo. Lord Bishop of Lincoln Lord Keeper of Our Great Seal of England Right Trusty and Right Well-beloved Counsellor We Greet you well These are to will and require to pass one Pardon and Dispensation according unto the Warrant directed unto you concerning the Roman Catholicks of this Kingdom in general for the Use and Benefit of Preston a Secular Priest now a Prisoner in our Prison of the Marshalsea And delivering unto the Spanish Embassador an Exemplification of the same Pardon under the Great Seal to keep the Original so Sealed under your own Custody untill you shall receive from Us some further Order Given at Our Court at Windsor Sept. 8. c. The Releasment of Preston was accordingly dispatched the first Fruits of the Common Grace expected by others sent as a Present to Don Inoiosa nay a Precedent for consequent Releasments So Secretary Conway to the Lord Keeper Sep. 17. His Majesty's Order to your Lordship was That the Pardon for this one Man should be exemplified as the Limitation and Rule to the Form of all the rest So as without Dispute or Controversie that was a present Possâ—ssion an Act performed by the King to be executed alike to each one to whom it appertains at the Time and upon the Conditions before specified the Sight whereof might give the Embassador Contentment But it was far from that Don John the Marquiss durst not say he was mocked but he fum'd like Lime that is slack'd with Water to see of all the Priesthood that man only enlarged whom above all he most hated Therefore his Violence augmented press'd the King so far that his Majesty caused the same Secretary to write again very roundly the next day to the Lord Keeper Right Honorable HIS Majest hath received from the Spanish Embassador a large Declaration of his Grievance by the great Delays he finds from your Lordship in point of the Pardon and Dispensation an Exemplification of which your Lordship hath Order to deliver
All-Saints and the Fifth of November at White-Hall being wont to shew his Presence at those Solemnities Against Christmas he drew towards the City and no sooner Some better Offers were expected from Spain by that time or more certain Discoveries be found out of Carriage on both sides for hitherto all was received upon second hand Faith Therefore his Majesty was no sooner at White-Hall but he commissioned a Select Council to consider two things Whither the King of Spain had not been real to the last to satisfie the Desire of the Prince about the Marriage and whither in the Treaty for the Restitution of the Palatinate he had violated the League between the two Kingdoms as to deserve an open War to be proclaimed against him The Lord Keeper was one of the Junto but so far against his Mind that he wished before a Friend or two in private that a Fever in his Sick Bed might excuse him The Duke of Buckingham was mortally Anti-Spanish and his Anger was headed with Steel He assayed the Lord Keeper to hale him to his Judgment as an Eddy doth a small Boat and would have used him to the King to incline his Majesty to renounce Amity with that Nation but he found him as inflexible as a dried Bough He vowed to his Grace as he should have God to be his Protector that he would suffer all the Obliquy of the World before he would be drawn to the least Ingratitude against his Lordship Cab. P. 89. But when the King asked his Judgment he must be true and faithful Which was to say to do the Duke a Pleasure he cared not to deserve ill of himself but he would not deserve ill of the King which gave no Satisfaction Oh! How better is a poor Man's Liberty than the golden Servitude of a great Officer Must I lose my Patron unless I lose my Judgment Can there not be a true Heart where there is not Sameness of Opinion What a Structure is Advancement which hangs in the Air and consists upon no solid Foundation That great Lord desied the Keeper to his Face and in the hearing of many threatned to sink him because he could not board him And as Fulbertus said of Queen Constantia Cui satis creditur dum mala promittit Baron Annal. 12 28. com 12. If he promised an ill turn he would be sure to pay it if he could Once upon a time he could have done as much as that came to with half a Word to the King Now as his Lordship conceived his Strength lay among the Anakims and the self-will'd man plotted to sacrifice his old Friend to the Parliament the Intelligence came from the Venetian Embassador to appease the Dislike of Immunities which were none at all exercised towards the Roman Catholicks Yet there his Lordship faired and found it as hard to suppress him as to drown a Swan There is an Electuary which Physicians give to comfort the Heart called Pasta rogia the Lord Keeper was fed Lusty with this Royal Paste The King had wrought him so apt to his own Plight that the Power of a mighty Favorite could not wrest him from the Sanctuary of his Love Ye still his Danger was that the Duke thought out of Disdain more than Envy that he wore too many Copies of his Majesty's Favour He took nothing more Scornsully than what the King spake to the Earl of Carlisle in a Fit of Melancholly That if he had sent Williams into Spain with his Son he had kept Hearts-ease and Honour both which he lack'd at that time So it was thought to be next to an Affront that the first time the Lord Keeper came into the King's Presence after his Highness's Return into England which was a little before Christmas his Majesty looking intently upon him said thus to the Prince Charles There 's the Man that makes us keep a merry Christmas His Highness looking as if he understood not his Father Why 't is he says the King that laboured more dextrously than all my Servants beside to bring you safe hither to keep Christmas with me and I hope you are sensible of it Another Act of the King's Goodness drew a greater Frown upon him That in those Holy-days his Majesty of his own Accord no Solicitation preceding caused an Act of Council to be entred into the Book of that Honorable Table that an Arch-Bishoprick and he named York should be conserred upon him in the next Vacancy For which the Lord Keeper most humbly thanked his Majesty that he was pleased to think of him when his Majesty knew best that he thought not of himself Yet my Lord Duke resented it ill as if he climbed without his Hand to lift him up Arch-Bishop Mathew understanding how his Place was designed took occasion to be pleasant upon it It was a Felicity which Nature had given him to make old Age comfortable with a light Heart Non ille rigoris Ingratas laudes nec nubem srontis amabat Sil. lib. 8. But that much beloved Prelate sending his Proxy to the Lord Keeper against the following Parliament wrote to this Purpose That he was not a little troubled in former times to hear that the Bishop of London Doctor Mountain a decay'd Man and certainly near to the Grave should look to be his Successor For either himself must die before three years expired or that Bishop's Hopes would be all amort who must come suddenly to the See or not at all But it pleased and revived him that his Lordship was most likely to take his Place after him for he was young and healthful and might stay the Term of twenty Years and take his Turn time enough at the end of that Stage Then he shuts up his Letter As the Psalmist begins so I end Dixi Custodiam I love you Lordship well but I will keep you out of this Seat as long as I can 175. Now let the Collections of the last Antecedency be observed and there is not to be found in them why the Lord Keeper should forfeit a Dram in the Benevolence of his great Friend They are the Party-coloured Coat with which Jacob appareâ—â—ed him and which himself put not out to making But in the Select Council which met to resolve the two foregoing Questions he was active as any man If he come not off well in that let him be condemned To the first matter in proposal the Lords agreed that the Prince came Home with great and happy Renown because he had resisted so many and so strong Temptations to pervert him in Religion and that the Lord of Buckingham's Assistance was praise worthy in excess who held him steady and counter-work'd all Underminers They conceived that the Proceeding of the Spaniards to the most were generous in some things rather subtle than ingenuous as there is no Pomegranate but hath some rotten Kernels and that in all they were so tedious that it was able to provoke the Meekness of Moses though he had not a Drachm of
Parliament and had stood up to defend him where there was openly such defiance of Enmity between them he had been censur'd by all Judgment for double-mindedness or sawning And as Lanfrank charged one of his Predecessors Remigius Bishop of Lincoln Quod officio emerat Episcopatum So the World would have censur'd this Prelate that he kept his Place by Service Simony as Mr. Fuller calls it And with what Safety and Liberty he could appear let one Passage demonstrate The Duke demanded that the Attorney-General might plead for him in the House of Peers against the Charge transmitted by the Commons which was opposed because the Attorney was one of the King 's Learned Council and sworn to plead in Causes concerning the King and not against them And the King is supposed to be ever present in the noble Senate of the Lords It was rejoyn'd That His Majesty would dispense with the Attorney's Oath It came to be a Case of Conscience and was referr'd to the Bishop's Learning Some of them judged for the Duke that this was not an Assertory-Oath which admits no alteration but a Promissory-Oath from which Promise the King if he pleas'd might release his Learned Counsel Bishop Felton a devout man and one that feared God very learned and a most Apostolical Overseer of the Clergy whom he governed argued That some Promissory-Oaths indeed might be relaxed if great cause did occur yet not without great cause lest the Obligation of so sacred a thing as an Oath should be wantonly slighted And in this Oath which the Attorney had taken it was dangerous to absolve him from it lest bad Example should be given to dispense with any Subject that had sworn faithful Service to the Crown for which plain Honesty he was wounded with a sharp Rebuke And the reverend Author told me this with Tears Yet the Archb. Abbot said as much and went farther for whom Budaeus would stand up a great Scholar and a Statesman De Asse lib. 3. fol. 102. Neque turpe esse credo cos homines observare quibus apud Principem gratiâ slagrare contigit si non cosdem apud populum ordines infamiâ invidiâ slagrare videamus As who would say it is Duty to love a Favourite for the King's sake and it is Duty to desert him when he becomes a publick Scandal For no man will be happy to stick to him who is so unhappy to become a common Hatred All that Parliament was a long Discontent of eighteen weeks and brought forth nothing but a Tympany of swelling Faction and abrupt Dissolution whereby the King saved that great Lord who lost His Majesty in some expeditions Honour abroad and the love of his People at home This was another Fire-brand kindled after the former at Oxford to burn down the Royal House and the most piously composed Church of England For a wife Oratour says it is Isocr Orat. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 243. The cause of an Evil must not be ascribed to things that concur just at the breaking out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but to the forerunning Mischiefs which were soaking long to ripen the Distempers Well was it for Lincoln that he had no hand in this Fray for as the Voyagers to Greenland say When the Whale-fishing begins it is better to be on the Shore and look on E terrâ magnum alterius spectare laborem than to be employed in the Ships to strike them and hale them to Land 71. Say then that he neither did harm nor receive any by being shut out of this turbulent Parliament Yet his Advice had been worth the asking because of the Plunges that His Majesty was put to upon the Dissolution but he heard of no Call to such a purpose For no man looks on a Dyal in a cloudy day when the Sun shines not on it God's Mercy was in it for he sate safer at home than he could have done at the Council-Board at this time where much Wisdom was tryed to help the King's Necessities out of the Peoples Purses by a Commandatory Loan and with the least Scandal that might be for not to run into some Offence was unavoidable Pindar the Poet was call'd out of his House to speak with some Friend in the Street Castor and Pollux says the Tale-teller searce was his Foot over the Threshold when the Building sunk and all that were within perish'd Thus upon a time the least Shelter gave the most Safety as did the lesser Honour procure this man the more Peace But as Camillus in Livy thrust out of Rome and retired to Ardea prayed that they that had cashier'd him might have no need of him so this forlorn Statesman would have been satisfied to have his place at the Council-Table supplied by others if the King's Affairs had not wanted him at this instant when he suddenly slid down from his former value in the love of this People The Bishops most likely it came from them advised His Majesty first to fly to God and to bid a publick Fast first at Court then over all the Land about the fifth of July Bish Laud whose Sermon was printed preach'd before the King upon the 21st Verse of the 17th Chapter of St. Matthew This kind goeth not out but by Prayer and Fasting The Preface of the Book and the Exhortation publish'd to the observing that solemn Fast stirred up all good Christians to entreat God not to take Vengeance on the Murmurings of the People to keep their Spirits in Unity to divert the plague of immoderate Rain like to corrupt the Fruits of the Harvest and chiefly to preserve us from the Bloody Wars that Spain intended against us Intended says the Book for depredation of Merchants Ships was the worst they had done us Let the Reader gather this by the way That a publick Fast had not been indicted before by the Supreme Authority upon the Alarums of our Enemies Preparations In Eighty eight an Order came out call'd A Form of Prayer necessary for the present Time and State to be used on Wednesdays and Fridays that is certain Collects to be added to the Common Prayer Yet no Fast was bidden saving thus far That Preachers in their Sermons and Exhortations should move the People to Abstinence and Moderation in their Dyet to the end they might be more able to relieve the Poor c. The first Form to be used in Common Prayer with an Order of publick Fast for every Wednesday in the week for a time was set out by Queen Elizabeths special Command in Aug. 1563. when the Plague called The Plague of New-haven was rise in London In which Book is a passage to illustrate our Common-Prayer-Book for the first Rubrick prefixt to the Order for the Holy Communion That so many as intend to be Partakers of the Holy Communion should signifie their Names to the Curate over night or else in the morning either before the beginning of Common Prayer or immediately after That immediately after means that in
was aware It was upon a nice point the Levy of Ship-money wherein the L. of Lincoln was very provident to do nothing to displease for the Adagy could tell him Verendum est dormienti in ripâ ne cadat He that sits upon the Cliff of the Sea had best take heed he do not nodd and tumble down The King 's Streights did compel him to levy this Impost of Ship-money for the defence of the narrow Seas being startled with a Motto newly devised by Cardinal Richilieu Florebunt lilia ponto The Exchequer would not supply the rigging of a Navy though never better husbanded than at that time by Dr. Juxon Bishop of London held by all to be a good man wherefore I cannot pass him by without a word out of Sidon Apol. lib. 4. ep 4. Cum vir bonus ab omnibus censeatur non est homo pejor si non sit optimus The French Hangers on in the Court devoured so much that all his Thrift which ammassed much was gulp'd down by those insatiable Sharks None but they made K. Charles a poor King These are the Gallants that disdain every thing that is English but our Gold and Silver Alexander Ad Alex. lib. 3. c. 23. tells us a Wonder But shall we believe him That from P. Aemylius's Triumph to the Consulship of Hirtius and Pansa a full 130 years the People of Rome paid no Tribute What a Revenue Parsimony can both preserve and gather But if that frugal Senate had maintained a French Court the Quaestors would soon have found a vacuum in their Coffers Now see what Sir R. O. did hammer out to despight his Bishop upon this Impost He laid a very unequal Levy upon the Hundred wherein Bugden stood the Bishop wrote courteously to him to review and rectifie the Levy and he and his Neighbors were ready to see it collected and paid Sir Robert rides up to the Court and complains bitterly that the Bishop had utterly refused the Payment of Ship-money and animated the Hundred to follow him Being easily convinced before the Lords of the Council that the Bishop had carried himself dutifully and discreetly in the matter yet Sir R. O. had no Check the Bishop no Reparation the Levy no Reformation Why the worst Men the worst of Infidels the worst of our Enemies have a Communion of Natural Right with others to receive no Injury to be satisfied upon them that do them wrong and damage What a pickle was a poor Prelate in that was not so considered that was laid naked to every Slander and Oppression still he look'd for better and would never lay aside his Privy-Coat of Trust and Confidence in God He that will learn that sanctified Art from an Emblem which is a Riddle in a Picture let him take it out of Pliny lib. II. Nat. Hist c. 24. Incremento omnium futuro telas suas araneae altius tollunt The Spiders that have made their Webs in Trees upon a Bank side remove them higher when the Spring-Tydes come in That is lift up the Soul and advance it higher to God and his Protection when the Floods of Oppression rage and threaten to overwhelm us 94. One Quarrel commenc'd upon no ground continued to this day by the Animadverter on the Church-History of Britain and elder than the Troubles with Sir R. O. was thus Anno 1632. in the declining of November Dr. Theodore Price Sub-dean of Westminster College was cut to be cured of the Torment of the Stone his Wound growing dry his Present-death was presaged Mr. James Molins his Chyrurgion gave intelligence that his Patient did discover to some Visitants of the Romish Faction when he thought Mr. Molins did not hear him his Affection and Devotion to their Church That a Table was prepared covered Plate set on with a Wax Light and a piece of Gold laid by it this is his punctual Relation all being dismist and none remaining in the Room but Dr. Floyd a very skilful Physician and a Papist who is yet living and a little old man seen there but once before who continued together about an hour The Bishop being at Bugden informed of all this came in the depth of Winter in all haste to Town and when he had lighted before he would go to his own Lodgings he went to the Sub-dean whom he found in sad plight not like to continue so without more ado he offer'd to pray with him at the Bed's-side and was spoken to by the Doctor to forbear Says the Bishop Cousin you have need of holy Assistance will you entertain any of the Prebendaries or some other Church-man to do this Godly Office for you belonging to the Sick He stifly refused them all The Bishop propounded that his weak state might be remembred to God at the Evening Prayers in the Abby No says the other I do not desire them Will you have no communion with us of the Church of England says the Bishop Not any says the Sub-dean God give you a better mind says the Bishop But Cousin will you have any thing with me before we part Only my Lord says he that you will be no more a Trouble to me and that you will take my poor Servant being unprovided into your Care and Family Which was not forgot for the Bish received his Servant whom afterward he preferr'd in Means and Marriage in the City of Lincoln for he was more careful of the Children Alliances and Relations of his Friends when they were dead than of themselves when they were living The E. of Pembrook L. Chamb. to the King being Steward of the College and City of Westm the Bishop made him acquainted with every word that had pass'd between him and Dr. Price how at his last gasp he had disclaimed the Church of England and the L. Steward related it to the King which was then interpreted and the Scandal is lately renewed as if the Bishop had feigned all this yet it pass'd before Witnesses to wound Bishop Laud who endeavour'd to make the Revolter Bishop of Asaph There had been little Salt in that Stratagem for Lincoln himself had sent this Price Commissioner for the King into Ireland moved to obtain for him the same Dignity of Asaph in the former vacancy when Dr. Hanmer stept in before him sticked passionately to advance him before renowned Usher to the Primacy of Armagh upon the death of Dr. Hampton Reader you will say the Bishop was much deceived in his Cousin neither do I defend him he did more than once miss in his Judgment in some whom he preferr'd Humanum est And it was a ranting Speech which Salmasius ascribes to Asclepiades in his Preface to Solinus That he would not be held a Physician if he were ever sick To deliver thus much in the behalf of both the Bishops Dr. Price's Patrons that would have been the man was of untainted Life learned in Scholastical Controversies of a reverend Presence liberal courteous and prudent above many and seemed very fit to
in the Records of the Tower can be produced to exclude the Lords Spiritual from sitting and voting in Causes of Blood Sometimes by the great Favour of the King Lords and Commons not otherwise they were permitted to absent themselves never before now commanded by the Lay-Lords to forbear their Votes in any Cause that was agitated in Parliament So our Law Books say That the Prelates by the Canon-Law may make a Procurator in Parliament when a Peer is to be tryed Which is enough to shew their Right thereunto This is to be seen 10 Edw. IV. f. 6. placit 17. And That it is only the Canon-Law that inhibits them to vote in Sanguinary Causes Stamford Pleas of the Crown f. 59. And saith Stamford the Canon-Law is a distinct and separated notion and not grown in his Age to any such Usance or Custom as made it Common-Law or the Law of the Land 152. Coming now to an end it moves me little what some object That many worthy Fathers of this Church-reformed and Bishop Andrews among the rest did forbear to vote in Causes of Blood and voluntarily retired out of the House if such things came in question nor did offer to enter any Protestation I do not doubt but they had pious Affections in it though they did not fully ponder what they did I have heard that a main Reason was that of the Record and Statute of 11 Rich. II. That it is the honesty of that Calling not to intermeddle in matters of Blood Now the French word Honesty signifies Decency and Comeliness As though it were a butcherly and a loathsom matter to be a Judge or to do Right upon a Malefactor to Death or loss of Members But this is an imaginary Decency never known in Nature or Scripture as I said before but begotten by Tradition in the dark Foggs and Mists of Popery Such an Honesty of the Clergy it was to have a shaven Crown to depend on the Pope to plead Exemptions and to resuse to answer for Felonies in the King's Courts All these were esteemed in those days the Honesty of the Clergy And such an Honesty it was in the Prelates of England in the loose Reign of Rich. II to absent themselves when they listed from the Aslembly of the Estate contrary to the King's Command in the Writ of Summons and to the Duties of their places as Peers of Parliament Yet they had more insight into what they did than some of our Bishops for they never offer'd to retire themselves in those days before their Protestation was benignly received and suffer'd to be enter'd upon the Parliament-Roll by the King the Lords and the House of Commons I know those excellent men that are with God proposed other Scruples to themselves they doubted not of the Legality or Comeliness for an Ecclesiastical Peer of the Kingdom of England to vote in a Judgment of Blood they did it continually in passing all Appeals and Attainders in Parliament but it startled them because it is not the practice of Prelates in other parts of the Christian Church so to do and thought it better to avoid Scandal and the Talk of other Nations That there being in the High Court of Parliament and Star-chamber Judges enough beside them they might without any prejudice to their King and Country forbear voting in those Judicatures somewhat the rather because all our Bishops in England are Divines and Preachers of the Gospel and consequently to be employ'd in Mercy rather than in Judgment who never touch upon the sharpness of the Law unless it be to prepare mens Hearts to relish and receive the comfort of the Gospel Let the Piety then and the Good-meaning of those grave Fathers be praised but I say they forgot their Duty to the Writ of the King's Summons and the use and weight of their Place And now to close I protest without vaunting I cannot perceive how this can be answer'd which I have digested together And if so many Bishops cannot obtain their Right which is so clear on their side God send the Earl of Strafford better Justice who is but a single Peer 153. Blame not my Book that there is so much of this Argument I hope the Ignorant will not read it at all but let a knowing man read it again and when he hath better observ'd it he will think it short Some History-spoilers have detracted from our Bishop that though he pleaded much in Parliament to his own Peril in the behalf of E. Strafford yet he wrought upon the King to consent to give way to his beheading Says our Arch-Poet Spencer lib. 3. Can. 1. st 10. Great hazard were it and Adventure fond To lose long-gotten Honour with one evil Hand But he shall lose no Honour in this for first as Nazian Or. 27 rejects them that had raised an ill Report of him whom he praised 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 can you prove that they were sound in their mind that said so if any will believe it from such authors a good man hath lost his thanks Ego quod bené fec◠malè feci quia amor mutavit locum Plautus That which was well done is ill done because it is not lovingly requited Hear all and judge equally Both the Houses of Lords and Commons by most Voices found the Earl guilty of Treason they made the greater Quire but those few that absolved him sung better The King interceded by himself by the Prince his Son to save him craved it with Cap in Hand Being founder'd in his Power he could go no further the Subjects denied their Soveraign the Life of one Man so Strafford must be cast away Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Rom. non judicium fuit Cic. pro Plancio Whose Calamity is the shame of English Justice His Majesty for divers days could not find in his Heart to set his Hand to the Warrant for Execution for Conscience dresseth it self by its own light And I would he had been as constant to his own Judgment in other things that we might remember it to his Honour as Capitolinus testifies for Maximus Non aliis potiùs quà m sibi credidit The fate of it was that the Parliament would not grant Mercy to the Earl and would have Justice from the King according to their Sentence whether he would or no They threaten and were as good as their Word to sit idle and do nothing for publick Safety and Settlement the whole Realm being in distraction till the Stroke was struck All the Palace-Yard and Hall were daily full of Mutineers and Outcries His Majesty's Person was in danger the roguy Off-scum in the Streets of Westminster talk'd so loud that there was cause to dread it Though there is nothing more formidable than to fear any thing more than God yet the most eminent Lords of the Council perswaded His Majesty to make no longer resistance Placeat quodcunque necesse est Lucan lib. 4. Not he but Necessity should be guilty of it If he did
