Selected quad for the lemma: judgement_n
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A44223
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A defence of King Charles I occasion'd by the lyes and scandals of many bad men of this age / by Richard Hollingworth ...
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Hollingworth, Richard, 1639?-1701.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing H2502; ESTC R13622
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26,155
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45
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both King and Parliament the one to see and hear of the Destruction of his own Children as I may justly call them and the other to hear so frequent Tidings not only of the loss of their Fellow-Subjects Lives but also of the ruine of their Lands and Houses Do not they both strive which should most court each other to Peace And do not they abate of their former Demands as well as stiff Adherencies Methinks the Cries and Losses of the poor innocent Inhabitants of the Kingdom should pierce their Ears and melt their Hearts and make them forget all their former Passions and Resentments Why truly to give the two Houses their due they did at this time send Proposals as if they had been truly assected with the Nations Miseries but in the mean time I am sorry I can say no otherwife they were such Proposals as they could upon all reasonable and fair Considerations and Debates with themselves expect no good Success of because they could not but know before-hand they would be denied insomuch as the King had told them again and again where he would stop and how far he would go especially as to Church-Affairs Nothing less in these Proposals would satisfie them than the abolishing by Act of Parliament the whole Hierarchy to which he was sworn by his Coronation-Oath settling the Militia as they pleased themselves the King 's disbanding his Army made up of the best Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom and withal which was a greater Assront to Majesty than could be supposed to them in coming to demand the five Members He must be obliged as it were and in effect to beg those Members Pardon for wronging them with what he thought and could by good Evidence prove Matter of Truth Which certainly was but to seem to desire Peace and at the same time to resolve to continue the War But now the next thing to be considered is after these Proposals how the King manages himself and what steps he makes towards a Peace and truly I think according to my poor Judgment he now acts according to what he alwaies pretended and solemnly avowed to wit as a true Father of his Country for he proposes That his Revenue Magazines Towns Ships and Forts may be restored to him that what hath been done contrary to Law and his Right may be recalled and that he will consent to the execution of all Laws concerning Popery or Reformation Nay he further tells them That he had given up all the Faculties of his Soul to an earnest endeavonr of a Peace and Reconciliation with his Subjects So that to me hitherto the Fault lies not at His Majesty's door say the Enemies to his Memory what they please for let them but abate of the rigour of their Demands and not ask him things wholly inconsistent with his Honour and Conscience with his Crown and Dignity and the issue of Blood is stopped presently and the Nation restored to its former state of Peace for still he stands ready and prossers again and again to sign any Bill that in his own and the Judgment of many Wise and Good men about him who were true lovers of their Countrys Licerties and Properties was necessary for making the Nation more happy in its Privileges than it had been in all Ages before And truly it so I see no Cause for continuing a Destructive War in the Bowels of the Kingdom nor for standing upon their Points at that rigid rate they did especially when so many of their Brethren and fellow-Members of both Houses upon great dissatissaction at their Proceedings had left their station and took in out of Principles of Loyalty and Duty with their Master's Cause venturing both their Lives Families and Estates upon it which no man can believe wise men would have done if they had not seen great Reason to question the Integrity of the prevailing part of the Parliament So that hitherto there appears no just Reason for those many scandalous Reflections that in Coffee-houses and other places of publick Intercourse or private Communication are made upon this great and excellent man And thus ended the year 42 all the King's Proposals and Condescentions being neglected and slighted The year 43. begins with a Treaty for Peace at Oxford Commissioners for the Parliament being the Lord Northumberland the Lord Wenmain Mr. Peirepoint Mr. Hollis c. who were civilly treated both by the King himself and many of his great Officers which Treaty was managed not by Commissioners on the King's side but by himself And truly he that reads it over must needs confess that His Majesty deserved the Commendation Mr. Whitlock who was one of them in his Memorials gives of him to wit That in this Treaty the King manifested his great Parts and Ability strength of Reason and quickness of Apprehension with much patience in hearing what was objected against him wherein he allowed all Freedom and would himself sum up the Arguments and give a most clear Judgment upon them This is Mr. Whitlock's Character And to let all the World see his readiness to do every thing which might reasonably answer the Kingdoms Expectation and make it happy he tells these Commissioners That he hath nor denied any one thing proposed to him by both Houses which in Justice could be required of him or in reason expected And the Truth of it is had not their Demands been so very high in this as well as in other Treaties which a man must think were made on purpose by the prevalence of a designing self-interested Party to continue the War I am certain Peace had ensued upon this Treaty for the King