this Common-wealth is no more in being it sufficeth it hath been once and that planted by God himself who would never have appointed persons in Holy Orders to intermeddle with things they ought not to intermeddle withal I will go on with my Chronology of persons in Holy Orders and only put you in mind of Ely and Samuel among the Judges of Sadock's Employment under K. David of Jehojada's under his Nephew King Joash and would sain know what Hurt these men in Holy Orders did by intermedling in Secular Affairs of that time Now we are returned from the Captivity of Babylon I desire you to look upon the whole Race of the Maccabâ—s eveâ— to Antigonus the last of them all taken Prisoner by Pompey and 〈◊〉 afterwards by M Antony and shew me any of those Princes a Woman or two excepted that was not a Priest and a Magistrate 161. We are now come to Christ's time when methinks I hear St. Paul 23. of the Acts excuse himself for reviling of the High-Priest I wist not Brethren that he was the High-â—iest for it is written Thoushalt not speak evil of the Ruler of thy People Where observe that the word Ruler in the Greek is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very same word that is used by St. Paul Rom. 13.3 where this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is translated by Beza Magistrates Then you must be pleased to imagine the Church asleep or almost dead under Persecution for almost 300 years until the happy days of the Emperor Constantine and not expect to find many Magistrates among the Christians Yet you shall find St. Paul 1 Cor. 6.5 offend against this Bill and intermeddle Knuckle-deep with Secular Affairs by inhibiting the Corinthians very sharply for their Chicanery their Pettisoggery and common Barretry in going to Law one with another Besides that as all learned men agree both the Apostles and Apostolical men that lived presently after them had a miraculous power of punishing exorbitant Crimes which supplied the power of the ordinary Magistrate as appears in Ananias and Sapphira the incestuous Corinthian and many others But then from Constantine's Age till the Reformation began by Luther Churchmen were so usually employed in managing of Secular Affairs that I shall confess ingenuously it was too much there lying an Appeal from the Courts of the Empire to the Bishops Judicatory as you shall find it every where in the Code of Justinian So it was under Carolus Magnus and all the Carolovingian Line of our neighbour Kingdom of France So and somewhat more it was with us in the Saxon Heptarchy the Bishop and the Sheriff sitting together check by jowl in their Turns and Courts But these exorbitant and vast Employment in Secular Affairs I stand not up to desend and therefore I will hasten to the Reformation Where Mr. Calvin in the fourth Book of his Institutions and eleventh Distinction doth confess that the holy men heretofore did refer their Controversies to the Bishop to avoid Troubles in Law You shall find that from Luther to this present day in all the flux of Time in all Nations in all manner of Reformations persons in Holy Orders were thought fit to intermeddle in Secular Affairs Brentius was a Privy-Councillor to his Duke and Prince Functius was a Privy-Councillor to the great Duke of Borussâ—a as it is but too notoriously known to those that are versed in Histories Calvin and Beza while they lived carried all the Council of the State of Geneva under their own Gowns Bancroft in his Survey c. 26. observeth that they were of the Council of State there which consisteth of Threescore And I have my self known Abraham Scultetus a Privy-Councillor to the Prince Palatine Reverend Monsieur Du Moulin for many years together a Councillor to the Princess of Sedan his Brother-in-law Monsieur Rivet a great learned Personage now in England of the Privy-Council of the Prince of Orange You all hear and I know much good by his former Writings of a learned man called Mr. Henderson and most of your Lordships understand better than I what Employment he hath at this time in this Kingdom And truly I do believe that there is no Reformed Church in the World settled and constituted by the State wherein it is held for a point in Divinity that persons in Holy Orders ought not to intermeddle with Secular Affairs Which is all I shall say of this Duty of Ministers in point of Divinity 162. Now I come to the second Duty of men in Holy Orders in point of Conveniency or Policy and am clearly of opinion that even in this Regard and Reâ—ection they ought not to be debarred from modestly intermeddling in Secular Affairs for iâ— there be any such Inconvenience it must needs arise from this That to exercise some Secular Jurisdiction must be evil in it self or evil to a person in Holy Orders Which is neither so nor so for the whole Office of a subordinate civil Magistrate is most exactly described in Rom. 13. v. 3 4. and no man can add or detract from the same The Civil Power is a Divine Ordinance set up to be a Terror to the Evil and an Encouragement to Good Works This is the whole compass of the Civil Power And theresore I do here demand with the most learned Bishop Davenant that within a few days did sit by my side in the Eleventh Question of his Determinations What is there of Impiety what of Unlawfulness what unbecoming either the Holiness or Calling of a Priest in terrifying the bad or comforting the good Subject in repressing of Sin or punishing of Sinners For this is the whole and entire act of Civil Jurisdiction It is in its own nature repugnant to no Person to no Function to no fort or condition of Men let them hold themselves never so holy never so seraphical it becomes them very well to repress Sin and punish Sinners that is to say to exercise in a moderate manner Civil Jurisdiction if the Soveraign shall require it And you shall find that this Doctrine of debarring persons in Holy Orders from Secular Employments is no Doctrine of the Reformed but the Popish Church and first brought into this Kingdom by the Popes of Rome and Lambeth Lanfrank Anselm Stephen Langton and the rest together with Otho and Ottobon and to this only end that the man of Rome might withdraw all the Clergy of this Kingdom from their obligation to the King and Nobility who were most of them great Princes in those times and thereby might establish and create as in great part he did Regnum in Regno a Kingdom of Shavelings in the midst of this Kingdom of England And hence came those Canons of mighty consequence able to shoot up a Priest at one shot into Heaven as that he must not meddle with matters of Blood that he must not exercise Civil Jurisdiction that he must not be a Steward to a Noble-man in his House and all the rest of this Palea and
and Representation of the Clergy a third estate if we may speak either with Sir Edw. Coke or the ancient Acts of Parliament have been in possession hereof these Thousand years and upward The Princes of the Norman Race indeed for their own ends and to strengthen themselves with Men and Money erected the Bishopricks soon after the Conquest into Baronies and left them to sit in the House with their double Capacities about them the latter invented for the profit of the Prince not excluding the former remaining always from the beginning for the profit and concernment of the poor Clergy and the State Ecclesiastical which appears not only by the Saxon Laws set forth by Mr. Lambert and Sir H. Spelman but also by the Bishops Writs and Summons to Parliament in use to this very day We have many President upon the Rolls that in vacancy of Episcopal Sees the Guardian of the Spirituals though but a simple Priest hath been called to fit in this Honourable House by reason of the former Representation and such an Officer I was my self over that See whereof I am Bishop some 25 years ago and might then have been summoned by Writ to this Honourable House at that very time by reason of keeping the Spirituality of that Diocess which then as a simple Priest I did by vertue of the aforesaid Office represent And therefore most noble Lords look upon the Ark of God's Representative that at this time floats in great danger in this Deluge of Waters If there be any Cham or unclean Creature therein out with him and let every man bear his own Burden but save the Ark for God and Christ Jesus sake who hath built it in this Kingdom for saving of People And your Lordships are too wise to conceive that the Word and Sacraments the means of our Salvation will be ever effectually received from those Ministers whose Persons shall be so vilified and dejected as to be made no Parcels or Fragments of this Common-wealth No faith Gregory the last Trick the Devil had in this World was this that when he could not bring the Word and Sacraments into disgrace by Errors and Heretical Opintens he invented this Project and much applauded his Wit therein to cast Slight and Contempt upon the Preachers and Ministers And my noble Lords you are too wise to believe what the common people talk that we have a Vote in the election of Knights and Burgesses and consequently some Figure and Representation in the noble House of Commons They of the Ministry have no Vote in these Elections they have no Representation in that Honourable House and the contrary Assertions are so slight and groundless as I will not offer to give them any answer And therefore R. Hon. Lords have a special care of the Church of England your Mother in this point And as God hath made you the most noble of all the Peers of the Christian World so do not you give way that our Nobility shall be taught henceforth as the Romans were in the time of the first and second Punick Wars by their Slaves and Bond-men only and that the Church of God in this Island may come to be served by the most ignoble Ministers that have ever been seen in the Christian Church since the Passion of our Saviour And so much for the first thing which this Bill intends of sever from Persons in Holy Orders viz. Votes and Representations in Parliament The next thing to be severed from them by this Bill is of a meaner Mettal and Alloy sittings in Star-Chamber sittings at Council-Table sitting in the Commissions of Peace and other Commissions of Secular Affairs which are such Favours and Graces of Christian Princes as the Church may have a being and subsistence without them The Fartunes of our Greece do not depend upon these Spangles and the Soveraign Prince hath imparted and withdrawn these kind of Favours without the envy or regret of any wise Ecclesiaâ—ical Persons But my noble Lords this is the Case our King hath by the Statute restored unto him the Headship of the Church of England and by the Word of God he is Custos utriusque tabulae And will your Lordships allow this Ecclesiastical Head no Ecclesiastical Senses at all No Ecclesiastical Person to be consulted withal not in any circumstance of Time and Place If Cranmer had been thus dealt withal in the minority of our young King Josias King Edward the Sixth of pious memory what had become of the great Work of our Reformation in this flourishing Church of England But I know before whom I speak I do not mean to Dine your Lordships with Coleworts the harsh Consequents of this Point your Lordships do understand as well as I. The last Robe that some Persons in Holy Orders are to be stript of hath a kind of Mixture of Freehold and Favour of the proper Right and Graces of the King which are certain old Charters that some few Bishops and many Ancient and Cathedral Churches have purchased and procured from the ancient Kings before and since the Conquest to inable them to live quiet in their own Precincts and close as they call it under a Justice or two of their own Body without being abandoned upon every slight occasion to the Injuries and Vexations of Mechanical Tradesmen of which your Lordships best know those Country Incorporations do most consist Now whether these sew Charters have their Foundation by Favour or by Right I should conceive under your Lordships savour it is neither Favour nor Right to take them away without some just Crime objected and proved For if they be abused in any particular Mr. Attorney-General can find an ordinary Remedy to repair the same by a Writ of Ad quod damnum without troubling the two Houses of Parliament And this is all I shall speak to this Point 165. And now I am come to the fourth part of this Bill which is the manner of Inhibition heavy every way heavy in the Penalty heavier a great deal in the Incapacity For the weighing of the Penalty will you consider I beseech you the small Wyres that is poor Causes that are to induce the same and then the heavy Lead that hangs upon those Wyres It is thus If a natural Subject of England interessed in the Magna Charta and Petition of Right as well as any other yet being a Person in Holy Orders shall happen unfortunately to Vote in Parliament to obey his Prince by way of Counsel or by way of a Commissioner be required thereunto then he is presently to lose and forfeit for his first offence all his means and livelyhood for one year and for the second to forfeit his Freehold in that kind for ever and ever And I do not believe that your Lordships ever saw such an heavy weight of Censure hang upon such thin Wyres of Reason in an Act of Parliament made heretofore This peradventure may move others most but it does not me It is not the Penalty
the opening of that Session it was much Noted that the King had said before all the Members Spare none where you find just Cause to punish And if the two Houses should sit a year what good could be expected from them but two or three Subsidies That it were less danger for the King to gather such a Sum or greater by his Prerogative though it be out of the way than to wait for the exhibition of a little Mony which will cost Dishonour and the Ruin of his most Loyal and Faithful Servants 60. O what a Tempting Fiend is self-preservation These Mormo's and ill shap'd Jealousies hatch'd in Hell and prompted by the Father of mischief disquieted the King but Rob'd my Lord of Buckingham of all peace of Mind till the Dean of Westminster his good Genius conjur'd them down whose Wisdom luckily consulted gave him this Advice as I find it in a Breviate of his own hand Writing That the Parliament in all that it had hitherto undertaken had deserv'd praise as well for their dutiful demeanor to the King as for their Justice to his people His Majesties just and gracious Prerogative was untouch'd The Grievances of all that were Wronged with indifferency were Received which they must sift or betray the Trust of their Country which sent them The former Parliament was very Tart if not undutiful what then Shall we be fearful to put our hands into cold Water because we have been Scalded with hot There 's no Colour to quarrel at this general Assembly of the Kingdom for Tracing delinquents to their Form For it is their proper Work And the King hath very Nobly encourag'd them to it in his Speech that in the first day he made before them nay even proffering to have the blemishes of his Government Reformed by them for his own Words must literally bear that meaning as you well remember them if I may know my Errors I will Reform them But your Lordship is Jealous if the Parliament continue Embodied in this Vigour of your own safety or at least of your Reputation least your Name should be used and he brought to the Bandy Follow this Parliament in their undertakings and you may prevent it Swim with the Tide and you cannot be Drown'd They will seek your favour if you do not start from them to help them to settle the public Frame as they are contriving it Trust me and your other Servants that have some Credit with the most Active Members to keep you clear from the strife of Tongues But if you assist to break up this Parliament being now in pursuit of Justice only to save some Cormorants who have devoured that which must be regorged you will pluck up a Sluce which will over-whelm your self The King will find it a great disservice before one year expire The Storm will gather and burst out into a greater Tempest in all insequent Meetings For succeeding Parliaments will never be Friends with those with whom the former fell out This is Negative Counsel I will now spread Affirmative Proposals before your Honour which I have studied and consider'd Delay not one day before you give your Brother Sir Edward a Commission for an Embassage to some of the Princes of Germany or the North-Lands and dispatch him over the Seas before he be mist Those empty Fellows Sir G. Mompesson and Sir Fr. Michel let them be made Victims to the publick Wrath. It strikes even with that Advice which was given to Caesar in Salust when the people expected that some should be Examples of impartial Justice Lucius Posthumins Marcus Fauonius mihi videntur quâ—si magnae navis supervacua onera esse Si quid adversi coortâ—m est de illis pstissumon sactura sit quia pretii minimi sunt Let Lord Posthumius and M. Fauonius be thrown over board in the Storm for there are no Wares in the Ship that may better be spared Nay my Sentence is cast all Monopolies and Patents of griping projections into the Dead Sea after them I have search'd the Signet Office and have Collected almost forty which I have hung in one Bracelet and are fit for Revocation Damn all these by one Proclamation that the World may see that the King who is the Pilot that sits at the Helm is ready to play the pump to eject such Filth as grew Noysom in the Nostrils of his people And your Lordship must needs partake in the Applause for though it is known that these Vermin haunted your Chamber and is much Whisper'd that they set up Trade with some little Licence from your Honour yet when none shall appear more forward than your self to crush them the Discourse will come about that these Devices which take ill were stoln from you by Mis-representation when you were but New blossom'd in Court whose Deformities being Discover'd you love not your own Mistakings but are the most forward to re-call them 61. Before I proceed though Anger be an Enemy to Counsel I confess I cannot refrain to be angry O hearken not to Rhehoboams Ear-Wigs drive them away to the Gibbet which they deserve that would incite the King to Collections of Aid without concurrence of his Parliament God bless us from those Scorpions which certainly would beget a popular Rage An English mans Tribute comes not from the King's Exaction but by the peoples free Oblation out of the Mouth of their Representatives Indeed our Ancient Kings from the beginning did not receive but impose Subsidies When the Saxon Monarchs wanted Relief for repairing Castles Bridges or Military Expeditions they Levied it at their will upon the Shires as we may learn by some Names the only Remainder of those Old times Burg-boot Brig-boot Hen-fan Here-geld Horn-geld Danegeld Terms that meet us every where in our Ancient Chronicles The Normans you may Swear lost nothing that came in by wonted Signory but exacted as they saw Cause as William the Conqueror de Unaquâque hidâ sex solidos cepit imposed Six Shillings on every plowed Land saith Mathew Paris And William Rusus had his Auxilium non lege statutum an Aid without an Act of Parliament as Hoveden in the Life of Henry the Second And in this manner the Norman Race supplied themselves as they needed until King John's Reign who in his great Charter bound himself and his Successors to Collect no Aid nisi per commune concilium regni as it is in Matthew Paris With this agrees the Old Statute of 51 Henry the Third de tallagio non concedendo that Subsidies should not be Levied without the consent of Parliament Which being confirmed also in the 25 of Edward the First hath been inviolably observ'd by all the good and peaceable Kings of England to this very day And God forbid that any other Course should be Attempted For this Liberty was settled on the Subject with such Imprecations upon the Infringers that if they should remove these great Land-Marks they must look for Vengeance as if Entail'd by publick
Captain Hostes inciderunt in nâ— the Enemy is fallen among us and into our Power So to such as talk timorously We shall fall into the Mis-perswasions of a Catholick Lady and her Houshold It may well be answered Be not distrustful of a good Cause they are fallen among us and if God love them they will joyn with us 93. The other thing in debate seem'd very harsh and boisterous to his Majesty that sundry Leaders in the House of Commons would provoke him to proclaim open War with Spain To which he replied in a long Letter to the Speaker That he had sent some Forces to keep the strong Towns of his Son-in-Law from the Imperialists That he had sent 30000 l. to those Princes of Germany that promised to assist him in Jealousie of their own Territories and had they done their Part that handful of Men which he sent had sufficiently done theirs He told them that he treated sedulously at that time for Peace but it would be a very Contradiction at the same Instant to be a Party in an open War And he gravely minded them that he rather expected Thanks for a long Peace the great Blessing of God than to stir him up to one of the greatest Plagues which the Lord threatens to a sinful Kingdom That many of his Subjects wanton with Ease and Plenty and pamper'd with Rest desired a Change though they knew not what they would have But did these Words so wise and melting compose the Humors of the Passionate No The Stoicks said well that from all Words and Actions there were two Handles to be catch'd hold of a Good and a Bad. The Virtuous interpret all to the best and lay hold on the Good The Quarrelsome apply all to the worst and lay hold of the Bad. Some that were Christianly Principled and were desirous to contrive every way how to spare the Effusion of so much Humane Blood admir'd the Lenity and Moderation of the King and look'd up to God that he would bring this Work to pass by other Means than unruly and unsatiate Armies But some cry'd out in Ar. W. Language That the King's Heart was not advanc'd to glorious Atchievements P. 172. Or as another of the same Tribe That howsoever the World did believe that he was unwilling to fight it out from a Religious Ground yet it was no other but a cowardly Disposition that durst not adventure Others would find a Knot in a Rush and laid the Blame upon his Learning that did intenerate his Heart too much and make him a Dastard These belike were not acquainted with the Exploits of the Graecian Xenophon the Roman Caesar the English Sidney Montjoy and Raleigh Gentlemen that were renowned both in Arms and Letters Yet such as were transported with Warmth to be a sighting prevail'd in Number before the Pacificous Well hath Pliny noted Epist Lib. 2. In publico concilio nihil est tam inaequale quà m aequali as ipsa nam cum sit impar prudentia par omnium jus est 'T is the Inequality of that equal Right which all have in publick Councils that every Puny hath a decisive Voice as much as Nestor But for all the Sword-men were so forward the King's Head was in Travel with Hopes of Peace He considered that even just Wars could not be prosperous unless they were begun with Unwillingness for they are the first Felicity of bad Men and the last Necessity of good Men. Macrobius observes in Bacchus the great Invader of India That he carried his Spear with a Trail of Ivy twin'd about it Lib. 1 â— 17 Quod vinculo patientiae obligandi sunt impetui Belle Because the Fierceness of Fighting should be rained in with the Bridle of Patience Lofty Spirits more Heathenish than Evangelical account one Victory worth ten thousand Lives But he that looks for the true Life above is sure that Mercy and Tenderness of Heart are better than a thousand Victories Eâ—saws indeed was not the Soldiers Friend but thus far he may be heard in this Cause Epist Aute August Hist Idem omnes pariter adnitantur ne Bellum sit poâ—iùs quà m ut bello vincant 'T is glorious before Men to fight well 't is blessed before God not to sight at all Warlike Motions are a Tryal of Gallantry for a time but all the Pages of Horror Calamity and Desolation attend them upon the Place where the Camp continues And why may not that continue till an Infant come to gray Hairs 'T is easie to set the Day when Wars shall begin but none can tell the Year nor the Age when they will end Metellus had been brought up in such Service none could tell Bacchus better than himself Salush Jug Bellum sumi facilè ceterum aegerimè dirimi non in ejusdem potestate initium ejus sinem esse And if War last long Who can feed that Cormorant with so much as it will devour What Millions and Millions of Coin have been exhausted to maintain this great Curse of God in our Land 't is thrice as chargeable to transport an Army If great Contributions be exacted Year by Year What Outcries will the People make And if we be not shorn to the Quick nay if we be not flay'd to advance Payments What Out-cries will the Soldiers make 'T is remarkable that the Commons in this Parliament voted to give one entire Subsidie to the King to begin the War They were not ignorant that five times that Money was not enough to Rig a Navy and to receive a good Army in it at the Sea-Side What a poor Stock was this to set up such a Trade a Sign they were neither able nor willing to maintain a War but at the Tongues end Finally The King having deliberated upon this Hurry to Battle opened the very Oracle of his Heart in this manner to some that were near him That a King of England had no reason but to seek always to decline a War though he carried his Forces abroad for the Array or Sword was in his Hand and the Purse in the Peoples His Sword could not fight without their Purse to maintain it Suppose a Supply were levied to begin the Fray What Certainty could He have that He should not want enough to make an honorable End If he call'd for Subsidies and did not obtain he must retreat ingloriously to the Wounding of his own Honour and the Nations If he were instant to have Succour and were resolved never to give over till he had it after he had craved it as if he had beg'd an Alms he must take it with such Conditions as would break the Heart of Majesty through Capitulations that some Members would make who desire to improve the Reputation of their Wisdom by retrenching the Dignity of the Crown in Popular Declamations For 't was likely they would ask the Change of the Church of the Laws of the Court Royal the Displacing of his Officers the Casheiring of his Servants Either at
this Rate he must buy the Soldiers Pay or be Scandaliz'd in the Army to the endangering of a Mutiny that he would yield nothing to save them from Starving who had jeoparded their Lives for him and his Children All this praemised I cannot dive into his Nature as some do that knew no more than I to say he was no Man of Courage but out of the Pith of his Arguments I can collect he was a Commander of Reason Happy those that liv'd under his Scepter who could say Claudian land Stil Hujus pacificis debemus moribus omnes Quod cuncti gens una sumus Plutarch compares Romulus and Numa that the former did all he could to train the People to Fight Numa did his best to suppress Wars Non ob ignavia sed innocentiae causa not out of Timorousness but of Harmlesness This is he that they say had the Goddess Aegeria to his Dry-Nurse whereas Romulus had a Wolf to his Wet-Nurse So I will define it in the Peroration that it was Harmlesness and Innocency that taught King James not to leave his Kingdom naked to the Storms of War and disrobed of the Mantle of Peace 94. Now to go on If the Matter debated about breaking of the Match and Proclaiming War with Spain had not disgusted the Modus Procedendi or Form how the Commons took in hand would have given less Displeasure But to keep them from hunting after such Royal Game his Majesty confines them into their own Purlues Not to meddle says he with any thing concerning our Government or deep Matters of State and namely not to deal with our dearest Son's Match with the Daughter of Spain nor to touch the Honour of that King or any other our Friends and Confederates And also not to meddle with any man's Particulars which have their due Motion in any Our Courts of Justice To which they Answer That they acknowledge it belonged to his Majesty alone to resolve of Peace and War and of the Marriage of the most Noble Prince his Son Nor did they assume to themselves any Power to determine of any Part thereof but to demonstrate those things to his Majesty which they were not assured could otherwise come so fully and clearly to his Knowledge which are mannerly but plain Shifts In the L'enocoy they rise higher That his Majesty did seem to abridge them of the ancient Liberty of Parliament for Freedom of Speech an Inheritance received from their Ancestors The Apple of Contention at last grew only upon the Stalk of those Words The King rejoyns unto it thus Although We cannot allow of the Stile calling it your ancient and undoubted Inheritance but could rather have wished that ye had said that your Priviledges were derived from the Grace and Permission of our Ancestors and Us for most of them grew from Precedents which shews rather a Toleration than inheritance Yet We are pleas'd to give you Our Royal Assurance that as long as you shall continue your selves within the Limits of your Duty We shall be as careful to maintain and preserve your Lawful Liberties and Priviledges as ever any of Our Predecessors were nay as to preserve Our own Royal Prerogative Had Queen Elizabeth sent such Lines to any of the Parliaments called in her Blessed Reign her Name had been advanc'd for a gracious and a renowned Lady It was this if not alone yet chiefly that made her Government more Popular at Home and Glorious Abroad than the Kings her Successors for they wanted nothing of Piety Wisdom and Justice that she never encountred with Harsh Gainsaying Tumultuous Parliaments But what Requital had King James sot his gentle Words perfum'd with sweet Gums Why they begat another Remonstrance full of strong Contestation That the Liberties Franchizes Priviledges and Jurisdictions of Parliament are the ancient and undoubted Birth-right and Inheritance of the Subjects of England and so forth along with every Note above Ela. Yet that no Diversion might be made nor Cessation of weightier Business for this the Lord Keeper writes to the Lord Marquess Decemb. Cabal p. 65. 16. in these Words His Majesty infers that the Priviledges of Parliament are but Graces and Favours of former Kings Most true for where were the Commons before Harry the First gave them Authority to meet in Parliament They claim those things to be their Inheritance and natural Birth-Right Both these Assertions if men were peaceably disposed and affected the Dispatch of the common Business might easily be reconciled Those Priviledges were originally the Favors of Princes and are now inherent in their Persons in their Politick Body His Majesty may be pleased to qualifie that Passage with some mild and noble Exposition This wise Letter cuts the Controversie by a Thred And this Office to mitigate that Passage Sir Humphry May performed singularly to his Praise yet nothing to Success Hereupon on the 21st of December this Session was Prorogued till February the 8th but utterly Dissolved by Proclamation Jan. 7. Surely every good man wish'd that the King and they had embrac'd at Parting Plutarch in the Life of Dion tells of a small Error in Nature which hapned in Syracusa That a Sow Farrow'd and her Pigs had no Ears That the Sooth-Sayers portended to Dionysius the Governor a great Mischief upon it that the People would be Disobedient and hear nothing that was Commanded There cannot be a more ominous Presage of Evil to come than when the Magistrate hath lost the Happiness of a persuasive Tongue and the People of a listning and obedient Ear. 95. An Evill befall that Archimago that Fiend of Mischief that set Variance between the Head and the Body The Lord Keeper who saw about him and before him understood who would have the worst of it in the End For the next Parliament is not weakned in its Power or Priviledges by the Dissolution of the Former but a King grows-less than himself if he depart asunder from that publick Assembly in a Paroxism or sharp Fit as Paul and Barnabas went one from another Acts 15.39 Therefore he read nothing so much to his Majesty as to study it next to his Faith in Christ how to close with the Desires of that High Court when it assembled again that it might be like a Mixture of Roses and Wood-binds in a sweet Entwinement And for his Part he was willing to serve him in it rather than in any thing to be unto him as the Black Palmer was to the Fairy Knight in Mr. Spencer's Moral Poem to guide his Adventure from all distemperate Eruptions Which was put home And let it rest a while till time brought it on that he was the Days-man of Success For now I remove him into his Place in Star-Chamber a Court though buried now yet not to be forgotten Cambden who kept the Nobleness of his Country from Oblivion says of it Curia camâ—rae sâ—llatae si vetustatem spectemus est antiquissâ—ma Si dignitatem honoratissima For the Antiquity the Lord
did now Imprison and Execute the Rigour of his Laws against the Roman Catholics I must deal plainly with your Lordship our Viperious Country-men the English Jesuits in France to frustrate those pious endeavours of his Majesty had many Months before this Favour granted retorted that Argument upon us by Writing a most malicious Book which I have seen and read over to the French King Inciting him and the three Estates to put all those Statutes in Execution against the Protestants in those parts which are here Enacted and as they falsly inform'd severely Executed upon the Papists I would therefore see the most subtle State-monger in the World chalk out away for 〈◊〉 Majesty to mediate for Grace and Favour for the Protestants by Executing at this 〈◊〉 the Severity of his Laws upon the Papists And that this Favour should 〈…〉 Toleration is a most dull and yet a most devilish misconstruction A Toleration looks forward to the time to come This favour backward to the Offences past If any Papist now set at Liberty shall offend the Laws again the Justices may Nay must recomm◠him and leave Favour and Mercy to the King to whom they properly belong Nay let those two Writs directed to the Judges be as diligently perused by these rash Censurers as they were by those Grave and Learned Men to whom his Majesty referred the Penning of the same and they shall find that these Papists are not otherwise out of Prison then with their Shackles about their Heels sufficient sureties and good recognizances to present themselves again at the next Assizes As therefore that Lacedaemonian opposed the Oracle of Apollo by asking his Opinion of the Bird which he grasp'd in his hand whether it were alive or dead So it is a matter yet controverted and undecided whether these Papists clos'd up and grasp'd in the Bands of the Law be still in Prison or at Liberty Their own demeanour and the success of his Majesties Negotiations are the Oracles that must decide the same If the Lay-Papists do wax insolent with this Mercy insulting upon the Protestants and Translating this favour from the Person to the cause I am verily of Opinion that his Majesty will remand them to their former State and Condition and renew his Writ no more But if they shall use these Graces modestly by admitting conference with Learned Preachers demeaning of themselves Neighbourly and Peaceably praying for his Majesty and the prosperous success of his Pious Endeavours and Relieving him bountifully which they are as well able to do as any other of his Subjects if he shall be forced and constrained to take his Sword in Hand Then it cannot be denied but our Master is a Prince that hath as one said plus humanitatis poene quam hominis And will at that time leave to be merciful when he leaves to be himself In the the mean while this Argument fetch'd from the Devils Topics which concludes a concreto ad abstractum from a favour done to the English Papists that the King favoureth the Popish Religion is such a Composition of Folly and Malice as is little deserved by that Gracious Prince who by Word Writing Exercise of Religion Acts of Parliament late Directions for Catechising and Preaching and all Professions and Endeavours in the World hath demonstrated himself so Resolved a Protestant God by his Holy Spirit open the Eyes of the People that these Airy Representations of ungrounded Fancies set aside they may clearly discern and see how by the Goodness of God and the Wisdom of their King this Island of all the Countries in Europe is the sole Nest of Peace and True Religion And the Inhabitants thereof unhappy only in this one thing that they never look up up to Heaven to give God Thanks for so great an Happiness Lastly for mine own Letter to the Judges which did only declare not operate the Favour it was either mispenned or much mis-construed It recited four kinds of Recusants only capable of his Majesties Clemency Not so much to include these as to exclude many other Crimes bearing among the Papists the Name of Recusanties as using the Function of a Romish Priest seducing the King's Liege people from the Religion established Scandalizing and Aspersing our King Church State or present Government All which Offences being outward practises and no secret Motions of the Conscience are adjudged by the Laws of England to be meerly Civil and Political and excluded by my Letter from the benefit of those Writs which the bearer was imployed to deliver unto my Lords the Judges And thus I have given your Lordship a plain Accompt of the Carriage of this business and that the more suddenly that your Lordship might perceive it is no Aurea Fabula or prepared Fable but a bare Narration which I have sent unto your Lordship I beseech your Lordship to let his Majesty know that the Letters to the Justices of the Peace concerning those four Heads recommended by his Majesty shall be sent away as fast as they can be exscribed I will not trouble your Lordship more at this time c. Your Lordships I. L. C. S. 105. The Letter as it exceeds in length so it excells in Judgment Yet thrusting into the midst of the Throng to part the Fray he got a knock himself For because he was principally employ'd by his Office to distribute the King's Favours to some of the adverse Sect he was Traduc'd for a Well-willer to the Church of Rome nay so far by a ranting fellow about the Town that he was near to receive a chief promotion from that Court no less than a Cardinals Hat At the first Bruit of this Rumor the Scandal was told him and one Sadler the Author discover'd which he despis'd to prosecute and pass'd it by with this moderation ' That the Reporters saw the Oar under Water and thought it was ' Crooked but he that had it in his hand knew that it was whole and streight An admirable Similitude to reconcile contraries to a good meaning for the Eye were not right if the Oar under Water did not seem broken to it And the Judgment were not right if it had not a contrary Opinion So the people that are upon the Shore judge one way for they look upon things beneath the Water But States-men judge another who work at the Oar or guide the Bark The Error of the former is tolerable the Sense of the other is Magisterial and unquestionable So great were this Lord's disaffections to that corrupt and unfound Church that he watch'd their Ministers more narrowly then any Counsellor when they shot beyond the Mark of his Majesties late indulgences It was ever the unlucky diligence of those that were Proctors to agitate the Recusants Cause to importune his Majesty for those things which they did not hope to obtain but the very offer of them with their Arts and Graceless Carriage would make the Council Table odious contribute much to embitter the Subjects
other Bodies cannot dissolve the Constancy of Gold 108. How faithfully and with what Courage like himself he adventur'd to maintain Orthodox Religion against old Corruptions and new Fanglements will be a Labour to unfold hereafter One thing remains that is purely of Episcopal Discharge which I will salute and so go by it before I look again upon his Forensive or Political Transactions When he was Dean of Westminster he had a Voice in the High Commission Court and so forth when he was in higher Degrees For as Nazianzen commends Athanasius pag. 24. Encom he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 skiiful in all the various Arts of Government He appear'd but once at Lambeth when that Court sat while he was Dean A sign that he had no Maw to it For he would say that the Institution of the Court was good without all Exception That is to Impower the Kings of England and their Successors by Statute to issue out that Authority under the Great Seal which was annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm to assign some as often and to so long time as the King should think fit to be Judges for the Reformation of great Abuses and Enormities But that this Power should be committed from the Kings and Queens of this Realm to any Person or Persons being Natural born Subjects to their Majesties to overlook all Ecclesiastical Causes correct punish deprive whether one or more whether Lay or Clergy whether of the vilest as well as the noblest nay whether Papist as well as Protestant as no harm was to be feared from good Princes albeit they have this Liberty by the Tenure of the Act 1 Eliz. Cap. 1. So if God should give us a King in his Anger who would oppress us till our cry went up like the Smoke out of a Furnace this Statute would enable them to enact Wickedness by a Law This was a Flaw to his seeming in the Corps of the Statute which gave Vigour to the High Commission But in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth and her two blessed Successors God be praised we were never the worse for it Better Commissioners than were appointed in their Days need not be wish'd What ail'd this wise Church-man then to be so reserv'd and to give so little Attendance in that Court He was not satisfied in two things Neither in the Multiplicity of Causes that were pluck'd into it nor in the Severity of Censures It is incident to Supream Courts chiefly when Appeals fly unto them to be sick of this Timpany to swell with Causes They defraud the lower Audiences of their Work and Profit which comes home to them with Hatred What a Clamor doth Spalat make Lib. 5. Eccl. Reip. c. 2. ar 28. That the Judicatories at Rome lurch'd all the Bishops under that Supremacy of all Complaints that were promoted to their Consistories Eò lites omnes cò dispensationes trahuntur Fluviorum omnium tractus ad suam derivat molam nobis quod sugamus nihil relinquitur The Affairs of all Ecclesiastical Tribunes were little enough to drive that Mill So the Consistories of all the Suffragans in the Province of Canterbury became in a manner Despicable because the Matters belonging to every Diocess were followed before the High Commission That it might be said to the neglected Praelates at Home Are ye unworthy to Judge the smallest Matters 1 Cor. c. 2. It seems ill Manners increas'd apace For I heard it from one that liv'd by the Practice of that High Court An. 1635 That whereas in the last Year of Arch-Bishop Whitgift eight Causes were left to be discuss'd in Easter-Term there were no less than a Thousand depending at that time This was one of his Exceptions That the High Court drew too much into its Cognizance The other Reason which made him stand a loof from it was That it punish'd too much Arch-Bishop Abbot was rigorously Just which made him shew less Pity to Delinquents Sentences of great Correction or rather of Destruction have their Epocha from his Predominancy in that Court. And after him it mended like sowre Ale in Summer It was not so in his Predecessor Bancroft's Days who would Chide stoutly but Censure mildly He considered that he sate there rather as a Father than a Judge Et pro peccato magno paululum supplicii satis est patris He knew that a Pastoral Staff was made to reduce a wandering Sheep not to knock it down He look'd upon St. Peter in whom the Power of the Keys was given to the Unity of all the Officers of the Church who incurr'd a great Offence in the Hall of the High Priest let the Place be somewhat consider'd but his Action most Ut mitior esset delinquentibus grandis delinquens Saith St. Austin It being the most indubitate Course of that Commission to deprive a Minister of his Spiritual Endowments that is of all he had if Drunkenness or Incontinency were prov'd against him I have heard the Lord Keeper who was no Advocate for Sin but for Grace and Compassion to Offenders dis-relish that way for this Reason That a Rector or Vicar had not only an Office in the Church but a Free-hold for Life by the Common Law in his Benefice If a Gentleman or Citizen had been Convicted upon an Article of Scandal in his Life was it ever heard that he did Confiscate a Mannor or a Tenement Nay What Officer in the Rolls in the Pipe in the Custom-house was ever displac'd for the like Under St Cyprian's Discipline and the Rigor of the Eliberitan Canons the Lay were obnoxious to Censures as much as the Clergy But above all said he there is nothing of Brotherhood nor of Humanity in this when we have cast a Presbyter cut of Doors and left him no Shelter to cover his Head that we make no Provision for him out of his own for Term of Life to keep him from the Extremities of Starving or Begging those Deformed Miseries 109. These Reasons prevailing with him to be no ordinary Frequenter of that Court yet an Occasion was offered which required his Presence Mart. 30. 1622 which will draw on a Story large and memorable M. Amonius de Deminis Arch Bishop of Spalato made an Escape out of Dalmatia an English Gentleman being his Conductor he posted through Germany and came safe into England in the end of the Year 1616. The King gave him Princely Welcome Many of the Religious Peers and Chief Bishops furnished him with Gold that he lack'd for nothing He seem'd then for all this Plenty brought in to be covetous of none of these things but was heard to say That the Provision of an ordinary Minister of our Church would suffice him For in the end of June as he was brought on his Way to the Commencement at Cambridge a Worthy and a Bountiful Divine Dr. John Mountfort receiv'd him for a Night in his Parsonage-House of Ansty Where Spalat noting that Dr. Mountfort had all things about him orderly and handsome like
a genteel Scholar he protested to all that were in presence that if he could obtain such a House to dwell in and no more than the Profits of such a Parish to maintain him he would go no further in the Desire of the Things of this Life But King James no Niggard in Liberality perswaded him to take more than he ask'd as Naaman urged Gehazi who was as willing to receive as Naaman to give 2 King 5.23 He was installed Dean of Windsor and admitted Master of the Savoy-Hospital in the Strand These together were worth to him 800 l. per Annum They brought in no less and he would not loose a Peny of his Due but studied to exact more than ever by Custom had been received by any of those Dignitaries Of which Sharking his Majesty once admonished him Yet his Veins were not full but he got himself presented by the Church of Windsor to a good Benefice says Mr. Ri. Montagu West Ilsly in Barkshire where he made a shift to read the Articles of 1562 in English pro more Clericali and subscribed to them But Jesurum waxed fat and kicked Deut. 28.15 For toward the end of January 1621 he came to Theobalds to be brought to the King and with as bold a Fore-head as ever any Face was drest in he became an humble Suppliant to his Majesty that he might have his Leave to return for Italy The Courtiers that stood by look'd up to Heaven in wonder For no Man dreamt of this Inconstancy and certainly no Man less than the King He that is not ready to do Evil is ever flow to suspect Evil of others But his Majesty carried it with high Wisdom For as if this Recoiler had told him no News he spake but this little and dismist him If you have a mind to be gone I will not stay you and at my first Leisure I will appoint those that shall confer with you about your Dismission A brave Contempt and well bestow'd upon a Proud Man that did not expect to be valued at a Trisle which was not worth the keeping Many have written before me the reason of this Arch-Bishop's retrograde Motion and likewise what it was that bore him up so stifly to be very confident or to seem to be to present himself before the Roman Conclave I shall not lose my Thanks I hope If I add my Observations with a little more than hath already been discovered First About the middle of Autumn Ann. 1621 Ant. de Dominis besought the King to confer the Arch-Bishoprick of York upon him A hasty Suitor for the Place was not void The Error came about thus The Arch-Bishop then in being called familiarly Toby Matthew was ever pleasant and full of becoming Merriment and knowing that his Death had been long expected was wont every year once or oftner to cause Rumours to be raised that he was deceased And when he had put this Dodgery strongly upon those at London that gap'd for the Vacancy to succeed him it was a Feast of Laughter to him to hear what Running and Riding there was to fill up his Room who jear'd them behind the Lattuce No wonder if Spalat a Stranger were catcht in this Trap but he had worse Luck than to be derided for his Forwardness for the King bade him sit quiet and seek no further It was not now as in Lanfranke and Anselm's Days to make a Stranger a Metropolitan of England The Man impatient that his Request had so large a Denial offers his Departure as 't is said before not distrusting but that the King would bid for such Ware as much as the Man thought himself to be worth But being over-shot and laid aside with Scorn he would have eat his Words and east out Speeches in oblique before some of the Council that whatsoever he had uttered he was dispos'd more to please the King than to please himself But he found no Place for Repentance And of all this the Lord Keeper is my Author 110. But what can be so quick sighted as the Devil that spies the first Spark of attentation and blows it into a Flame The vigilant Men at Rome knew better than we in England that the Jade had a mind to slip his Halter and to run away because we did not fill his Rack and plump him up with Provender Therefore in the beginning of January Hui tam cito a Packet came to his Hands from Cardinal Mellino whose Contents were That Paul the Fifth was dead from whose Anger he had made haste to be gone because he had provok'd him in defending the Venetian Quarrel against him but Gregory the Fifteenth of the Ludovisian Family was then in the Papal Throne as propense unto him of old as any Friend and as true to him as his own Brother That he had sent him an Apostolical Brief to Brussels for such Missives were not welcomed in England to give him Assurance of good Speed at Rome with a plenary Indulgence for all the Provocations of his Writings And Mellino added for that must not be left out That a great Dignity lay in Lavender for him Eaque valde opima So Dr. Crakanthorp cites it from Spalato 's own Mouth Pretium octuplicis stipendii eight times more in value than his english Preferments Defen Eccl. Angl. c. 8. art 5. But a Man not half so wise as Spalat might discern that if he did conside in this Ludovisian Pope alone the Security was very rotten Every Child presaged his Life was not long Death was ready to arrest him every day upon two Suits great Age and great Infirmity This Renego sailed from our Ports in the end of April arrived at Rome in June and this Pope the Hope of his Life and Fortunes expired July 8 Stilo Novo 1623. Neither was he ignorant of this Gregory's approaching Mortality his own Physicians confest he was of short Continuunce Be that very probable said they that undermined him and plied him with Packets from beyond Seas all the better For who is the Rising-Sun Who is the Prelate upon whom all Eyes are cast for the certain Successor but Cardinal Mellino his other Self the Undertaker for his Indemnity and Advancement Certainly he was bewitch'd with that Imposture yet an Imposture that had Truth in it as well as Cunning. The Conclave how Urban the Eighth was chosen Pope Aug. 6. 1623 was Printed at London by License An. 1642. Therein is discoursed how Cardinal Burgesi the leading Prelate of the Conclave labour'd so stifly for Mellino that July 22 he had fifteen Voices in the Scrutiny and eleven in the Access Which filled his Friends with Hopes to get ten Voices more to consummate the Election Again July 27 he had most Voices both in the Scrutiny and Access Whereupon Cardinal Sforza was so transported in his own Imagination to advance him that if Mellino might have been created Pope by Adoration as formerly the Custom would have done it but was crost by a new Bull it had been
5. to be wasted over into Italy in his Bark Thus he went on with other flatuous Disparagements One Copy of this and no more came to the Leiger Embassador of the Catholick King of which the Lord Keeper had the Use and would never deliver it again but wrote to my Lord Marquess April 20th to bid the Earl of Bristow to take care either to stifle it if it were not divulg'd or to cause it to be called in if it were published Such Scriblers should be informed against in the Ragguaglia's of Pernassus and amerced to pay for the the Loss of our Time 133. Aste the gaudy Days of the Royal Welcome were past over my Lord of Buckingham obliged the Lord Keeper greatly unto him with a Letter Dated March 26 and came about the Declining of April for the Comfort of the Contents which were these My good Lord HOwsoever I wrote so lately unto you that I have not since received any Letter from your Lordship yet because you shall see that I let slip no Opportunity I do it again by this Conveyance and must again tell you the good News of his Highness's being in perfect Health I cannot doubt but many idle and false Rumors will daily be there spread during the Absence of his Highness which I know your Lordship and the wiser sort will easily contemn and believe only that which you shall find avowedly advertised from hence And here let me thus far prevent with your Lordship any sinister Report that shall be made in the main Point which is the Prince's Religion assuring you that he is no way pressed nor shall be perswaded to change it for so is it clearly and freely professed unto him I hope I shall shortly be able to advertise your Lordship of the Arrival of the Dispensation which will be the Conclusion of our Business And thus wishing your Lordship all Honour and Happiness c. The Pearl which came in this Letter is that Satisfaction purchased of God with the Prayers of all devout Men that the Prince should not be inveigled in Conferences or unquieted with Disputes to strip himself of the Wedding-Garment of that incorrupt Faith in Christ which he had professed from a Child for that Wedding sake which he came to conclude How impudently have some Trash-Writers out-faced this Truth as if the Prince had been beset on all sides to make Shipwrack of his Religion in the Gulph of Rome Ar. Wilson of all others is the most forward Accuser and therefore the Falfest Tast him in these Parcels P. 230 that the Earl of Bristow insinuated it with this crafty Essay to his Highness That none of the King 's of England could do great things that were not of that Religion Yet he interfears in that same Page That Gondamar prest the Earl of Bristow not to hinder so pious a Work assuring him that they had Buckingham's Assistance in it Then belike Gondamar was jealous of Bristow that he was contrary to that which he called a pious Work the Prince's Perversion Certainly he knew Bristow as far as a Friend could know a Friend And as many Bow-shots wide is he from my Lord of Buckingham's Sincority in that Action as a Lyar is from Heaven Is not his Lordship's Hand-writing so solemn'y mention'd an uncontroulable Testimony The same Author slanders Conde d'Olivares and makes him utter that which never came from him That if the Prince would devote himself to their Church it would make him â—th way to the Infanta's Afflictions and if he seared the English would rebel he should be assisted with an Army to reduce them The Conâ—e Duke carried no such threatning Fire in one Hand nor at that time any of his Holy Water in the other For he committed nothing to offend his Highness's Ears in that â—ind till his Passions made him forget himself about three Months after Not contented with this he makes the Prince say that which he never thought as that when the Conde Duke propounded That if his Highness would not admit of a sudden Alteration and that publickly yet he would be so indulgent to litten to the Infanta in Matters of Religion when they both came into England Which the Prince promised to do But what says true hearted Spotswood P. 544. That the Prince was stedfast and would not change his Religion for any worldly Respect nor enter into Conference with any Divines for that purpose Utri credetis Is there any Choice which of these two should rather be believed I am careful to praemonish conscientious Readers against Serpentine Pens least their nibling should ranckle A Serpent you know from the beginning was a Lodging for the Devil Gen. 3. and so is a Slanderer The Manual of Romish Exorcisms says Instruct 2. that it is presumed for a sign that he is possest with a Devil Qui linguam extorquet miris modis eandem exerit ingenti oris hiatu I translate that to the Manners of the Mind which is meant there of the Body And let the Living learn the dead Man whom I speak of can take no Warning it is a divelish thing to loll out the Tongue of Contumely These being fore Times to out-face the Truth and willing to listen to Defamations no marvel if some take the Liberty to Lye and have the Confidence to be believed But that Sectaries that have quite overthrown the Church of England a right and pleasant Vineyard of Jesus Christ that these should be the Men who for the most part have challenged the Prince and the chief Ministers that laboured to effect the Spanish Match for being luke-warm at the best and unfastned from the Religion then profest is very audacious The Accused were Innocent and never gave ground to any pernicious Alteration but themselves the Accusers have trodden down that Religion of which in their deep Hypocrisy they would seem to be Champions The Prince and Buckingham were ever Protestants those their Opposites you know not what to term them unless Detestants of the Romish Idolatry As if all were well so they be not Popified though they have departed from the Church in which they were Baptized and a Church I will not say as sound as it was in its Cradle in the Apostles Times but as pure and Orthodox in Doctrine and Government as far as they were maintained to be of Divine Right and Constitution as it was in its Childhood in the time of their Disciples even that next succeeded them And are these the Declamers for Religion and the Temple of the Lord Ex isto ore Religionis verbum excidere an t clabi potest as Tully said of Clodius Orat. pro domo suâ ad Pontif. and so I give them no better Respect at parting 134. But what will be said when one that is greatly affected to our poor demolish'd Church doth concur with those Snarling Sectaries of his own accord That in the flagrant expectation of that Match some for hope of Favour began to Favour the Catholick
by K. Philips Servants and too little by the Servants of his own Master Finally our English and Irish Papists who fill'd the Courts of Rome and Spain with Narratives of their grievous Persecutions which they did only fear and Petitions to conditionate the Match with their mitigation These were the main Sticklers to do a real mischief only to satisfie a Fantastical Jealousie The Tears of their Lamentation dropt upon the Popes tender heart so that to comply with them many a bitter Kernel was in the Core of the dispensation And I have Reason to suspect they were some Grains the worse that the French employ'd at Rome at that time did the worst Offices they could as the Lord Herbert our Kings Embassador in France wrote hither Cabal pag. 301. Those of the King of France's Councel at Rome will use all the means they can to the Pope in whom they pretend to have very particular Interest not only to interrupt but to break Your Majesties Alliance with Spain Many Rattle-Heads as well as they did bestir them to gain-stand this Match But as Pliny said in his Age Nat. Hist l. 29. So may I in our time Ingenicrum Italiae slata impellimur the Italian Wits are they that will take it in scorn if they bear not all before them For Example in this Dispensation How acute they thought themselves in their Policy and how Imperious I am sure they were in their Arrogancy It came to the Nuncio Residing at Madrid in April who was commanded to observe this Form in the Delivery That it should not be Open'd and Communicated before the King of Spain did take an Oath to be a Surely That the King of England should really perform all things required therein or if he fail'd in such performance or in any of them then the King of Spain with all his might and Power to take Arms against him What Though the Italians are so Witty for their own part do they suppose all people beside are fallen into a strong Delirium Had they cast our Water so ill to think us so Weak that before one Article was Publish'd or known we would be beholding to Sureties to undertake for us Or that we would submit to all with indefinite and undiscoursed Obedience It hapned fortunately that the Lord Keeper had dealt before with Mr. George Gage a full Romanist in Religion but a Faithful Subject to his King to be diligent in the Court of Rome and to spare no Cost upon his Purse to get a Copy of the Articles as soon as the Dispensation was Bulled and to send them under hand by the greatest speed to the Prince In which Mr. Gage did not fail 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Golden Key will open the strongest Lock in the Gates of Hell By this Providence his Highness knew what it was the Nuncio held so close in his Fist as soon as himself Yet took no Notice as if he had seen particulars but as if at adventure bad him suspend the Delivery of the Powers as long as he would for he knew that his Father would fly from that Offer That the King of Spain should Engage for him because his Majesties Conscience and his Writings divulg'd as far as Learning reach'd would not permit him to Subject himself to the Popes Propositions which he had no Authority to obtrude upon Free Princes no nor upon any Man â—ut of the Verge of his Suburbicary Jurisdiction So much Gâ—ndamar could have told them one that fate in the Spanish Junto out of the Lord Keepers Letter for it is his though his Name is omitted Cab. p 236. in these Remarkable Words His Majesty hopes that you are not Ignorant that the Treaty is between Him and your Master He hath no Treaty with Rome neither lies it in his way to dispute with them upon this Question It troubled the Nuncio that the Peremptory Clause which the Dispensation brought with it was thus slighted and it would keep stale no longer business was in such Haste Therefore they come to those who were our Princes employ'd Councellors to require of them to give their best help to rowl away this Stone which was the main Obstruction On our Part therefore we ask'd two Questions First Whether King Philip could take such an Oath for another King Guardians may take Oaths in the behalf of Minors whom they Govern'd for it was in their Power and it lay upon their Charge to perform that which they swore for Minors till they came to Age. We had heard of some who were wont in some places that procured the Causes of their Clients in Civil Courts to take an Oath in Animam Domini sui vel in Animam constituentis but such as Weighed Religion more by Conscience then by Custom detested it For who can Swear before God to oblige the Soul of another Since an Oath must be taken in Judgment as well as in Truth Jerem. 4.2 The Spaniards were be-gruntled with these Scruples And their Recourse was to a Convention of their soundest Divines to deliver their sentence upon it who walk'd as slowly and gingerly as if they had been founder'd They toss'd over Books they search into the Code the Casuists and Canonists Read tedious Lectures and cast up a Trench of a hundred Scruples to Besiege this little Question The Prince whose Humanity and Wisely-Govern'd Temper was admir'd of all took the wast of time that these Divines made in great Offence Now was the first time that he spake that unkind Word to Olivares That he was Wrong'd and wish'd himself in his own Court again Olivares Chased as fast that their Fatherhoods with their Mountains of Learning sate so long to bring forth a Mouse and blamed himself as it was reported in our Parl. Anno 1624. That the Devil put it into his mind to call that Assembly For all this the Divines would be known in their Place and would not break up their meeting till they had Resolv'd after twenty days what they determined to Conclude from the first hour That King Philip might take the Oath wherein yet we gained thus much on our part that a Point which was Resolved by the Pope and his Conclave subscribed by them all Committed to the Nuncio to be Advanced with St. Peters Authority might be disputed twenty days by a Chapter of private Divines Let them sit twenty days more to satisfie us whether it were good Theology or good manners to serve him so whose decisions they say are inerrable When the Grave Doctors of Salamanca had acquitted themselves so learnedly his Highness's Ministers moved another Question Whether King Philip would take the Oath as Procurator for our King who nor requir'd it nor was privy to any thing that was stuff'd into the Procuration To which a present Answer was given and no bad one it could not be Resolved before the Spanish Counsel saw how far our Prince and his Counsel would yield in points of Religion And how can we tell you that said
dissipatur Especially a contumely cleaves the faster when he that is clean from the Defamation in one Person hath deserv'd it in others for as Octa. Minutius says Oftentimes there is some likelihood in a Lye and not unseldom some unlikelihood in a Truth 143. Other Errors and many were charg'd upon the Duke and a broad back will not bear them all Yet casting not an Eye upon the Earl of Bristol's Papers which he produced in Parliament a Lap full of them and no less Their chief purpose was to cast an Odium upon him that he heightned the Spaniards at first to ask worse Conditions in Religion then were formerly Treated on These were Recriminations wherein no man no not the Wise Earl of Bristol is like to keep a Charitable Moderation Because his Miscarriages had been ript up by the Duke before what followed but that wawardness which St Austin confess'd to be sometime in himself Si deprehensus Arguerer saevire magis quà m caedere libebat Cofess lib. 1. c. ult But such as were no parties in Contestation with my Lord of Buckingham blame him that he was very rash in managing business turning about Councils in all haste upon the Wheel of Fancy but keeping no Motion of Order or Measure which none could endure worse then that Nation with whom he Treated who are the most Superstitious under Heaven to keep that Politick Rule Bona Consilia morâ valescere Tacit. Hist l. 4. They said also That he was Offensive to the Crown of Spain in taunting Comparisons and an open derider of their Magniloquent Phrases and Garb of stateliness which must be an intended provocation for he was as well studied in blandishments and the Art of Behaviour as any Courtier in Europe They repined that he thrust himself into such a Room at their Masks and Interludes as were proper to their King our Prince and the Train Royal and was not contented with that Honour which was given to the Major Domo or prime Subject of Spain as if he were not satisfied to be Received as a less Star but as a Parelius with his Highness And whatsoever the grudge was they vented it craftily in that Quarrel that he did many things against the Honour and Reverence due to the Prince as one hath pick'd up and offered it to King James Cab. p. 221. That he was over Familiar in Talk and in Terms with his Highness Yet David so near the Crown call'd himself a dead Dog or a Flea in respect of Saul Nor is it omitted that he was sometime cover'd when the Prince was bare sometime sitting when the Prince stood capering a lost in sudden Fits and Chirping the Ends of Sonnets which was not Unmannerliness he was better bred but inconsiderateness which will creep upon him who was too much dandled upon the Lap of Fortune Or as Budaeus better Expresseth it Sap. Pand. p. 331. Mirablandimenta genuit Aulici victus ratio quibus praestantissima virtus saepè consopita connivere visa est And truly his Breeding in Budaeus his own Country did him some prejudice in that kind For the French Mode is bold Light and Airy That which we call rudeness with them is freedom good Metal brave assurance And that which we and the Castilians call Gravity or Modesty with them is reputed Sneaking want of Spirit Sheepishness But between frets of Spight and Fits of Levity the Duke put the Treaty so far out of Tune that the Lovers were disappointed of their expected Epithalamium So that the Spaniards made it one of their Refranes or Proverbs If the Prince had come alone without the Duke he had never return'd alone without the brave Castilian Virgin they might say so freely for I heard himself say no less in the Banqueting House at a Conference with the Lords and Commons anno 1624. When he endear'd himself to the Hearers That the Stout and Resolute way wherein he went had overturn'd the Marriage and did Arrogate the Thanks of all things to himself that were acceptable and popular So be it yet that which Canoniz'd him with the people then was afterward made an Evidence against him Cab. p. 227. To lay a Dram of Excuse against a Pound of Error this is to be Alledged that Olivares and Count Montes-claros were ill Advis'd to spurn a young Lion as if he had been a Puppy-Whelp For as soon as they saw the Duke soare so high in his Opinions and when Bristol spake to mitigate him disaccount of him contemptibly as if he had nothing to do this Brace of Grandees call'd it in Question what Creature could have more Power in that Action then an Embassador that laid the first Stone of it that had ample Letters of Credence under the King's Broad-Seal with the Confirmation of the Privy-Council of England which was more then my Lord of Buckingham brought with him The Headship of the Treaty was in the Prince and they bended to it Extolling his Wisdom as Capitolinus doth Gordianus the Elder Moribus it a moderatus ut nihil possis dicere quod nimiè fecit The next place they deemed to the Earl of Bristol upon the Reason premised though he declin'd it And should Buckingham be degraded to be the third in Place who held the Highest Place in Honour and the Supremacy both in the King 's and the Princes Favour Ausonius in Paneg. ad Gratian. tells a Story That Alexander the Great Reading those Verses in Homer that Agamemnon was Nam'd by the Common Souldiers to Fight the Duel with Hector after Aiax and Diomedes clapt out an Oath saying Occiderem eum qui me tertium nominasset I would have cut his Throat that should have Named two before me Truly Buckingham had so much Bravery in him that he would take the third Place in as great Dudgeon as Alexander 144. The grave Earl of Bristol was passive in this Quarrel and sunk it in Silence with his best Dexterity So he did allay all other Heats which the Duke's Passion raised against him if his Letter to the Lord Keeper be of Canonical Faith Cab. P. 21. knowing how undecent and scandalous a thing it is for the Ministers of Princes to run different ways in a strange Court But the Envy of all Miscarriages was cast upon his Lordship by that mighty Adversary and by a greater than he That he was wholly Spaniolized which could not be unless he were a Pensioner to that State That he sided with Olivarez in all Consults That he professed a Neutrality and more in all Propositions for the Advancement of the Popish Religion That he never Pleaded for the Restitution of the Palatinate but only pitied it with the Spanish Shrug That he did not so timely unmask the Spanish Councils to the Kings Advantage as he might and ought to have done That he entangled the Prince in Delays to keep him from returning Home For these and other the like which will follow in the great Report made in the next Parliament a Noise was made
he desired Leave from his Father that he might assay to depart from Madrid as secretly as he came thither Quando optima Dido Nesciat tantos rumpi non speret amores Aeneid 4. The Lord Keeper indeed had emboldned the Prince in February before to that Course but the King thought the Motion was not so seasonable at that time For his Highness was attended in Spain with a great Houshold of Followers and God knows whither the Sheep would be scattered or into what Pin-sold they should be thrust if the shepherd were gone And his Majesty still dreamt of of winning the Game and profest he saw no such Difficulties but that Patience after a while would overcome Perversness Howsoever it would be inglorious for the Prince of Wales to run away from the Frown of the Spaniards But least the Safety of so dear a Person should seem to be slighted or his Welcome Home retarded the Lord Keeper besought the King upon his Knees that his Majesty would write his Fatherly and Affectionate Letters to require his Son's Return giving them no Date but leaving that to be inserted when Business was crown'd with Opportunity This Counsel hit the Pin right and was followed and by God's Will who hath the Hearts of Kings and Princes in his Hand it pleased on this side and beyound the Seas 147. Great was the Expectation what the Month of July would bring forth as well in England as in Spain My Lord Duke had thrust himself into the greatest Employment that was in Europe when at first he had no Ground now no Mind to accomplish it A sorry Apprehension taken from Mr. Endi Porter carried him forth in all hast to make up the Match but there were others who desired his Grace to gratifie them with Concealment for their Good-will that sent Instructions into Spain to adjure him to do his utmost to prevent the Espousals Their Reasons were the two principal Places of Divine and Humane Wisdom God's Glory and his own Safety For God's Sake to keep our Orthodox Religion from the Admixture of that Superstition which threatned against the Soundness of it And no Corrosive so good to eat out the Corruption of Romish Rottenness creeping on as to give the Spaniard the Dodg and to leave the Daughter of Spain behind To his own Safety this Counsel was contributed These who made it their Study and were appointed to it to maintain the Grandeur of his Lordship met frequently at Wallingford-house to promote the Work Who had observed that some Impressions were gotten into the King's Mind and they knew by whom that his Majesty was resolved to be a Lover of Parliaments that he would close very graciously with the next that was called nor was there Likelihood that any private Man's Incolumity though it were his Grace himself should cause an unkind Breach between him and his People Therefore the Cabinet-men at Wallingford-House set upon it to consider what Exploit this Lord should commence to be the Darling of the Commons and as it were to re-publicate his Lordship and to be precious to those who had the Vogue to be the chief Lovers of their Country Between the Flint and the Steel this Spark was struck out that all other Attempts would be in vain unless the Treaty for the great Marriage were quasht and that the Breach of it should fall notoriously upon the Lord Buckingham's Industry For it was not to the Tast of the English if you will number them and not weigh them fearing some Incommodation to the Protestant Religion These Jonadabs 2 Sam. 13.3 the Subtle Friends of beauteous Absalom drew the Duke out of the King's High-way into the By-path of Popularity The Spaniards also stir'd up his Fire to struggle and appear against them For as the Earl of Bristol writes Cab. P. 20. He was very little beholding to them for their good Opinion Withal he was so head-strong that all the Ministers of our King that were joyned with him could not hold him in He had too much Superiority to think them his Fellow Servants that were so indeed And having nothing in his Tast but the Pickle of those new Counsels which his Governing Friends in England insus'd into him he pluckt down in a few Weeks which the other Part had been raising up in eight Years Centum doctúm hominum concilia sola devincit Dea Fortuna Plaut Pseud Act. 2. This unfortunate Accident did both contravene and over-match the Counsels of a hundred wise Men. A fatal thing it hath been always to Monarchs to be most deceived where they have trusted most Nay If they had all the Eyes of Argos their chiefest Confidents are able to abuse them on the blind Side Therefore the Observator is most injurious that puts a low Esteem upon King James's Wisdom P. 14. That he was over-witted and made use of to other Mens ends by almost all that undertook him So he may put the Fool upon Solomon who was cousen'd in Jeroboam whom he made Ruler over all the Charge of the House of Joseph 1 King 11.28 A Solomon may be mistaken in a Jeroboam and like his seeming Faithfulness and Sufficiency to the Undoing of his Posterity Little did the old King expect that the Man of his Right-hand whom he had made so strong for his own Service upon all Occasions would forget the Trust of his Gracious Master and listen to the Voice of Hirelings Which of the Members of my Partition will make the Duke excusable in point of Honour and Conscience Did he do it for the best to the King Did he think the Spanish Alliance would be fruitful in nothing but Miseries and that it would be a thankful Office to lurch the King in his Expectation of it Evil befall such double Diligence Perhaps it may be shifted off with the Name of a good Intent when it tampers with a Branch or Circumstance of an Injoyment but when it raiseth up the very Body of Instructions 't is no more competent with Obedience than Light with Darkness The Heathen would not brook it that had a grain of Philosophy in their Disposition that a Minister should alter the Mandates of his Superior upon Supposes to the better Ne benè consulta Religione mandati soluta corrumperentur Gell. lib. 1. c. 13. They thought that those Services which wanted the Religion of Obedience let their Aim be never so honest would prove improsperous Or did this great Lord do it for the best to himself I believe it If the Hope of the Match died away he lookt to get the Love of the most in England but if it were made up he lookt for many Enemies for he had lost the Love of the best in Spain Sir Wal. Aston foresaw wisely that there was no fear but that the Princely Lovers might joyn Hands in Sacred Wedlock if that Fear of the Duke could be removed So he writes Cab. P. 32. Would your Grace would commit it to my Charge to inform the
which all Convenencies that were formerly thought upon will cease The Remedy which he propounds to fail without all these Shelves I never did light upon out of this Letter 'T is thus The Emperor as your Majesty knows by his Embassador desires to Marry his Daughter with the King of England ' s Son and I doubt not but he will be glad to Marry his Second Daughter to the Palatine's Son So all the Conventencies of Alliance will be as full in this For it accommodates the Matter of the Palatinate and the Succession of his Grand-Children without Blood or Treasure Here is a new Bride appointed for his Highness the eldest Daughter of the Emperor which is unlikely to be intended because it comes from none but such an Author as Olivarez and in as much as when Count Suartzenburg came about eighteen Months before Embassador to our King from Caesar this was not moved at that Oportunity and when the Prince came to Spain no shadow of it remained but it was vanished like a Morning-mist before the Sun Now follow their Whimsies and their In and Ou ts at the Consulto when the Prince was among them The first Onset that Olivarez gave was That they were ready to follow all the Demands of the King of Great Brittain concerning the Match for his Son to the Demands for his Son-in-Law he said they were not in their Power to effect his Country was extended upon by the Emperor his Electoral Dignity invested in the Duke of Bavaria And within this Charm they kept us long till we were weary with their Obstinacy and sate down a while as when Boys Scourge a great Top till they make it sleep At last the Prince's Highness offended that he could gain nothing by this Alliance for his dear Sister 's Good offered to give King Philip a Farewel that he might look timely at Home for the Relief of her Misery On this no man courts his Highness to stay so much as Olivarez and to slacken his Return revives the Consult of the Restitution promiseth the strongest Mediation that the King his Master could make with the Imperialists and Bavarians which if it were rejected but they hoped better he would be forward for his Part to stir up his Catholick Majesty to give his Brother the King of England Assistance by Arms to procure him his Satisfaction Yet whatsoever he said his Heart lay a thought farther and he had a Trick to redeem himself out of this Promise for he told his Highness in a Weeks space after that he found their Nation so linked to the Love of the House of Austria that they would never march chearfully into the Field against it For all this the Weather-cock turn'd and he was affrighted in a moment into a good Mind again So did his Highness report at St. James's that a false Alarum being brought to Madrid that Count Tilly with his whole Body of Foot and Horse was routed in Germany instantly the Conde Duke came with as much Fear as Hast unto the Prince and with as much Lowliness as his Knee upon the Ground vowed he would give him a Blank for the Restitution of the Palsgrave's Interest but when the Second that is the worst News came that the Duke of Brunswick was quite defeated the Mood was changed with the Man and he spake as loftily from that Matter as if the great Armada had been failing again upon our Brittish Ocean Into how many Paces did Hipocrisie put him Sincerity would have got him Honour dispatch the Work and saved him all this Trouble for with the same Study nay with far less men may attain to be such as they ought to be which they mis-spend in seeking to be such as they are not Quibus id persuasum est ut nihil mallent se esse quà m bonos viros iis reliquam facilem esse doctrinam Cic. de orat lib. 3. After that great Don Jasper had put himself to the Expence of all this Folly he riveted in two Straws more like than Wedges to cleave the Knot First Let the Marriage be Consummated and then despair not but the Princess Infanta would beg the Palatinate with her earnest Prayers that she might be received with Honour and Applause among her Husband's People That is Seal their Patent and we shall have an empty Box to play with Or else marry the Lady and leave her behind till the Business for the Palsgrave's Patrimony were accommodated which is like Velez's Trick in Gusman of Alfarach to 〈◊〉 away both the Bride and the Bride-Cake The great Projector held close to one Proposition at the last that since Prince Frederick the Elector had highly offended Caesar in the Attempt and Continuance of it in the Matter of Bohâ—mia no Account should be had of his Person but Restitution should be made to his Eldest Son by Marrying the Second Daughter of the Emperor in which Clause the Prince concurred But the Sting in the Tail was that he should be bred up in the Emperor's Court to mold him into a Roman Catholick Upon which his Highness broke off the Earl of Bristol as a sharp Letter chargeth him written by the Prince Cab. Pag. 17. swallowing down that Difficulty at a Gulp because without some such great Action neither Marriage nor Peace could be had But Sir Wal. Aston flew back saying He durst not give his Consent for fear of his Head Now we have the Duke Olivarez in all his Party-colours who knew that the Breach of Alliance with England would be transcendently ill for Spain yet he would hazard a Mischief unless he might tear a Princely Limb from the Protestant Religion not unlike to the Paeotlans in Justin lib. 8. Tanto edio Phoâ—sunn ardentes ut obliti cladium 〈◊〉 perire ipsi qâ—à m non perdere eos praeaptarent How the Duke Olivarez smoothed it a Letter of his which would make a Pamphlet for the length will manifest which to this day hath lain in Obscurity but is worthy to come abroad It follows 161. HIS Majesty being in the Escurial I desired these my Lords the Embassadors that they wou'd repair hither to the end that we might treat of perfecting those things which concern the Palatine forasmuch as might be done from hence wherein we procure as you know to give Satisfaction to the King of Great Britain through whose Intercession together with that of the most Excellent Prince his Highness we have procured to dispose things in Germany and have used those Diligences which you know The Means which hath ever seemed most easie and apt for the well addressing of this Business is to Marry the Eldest Son of the Palatine to the second Daughter of the Emperor bringing him up in the Court of his Caesareal Majesty whereby the Restitution both of the States and Electorate to the said Son might be the better and more satisfactorily disposed And in this Conformity we have ever understood and treated and propounded it here But now coming close to
Madrid Novemb. 12. says Sir Wal. Aston whom I believe though others say later The tenth day after the Dispensation made known in the Church let the Betrothing be Solemnized and the tenth day after it the Marriage Then the Prince may take his own Time to return when he will but the Lady could not make ready for the Seas considering her Train that must attend her till March. The Prince did not like the Arithmetick of this Counting-Table More time than the first Week of September he was resolved not to spend in that Land The Coming of the Dispensation he would not await which might be failing thither upon the idle Lake in the Fary Queen â—oth slow and swift alike did serve their turn To stay and Consummate the Marriage in his own Person he knew was unfit in two Respects He must take a Blessing from one of their Bishops in the Face of their Church and submit to their Trinckets and Ceremonies which he had rather hear than see Then if the Infanta had Conceived they would keep her it is likely till she was delivered The Child must stay till it was strong to endure the Seas so it might come to pass to be bred up and Naturalized a Spaniard in Religion and Affection When the Clock would not go right with those Plummets the Junto cast the i me out ino another Figure that his Highness would out of Courtship wherein he excelled and out of great Love to his Mistress which he professed perfect the Desponsation in his own Person and trust no other with it the Marriage and the Lady should follow after that is upon the Certificate of their Embassador out of England that Conditions were performed there to which the King of Great Briâ— ain had engaged To this his Highness was short That he would linger no longer and play at Cards in King Philip's Palace till the Messenger with the Port-mantick came from Rome Neither would he depend upon Embassadors and their Reports when the Illustrious Damosel should begin her Journey towards England Embassadors might certifie what they pleased and inform no more than their great Master's Counsel inspired them At last his Highness took upon him to deside the Wrangling and cast out the sacred Anchor from the Stern to keep their Counsels from further Floating that he would be burdensom to the K. of Spain no longer the magnetick Vertue of his own Country drew him to it Yet to confirm that he lest his Heart behind with his Beauteous and high born Mistress he would Sign a Proxy and Assign it to K. Philip or his Brother Don Carlo or either of them which should remain in the Custody of the Earl of Bristol that the Espousals between him and the Infanta might be ratified within ten days after the dispensation unstopt the way unto them and he would leave it to the Princessa to shew her Cordial and Amorcuolous Affections how soon she would prepare to follow after him 168. Which stood for a Decree agreed and obey'd The King of Spain would have been glad if the Prince might be perswaded to stay longer in his Court But since after Six Months continuance there his Highness defir'd to breath again in his Native Air King Philip caused preparation to be made for it for freedom is the Noblest part of Hospitality and was dismiss'd with as much Honour and Magnificence as he was Receiv'd The Earl of Briâ—ol who certainly knew the day when he took his Leave writes to the Lord Keeper Cab. p. 21. That he would begin his Journey for England the 9th of Sept. others set it three days back and adds the day before I Conceive the contract will be which is false Printed it should be That the Day before he would Sign and Seal his Procuration for the Contract which Intelligence is Authentick being so Corrected Now looking upon those that were the Magnificoes of Spain when the Prince took his farewel of them and how dear they held him how they Voiced him beyond the Skies for the most express Image they had seen of Vertue and Generosity methinks his Highness should have behold it with his Eyes open and have inferred out of it that he could not be more happy then to marry with that Blood and to keep Friendship with that Nation He was most Gracious in the Eyes of all Great and under Great Never Prince parted with such Universal Love of all Cab. p. 16. and Bristol to the Lord Keeper p. 21. The Love which is here born generally to the Prince is such as cannot be believ'd by those that daily hear not what passeth from the King and his chief Ministers The most concern'd was the rare Infanta of whom says one out of the Spanish Reports Sander p 552. That she seem'd to deliver up her own Heart at parting in as high Expressions as that Language and her Learning could with her Honour set out Let not this Essay of her sweetness be forgotten that when the Prince told her His Heart would never be out of Anxiety till she had pass'd the intended Voyage and were safe on British Land She Answered with a modest Blush That if she were in danger upon the Ocean or discompos'd in Health with the rowling brackish Waves she would chear up herself and remember all the way to whom she was going For which she deserves to be Honour'd with Theogena the Wife of Agathocles for that saying Se nubendo ci non prosperae tantùm sed omnis fortunae iniisse Societatem Just lib. 20. When it came to the King her Brothers turn to Act his part of Royal Civility he carried the Prince with him to his most gorgeous and spacious Structure of the Escurial There he began That his Highness had done him favour beyond all compass of requital that he had Trusted the safe-guard of his Person with him and given him such an occasion in it to shew his Honour and Justice to part with him with as much Fidelity as his Highness desir'd or expected that there he was ready to perfect the Alliance so long in Treaty that he might call him Brother whom above all in the World he loved as a Friend The Prince Answered He had a better Heart to conceive then a Tongue to signifie how much he owed to his Majesty He hop'd the incomparable Infanta would thank him for the unparallel'd Courtesie shewn to him And because a drop of true meaning was better then a River of Words his Highness being encircled with the Noblest Witnesses of that Kingdom produced and Read his Proxy interpreted by the Earl of Bristol and committed to his Charge but first Attested to by the Hand of Secretary Cirica as a Notary of the greatest Place That this much pass'd it is certain Much more is Reported but it is contentious This Obligation intending to the Contract was thus dispatch'd in the Escurial of which let me say hereupon as Valerius of the Senate House of Rome lib. 6. Illam Curiam
their Clutches that by Arms or cunning Treaties do Usurp it But the way and Manner in Discovering the Couchant Enemy in preserving that handful of our Friends in laying down some Course of Diversion and the like you do most wisely and modestly refer to the proper Oracle His Majesties Wisdom and Deep Counsel Yea but I must tell you Mr. Speaker Vinci in amore turpissimum the King cannot endure to be outvyed by his People in Love and Courtesies What you in Duty do refer to him his Majesty in Confidence of your Wisdom and Loving Assections returns upon You. You say you would have the King betake him to sound Counsel You are his Counsel Consilium magnum his Main and Principal Counsel It is very true That since the begining of Harry the 8th the Kings of England have reserved those Matters to their own Conisance and Resolution But it is as true that from Harry the First until that Harry the Last our Kings have in every one of those Questions Repaired to and received Advice of their Parliaments Id verum quod primum Our Master means to follow the former Precedents His Majesty Commands me to yield unto you Hearty Thanks for your just Resentments of his Sufferings in this Cause and to tell you withall that because the main of the Expedition is to be born by the Persons and Purses of the People whom you do represent He is pleased to accept of the Advice of the House of Commons concerning the finding out of this secret Enemy the re-inforcing of our remaining Friends and by what kind of Diversion we shall begin the Enterprize And God the Holy Ghost be present with you in all your Consultations 184. In the Ninth Place That Well of Wood our Navy Royal wherewith you well observed this whole Island to be most strongly fortified we must all attribute the well Rigging and good Condition of it to the great Cost Care and Providence of his Sacred Majesty Hic tot sustinuit hic tanta negotia solus And yet as that Carver that beautified the Temple of Diana although he wrought upon other Mens Charges was suffered notwithstanding to engrave his own Name in some eminent Places of the Building So surely can it be denied by Envy it self but that most Noble Lord who is now a compleat Master in his Art and hath spent his seven years Studies in the Beautifying of the Navy should have a glorious Name enstamped thereupon though in a sitting Distance from his Lord and Master whose Princely Majesty A longe sequitur vestigia semper adorans Lastly For the Reformation of Ireland this I am bidden to deliver Pliny commending the Emperor Trajan to the utmost reach of Eloquence says That the most laudable and most remarkable Point in all his happy Government was That his Care was not consined to Italy alone but Instar solis like the Beams and Influence of the Sun it shed it self to many other Countries Surely his Majesty's Providence is of a large Extent for where the Sun scarce darteth his Beams his Majesty hath shined most gloriously by the Execution of wholsome Laws engrafting Civility and Planting true Religion And let this be our Soveraign's Comfort that though this poor Kingdom though never so reformed shall add very little to his Crown of Temporal Majesty here on Earth it will be an Occasion of an immense Access to his Crown of Glory hereafter in Heaven And now for your four Petitions Mr. Speaker his Majesty grants them all in one Word What Priviledge Liberty Access or fair Interpretation was ever yielded to the Members of that House his Majesty grants them to the Knights and Burgesses now assembled fully and freely without the least Jealousie Qualification or Suspicion I will only add a Memorandum out of Valerius Maximus to cut an even Thred between King and People Quid Cato sine Libertate Quid libertas sine Catone What is Wisdom without Liberty to shew it And what is Liberty without Wisdom to use it 185. Hitherto the King spake to the People by the Lord Keeper's Mouth and then the House rose All rejoyced that such gracious Concessions were returned to Mr. Speaker's Motions which were the Beam that held up the insequent Counsels till the Roof was covered with Agreement And it took the more that it was inlaid with such Mosaick Work not to the Eye but to the Ear by a perfect Orator It was the greatest and the knowingest Auditory that this Kingdom or perhaps the World afforded whose general Applause he carried away to as much as Modesty could desire Isocrates extolling the famous Acts of Evagoras before the full Celebrity of the Athenians exulted that Evagoras was approved by them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whose good Opinion was more honorable to him than all the Earths beside It was a happy sight at that time to see the Patriots of both Houses depart with Hands held up to God and with Smiles in their Looks that you might think they said one to another as the Princes of the Congregation and the Heads of the Thousands of Israel said to the Children of Reuben and Gad c. This day we perceive that the Lord is among us Jos 22.31 The Lord Keeper was summoned in three days after to a fresh Business and a larger Task than the former So fine a Tongue was sure not to want Work The Lords and Commons were brought into the Banqueting-House at White-Hall Feb. 24. where the Duke of Buckingham spake unto them leading them into the Maeanders of the Spanish Treatise and lead them out of them by the Clew of his own Diligence as he spared not to give himself the Honour of it For this time he was the Alcibiades that pleased the Common-wealth His Zeal and unremovable Pertinacy not to cope with the Spaniard in any Proposition unless the Prince Elector might be brought into his own Land again with an honorable Post liminium did enter inwardly and into the Marrow of all pitiful Affections But when he unfolded how strong the Prince was to the Principles of the right Faith and how attendant and dutious himself was to see that no Emissaries should poyson his Highness's Heart the general Suffrage was that the Prince had march'd valiantly like a Captain of Holy Truth and that the Duke deserved a great Name as a Lieutenant that maintained the Cause of God under him For it was ever easie to strike the good People of England half blind with the Dazling of Religion So much did the Parliament thirst for the Report of this Narration that it was imposed on the Lord Keeper to make it the next day All that might be done was that he took him to his Memory and to his Pen and drew up three Sheets of Paper upon it in a fast and scarce legible Hand He must proceed by the Pattern My Lord Duke's Oration was the only part of Speech he must follow and like a wise Man whatsoever he thought he must make
good the time So he spent four hours in Repetition without Halt with such Assurance such Gesture such Carving and Gilding that he might wonder at himself what Spirit was in him that day All that took the height of his Report by a skilful Parallax concluded that he had striven with his former Peices and had outgone himself Yet the fourth Part will suffice to be remembred because the Flower of it is anticipated in the Spanish Transactions after a monthly Method Beside I cannot help the Reader to that which I never saw the several Letters which were read to the stronger Confirmation of every Particular Business the Contents of them must be supplied by him that is Wise to make Conjecture and not by my Pen. For though it be not according to Nature yet it is agreeing to Honesty Vacuum potius relinquere quà m verum to leave a void Space rather than to fill it up with a Fable as Barrenness is incomparably to be less blamed than Adultery So I go on to make such Room as is fit for the Heads of that long Report which should not seem to be unsavory Coleworts sod too often for their Tast to whom they are well known already Debet enim talibus in rebus excitare animos non cognitio solum rerum sed recordatio as Tully speaks Philip 2. 186. The Lord Keeper plotted his Conceptions into that Order wherein the Duke of Buckingham the Discoverer had gone before him beginning from Michaelmas 1622 when the King sitting close with his Council at Hampton-Court the Dispatches of Sir Richard Weston his Majesty's Ambassador at Brussels were scanned before them Sir Richard being a Man in whose Election to that Place the Spanish Ministers were greatly pleased and commended the King's Wisdom that he did light upon him Yet Sir Richard sent Packet upon Packet that he found nothing from the Arch-Dutchess but inconstant and false Dealing For though she acknowledged she had Power from the Emperor to cause Cessation of Arms in the Palatinate and undertook to put that Power forth yet with the same Breath she blew hot and cold For at that Instant when no Excuse could be made for the Cheat Tilly fell to it spightfully to besiege Heidelburg when the War was now between the Emperor and our King for they had no body to invade but his Majesty's Subjects and Servants that kept it And what spark of Patience could be left us when by every Post we received comfortable Words from Spain and contrary Effects from Brussels Hereupon Mr. Porter was sent to Madrid and commanded to stay in that Court but ten Days for an Answer The Letters that he carried with him were to signifie that this should be the last Sending if no less would serve the Emperor's Revenge but the utter Extermination of his Majesty's Children both in Honour and Inheritance That the Neighbour Kings and States of Christendom did malign the Match between the Prince and the Insanta and laboured to stop that Conjunction which would make England and Spain formidable to them But they should not need to contrive a way to prevent it This unsufferable Unkindness would bring it to pass to their hand For what Comfort could the Prince have in such a Wife the nearest of whose Blood had utterly ruined his Sister and her Progeny The Messenger carried this Arrand with him to the President of all Affairs in that Kingdom Conde Olivarez one that may justly be censured to have more of Will than of Wit one that play'd foul with us and could not hide it Sometimes he would run back from our Propositions as if he would never come near us sometimes he would run into our Arms as if his Heart and all his Powers did grow unto us Nec constans in side nec constans in persidiâ Mr. Porter came back from him with a half-sac'd Satisfaction but withal the King of Spain's Letters which were there read contained a Talent of Hope but we found not a Grain of Reality Upon this Journey Porter did so well remember somewhat that sell carelestly from the Conde Duke wishing the Prince himself were there to see how ready the King his Master was to fasten an indissoluble Knot of Amity and embrace Alliance with him that his Excellent Highness I speak in his Presence what he knows hearing it with more Attention than was imagined put on that heroick and undauntable Boldness craved Leave of his Father that he might visit the great Ingeneers at their own Forge to see what they were working and how they would receive him and as we use to say Either win the Horse or loose the Saddle Here again says the Reporter my Lord Duke acquainted us how acceptable at the first the Arrival of the Prince did seem to Olivarez who in the Enterview in the Garden assured with great Oaths that all should be dispatched with sudden Resolution and that his Highness should be pressed to nothing that was not agreeable to Conscience and Honour and stood not with the Love of the People of England Then it was related That King Philip seemed most sensible of the Courtesie that such a Guest had visited him and that he would permit all to his own Asking as he did express it at their Meeting in the Prado The Lord Duke was very copious upon all the Negotiations in Spain from his Highness's Arrival to his Parting and the Lord Keeper mist not one Particular but beautified all and gave it Lustre which may here be spared in Repetition because nothing was added in Substance to that which is methodized upon it in the Months of the former Summer Much of the Day was spent to shew how deceitful Conde Olivarez was who like a crafty Marchant he gave a Tast of one Wine and upon the Bargain would sell of another Swear us often into the Possession of the Palatinate and yet embroiled us at the same Instant more and more with an Army Waved all Differences of Religion between us and them at the first and presently turned the Wheel from the Top to the Bottom and fell into insolent Propositions that the Prince could not make a fit Husband for their Lady unless he would become a Papist Sometimes he would aggravate how far we differed from the Catholick Confession of Faith as if the Gulph reach'd from Heaven to Hell Sometimes he colleagued as if we were near upon a Point and but a little Stride between us Et Stoica dogmata tantùm A cynicis tunicâ distantia Juvenal Then the Articles for the Marriage were brought in play and with what a number of new ones his Highness's Commissioners were surcharged and how irrespectively they stuffed the Book with strange and undisputed Additions and commonly the last which they presented were the worst Verres secum ipse certat id agit ut semper superius suum facinus novo scelere vincat Tul. Act. 7. in Verrem But our Ministers rejected those bastard Slips and all that Conscience English
concur to propugn him And in fine this great complaint produc'd but small Effect towards that for which it was so vigorously follow'd The close of all is the best part of the Story The Lady Darcy ever impotent in her Passions and the more in this Case because she could not endure the Calling and hated the Honour of a Bishop was even distracted with Anger that she was cross'd in her will whom the L. Keeper mitigated with such Sweetness and Generosity that she came out of her froward Mood and confess'd she had had no cause to be his Enemy In the instance whilst the Cause was hot in Agitation he sent to her Ladyship to let her know That if she would accept of the Living from him and in his Right he would dispose of Dr. Grant in some other Place and present her Clerk Mr. Glover But her Ladyship would not hearken her thoughts were too high for the cause was depending she hop'd to obtain it with Dr. Grant's Ejection and his Patrons Ruin After all was cleared against her and she found her self at a loss of her expectation the Lord Keeper sent to her upon the Old Terms That if she would submit to have right done her in the right way and take the presentation from him let her send the Man to him for whom she had contended in vain and it should be effected which she accepted of very gladly when necessity had taught her Wisdom and a milder Temper In all this his Lordship shew'd that he had no particular Spleen against the Lady not the least aim to oppress her with his Power but his Scope was to preserve the Jurisdiction of his Court in which he was ever stiff and unvanquishable and when that was acknowledg'd it was an Heroick Spirit in him to pass by a most violent prosecution as if it had never concern'd it It was an Object sit to prove all the dimensions of Christian forgiveness For what more true then that of Pliny to Sabinianus as I have cited it before Ep. lib. 9. Tune praecipua mansuetudinis laus cum â—rae causa justissima est What more Charitable then not only not to return Offence for Offence but to make a beneficent Requital For he found that Yoke of Christ easie to him which is so heavy to others Do good to them that despitefully entreat you Matth. 5.45 201. Let all now be drawn up into a Word no Garland could look more fresh upon a Magistrates Head then this that being narrowly look'd into by the Eyes of all the Kngdom nothing was amiss nothing out of Frame in all his Carriage which Credit stuck so close to him in the next Parliament in which he still kept the Great Seal That not so much as a Dog did open his Mouth against him Judith 11.19 Nor was awak'd out of security with the least Whisper of a Grievance Yet I am as ready to say it as another that to be acquit from having done no ill is a Testimony of harmless not of fruitful Honesty I admire Coriolanus for that Elogy in Halicarn Vix inter virtutes numeravit innocentiam He scarce reckon'd Innocency for a Virtue Innocency is none of the Artillery of Virtue with which it tries and shews it's strength but only a privy Coat to keep a Man from being Wounded I bring him forth therefore from this shade into the light of Action in an instance wherein he did so well that it will break forth that he had a Wit which was such a sudden Architect of Devises so apt in a pleasant cunning so full of Pit-falls to catch the Bird he would snare yet not to hurt it as never a Head-piece in this Nation could overtake him in that ingenuity And the success suited with the Stratagem Fortune favouring it to the help of his best Friends the continuation of a Happy Parliament and the enlightning of his Majesty who was stricken far into Melancholly by a persidious contrivance and illegitimate born in an ill day in the Spanish Embassadors House which Family was vext to the Gall because their Nation was curried in Parliament and most of all that the Match the Treaty and Friendship with them were handled there as the Prince and Duke had set them on with sharp and declamatory disdeigns Therefore they cast about to infect the King with an ill opinion of the Proceedings and the persons and like desperate men they look'd for Redress from Malice and safety from Confusion Nothing did put them by their Piots so long as that they had not the freedom to speak with his Majesty and could never get an Audience in the Absence of Buckingham So that Sir W. Aston writes That it was complain'd in Spain that Marq. Inoiosa hath lately advertis'd hither that he hath several times desir'd to have private Audience with his Majesty and hath not been able to procure any but what your Grace assists at Cab. p. â—â— But after this Parliament had fate seven Weeks and toused their matters sufficiently that Marquess with Don Carlo de Colonna came adventurously to White-Hall and out-reach'd the Spies that watch'd them For while Don Carlo held the Prince and Duke with earnest Discourse Inoiosa put a Paper into the King's Hand and made a sign with a Wink of his Eye that his Majesty would thrust it into his Pocket which was done and not discern'd Nothing can be more broken and imperfect or more corrupt in time and other circumstances then what is Entred into the Cabal p. â—7 and p. 90. out of this Paper There was a worse Pad in the Straw then is there discover'd or else Inoiosa that juggled the Paper into the Kings Hand had not been so roundly check'd by the Lords of the Privy Counsel And if for his part he put no more into the Paper then to procure his Secretary private Access to the King to tell Tales it would not have been disputed whether he should be devested of the Privileges of an Embassador or whether the Speakers of both Houses then sitting should call him to an Account But he that is confest in the Cabal to be the Pioneer that blew up the Mine and found out the Plot hath lest a Note of the particulars in the Paper so Tragical and Scandalous that certainly the Spanish Don would never have stufft it with them Si unquam jub legum ac judiciorum potestatem se casurum putasset as Tully said of Verres Act. 7. If he had ever dreamt to be Confronted for them and brought Face to Face First He terâ—isies the King that he was not nor could be acquainted with the Passages either of the Parliament or of his own Court for he was kept from all faithful Servants that would inform him by the Ministers of the Prince and Duke and that he was a Prisoner as much as King John of France in England or King Francis and Madrid and could not be spoken with but before such as watch'd him Secondly That there was a
Neither do I blame them for bestowing a generous and liberal Part of their own upon themselves I should rebuke the contrary Nonne est manifest a phrenesis Ut locuples moriaris egentis vivere fato But let them be thankful for their Store and not attempt by Murmerings and Outcries to make the Goverment odious under which they prosper as if the Chief Shepherd of the People had not shorn a Lock of Wooll from their Backs but devoured them But what if they had been diminished to a visible Share of their Substance No worse Man than a Pope Gregory the First hath given us that Counsel Lib. 3. Ep. 26. To Januarius Bishop of Calaris in Sardinia Si quis rusticus tantae fucrit perfidiae obstinationis inventus ut ad Dominum venire minimè consentiat tanto pensionis onere gravandus est ut ipsà exactionis sure poená compellatur ad reclitudinem festinare But we are guilty of none of Gregories Exactions And let not your Friends my Lord think they walk in a Mist as if the King and his Ministers of State did not know what Sums they effund by dangerous Conduit-Pipes both to the Impoverishing of their own Substance and the exhausting of the Kingdom First The Priests that jog about from Shire to Shire from House to House are great Grinders I know how costly they are to their Disciples who are like those in a facetious Author Hâ—minâ—â—s câ—itellarii magni sunt oneris quicquid impâ—niâ— vehunt Plautus Mâ—stella I know they pay the Charges of the Priests Journey to and fro to the utmost Penny their Fraught by Ship hither their Horses and Convoys by Land their Entertainment cut deep Obits Dirges Masses are not said for nothing Then in every Family where they are received they disperse Books for Meditations and Holy Exercises for which they are paid hee sold more than the Value And above all those indefinite Sums imposed for Satisfaction by the Will of the Confessor are the strongest Purgation My Lord the Priest's little Finger is thicker than the King's Loins What they pay by Virtue of our Laws so remiâ—sly exacted is but like an honorary Present to a Lord in Chief but what they pay to their Ghostly Fathers by their own Canonical Customs is above a Rent of Vassalage And all this while the over-flowing Tide of their Expences is but coming in I am not but now at the high Water-Mark King Philip the Second of Spain founded two Colledges for Jesuits of this Nation at Sevil and Valledolid and he gave a Competency to their maintainance but their Well-wishers in England reach forth such Liberality to them as makes them flourish above their Foundation Who but the same Benefactors supply the Seminaries of their Country-men in Artois and Flanders Gregory the Thirteenth gave little more than bare Walls to the English Colledge at Rome Yet they are able to keep Festival Days with Bounty and relieve Strangers wit Hospitality so long as their Treasurers receive plump Contributions from England let them be once stopt and their Kitchin Fire will go out And now be Judge your self Sir if these Men as you supposed were cut so low with the Sickle that their Lives were irksome and that they had scarce Stabble to maintain them 222. Hitherto I have proved that we have been just in our Duties towards Men as Men and as we are accountable to the second Table of the Law Your Pontificians though esloigned from us in the Way of God's Worship yet their Persons are our Neighbours therefore we do not forget them in the Debentures of our Love I grant it before a Challenge be made that I have performed little unless I can justifie our Piety in the Survey of the first Table And to make it perspicuous and intelligible I will fall into your Lordship's Method according to my best Remembrance Consider Sir that the Compâ—ainants for whose Sakes this Ball of Contention is tost to and fro are they that live among us yet profess Obedience to another Church This we reckon to be a Disease and a sore one The Care of their Souls belongs to the Supream Magistrate who is to provide for all that are under his Allegiance that they may lead Godly as well as quiet Lives He would cure the Ill Affected by his own Physicians The Patients very confident that they can choose best for themselvs will listen to none but such as the Magistrate no less strong in Confidence than they foredooms that by their Applications both such as are unsound will be past Hope of Recovery and some that are sound will fall away by Contagion Both of these being fixed upon the respective Perswasions of their Minds Which of them should yield with least Offence and most Reason I speak as to external Compliance Surely a publick Conscience ought to be more scrupulous than a private The Supream Ruler is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he permits that which his Heart condems his Sin is compleatly voluntary If the Inferior and the Subjected yearns for Instructions and Helps in Religion which under great Forfeiture are prohibited to them they cast their Burden upon Necessity and he is very rigorous that will not say they are excusable The loudest Bell of the Petitioners Grievances and that which is furthest hard is that they are Men in Danger of Shipwrack for want of Pâ—ots their own Priests to whose Oversight they commit the Care of their Souls are kept from them and cannot with Comfort and Confidence light their Knowledge from any other Lamps Conscience reclaims it and if they are blind yet blind Men must not be iâ— entreated for their Blindness but be led by the Hand My Noble Lord Villoclare This Complaint above all that can be said beside is apt to work upon Affections to compassionate the Breathings of a Soul which protests it languisheth for want of due Means to know God and to worship him But Affections and the most tender of them which is piâ—y have no Taste in them till they be seasoned with the Salt of Prudence The Simple believeth every Word but the Prudent looketh well to his going Prov. 14.15 Conscience is offered and set out as it were for a Lan horn upon the Pharos of this Motion But your Lordship so excellent a States-man knows none better that the greatest Cheats that are put upon the World are in the good Names of Love and Conscience Who hath the Power to hurt so soon as he that would be believed that he loves and doth not And who so dangerous to overthrow Peace as he that pleads that Conscience is the only Cause of his Discontents and Disobedience He that baits his Hook with Niceness of Conscience may catch What my Lord Gudgions but not a Salmon for the Delusion is stale I must enter further into the Closet of this Objection What Out-cries are these that if their own Priests be restrained from them their Souls shall perish for lack of Knowledge They
extract advantage out of it But wherein lies the way You shall have better Heads then mine to help you if you please to be directed by me None can furnish you with the right Art of it but some of our sage Counsellors of our Common Laws I wish you therefore my Lord to proceed with the special knowledg of the Roman Catholicks that stir most in this Project Let them cull out some of the Learnedest Practisers together Let the King's Attorney General make one for my sake For the rest let your Clients pick out as they like An hundred Crowns among them that is a Fee of five pounds a Man will not be ill bestowed upon them Let them lay their Heads together And I will lose all I am worth if you do not thank me for having referred you to those who will fetch out by their Skill so much to be Granted that you will never be put to Contestation hereafter that you obtain'd much of the King and are never the nearer The Courtiers with whom alone you have had to do to this time have Complemented with your Lordship So could I do likewise give you Large concessions in Words and in Wax but in effect nothing Like Galley Pots Entitled with the Name of Cordials but have Cob-Webs in them and no more My Lord all that I have to say is no more but this will you be lead by me or will you wander still Sir says the Embassador Use me honestly I am a Stranger and while I am in England I will surrender up self to your Directions Nay I will possess our Virtuous and Illustrious Madam that you are a clear dealing Man and of good Faith and most worthy of her Trust when she comes into a strange Land And after a very civil Farewel at the present Mounsieur Villoclare made use of those Instructions For though he Climbed not so High as he looked yet he Climbed better for he stood sure where he could not fall 228. Which Papers came to the King with more satisfaction as he was pleas'd to say then he could have expected Not any Line of Wisdom or Learning could be lost to him who saw as far and as soon as any Man into the Intellectuals of another For as the Lord Bacon wrote his Majesty had a light of Nature which had such readiness to take Flame and blaze from the least occasion presented on the least spark of anothers knowledg deliver'd as was to be admir'd And this was the last present in that kind that the Lord Keeper sent to the King who finding some indisposition of Health retired for fresh Air and quietness to his Mannor of Theobalds VVhere Jacob gather'd up his Feet into the Bed and yielded up the Ghost Gen. 49.33 The Lord Keeper on March 22. being Tuesday receiv'd a Letter from the Court that it was feared his Majesties Sickness was dangerous to Death which Fear was the more confirm'd for he dispatching away in all haste met with Dr. Harvey in the Road who told him That the King us'd to have a Beneficial Evacuation of Nature a sweating in his left Arm as helpful to him as any Fontinel could be which of late had failed And that argued that the former Vigour of Nature was low and spent This Symptome of the Kings Weakness I never heard from any else Yet I believe it upon so learned a Doctors Observation And this might well cause a Tertian Ague and a Mortal when the Spring had Entred so far able to make a commotion in the Humours of the Body and not to expel them with accustom'd vaporation After the L. Keeper had presented himself before his Lord the King he moved him unto chearful Discourse but it would not be He continued til Midnight at his Bed-side and perceiv'd no Comfort but was out of all Comfort upon the consultation that the Physicians held together in the Morning Presently he besought the Prince that he might acquaint his Father with his Feeble Estate and like a faithful Chaplain mind him both of his Mortality and Immortality which was allowed and committed to him as the principal Instrument of that Holy and necessary Service So he went into the Chamber of the King again upon that Commission and Kneeling at his Palat told his Majesty He knew he should neither Displease him nor discourage him if he brought Isaiahs Message to Hezekiah to set his House in Order for he thought his Days to come would be but few in this World but the best remained for the next World I am satisfied says the Sick King and I pray you assist me to make me ready to go away hence to Christ whose Mercies I call for and I hope to find them After this the Keeper now of his Majesties Soul kept about him with as much Diligence as a Body of Flesh could endure He was ever at hand helpful not only in Sacred but in every kind of Duty never from that time put off his Cloaths to go to Bed till his Master had put off his Tabernacle which appear'd in his Looks on Sunday Night when he return'd to VVestminster employed himself Night and Day unless the Physicians did compose his Majesty to rest in Praying in Reading most of all in Discoursing about Repentance Faith Remission of Sins Resurrection and Eternal Life To which the King made Answer sometimes in Latin always with Patience and full of Heavenly Seasoning which Hallowed Works were performed between them on VVednesday as a Preparation to the Passover on Thursday the Fortifying of his Majesties Soul against the Terrors of Death with the lively Remembrance of Christ's Death and Passion in the Holy Communion At which the King made most humble Consession of his Sins craved Absolution rendred the Confession of his Faith before many Witnesses Profess'd he Died in the Bosom of the Church of England whose Doctrine he had defended with his Pen being perswaded it was according to the mind of Christ as he should shortly Answer it before him 229. All this while God did lend him such Strength to utter himself how well he Relish'd that Sacred Banquet of Christ's Body and Blood and how comfortably the Joy of the Holy Ghost did flow into his Soul as if he had been in a way of Recovery And his mournful Servants that saw and heard it rejoyced greatly that unto that time Sickness did not compress his Understanding nor slop his Speech nor Debilitate his Senses and submitted more willingly to God to have their Master taken from their Head because they believed the Lord was ready to receive him into Glory The next day his Soul began to Retreat more inward and so by degrees to take less and less Notice of external things His Custos Angelus as I may call him his Devoted Chaplain stirr'd very little out of the Chamber of Sorrow both to give an Far to every Word the King spake in that extream condition and to give it him again with the Use of some Divine
had run into excess and incurr'd offence if the Bishop had not broken the Snare which they were preparing for their own feet For after he had spoken well of the Family in the Pulpit and privately to divers some of them could not see when they were well but aspir'd to be Transcendants above their measure For two Daughters of the Stock came to the Bishop and offer'd themselves to be vailed Virgins to take upon them the Vow of perpetual Chastity with the Solemnity of the Episcopal Blessing and Ratification Whom he admonish'd very Fatherly that they knew not what they went about That they had no promise to confirm that Grace unto them that this readiness which they had in the present should be in their will without Repentance to their Lifes end Let the younger Women marry was the best Advice that they might not be led into Temptation And that they might not forget what he taught them he drew up his Judgment in Three Sheets of Paper and sent it them home that they might dress themselves by that Glass and learn not to think of Humane Nature above that which it is a Sea of Flowings and Ebbings and of all manner of Inconstancy The Direction of God was in this Council For one of the Gentlewomen afterwards took a liking to a good Husband and was well bestowed Nothing is more suiting to this Passage than a Story out of Gregory the Great concerning his Three Ants Homil. 38. Uno omnes ardore côdemque tempore Sacratae In domo propriâ socialem vitam ducebant and a little after he reports that after this admission into State of Virginity one of them became a Wife There are some says Christ that have made themselves Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven's sake Mat. 19.12 with caution as they are able to receive it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Eusebius hath it Virginity with free and voluntary Destination and Continuation A single Life and grant it with a State of Prosession is a noble Course to serve God in but limited to that time as it serves for a Help and not turns to a Wound in the Conscience God will not be cheated with a Vow to let one of his great Commandements be broken for it St. Ambrose who knew the Heathen Customs of the Romans writes to Valentinian Vestales habuerunt praescripta pudicuâ—â—e tempora The Vestals attended in their Maiden Service but to a prescribed time Baronius Appar An. Par. 10. testifies for the Pharisees out of Epiphanius Pharisaei determinatum castitatus aut continentiae tempus habebant They devoted themselves to Chastity or Continency not for ever but to a determinate day Grotius in voto Pacis tells me more than I knew before Optimum mihi viderur institutum patrum Oratorii quorundam caetuum virginalium ut libertas ducendi maneat Grant them but that liberty or as the Council of Gangra calls it Humanity from their Governors and the Scandal ceaseth Sir Roger Twisdâ—n a noble Scholar goes further in his Apology against the Imputation of Schism p. 97. That the Kings of England reserved to themselves to dispense with Nuns that they might marry They that yield to that Dispensation are on our side As old as the Widow Anna was who departed not from the Temple but served God with Fastings and Prayers night and day Luk. 2.37 She was no Votary that appears Non clarè indicat sequesirationem says Bishop Montague Orig. Eccl. P. 2. pag. 163. But she left the World that is she used it as if she used it not Here let the Danghters of Giding stay and so they did But nor they nor the rest staid many Years after in that Godly repose Otia bona frustra disseruntur ubi quiescere non licet says Grotius Belg. Hist p. 314. It was out of season to confine themselves to Holy rest when Civil Dissentions began to flame and there was no rest in the Land In those days there was no peace to him that went out nor to him that came in but great vexations were upon all the Inhabitants of the Countries 2 Chron. 15.5 Religion and Loyalty were such Eye-sores that all the Farrars fled away and dispers'd and tock joyfully the spotling of their goods Hebr. 10.34 All that they had restored to the Church all that they had bestowed upon sacred Comeliness all that they had gather'd for their own Livelihood and for Alms was seized upon as a lawful Prey taken from superstitious Persons Procrin habe dixit Quod si mihi provida mens est Non habuisse voles Metamor Lib. 7. What will the Cruel and the Covetous say when God shall require it at their hands 53. With these Businesses at St. Ives and at Little Giding the Relation of two particular Visitations is dispatch'd Others were of things nothing strange nor of such moment and use And for the Visitations general to the whole Diocess held according to triennial Spaces a Collation made by the Bishop at one sitting shall supply enough for all the rest It was deliver'd at Bedford in the end of the Year 1634. Which is so wise and weighty so learned and pious that the Maker himself could searce have mended it No excuse is offer'd that there is so much of it because it is so good The City which Ascanius built in Latium was call'd Alba longa says Livy Lib. 1. So this Speech is long but so pure and white that the beauty will plead for the Bigness or rather Bigness and Beauty will make two several Praises So he begins I must not tax the learned Preacher as Alexander did his Father Philip that his Father had conquer'd and engrossed so much that he had left him but little to do But I do really and heartily thank him for it And conceiving that part of our Duty concerning the Preaching of God's Word to be gravely and sufficiently discharged by him I must frame my Speech upon other Heads which would hardly without much forcing be bidden or invited into one Text and yet have been seldom omitted by Prelates of former times when they have held their Visitations Not that I mean to trouble you with the Bead-roul of Particulars cognizable by Bishops on such an occasion for this is the Work of Chancellors and Commissaries who are also wearied with these Recitations But as the ancient Aristotelians were want to keep off their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Singularities from the Knowledge of the Understanding and to leave them wholly to the Survey of the Senses So it is the Fashion of modern Visitors to digest their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Singularities into a Book of Articles to be perused by the Eyes and Ears of such as may be concerned so to do without drawing these particular Points to any further Discourse or settled Oration What therefore I shall insist upon shall be some few Generals which reflect either upon the Visitation it self the Act we have in hand or the Persons visited and subjected
to this Visitation And those are either my Brethren of the Clergy or my good Friends and Neighbours of the Laity When I have spoken somewhat to either of these in general and recommended to the Clergy a particular I have in charge I shall trouble you no longer but go on to the business of the day 54. The Visitation of Bishops is no Jonas gourd no filia noctâ—s started up in a Night of Popery but a Tree set by the Apostles themselves and water'd from time to time by the Canons of general Councils in the fairest Springs of the Primitive Church For so I find Protestants of no mean Esteem to wit the Four Writers of the Centuries to retrieve the Root hereof from Acts cap. 14. And if you will observe the Place there is scarce one particular prescrib'd by the Canon Law as essential to a Visitation but you shall find it put in Execution in that Chapter you have them first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 22. they that confirm'd the Souls of all the Disciples must among them confirm Children Secondly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 laying hands on Priests and Deacons v. 23. Thirdly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 24. Peragrantes saith Beza a Word used for a Bishop's Visitation in the Council of Chalons under Charles the Great Fourthly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 25. making their Sermons or Collations And Lastly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 returning back to Antioch from whence they came v. 26. Nor are we now forced to such a leap as Dr. Mocket out of Gratian would put upon us for the Visitations of Bishops To wit from these Acts of the Apostles to the Synodus Tarraconensis or the fourth Council of Toledo which is a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a huge wide Gulf of more than Five Hundred Years but are able to trace them all along in that interim of time in most Authentical Authors and Histories For to say nothing of those Books of Clemons Romanus call'd by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Circuits of St. Peter because they were abused by old Hereticks as Epiphanius and Athanasius often tell us that is most certain that many Years after the Epocha of the Acts of the Apostles St. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where you have the Word of art used to this day did often visit Pontus and Bithynia says Epiphan in his 27 Heresie which is that of the Carpocratians And about the Year One hundred after the Death of the Emperor Domitian Eusebius reports out of Clemens Romanus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Tale and no Tale but an unquestion'd History that St. John leaving Pathmos went up and down Asia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 setting Churches in order Lib. 3. Hist c. 23. From hence indeed I must transport you to the 57 Canon of the 3 Counc of Carthage that you may hear Aurelius and his Brethren excuse themselves for not visiting Mauritania and those other Provinces But you must not dwell upon this Council being by the Canon it self turn'd back again for four or five Years to that famous Council of Hippo which opened to St. Austin as yet a Priest Famae januam the first Gate and Entrance as it were to his Fame and Glory For in this great Council at Hippo saith that other Council of Carthage it had been expresly determin'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that every Province or Diocess should be visited in the very time of holding the Synod Which Words are to be well observ'd For the Canon doth not say they were to be visited at the Synod or the Synod sitting For the Law doth not admit of that Quia multùm operatur persona The Person of the Prelate bears a special part in this kind of Visitation But a general Synod was first call'd and therein the manner of the Reformation was settled and agreed upon Presently after that the Fathers did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sever themselves as Zonaras writes upon that Canon and fall in hand with their peculiar Visitations And here I have brought you without all question to the Fountain and Well head of our Canon Law which requires according to this Revisement of the Council of Hippo that a Synod of the Diocess or Province be first called before they begin the Episcopal Visitation And however the Synods themselves be much out of use in this Kingdom especially where none can be held but by leave of the Prince yet may you still find upon your Accompts some few Splinters and Remainders of the same when you do not pay your Procurations only but your Cathedraticals and Synodals also From this Third Council of Carthage the righting of these Visitation was taken up by the Synodus Tarraconensis by the Council of Bracara by the Fourth Council of Toledo and divers others in their Ages From these Councils they were fetch'd by Gratian into his Decrees from the Decrees by the Popes into their Epistles and Decretals and so continue to this day our Jus Commune our ordinary Law in that behalf Nor were these Visitations of Bishops sooner enjoyn'd by the several Popes in their Laws and Decretals but as things of sovereign and principal use they were taken up and incorporated into the Municipal Laws of all our chief and best order'd Monarchies Hence we find them commanded the Prelates of Spain in the first Partida of King of Alfonso's Laws Title 22. Hence likewise enjoyn'd the Bishops of France by Charles the Ninth Henry the Third and Fourth in those general Estates of Orleance Bloise and Paris Hence also Visitations were to have been erected here in England by our Statute Laws if those Thirty two Persons had ever met as appears by those preparations made by Arch-bishop Cranmer and others Titulo de Visitationibus Lastly Upon the beginning of the Reformation in Saxony they kept a Visitation by the Super-intendents An. 1527. much approved of by the Lutherans of those times Osiander and Bucholzerus And therefore we may not conceive of these Visitations as of some imperfect and equivocal Creatures begotten but the other day ex fimo limo out of the Dregs and Corruptions of the Church of Rome but as of things of a more noble and ancient Descent begun by Paul and Barnabas when they were Apostles continued by St. Peter and St. John as great Bishops settled and righted in the Council at Hippo Anno. 393. From thence transcrib'd into the Third Council of Carthage Anno. 397. From thence revived at Tarraco under Hormisda An. 517 From thence received into the Council of Braccara Anno. 602. From thence into the Fourth of Toledo Anno. 633. From those Councils they were taken in by Gratian into his Decrees So into the Decretals and from the Decretals and their Glosses infused into the municipal or common Laws of all the chiefest Christian Monarchies So much of a Visitation in general 55. In the second place I am to make a short Exhortation unto you my Brethren of the Clergy The Effect whereof shall be
into the bottom of the Sea and fetch up Sponges so The Righteous shall hold on his way and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger Job 17.9 68. Neither did it deject the Bishop to be made a Gazing-stock by Disparagements The King's Coronation and his second Parliament began together at Candlemas and he was warned by Letter to serve at neither A Coronation being usually accompanied with a General Pardon should have cast a Frown upon none Yet his Place was not granted him to do his Homage among the Spiritual Lords nor to assist the Archbishop at the Sacred Parts of that high Solemnity as Dean of Westminster It is arbitrary and at the King's Pleasure to range that Royal Ceremony as he likes best to follow former Presidents or wave them to intrust what Ministers he likes in the Management except some Tenure or old Charter give admittance to some persons without exception Otherwise in the very principal performance says venerable Saravia De Christ Obed. p. 139. Ab Episcopo traditur corona quod potest furi à proceribus But the Dean of the Collegiate Church of Westminster did attend as a specal Officer at the Coronation of K. James after the manner of Deacon to the Archbishop of Canterbury it was Dr. Andrews which could not be granted him by Prescription for there was no Dean nor any such Dignity in the Church at the Coronation of Q. Elizabeth But upon the new Foundation Anno 3. of that Queen the Dean was intrusted with the Custody of K. Edward's Crown and the other Regalia and Decorum was kept thereupon to give him a great Employment of Assistance on that day Yet the Regalia were kept in a strong place of that Church long before For I find in Baron anno 1060. par II. That Pope Nicholas the Second gave a Charter to that Abby Ut sit repositorium regalium insignium What a busie Fisher was this that would have an Oar or a Net rather in every Boat Could not the Kings of England without him appoint the fittest place for the Custody of the Ornaments of their Imperial Majesties He that was so kind to dispose who should keep the Crown did mean That the King should not wear it without his Leave and Courtesie And let it be his Fault to be impertinent and to meddle with the keeping of Royal Treasure that did not concern him What is their Crime that have carried them quite away both Crown and Scepter and Robes from their ancient Sacrary I would that had been all This was wont to be the Mark of him that opposeth and exalts himself above all that is called GOD Dixi Dii est is 2 Thess 2.4 But what 's the matter that I have almost lost my self in this Loss I was about to tell that Bishop Williams must not wait in the Honourable Place of the Dean at the Coronation but in a Complement he was sent to Name one of the Twelve Prebendaries to serve in his room This was devised to fret him and to catch a Wasp in a Water-trap Bishop Laud was a Prebendary at this time and the Substitute intended at Court to act in the Coronation If Lincoln should Name him he had been laugh'd at for preferring the man that thrust himself by And if he did not Name him and no other he had been check'd for inscribing one of a lesser Order in the Church before a Bishop to so great a Service But his Wit saved him from either Inconvenience He sent the Names of his Twelve Brethren to the King resigning it up to His Majesty to elect whom he pleased A Submission which Climacus would call Sepulchrum voluntatis a dead Obedience without a sensible Concurrence And he stirred no more either by Challenge or Petition to do that eminent Office of the Deanery in his own Person but says in his Letter to the King That he submitted to that Sequestration for so he calls it It is wise to sit down when a man can trouble no Body but himself if he moves Especially I affect the Lesson which Erasmus gives in an Epistle p. 222. Pulchrius est aliquando modestia quam cansâ superare It is handsomer sometimes to excel in Modesty than to win a Cause 69. Other Reasons sway'd this circumspect man to carry it with no such Indifferency that he was not called to the Parliament But to do Honour to the King and to save his own Right nay the common Right of Peers he took a middle way between Crouching and Contumacy He call'd it His Majesty's Gracious Pleasure and was in earnest that he esteem'd it so to spare his Presence at the Parliament but he expostulated to have a Writ of Summons denied to no Prisoners no nor condemned Peers in the late Reign of his blessed Father Cab. p. 118. that accordingly he might make a Proxy which he could not do the Writ not receiv'd And he struggled till he had it in his own way and entrusted it with the Lord Andrews Bishop of Winchester it being the last Parliament wherein that famous Servant of God sate and the last year of his Life But the Mr. W. Sanders tells us p. 143. of his Annals of King Charles That Lincoln at this time continued not a Peer but a Prelate in Parliament Res memoranda novis Annalibus atque recenti historiâ Juven Sat. 2. This is a pitiful matter for what Bishop of Lincoln could be a Prelate in those days and not a Peer Is it his meaning that he did not sit among the Peers Nor did he sit among the Prelates in Convocation but by Proxy he sate in both places as Peer and Prelate A Letter sent from him to the King and dated March 12. will clear this matter and greater things or else it had not been publish'd 'T is large and confident searing the Duke's Greatness no more than the Statuary Work of a vast Colossus But as Portius Latro says in Sallust Gravissimi sunt morsus irritatae necessitat is 'T is no marvel if Necessity break good Manners which will break through Stone Walls says the Proverb And much Provocations attends not much whom it displeaseth The Letter follows Most Mighty and Dread Soveraign IT becometh me of all the rest of your Subjects having been so infinitely obliged to Your Majesty to cast my self down at your Feet and oppose no Interpretation Your Majesty shall be pleased to make of any of my Actions whatsoever Howbeit before the receipt of my Lord Keeper's Letter that I had carried my absence from the Parliament with as much Humility and Respect to Your Majesty as ever Subject of England did towards his Soveraign The delivery of my Proxy to the first Bishop Your Majesty named I excused mannerly to Your Majesty but with a private Reason to my Lord Keeper not to be replied against The second Lord Bishop is directly uncapable of that part of my Proxy which concerneth the House of Convocation These two Lords now named
Lives to be liable and disposable by this Soveraign Power and not turn England into the case of Turky And if you affirm that a man may be taken and imprison'd by a Soveraign Power wherewith a King is trusted beside the Law exprest in the Statute why should you not grant as well the Law being one and the same that a man may be put out of his Lands and Tenements disinherited and put to death by this Soveraign Power without being brought to answer by due process of Law I conceive this Reason may be more fortified but will never be answer'd and satisfied Bore one hole into this Law and all the good thereof will run out of it Next I shew that nothing was ever attempted against the Magna Charta without great Envy and Grudging Now since a man's Liberty is a thing that Nature most desires and which the Law doth exceedingly favour the 29th Chapter of that Charter says Nullus liber homo imprisonetur nisi per legem terrae What word can there be against these words Why it was said here with Resolution and Confidence That Lex terrae is to be expounded of Actions of the King 's Privy Council done at the Council-Table without further Process of Law But did ever any Judge of this Land give that interpretation of Lex terrae in Magnâ Chartâ Indeed a great learned Lord in this House did openly say That all Courts of Jurisdiction in this Land establish'd and authorised by the King may be said to be Lex terrae Which is granted by me although it was denied by implication by the resolution of the House of Commons But then the Question still remains whether the Council-Table at Whitehall be a forum contentiosum a Court of Jurisdiction I ever granted they may commit to Prison juxta legem terrae as they are Justices of Peace and of other legal Capacities And I grant it also that they may do it praeter legem terrae as they are great Counsellors of State and so to provide where the Laws are defective ne quid detrimenti respub capiat Secondly It was much prest that my L. Egerton did expound this Lex terrae to be Lex regis which must mean somewhat in his Post-nati pag. 33. I have read the Book and it is palpably mistaken That great Lord saith only this That the Common-Law hath many Names secundùm subjectam materiam according to the variety of Objects it handles When it respects the Church it is called Lex Ecclesiae Anglicanae When it respects the Crown Lex Coronae and sometime Lex Regia When it respects the common Subject it is called Lex Terrae Is not this his plain meaning It must be so by his instance p. 36. That the cases of the Crown are the Female to inherit the eldest Son to be preferr'd no respect of Half-blood no disability of the King's Person by Infancy If his Lordship should mean otherwise his Authorities would fail him Regist fol. 61. the word Lex Regia is not nam'd that 's my Lord's Inference but the Title is Ad jura Regia that is certain Briefs concerning the King's Kights opposite to Jura Papalia or Canonica all of them in matters ecclesiastical as Advousons Presentations Quare-impedits c. all pleaded in Westminster-hall things never heard of in the King 's dwelling Court since the fixing of the Courts of Justice Thus much for the Authorities Now the reason offer'd out of them which will never be answer'd is this By the Lex Terrae in Magna Charta a man may be not only imprison'd but withal outlaw'd destroy'd try'd and condemn'd but a man cannot be outlaw'd destroy'd try'd and condemn'd by any Order of the Lords of the Council therefore the Orders of the Lords of the Council are not Lex Terrae At this and upon other occasions the Bishop spake to this matter till the Petition was most graciously consented to by the King in all the Branches of it and was more attended to upon the Experience of his Knowledge and Wisdom than at least any of his Order And as Theocritus says of his principal Shepherd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From that day Daphnis was accounted the Chief of his Calling which filled the Court with the Report But some men are in danger to be traduced with too much Praise 79. One thing struck in unhappily which made this Session rise without a good close in the shutting up it was a Remonstrance presented to the King by the House of Commons of many Complaints the most offensive being those that were personal against two Bishops that were about the King and against the L. Duke That his excessive Power and abuse of that Power was the cause of all Evils and Dangers among us Though this came very cross to the King's Affections yet the worst word that he gave to the Remonstrance was That no wise man would justifie it How many Kings of England had treated both Houses more sharply upon less provocation Yet now the chief Tribunes spake their Discontents aloud That they had given a bountiful Levy of five Subsidies and were called Fools for their labour The Gift was large the Manner the Allegiance the Willingness were better than the Gift yet might not His Majesty touch mildly upon a Fault without such a scandalous Paraphrase The Galatians would have pulled out their own Eyes to do Paul good yet he spared them not for it but upon Errors crept into the Doctrine of their Faith he called them foolish Galatians The sowrest Leaven not seen in the Remonstrance but hid in the House was That some seditious Tongues did blab their meaning to cut off the payment of Tonnage and Poundage by the concession of the Petition of Right against which His Majesty spake and declar'd That his Predecessors had quietly enjoy'd those Payments by the Royal Prerogative which both Houses did protest to leave inviolable That the Grant of the Petition did meet with Grievances said to entrench upon the Liberty and Property of the People to give them assurance of quiet from paying Taxes or Loans without Order of Parliament To go further it was not his Meaning nor their Demand The Bishop of Lincoln appeared very much to concur with the King's Interpretation and was very zealous to have had an Act past for it before the Parliament was prorogued Nay he forbore not to chide his Friends in the lower House whose Metal he found to be churlish and hard to be wrought upon Ut erat generosae indolis nihil frigidè nihil languidè agebat as Clementius says of renowned Salmasius in his Life p. 61. But the Bishop's Motion was laid by and with no good meaning Yet since it was seen that his Endeavours were real to have wound up the Bottom at that time without that scurvy knot in it he had the Favour to kiss the King's Hand and to have Words both with His Majesty and with the Duke in private O hard Destiny this he had
was that if he would be bandied no more in Star-chamber 1. He must leave his Bishoprick and Deanry and all his Commendams and take a Bishoprick in Ireland or Wales as His Majesty pleased 2. He must recant his Book 3. Secure all his Fine 4. Never question any that had been employed by His Majesty against him Strange Physick as ever was prescribed for it was a Pill as big as a Pumpion and whose Throat could swallow it down Non est pax sed servitutis pactio Tul. Philip. 12. The worst that all the Courts in England could do could not impose such Terms upon him Beside to yield thus far were to fly the Field and to receive an inglorious wound in his Back Then he falls upon other Thoughts that he would please the King by making an unparallel'd Submission to him And were it not best to be content with half a Ruine to prevent a whole He must be a loser yet a man spends nothing that buys that he hath need of So he wrote back to the same Earl that he would lay his Bishoprick and Deanry at His Majesty's Feet but excused his going into Ireland To the second That he could not recant his Book which contain'd no Doctrine that he was not ready to justifie To the third He would pay his Fine as he was able To the fourth he submitted Not this not all this was accepted The very L. Drusus in Paterculus Meliore in omnia ingenio animoque quà m fortunà usus His noble Wit and good Parts were still destituted by Fortune He received this Return from the Earl That His Majesty was not contented to receive his Bishoprick and Deanry from him his Residency in Lincoln and Rectory of Walgrave are requir'd to be voided and to Ireland or no Peace To the second No Doctrin should be recanted but Matters of Fact c. The Bishop wonders at this who look'd for Praise that he had stoop'd so low yet rather than contest with his Soveraign he resolves with David Adhuc ero vilior And the common Rule of Polybius was observ'd by all men lib. 5. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of two good things chuse the greatest of two Evils chuse the least He offers to resign all he hath in the Church of England but still will live in England for the Book he pleaded so well for it that the King was satisfied with a conditional submission as If any thing contained in it offended His Majesty he was sorry But to the third about the Fine he found very imperfect and unsolid Proposals and No Ground that 's good is hollow Since he must be stript of all that he had in the Church he would know how much should be left him of his Lands and Leases to live upon that the King 's Fine-gatherers might not snatch up all And he craves an Answer whether that Pension of 2000 Marks per ann bought of the E. of Banbury by His Majesty's Direction and for his Service and Profit being then Prince of Wales and 24000 l. in Arâ—ears for the same should be consider'd towards the King's Payment The Rejoynder began at the latter Clause That Pensions are not paid to men in disfavour the E. of Bristol being the Example for it For the Proportion what he should have to live upon rising out of his own Estate he must know nothing till he had wholly submitted From that hour the false Glass wherein the Bishop saw a shadow of Peace was broken And he writes to the Earl in the Stile of a man That it were a tempting of God to part with all he had willingly and leave himself no assurance of a Livelihood That his Debts if he came out of the Prison of the Tower would cast him into another Prison no better provision being made for them than he saw appearance for That he would never hazard himself into a condition to beg his Bread Truly he had cause to look for better Offers and since they came not he would lay his Head upon the Pillow of Hope till he had slept his last He had not suffer'd as an Evil man his Conscience bore him witness whereby he was not obnoxious to Infamy Majore poenâ affectus quà m legibus statutum est non est infamis a Maxim of Reason and of Law in our Kingdom To surrender up all he had were to suffer as a Fool. Plato is made the Author of the Saying That he had rather leave somewhat to his Enemies when he died than stand in need of his Friends who might prove no Friends while he lived But this is surely Plato's in Apol. pro Socr. That when Socrates was ask'd how he felt himself affected when he was wrongfully condemn'd he said he could give no Answer till he met with Palamedes and Ajax 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 till he had ask'd them how they took the Sentence of unrighteous Judges he was not fully provided to satisfie them Our bishop consulted day and night at his Study with Histories of Saints in by-past Ages and knew they had suffer'd more than he had done and was sorry for his human frailty if they could bear it better Now I am confident that the Prudent will collect that this Bishop was never deaf to Conditions of Agreement and that no man living could offer a greater Sacrifice than he did for a Peace-Offering unless he would have stript himself of all and not have left off his own two Mites in all the World to cast into the Corban 129. But if the Parly for Peace were nothing but Thunder and Thunder-bolt how will the Bishop endure it when it comes to strokes God be praised his Warfare in these Causes was at an end Flebile principium melior fortuna secuta est Metam lib. 7. The Chamber of Horror and its Star did not shine malignantly upon him again A time and times and half a time had pass'd over and these things were finisht Dan. 12.7 For three year and half he continued in the Tower and in that space lived as if he had drank of Homer's Cup Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if he had represented and not felt the part he acted For except that so many Suits interrupted his Studies he lack'd nothing that could be perceived of Health Solace and Alacrity Benè dormit qui non sentit quà m malè dormiat a Fragment of Publius Mimus He wanted not good Society for I must ever praise his constant Friend Dr. Alabaster who took up a Lodging in one of the Mint-master's Houses to be with him continually While he was so many months shut up from the action of the World he began to hear of some Occurrences abroad which made him not dread his chief Enemy at Lambeth at all The Archbishop had entangled himself in his own Webb nay the King and all England and Scotland with him In illa liturgiâ infelicissimè ad Scotos missâ says wise Mr. Selden de Syn. Jud. par 2. His Majesty's Expedition into the
North gave our Bishop a breathing time from his Troubles And when the Articles of Pacification made at Berwick were burnt in London true or uncorrupted I dispute not I that report this was the first that carried the Tidings to the Tower and I call God to witness the Bishop presently broke out into these words I am right sorry for the King who is like to be forsaken by his Subjects at home but far more by all Kings and Princes abroad who do not love him But for the Archbishop says he he had best not meddle with me for all the Friends he can make will be too few to save himself A fatal fore-sight of all impending and ensuing Mischiefs But do you not hope Sir said I that such Concussions as you fear to come to pass will give you your Peace and Liberty Possibly they will says he But no honest man shall be the better for a Scotch Reformation wherein the Hare-brains among us are engaged with them Which is like that of Rutilius deported in Banishment to Mytelene one comforted him with hope of Civil Wars and then all that were banish'd should return to Rome says Rutilius Quid tibi mali feci ut mibi pejorem reditum quà m exitum sperares That which did precipitate the common Fortune and made all things worse and worse was the King's very sudden dissolving the Parliament met in Apr. 1640. His Majesty had been forewarned by a worthy Counsellor and a dying man against that Error in the Christmas before Cujus mortem dolor omnium celebrem fecit Sym. Ep. p. 11. It was L. Keeper Coventry who made but one Request with his last Breath to the King and sent it by Mr. James Maxwel of the Bed-Chamber That His Majesty would take all Distasts from the Parliament summoned against April with patience and suffer it to sit without an unkind dissolution But the Barking of the living Dogs was sooner heard than the Groaning of a dying Lyon for that Parliament ended in a few days in its Infancy and in its Innocency but the Grief for it will never end The next came on Novemb. 3. with all Animosities that could be infused out of Scotch and English Distempers The Bishop of Lincoln Petitions the King by the Queens Mediation that he might be set at liberty and have his Writ as a Peer to sit in Parliament which was opposed by the L. Finch then Custos sigilli magni and Archbishop Laud as appears by a Letter written to Sir Richard Winn Octob. 3. in these words 130. Good Cousin WITH my hearty Thanks remembred for all your great however unfortunate care of me and my Affairs Though you would not let me know any thing that might be any Grief or Discomfort to me yet I hear it of other Hands That I am eternally bound to the Queens Majesty and bound to remain her Vassal as long as I live And that I owe much to some other great Lords of His Majâ—â—ty's Council And that his Grace by my Lord Keeper's bold and much-mistaken Information to His Majesty that the Parliament cannot examine Errors and Oppressions in such an arbitrary Court as the Star-chamber is doth keep off His Majesty from using his Clemency towards me or permitting me to employ my best Endeavours to serve him My Lords Grace and Secretary Windebank have good reason to wish me out of the Parliament and out of the World too if they conceive I have no other business there than to complain against them And so hath the Lord Keeper and Sir J. Lamb. If her gracious Majesty whom than willingly offend I will rather dye will be pleased to set aside the Relations those two Personages have towards Her Majesty and set her poor Servant at liberty to take his course for Redress for those intolerable Concussions they have used against him And that I do not speak herein beside my Books I pray you and your Friends to peruse the bundle of Papers I send you which I desire you to return to me c. Through the Perswasion of those about the King whom the Letter discovers Lincoln was like to lye by it and to be shut out of Mercy by an irreversible Decree But the Lords of the Upper House after they had look'd about them a while on Nov. 16. sent to the Lieutenant of the Tower to deliver him to then Officer of the Black Rod who conducted him to the Parliament and their Lordships gave him his Place among his Brethren in the Bishops-Bench The King did soon hear of his Carriage that he neither complain'd nor so much as glanced at his Persecutors As a true Lover of his Country said Cic. Ep. Fam. lib. 10. Non me impedient privatae offensiones quò minùs pro Reip salute etiam cura inimicis consentiam His Majesty heard more That he was his faithful Minister and Stable to stand for him in all motions and did not refrain to fall sharply upon those Lords to whom he owed his Releasement for not speaking dutifully of His Majesty and of his Actions with Reverence Upon it the King sent for him and had conference with him alone till after midnight and made him some amends for the Evils past by commanding all Orders filed and kept in any Court or Registry upon the former Hearings and Dependencies against him to be slighted cancell'd crazed that no Monument or Memorial of them might remain So Aâ—m Probus tells us what Reparation was made to Alcibiades after he was brought home to Athens from his Exile Pilae in quibus devotio scripta fuit contra Alcibiadem in mare praecipitatae post quà m à Spartá revocatus est To quote a nearer Example When Constantine let Athanasius return again to his See at Alexandria 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athan. ad Solit. Vit. p. 823. All that was engross'd against Athanasius he commanded the Memory of it to be rid out of the way and all of it to be blotted out Look for such another Instance in Symmachus Ep. p. 127. of him that was thrice honour'd in being reinvested in those Honours from which he was degraded Majus quiddam est honorem restituere quam dedisse c. For Fortune may confer but only Judgment restores to Honour I am come to the end of those Suits with which our Bishop was overwhelmed and still made Defendant against the King Let Posterity observe how he was censur'd and grievously but for two things tampering with Witnesses never known before to be a fault in the Realm of England and for being suspected to have received two Letters in Cyphers of a mystical sence and as slight regard Being accused for divulging the King's Counsels and for Subornation of Witnesses he broke the neck of those Bills Being questioned for his Book in the High-Commission Court he wound himself out of the Labyrinth of all their Articles From an Hodg-potch of new Informations in Star-chamber he deliver'd himself by adventuring to appeal from that Court to the
plausible and may run well with the close of Beza's Epigram in Parodie Quod tu fecisti sit licet ingens At quod non saceres hoâ— ego miror opus 134. But the Injuries done to private Man were Trifâ—les to the great Affairs that were in hand His Majesty's Affairs which were in great decadence took him up wholly and how could he be safe A good Subject cannot make any difference between the King's Fortunes and his own A full Declaration of the Storms that were rais'd concerns not this piece It was apparent that the Scotch were at one end of the Fray in the North and the Presbyterians about London at the other end in the South both confederate to root up cast down syndicate controul and do what they lust and let them have their own will it would scarce content them Our wise Church-man knew that he that fears the worst prevents it soonest Therefore he did not lose a minute to try all his Arts if he could quench the flame amongst the heady Scots whose common sort were like their Preachers Tumidi magis animi quà m magni as Casaubon notes it in the Atherians Lib. 1. Athen. cap. 20. rather of a swelling than a noble Spirit Their own polite Historian says more Dromond Jam. 5. p. 161. That Hepburn Prior of St. Andrews the Oracle of the Duke of Albany told him That he must remember that the People whom he did command for he was Regent were ever fierce mutinously proud and know not how to obey unless the Sword were drawn What hope then of their Submission when they had framed Covenants Articles gathered a Convention no less in Power no less in Name than a Parliament without their Prince's leave and became Assailants to maintain that and what they would have more with the Sword Let all Ages remember that this sprung from no other occasion but that the King invited them to prayer in publick in such a Form of Liturgy as himself used putting no greater burden upon their Conscience than upon his own The Peccatulum was that there wanted a little in mode and usual way to commend the Book unto them Perhaps the Error went a little further that King James his Promise was not observ'd as the Reverend Spotswood doth not conceal it p. 542. That the Lord Hamilton King James his Commissioner having ratified the Articles of Perth by Act of Parliament assured the People that his Majesly in his days should never press any more change and alteration in matters of that kind without their consent Admit this Promise calculated for the days of King James was obliging as far as the Meridian of King Charles yet nothing was presented to them against true Doctrine or Divine Worship for all the Learning of their Universities could never make the matter of the Liturgy odious And let it be disputed That the Book was not authoritative without the publick Vote and Consent of the Nation in some Representative Yet if a Prince so pious so admirable in his Ethicks did tread one inch awry in his Politicks must the Cannon be brought into the Field and be planted against him to subvert his Power at Home and to dishonour him abroad was it ever heard that upon so little a Storm Seamen would cut Cabble and Mast and throw their Cargo over-board when there was no fear to shipwrack any thing but Fidelity and Allegiance God was pleased to deprive us of Contentment and Peace for our own wickedness or Civil Discords that lasted near as long as the Peloponnesian War had never risen from so slender an occasion The merciful and soft-hearted King could have set his Horse-feet upon their Necks in his first Expedition which stopt at Barwick if he had not been more desirous of Quietness than Honour and Victory I guess whom Dromond means in the Character of Jam. 3. p. 118. That it is allowable in men that have not much to do to be taken with admiration of Watches Clocks Dials Automates Pictures Statues But the Art of Princes is to give Laws and govern their People with wisdom in Peace and glory in War to spare the humble and prostrate the proud Happy had it been if his Majesty had followed valiant Counsel to have made himself compleat Conquerour of those Malapert Rebels when they first saw his face in the North. But the Terms of Pacification which they got in one year served them to gather an Army and to come with Colours display'd into England the next year which was the periodical year of the King's Glory the Churches Prosperity the Common Laws Authority and the Subjects Liberty Threescore and eighteen years before when England and Scotland were never at better League Abr. Hartwell passeth this Vote in his Reginâ literatâ more like a Prophet than a Poet Nostráque non iterùm Saxo se vertat in arva Non Gallus sed nec prior utrôque Scotus 135. And what could Lesly have done then with a few untrain'd unarmed Jockeys if we had been true among our selves The Earl of Southampton spake heroically like a Peer of an ancient Honour That the Bishop of Durham with his Servants a few Millers and Plowmen were wont to beat those Rovers over the Tweed again without raising an Army If the People had not imprudently chosen such into our Parliament as were fittest to gratifie the Scots day had soon cleared up and Northern Mists dispersed But our foolish heart was darkned and any Scourge was welcome that would chastise the present Government we thought we could not be worse when we could scarce be better We greedily took this Scotch Physick when we were not sick but knew not what it was to be in health An Ounce of common Sense might have warned us That a Kingdom may consist with private mens Calamities but private mens Fortunes cannot consist with the ruin of a Kingdom The Love of Money is the Root of all Evil. Many in England thought they sat at a hard Rent because of Ship-money and would fire the House wherein their own Wealth was laid up rather than pay their Landlord such a petty Tribute as was not mist in times of Plenty but in short time their Corn and Plate went away at one swoop when their stock was low The exacting of Ship-money all thought it not illegal but so many did as made it a number equivalent to all And a Camel will bear no more weight than was first laid upon him Nec plus instituto onere recipit Plin. lib. 8. cap. 18. This disorder'd the Beast and being backt with some thousands of Rebels march't on as far as Durham made him ready to cast his Rider The Royal part was at a stand and could go no further than this Question What shall we do As Livy says of the Romans catch't in an Ambush at Caudis Intuentes alii alios cum alterum quisque compotem magis mentis ac consilii ducerent In such a Perplexity every man asks his Fellow What 's best
to be done and being dozzled with fear thinks every man wiser than himself Lincoln spake what was fit for Comfort and did what he was able for Redress He lookt like the Lanthorn in the Admiral by which the rest of the Fleet did steer their Course And as Synesius gives a Precept to a Bishop Ep. 105. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To do as much work as all his Clergy beside So this Man bestirred himself and ran before the most diligent in this Chase When he was a Courtier he had ever declined Acquaintance with James Marquess of Hamilton now he made him his most Intimate waited on him at his Lodgings went in hand with him to the King tried him every way what Counsel he had in his Breast to breed Loyalty in the Scottish Army that the Contagion might not breed the same Rudeness in the English and would give an even poise to such uneven Humors The Bishop knew not what to make of this Marquess Incertum Lar sit an larva whether he were a good or a bad Genius Only he said he found every thing in him contrary to the Vulgar Opinion which esteemed him cunning and false For he took him to be no false one had will enough to help the King neither did he find any great Cunning in him but rather that he wanted a Head-piece So he laid him and aside but used him sparingly because he could not frame things of any great concernment from him Then he gets acquaintance with Mr Alexander Henderson and some of his Disciples in Commission with him presents them feasts them offered good pay to them and the Heads of their Faction as much as the King could spare which was the only Bait to catch his Country-men who were needy and ravenous for Prey Which is well set out in Salust p. 187. Feras omnis generis quò magis sunt attenuatae penuriâ cò magis praecipites â—ffraenatas ruere in perniciem videmus All Beasts will venture their Lives to devour what they can get when they are hungry The Bishop was sure he dealt with such as were bare and necessitous from the Orcades to Berwick and that it was part of their Errand into England to carry away Gold and to get Pensions But the House of Commons that knew their half famisht Fortunes as well as the Bishop voted such a Mass of Money to them by a word which coâ—t England dear called Brotherly Assistance that the King with all his Exchequer and perhaps his Credit was not able to raise it far less to out-bid it Yet Lincoln gave not over to perswade their headstrong Party to have no quarrel with the Church of England to draw no hatred upon themselves by reaching at the Subversion of the Episcopal Dignity which was never wanting here since the Nation received the Gospel of Christ Bade them remember what Vows their Kirk had made and printed them in their Common-Prayers never to unquiet the Peace of this Land since Queen Elizabeth Anno 3. of her Reign did beat the French out of Leith and compelled their Forces to return home conducted under the best Souldiers of France whose purpose it was to drown the Protestant Religion in the Blood of their Lords of the Congregation Hereupon some of Henderson's Assistants stagger'd and bade leave our Church to its own staple Order when at the same time in their private meetings they began to forsake this moderation They saw how their Debt of Brotherly Assistance would be paid the better if the Revenues of the Prelates were confiscated They look'd upon their own Work that they had dethron'd Bishops in Scotland and so long as England kept up that Dignity it cried Shame upon their Confusion And if Bishops lived at Durham and Carliste so near to their Borders they suspected the like would creep in again at Glascow and Edenburg And their intention was to shape our Church as ill as their own to make us as odious to the King as themselves that both our Offences might grow higher than the hope of a Pardon could fly unto So in fine our Bishop perceived that he dealt with men that made no scruple to shift from Promise and to break Faith Diodorus lib. 3. tells of strange men in the Island of Taproban Divisam linguam habentes eodem tempore duobus hominibus perfecrè loquntur I would such double Tongue had lived as far off as Taproban that we had never known them The end of this Conflict was when Entellus could not overcome Vastos quatit aeger anhelitus artus Aen. lib. 5. 136. No sooner had the Northern Carles begun their Hunts-up but the Presbyterians flock'd to London from all quarters and were like Hounds ready to be entred They had struggled in the days of Q. Elizabeth and K. James to set up their Discipline Patriae communis Erynnis but in vain After twenty Repulses they began afresh Tantus novelli dogmatis regnat furor Prud. de Coron and though their Liquor was stale and sowre as dead Wine they broach'd it now again to set out Teeth on edge The Stings of Wasps once lost are never repaired but these were like Staggs that had cast their Horns often but new ones sprouted up The Independants the same Creature with the Brownists but had shed their upper Coats and look'd smoother these had not yet a Name And as Alexander spoke neglectfully of the Cadusians Quod ignoti sunt ignobiles sunt nunquam ignorari viros fortes Curt. lib. 4. so these were of no reckoning in the first sally of the tumultuous times and such Ignotes were not courted but pass'd over as a Pawn at Chess that stood out all of Play The wise Bishop turned his Skill upon the Presbyterians being less distastful to them in his Person than any that wore a Rochet He laid down his Reasons to them in many Conferences with such prudence such softness and lenity that they confess'd for his part he deserv'd a great Place of Pre-eminence And some of the chief Lords of that Knot made him such Offers of Honour and Wealth for his share if he would give way to their Alterations that they would buy him if his Faith had been salaeble with any Price The worst Requital that could be propounded to an honest man and of the narrowest to scantle their Blessing to him alone that labour'd for a Publick Good As Ben. Johnson hath put it finely into his Underwoods p. 117. I wish the Sun should shine On all mens Fruits and Flowers as well as mine When they saw he was not selfish it is a word of their own new Mint some of their Ministers that were softened with the dewy drops of his Tongue eased their Stomachs with Complaints against the Courts Ecclesiastical and the rugged Carriage of certain Prelates Lincoln knew their Censures had somewhat of Truth and much of Malice but seemed to give them great attention in all for he had rather bring them over to the King than
Members an ordinary Punishment of the Goths and Vandals who then lived in Spain but never heard of here with us of many years before the Reign of Hen. II and therefore not sitly pressed to drive Bishops from sitting as Peers in the case of the Earl of Strafford who is not to be sentenc'd to any mutilation of Members True it is that in the Council it self being the Eleventh Council of Toledo Can. 6. they are forbidden Quod morte plectendum sit sententiâ propria judicare to sentence in any Cause that is to be punish'd with Death Whereas in the Fourth Council of Toledo Can. 31 under Sisinandus not long before held anno 633 it is said That the Kings do oftentimes commit to Priests and Bishops their Judicature Contra quoscunque Majestatis obnoxios against all Treasons howbeit they are directed not to obey their King in this particular unless they have him bound by Oath to pardon the Party in case they shall find reason to mediate for him And thus the Canon-Law went in Spain but no where else in Christendom in that Age. 148. But these Bishops at Westm travelled not so far as Toledo to fetch in this Canon into their Synod but took it out of Gratian then in vogue for he lived in the time of Hen. Beu-clerk Grandfather to this Hen. II. who in the second part of his Decrees Cap. de Clericis saith thus Clericis in sacris ordinibus constitutis ex concil Tolet. Judicium sanguinis agitaro non licet And so this Canon was fetch'd from Spain into these other parts of Europe above four hundred years after the first making thereof upon this occasion Pope Gregory the Seventh otherwise called Hildebrand who lived in the time of William the Conqueror having so many deadly Quarrels against Hen. IV. Emperor of Germany to make his part good and strong laid the first ground which his Successors in their Canons closely pursued to draw the Bishops and other great Prelates of Germany France England and Spain from their Lay-Soveraigns and Leige-Lords to depend wholly upon him and so by colour and pretence of Ecclesiastical Immunities withdrew them from the Services of their Princes in War and in Peace and particularly from exercising all Places of Judicature in the Civil Courts of Princes to the which Offices they were by their Breeding and Education more enabled than the martial Lay-Lords of that rough Age and by their Fiefs and Baronies which they held from Kings and Emperors particularly bound and obliged And therefore you shall find that whereas the Bishops of this Island before the Conquest did still joyn with the Thanes Aldermen and Lay-Lords in the making and executing of all Laws whatsoever touching deprivation of Life and mutilation of Members Yet soon after when the Norman and English Prelates Lanfrank Anselm Becket and the rest began to trade with Rome and as Legati nati to wed the Laws and Canons cried up in Rome and to plant them here in England they withdrew by little and little our Prelates from these Employments and Dependencies upon the Kings of England and under the colour of Exemptions and Church-Immunities erected in this Land an Ecclesiastical Estate and Monarchy depending wholly upon the Pope inhibiting them to exercise secular Employments or to sit with the rest of the Peers in Judicatures of Life and Members otherwise than as they list themselves and hence principally did arise those great heats between our Rufus and Anselm which Eadmer speaks of and those ancient Customs of this Kingdom which Hen. II. pressed upon Becket in the Articles of Clarendon that the Prelates ought to be present in the King's Courts c. Which Pope Alexander a notable Boutefeu of those times in the Church of God did tolerate though not approve of as he apostyles that Article with his own Hand to be shewn to this day in the M. S. extant in the Vatican Library And although I shall not deny but the Popes did plead Scripture for this Inhibition as they did for all things else and allude unto that place 2 Tim. 3.4 which they backed with one of the Canons of the Apostles as they call them the seventh in number Yet it is clear their main Authority is fetch'd from this obscure Synod of Toledo where eighteen Bishops only were convened under Bamba the Goth who of a Plowman was made a King and of a King a Cloyster'd Monk as you may see in the History of Rodericus Santius par 2. c. 32. This is all the goodly Ground that either Gratian in his Decrees or Innocent III in the Decretals or Roger Hoveden in his History alledges against the Ecclesiastical Peers their sitting as Judges in Causes of Blood to wit this famous Gothish Council of Toledo The first that planted this Canon here in England was Stephen Langton a Cardinal the Pope's Creature as his Holiness was pleased to stile him in his Bull and thrust upon the See of Canterbury by a Papal Provision where he continued in Rebellion against his Soveraign as long as King John lived This Archbishop under colour of Ecclesiastical Immunity for so this Canon is marshall'd by Linwood at Osney near Oxford did ordain Ne quis Clericus beneficiatus vol in sacris Ordinibus constitutus praesumat interesse ubi judicium sanguinis tractatur vel exerceatur And this is the first Canon broach'd in this Kingdom to this effect that of Othobone being subsequent in time and a meer Foreign or Legantine Constitution See it at large in Linwood Constit lib. 3. ad sinem And by vertue of a Branch of this very Constitution the now Archbishop two years since sined the Bishop of Gloucester in the High-Commission because he had given way in time of Pestilence only that a Sessions a Judgment of Blood might be kept in a sacred place which was likewise inhibited in this Canon But this admits of a multitude of Answers First 149. Quod haec dictio Clericus ex vi verbi non comprehendit Episcopum Linwood lib. 3. de locat is conductis Secondly the irregularity incurr'd by Judicature in Causes of Blood is only Jure positivo and therefore dispensable by the Pope saith Covarruvias in Clemen si furiosus p. 2. com 5. n. 1. and here in England is dispens'd with in Bishops by the King who in his Writs or Summons to the Parliament commands the Lords Spiritual without any exception of Causes of Blood to joyn in all Matters and Consultations whatsoever with the Temporal Peers of the Kingdom their Summons being unto them a sufficient Dispensation so to do And Othobon himself inhibiting other Clerks to use these Secular Judicatures hath a Salvo to preserve the Priviledges of our Lord the King whereby he may use any of their Services in that kind when he shall see cause Tit. ne Clerici Juris saec exerceant And Linwood upon that Text doth instance in the Clerks of the Chancery and others Nor are these Writs that summon the
Bishops Dispensations only but Mandates also And those Bishops have been fined at the Kings Bench and elsewhere that absented themselves from Councils in Parliament without the King 's special leave and licence first obtained Thirdly When they are forbidden interesse to be present the meaning is not in the very Canons themselves that they should go out of the room but only that they should not be present to add Authority Help and Advice to any Sentence pronounced against a particular or individual Person in cause of Blood or mutilation If he be present auctorizando consilium opem vel operam dando then he contracts an irregularity and no otherwise saith our Linwood out of Innocentius And the Canon reacheth no further than to him that shall pronounce Sentence of Death or Mutilation upon a particular Person For Prelates that are of Counsel with the King in Parliament or otherwise being demanded the Law in such and such a Case without naming any individuum may answer generaliter loquendo That Treason is to be punisht with Death and a Counterseiter of the King's Coin Hostien lib. 2. eap de fals monet allowed by John Montague de Collatione Parliamentorum In Tracta Doctor Vol. 10. p. 121. Fourthly These Canons are not in force in England to bind the King's Subjects for several Reasons First Because they are against his Majesty's Prerogative as you may see it clearly in the Articles of Clarendon and the Writ of Summons and therefore abolished 25 H. 8. c. 8. It is his Majesty's Prerogative declar'd at Clarendon that all such Ecclesiastical Peers as hold of him by Barony should assist in the King's Judicatures until the very actual pronouncing of a Sentence of Blood And this holds from Henry the First down to the latter end of Queen Elizabeth who imployed Archbishop Whitgist as a Commissioner upon the Life of the Earl of Essex to keep him in Custody and to examine him after that Commotion in London And to say that this Canon is confirm'd by Common Law is a merry Tale there being nothing in the Common Law that tends that way Secondly It hath been voted in the House of Commons in this very Session of Parliament That no Canons since the Conquest either introduced from Rome by Legatine Power or made in our Synods had in any Age nor yet have at this present any power to bind the Subjects of this Realm unless they be confirmed by Act of Parliament Now these Canons which inhibit the Presence of Church-men in Cause that concerns Life and Member were never confirm'd by any but seem to be impeach't by divers and sundry Acts of Parliament Thirdly The whole House of Peers have this very Session despised and set aside this Canon Law which some of the young Lords cry up again in the same Session and in the very same Cause to take away the Votes of the Bishops in the Case of the Earl of Strafford For by the same Canon Law that forbids Clergy-men to Sentence they of that Coat are more strictly inhibited to give no Testimony in Causes of Blood Nee ettam potest esse test is vel tabellio in causâ Sanguinis Linw. part 2. sol 146. For no Man co-operates more in a Sentence of Death than the Witnesses upon whose Attestation the Sentence is chiefly past Lopez pract crim c. 98. distl 21. and yet have the Lords admitted as Witnesses produced by the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford the Archbishops of Canterbury and Armagh with the Bishop of London which Lords command now all Bishops to withdraw in the agitation of the self same Case Bishops it seems may be Witnesses to kill ont-right but may not sit in the Discussion of the Cause to help in case of Innocency a distressed Nobleman Whereas the very Gothish Bishops who first invented this Exclusion of Prelates from such Judicatures allow them to Vote as long as there is any hope left of clearing the Party or gaining of Pardon 4. Conc. Tol. Can. 31. And by the beginning of that Canon observe the use in Spain in that Age Anno 633. as touching this Doctrine Saepe principes contra quoslibet majestatis obnoxios Sacerdotibus negotia sua committunt Binnius 4. Tom. Can. Edit ult p. 592. Lastly In the Case of Archbishop Abbot all the great Civilians and Judges of the Land as Dr. Steward Sir H. Martin the Lord Chief Justice Hobart and Judge Doderidge which two last were very well versed in the Canon Law delivered positively when my self at first opposed them That all Irregularities introduced by Canons upon Ecclesiastical Persons concerning matters of Blood were taken away by the Reformation of the Church of England and were repugnant to the Statute 25 II. 8. as restraining the King 's most just Prerogative to imploy his own Subjects in such Functions and Offices as his Predecessors had done and to allow them those Priviledges and Recreations as by the Laws and Customs of this Realm they had formerly enjoy'd notwithstanding the Decree de Clerico venatore or the Constitution nae Clerici Saeculare c. or any other in that kind 150. The only Objection which appears upon any Learning or Record against the Clergies Voting in this Kingdom in Causes of Blood are two or three Protestations entred by the Bishops among the Records of the upper House of Parliament and some few Passages in the Law-Books relating thereunto The Protestation the Lords now principally stand upon is that of William Courtney Archbishop of Canterbury 11 Rich. 2. inserted in the Book of Priviledges which Mr. Selden collected for the Lords of the upper House In the Margin whereof that passage out of R. Hovenden about which we spake before about Clergy-mens agitation of Judgments of Blood is unluckily inserted and for want of due consideration and some suspicion of partial carriage in the Bishops in the case of the Earl of Strafford hath been eagerly pressed upon the Bishops by some of the Lords in such an unusual and unaccustomed manner that if I my self offering to speak to this Objection had not voluntarily withdrawn the rest of the Bishops and I had been without hearing voted out of the House in the agitation of a Splinter of that Cause of the Earl of Strafford's which came not near any matter of Blood An act never done before in that honourable House and ready to be executed suddenly without the least consideration of the merit of the Cause The only words insisted upon in the Protestation of Courtney's are these Because in this present Parliament certain matters are agitated whereat it is not lawsul for us according to the Prescript of holy Canons to be present And by and by after they say These matters are such in the which Nec possumus nec debemus interesse This is the Protestation most stood upon That of Archbishop Arundel 21 Rich. 2. is not so full and ample as this of Courtney's For the Bishops going forth left their Proxies with the
and so it did for certain in Adam the first Father and first King Yet grant them their asking here is an Instance to silence them All the Creatures were made before Man yet God gave him the Dominion to govern them that were created before and after him It is to no more purpose to cavil That the King is made for the good of the People Is that which is appointed for the good of another the less for that Cause Quite contrary 't is therefore the greater So is a Preceptor and Shepherd the one above the Scholars the other above the Flock Saravia distinguisheth skilfully de Obed. p. 228. Quod est propter aliud si benesicium ab co accipit minus esl si dat majus est They stretch their Wit further and say That the King gives his Oath to his Subjects to mamtam them in their known Laws It well befits him So God gave an Oath to Abraham and David Quare juramentum praes itum Inseriori non ei subjicn Superiorem says the same Author As for the matter of the Oath to keep the Laws it puts him not under the Wrath of Men if he do not keep them but under the Wrath of God A King is to keep the Laws of Nations with other Princes yet is not subject to them God defend us from making Experiments what would come to pass if the choice of a Governor or Governors were referred to the thousands and millions of England Beware a Heptarchy again beware an Hecatontarchy Things give better Counsel to men than men to things Look behind enquire into Histories what bloody meetings the World hath known upon such ambitious bandings between Gogs and Magog's Parties An quae per totam res atrocissima Lesbon Non audita tibi est Metam l. 2. Is it forgotten how they have lifted up their Friends in a Fit and straightway pluck'd them down in a Fury As the Greek Emperor said to a Bishop Ego te Furne condidi ego te destruam For as Painters delight in Pieces not being made but in their making so the Hare-brain'd Multitude run on to a Choice with Greediness and when it is pass'd they loath it with Fickleness The Conclusion shall be That this Stratagem to unthrone a King by the pretended inherent Right of the People can come to no conclusion For if there were occasion for all Cities Counties Burroughs Hamblets to come to try that Right who shall warn them that the opportunity is ripe to require their concurrence Who shall summon them Why A. rather than B Who shall propound Upon what place shall they meet Who shall preserve Order and Peace For every Hog when you drive them must have a String about his own Leg. Who shall umpire and stop Outrages Such there will be Saevitque animis ignobile vulgus An hundred impossible Dissiculties may be added to these and he that can rowl them up all into Sence deserves the Philosopher's Stone for his Labour To divert the vulgar fort from meddling with things improper to and so much above them Budaeus remembers me how to call them to such a Choice as is fitter for them lib. 1. de As In Pervigilio Epiphamae regnum ad sesquiboram lusu sabae sortiuntur Let them chuse the King of the Bean on Twelsth-night and be merry with the Cake-bread 189. The best of Kings had some that fell off from him after the fust and second year of the War when they saw his Enemies had got ground in some Skirmishes and Sieges and were possest of the best part of his Navies surrendred to them by a false Faitour This was a colour for their Rhetoricians to impute Righteousness to the fortunate Part. And their Orders for Thanksgivings boast of it that God did own their Cause because of the Victories which had besall'n them But Wisdom dresseth her self by her own Light and minds not the shadow of Success for after the first dark Cloud that comes it can be seen no more It is not strange that Self-lovers are so wary and rash Springolds so sond to like that which is most lucky Thucyd. l. 1. notes it upon the variable turnings of the Peloponnesian Wars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Men cannot leave but they will bend their Fancies to the Casualties of Events Nay says Matth. de Prin. c. 25. There is no living for us without that Tropical Humour Si tempora mutant ur statim perit qui in agendo rationem non mutat But all such Errours shall be reversed and the mistakes consuted before a Tribunal Eternal Impartial which will deceive none Go not about then to try right and wrong as they are bandied among us No man knows either Love or Hatred by all that is before them All things come alike to all There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked Eccles 9.2 If you Judge the merit of a Cause or the integrity of a Man by prosperous Chance Epicurus will have a strong tentation to say Is there a God whose wisdom sees and governs all things Dionysius when he had rob'd a Temple and failed away merrily with his Booties scost at it Videt is amici quà m bona à Diis immortalibus navigatio sacrilegis datur Cic. de Nat. Deor. l. 3. Such a Scandal another of the voluptuary Sect took at a Courtezan that had forsworn her self and look't more amiably after it Obligasti Perfidum diris caput enitescis Pulchrior multo juvenumque prodis Publica cura Horat. Od. l. 4. We that are bred under holy Discipline know that it will be the worse for thee hereafter for their Torments will appear more bitter in the next World because they felt nothing but pleasure in this The ways of God are past finding out He permits that Evil which he hates and he Corrects that Good which he loves This is the Trial of Faith Quicquid imponitur molit All that is brought to her Mill she will grind it into fine slour of Thanksgiving and Patience and is afsured That as a Ball mounts higher when it is thrown to the ground so a good Cause when it is beaten will rebound higher to Heaven Otherwise says Manilius l. 5. Si sorte accesserit impetus ausis Improbitas fiet virtus If Sin get the better at hand-blows Vertue shall hold up its hand at the Bar and be condemned for Vice Joshuah's discomfit at Ai Josiah's at Megiddo the hundred Victories that the Saracens have had against the Christians tell us how they that sight the Lord's Battels are not priviledged from turning their Backs to their Enemies It is an acute passage of S. Ambrose in an Epistle to Valentinian That the Heathen had no reason to beast that the Idols whom they worshipt were true Gods and gave them â—icleries for if the Romans prevailed where were the Carthaginian Gods to help them if the Carthaginians triumpht where were the Roman Gods when they were beaten Success will neither serve Christians nor Heathen
to make a competent Judge for the lawfulness of their War For is it not most impious to prove a Cause not till after the Victory and to have no Inducement that they sought for the right till all was done Experience is stronger than twenty Reasons against it As Paterculus said of one good man Lusius Drusus Meliore in omma ingenio quà m fortuná usus so let there be thousands of such in a body their Innocency may be greater than their Fortune The fallacy of Success is to be exploded out of the Morals of Justice neither can such a contingent Medium produce a demonstrative Conclusion It was bravely pleaded by the Rhodians in an Oration before the Roman Senate Liv. lib. 35. You Romans were wont to account your Wars prosperous Non tam exitu eorum quòd vincat is quà m principiis quod non sine causâ suscipiat is I may say hic rhodus hic saltas And this is sapience to list them who admire Success among those whom Fortune favours 190. Neither were the vain-glorious content to pride it upon Success and to stamp it upon their Money God with us but sharpned their presumption against the King's Friends with Insultations and Revilings that they were unregenerate such as walked after the flesh forsaken of God and appointed to slaughter Bitter untrue uncharitable Such as knew not his Majesty's faithful Soldiers thought vilely of them such as faw their daily diligence at Common-Prayer their sidelity for their Lord and King their preparation for death their adventuring their Estates and Bodies in all hard Service without pay nay without necessary Subsistence did deservedly magnisie the Grace of God that was in them Yet we do not justifie all Some scores of them might have been spared who were driven into the King's Quarters by the Oppression of the Parliament and came to save themselves more than to defend the King and it was a common observation at Oxford that excepting the great Counsellors and the Clergy they that sought least liv'd worst Yet the loosest of these kept their Oath of Allegiance which comes nearer to a Saint than any Rebel of a good outside Qui nesciret in armis Quam magnum crimen virtus civilibus esset Luc. l. 6. But did they never read of an holy Commander forced to take Arms in a good Cause and guarded from his Enemies by Persons of an homely Character David is the Captain the Heir to the Crown of Israel and Judah by God's Election his Cause to escape the Tyranny of Saul not to bid him War And what were his Soldiers 1 Sam. 22.2 Every one that was in distress discontented in debt of a bitter soul gathered themselves to David and he became a Captain over them There were sins very reproveable in either of our adverse Armies put them thus into a comparison Which did most offend God Noah's planting a Vine and being drunk or the building of the Tower of Babel The Casuists have an Answer at their fingers ends That drunkenness corrupted the world but ambition confounded it And is not confusion of a whole Realm more pernicious than corruption in a part But how willingly did the sober Army allow cherish and make wealthy their Chaplain Peters Is there such another spotted Leopard in all the King's Quarters as Catulus said of Nonius What a deal of dung doth that Cart carry Have they no better excuse for themselves than a pandanni Plauti trinum Scelest us est at mihi infidelis non est or than Xenoph. makes for the Athenians in his Oration upon their Republick 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Athenians a baseness in them loved those that were fit and useful for them though they were wicked men Yet it was not the Riot of the King's Army that caused it to be improsperous that was reported where nothing was examin'd and weighed but out of spight believed as it was rumor'd It was partly neglect of Duties for want of pay But chiefly Presumption that their cause was clearly loyal and lawful that the name of the King was more than thirty thousand that the Subjects of England did never suffer the Crown in fine to be opprest that they would fight for it though it hung upon an Heythorn-Hedge They forgot that the English were new cast and turn'd into another People by scottish sawciness and contempt of Soveraignty This Presumption kept the King's Forces sleeping when their Enemies were waking and what is Presumption but Hope run out of its Wits The Rebels were well paid well provided of all Ammunition mightily courted by their Chiestains as Tertullian could say de Praes c. 41. Nunquam 〈◊〉 proficitur quà m in castris rebellium ubi ipsum esse illic promereri est Again none are so adventurous as they that dare not be Cowards for fear of hanging The Law was behind the Parliamentarians sight or hang. Despair will inspire a faint heart as a skilful Author notes it Vegetius l. 3. Clausis in desperatione crescit audacia cum spei nihil est sumit arma formido These are the Difficulties through which the King was to pass and could not which is no dishonour to his Goodness or Wisdom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. No man need to be ashamed that he cannot do all things And never wonder if the Counsels of men well contrived be frustrated by the secret Counsels of God which an Ethnick expresseth in the style of his Religion Destinata salubriter omni ratione potentior fortuna discussit Curt. l. 3. To clear up this more would they that so much adore their Idol Success would they have confest from their heart their own Cause to be wrong if the King had beaten them I believe the God of this World hath darkned them so much that such a Confession cannot be gotten out of them The Weavers of Kidderminster must not be brought to such a sight of their sin that is they must never repent if they be true Disciples of Mr. Baxter's Doctrine The best of Orators was the greatest of Dissemblers in his Plea for Ligarius before Caesar Tully had been a violent Pompeian but the whole Empire after the Pharsalian Field being turn'd Caesarean says the fine-spoken man Nunc certè melior ea causa judicanda est quam etiam Dii adjuverunt Yet so much dissonancy there was between his Tongue and his Heart that he triumpht in the murder of Caesar the only Roman that exceeded all their Race in nobleness and was next to Tully in eloquence Boast not therefore in Success which is an advantage to make Insidels proud but the abstruse ways of God's Providence which setteth up one and pulleth down another as he pleaseth should make us Christians humble 191. For all this if the wise men of Goat-ham will appeal to Success to Success let the matter be referr'd and then every eye may see what was the Summum bonum the chief aim and drift of the rebellious Enterprise Wealth and Spoil So
Title and could prove it Let another take the Archbishop's room and discharge it better That which was lost the Castle could not be kept that which was saved helpt the King's Friends to subsist which his gracious goodness would allow Yes but Milton was a Rebel And may not a Rebel be used to do acts of Justice or Charity Licet uti alieno peccato is often allowed in most conscionable Divinity Make the case that one of the King's Ships at Sea piratically board a London Merchant and spoil him shall the Merchant be debarred from imploring an Algiers Captain to get him his own again if he could find that favour Here 's the case and all the case upon whose mis-report the Archbishop's good Name did suffer deeply For whose justification more may be said than they that love detraction are willing to hear Says Sanderson He fortified his Garrison against the King No such matter Mliton took the Garrison and kept it but his Grace retired to his dear Kinswoman's House the Lady Mostyn Yet says another He was forward in the action in his own person which was to fall away from the King It is replyed He was ever slow to revenge an unjust wrong but earnest to recover a just right which Salust commends in Jugurtha's Wars Non minus est turpe sua relinquere quà m aliena invadere injustum This made him thrust himself in among the Assailants which in my censure of his Carriage did not become him Else what harm was it to save his own stake and his Friends without prejudice to the King's interest whose Part could no longer hold any Garrison in England Non vires alias conversaque numinasentis Cede Deo Aen. 11. From his Fidelity to his Majesty he never went back an inch He suffered in the imputation to the contrary as innocently as the Prophet Jeremy did c. 37.13 who when he had separated himself from the People Irijah laid hold of him and said Thou fallest away to the Chaldaeans So Athanasius was banisht by the good Emperour Constantine being impeacht that he hindered the victualling of Alexandria which might have endanger'd the ruin of the City What did our Archbishop in this otherwise than his Excellency the noble Marquess of Ormond whom Sanderson justly praiseth That he thought it more honourable to surrender to the Parliament Forces what the King held in Ireland than to suffer the interest of the English Protestants to fall under the power of the Irish Papists Actions are not rigidly to be perpended into which one is thrust by necessity A mild man Nazianzen pleaded pardon for them who being shew'd the wrack set their hands to Athanasius's banishment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. de laud. Athanasii Their Mind was true their Pen was forced Integrity must be more precious to a Man than his Life but in some things to be reduced to obey Rebels is no departure from Integrity He was a Lord Chancellour of France whose Decipher agrees exactly with this great Prelate sometimes Lord Keeper of the Great Seal Guido Rupifalcaudius citra ignaviam circumspectus generosè cautus tempori ita cedens ut consertis manibus integritatem fervaret Budaeus de As fol. 36. 205. The Historian Sanderson's Ink drops another Blot upon the Archbishop's Honour That he dissuaded the Country from Contribution to the King I must exclaim as Demosthenes did when Aeschines run into a great Absurdity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 why do you not take Hellebore or Bears-foot as we call it in English to purge Melancholy So quite is every thing mistaken For the Welch in those Parts had now laid down their Arms the Enemy being six to one that was broke in upon them Omnes quorum in alterius manu vita posita est saepiùs cogitant quid potest is cujus in ditione potestate sunt quà m quid ipsi debent facere Cic. pro Quinctio It was no time for the Subdued to shew their Teeth when they could not bite Besides they paid no Contribution before but for their own defence neither carried Moneys out of their own Country The scarcity of Coin is well known in that remote corner of the Kingdom they have Meat and Drink good store for their Bellies and home-spun Frieze for their backs as the Modern Greeks have a Proverb in barbarous words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God provides thick Mantles for clothing where there are hard Frosts But the Silver of the Welch which they talk of is in the Mines of the Mountains not in their Purses or you may say their Sacks are full of Corn but they are not so lucky as Joseph's Brethren were to have money likewise in their Sacks mouths Gen. 42.27 Yet suppose they had been able now to make a bountiful Levy would Milton have suffered them to send it to the King Or might it be they could have done it by stealth their Friends at Oxford were block't up and could not come by it Collect then what unlikelyhood nay what impossibility there was to dissuade those Counties from Contribution to the King 'T is far better yet on the Archbishops side he might go bare-faced through the World and not be asham'd but rather admired for the good Service he did to his depressed Country-men in their greatest necessity Livy says of the Corinthians when they look't for hard bondage from the Romans and quite above their expectation a Praeco standing by the Commander of the Legions proclaimed Liberty to them and to all the vanquish't Graecians Mirabundi velut somni speciem arbitrabantur So after the Archbishop had turn'd Milton up and down with fine Discourses and wrought him like Wax the People thought they were in a Dream when their League was made upon these Conditions That none of those Counties should compound for Delinquency nor be burthen'd with Free-quarter nor have the Covenant offer'd to them nor be charged with Taxes but only in Victual for Men and Horse in the Garrisons As Valerius says Lib. 7. of Anaximenes saving Lampsacum by turning Alexander's vow to destroy it to be the obligation to save it Salus urbis vasramenti beneficio constitit So these Cambro-Britains were conserved by the cunning and dexterity of a Master-wit and let Col. Milton come in for his share of easiness and lenity Oxford had tolerable Articles of Immunity upon the Surrender Exeter had better than it but North-Wales had the best of all and was never much opprest after but by Vavasor Powel he and his fellow Praedicants ransack't all that the poor Church had 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Soph. Antig. Those New-light-men that thought they were near to be Prophets were very rapacious and covetous Let the Archbishop's carriage super totam materiam now be brought to the Touch-stone except some unadvisedness to venture personally upon the Castle and it was no worse had been I see nothing could make any noise which made the entrance to a wrong but a great suspicion Dr. Harmer hath flourish't it
over with fine Latin to bring off the Archbishop from obloquy but I am better acquainted from sure Hands and Papers about every occurrence and leave him to his own elegancies This was the Judgment of Col. Samuel Sands of Ambersly near to Worcester which he gave to Mr. John Griffith and the resolution of Col. Samuel Sands of Ewel in Surrey delivered to my self That this matter was discoursed by many as good as themselves and that all concluded it was an Action very excusable and full of prudence and that the most of them were acquainted with the Apology which his Grace made to his Majesty How unlike is it that this Man should be unfaithful to the King at this blunt only and make his Life so unlike to it self in all his proceedings and studies before and after It is a motion which Tully makes Orat. pro Sullâ and a just Judge cannot deny it Neque potest quisquam nostrum subito fingi neque cujusquam vita repentè mutari aut naturâ converti Vita torqueatur ex illâ quaeratur An excellent Rule of Reason and Charity to silence many Defamations Take another Maxim which is good in all Courts in and out of England Qui in reatu decedit integro statu decedit Bad. l. 2. in Pand. f. 3. The Archbishop was never brought to Answer for this imputed Misdemeanour yet that will not drive the Nail home but he that is impleaded and yet no Judgment awarded dies an Innocent Few consider how odious the voice of Slander is before the God of Truth In the two and twentieth Chapter of Deuteronomy compare the 19th and 29th Verses and you shall find how he that defames a Virgin to be a Whore is amerced in twice as many Shekels as he that defloured a Maid and made her a Whore If the Slanderer have recourse for his own Apology to common Report and Fame his Judgment marcheth after the Devil's Drum Our time honoured Chaucer in his pretty Fiction of the House of Fame condemns the Giddiness of common Talk in a very pleasant Art That Aeolus brought two Trumpets to Fames House one of Laud another of Slander That Fame would not suffer Aeolus to wind out the Praise of some though most deserving bad him cry up others of no merit authoriz'd him to disgrace divers that had done things worthy of Renown Speak of them Harm and Shrewdness Instead of Good and Worthiness For thou shalt Trumpet all contrair If that they have done well and fair Some new thing I wot not what Tydings either this or that When Aeolus's foul Blasts are over which will not continue long the Glory of this Archbishop and his Innocency will mount above the Envy and Credulity of his Foes wherewith his Memory must be content as Socrates was Cum ab hominibus sui temporis parum intelligebatur posterorum judiciis se reservavit Quintil. lib. 11. 206. What a long range of Displacings Disfavours Censures Sequestrings Imprisonments Hurries to and fro and Revilings hath this famous Prelate met with in his troublesome Life and rather pass'd by them than through them No Cross could come so heavy to him but he could cut it into small shivers and play with them in his Hand but never take the whole weight upon his Shoulder As the Gloss says on Exod. 4. v. 4. when Moses put forth his Hand and took the Serpent by the Tail and it became a Rod in his Hand Ut serpens ad laedendum sit baculus ad sustentandum So the Oppressures that in Three and twenty years without intermission exercis'd the Defence and Patience of one man made him stand the stronger Not a Stoick but a Christian may say Though Miseries have a real Evil in them not to be denied yet there is much of meer Opinion in their nature That Industry which is the daily Vocation of a diligent man would crack the Sinews of a Sluggard That Solitariness which is one mans Comfort is anothers Captivity That Abstinence which is Health to a sober man would put a Glutton in fear of starving And those Troubles which are Potions to a weak Constitution are Wine and Myrrhe to the found and lusty I reach not too high when I set forth this Archbishop to be an undaunted Sufferer like Paul rather than Job one that could wipe off Afflictions as easily as he could dry his Hands when he had wash'd them Yet in the end one eminent Sorrow cut his Heart Exemploque carens nulli cognitus aevo Luctus Lucan and no Comfort could ever cure it but Death Our excellent but most unfortunate King took a strange farewel of Oxford Fermè fugiendo in media fata ruitur says Livy What God wills shall be done he that shuns his Destiny meets it by flying from it His Majesty unwilling to stay to the last in a City begirt for it would be inglorious to fall into the Hands of his Subjects like a Prisoner by the perswasion of Monsieur Mountrevile went privily out of Oxford and put himself into the Hands of his Native Countrymen and Subjects at New-castle What! says our Archbishop when he heard of it be advised by a Stranger and trust the Scots then all is lost It was a Journey not imparted to above ten persons to know it begun upon sudden Resolution against that Rule of Tacitus Bona consilia morâ valescere When Pope John XXIII was told by his Friends that many things would be charg'd upon him at the Council of Constance says the Pope There is a fault worse than them all that I am come over the Alps and have put my self upon this Council Such was the Mishap of a brave Prince that to avoid some approaching Harms threw himself into their custody that cry'd Hail Master and took Money for him The Scots to chuse prefer a Monarchy before any other Government so they may govern their Monarch But they are as stiff for a King as the Cappadocians in Livy that refused the Offer of the Roman Senate to be made a free State Negant vivere sine rege se posse And they count it no small Honour that no Nation at this day can reckon so many Kings as they have had One hundred and ten but no five Nations have murder'd so many Kings To which Impeachment Dr. Rivet the Professor of Divinity at Leyden gives this dogrel Answer Sic sunt Scotorum praefervida ingenia who were not Blood-hot but Hell-hot with his Favour The Scotch at Newcastle to whom the King retired for Safeguard had a brave occasion to shew Faith and Loyalty but they kept their wont and sold their Master as Judas did his to the Jews to the Race of new-New-England the Independent Salvages O barbarous persidious mammonish sacrilegious to make Bargain and Sale of him that sate in God's stead over them Nomen erit pardus tigris leo quicquid adhuc est Quod fremat in terris violentius Juven Sat. 8. I roar it out to all People and