still like a tender Father groaned under the Oppressions of his Honour and Conscience were not concerned in order to put an end to that desolating War And therefore that this Treaty had no better effect was not the King's fault but of those that bound up their Commissioners to such narrow limits that His Majesty without doing Injustice to the Essentials of Regality could not comply with the Proposals that were offered And this he complains of himself That they bound up their Committee in that manner as to Time and Power as might wholly render it ineffectual 'T is true after the Commissioners returned home the Lords and Commons put out a Declaration upon the Proceedings of this Treaty which I shall no ways reflect upon but only tell the World the King presently put out an Answer to it which whosoever will be pleased to read will find His Majesty the same person still a man of true Honour and Conscience and ready to serve all the Needs and Conveniencies of his Country and no ways deserving those Reflections which were made by his Subjects at that time to render him odious to his People and I do desire the present Maligners of this Great Person to read over his Declaration in answer to the Parliaments and then tell me whether he designed any Tyrannical and Arbitrary Power and was
A DEFENCE OF King Charles I. Occasion'd by the LYES SCANDALS OF Many BAD MEN of this AGE By Richard Hollingworth D. D. Their Majesties Chaplain at St. Botolph Aldgate London LONDON Printed for Samuel Eddowes under the Piazza of the Royal Exchange in Cornhill 1692. TO THE KING QUEENS Most Excellent Majesties May it please Your Majesties THE Subject of this Discourse being no less a Person than King Charles I. of Blessed Memory and Your Royal Grandfather whose Throne You so happily fill and whose Virtues and Graces You daily imitate I therefore thought the Dedication of it proper for none but Crowned Heads upon which score I humbly presume such as it is to lay it at Your Sacred Feet hoping that it may be serviceable to support the Honour and Reputation of Monarchy in general which I am certain is struck at through the Sides of this Great Prince to preserve the Peace and Happiness of Your Majesties Government and to secure Your Majesties from the Danger as well of flattering and pretending Friends as of publick and open Enemies Which good effect that it may have shall be the constant Prayer of Your Majesties most humble and dutiful Subject and Servant Ric. Hollingworth TO THE READER Reader IF those who have of late made it their Business to Defame King Charles the First will after this repent and do so no more then I promise this Discourse as it is my first so it shall be the last I will put forth of this nature But if they are resolved against Conviction and will act against Noon-day-light and will continue to load this Great and Good man's Memory still with their wonted Calumnies and Reproaches I do here tell them that I have so much more to say in his behalf which I could not crowd into these Papers because I was willing it should be every man's Money that if it be possible will put them to a shame And I do here assure them if they will not suffer Modesty and Good-manners to command them for the time to come they shall have it for I am resolved as long as I can hold a Pen in my Hand I will not drop this Cause namely The Defence of Charles the First I have but one thing more and that is That I cannot believe that man loves me let his Professions be never so great and many nay but that he has a Spight to and Design against me who in all Companies and Places without Cause or Provocation calls my Grandfather Knave and Rascal Farwel A DEFENCE OF King CHARLES the First KING Charles the First was a person whose Life I have diligently look'd into and as seriously considered and in doing both have found my self equally affected with Joy and Grief with Joy to meet with a person under so great and many Temptations as Princes must needs be so admirably tempered so greatly condescending so ready to comply with whatever was presented to him for the Good of his Subjects of so great Patience under the greatest Sufferings and the most horrid Indignities put upon him of so great Constancy to the Religious Perswasions of his own Mind that neither the enjoyment of his Crown nor yet his Life could bribe him to forsake them Further to meet with a Prince of so affable a Conversation and that attended with such pithy and admirable Discourses as made some of those who were his Keepers at Holdenly-House not only love but admire him ever after so that they not only wished endeavoured to put him in a better condition Lastly A Prince of so solid a Judgment as all his Writings and Disputes do testifie and also so serious and awful as well as constant in his Devotions I say when I meet with these true Accounts in History I cannot forbear praising God with the greatest joy that there was such a person of his Degree and in his High station that was born into and lived in the World to be a Pattern to future Princes as well as to all other sort of Persons of true Virtue and real Goodness But on the other hand I have been often overwhelmed as it were with Sorrow and a loading Grief to find this Prince so every ways Great and Good so rudely handled so barbarously used so ignobly and ungenerously refused not only the Liberty of his Body but the free exercise of his Religion in that way which he had so often and also so solemnly declared to be according to the just and well-made satisfaction of his Mind and Judgment to find him libell'd by every petty and sawcy Scribler and those Libels countenanc'd and also spread abroad by a Factious number of Men who designed nothing but by his Ruine to raise themselves into Places of Wealth and Power I say when I meet with these and a thousand more Affronts put upon him enough to have broke any Heart but his I cannot but entertain my self with sorrowful Thoughts nor yet forbear such Resentments as almost force me to break out into undecent Passions and violent Reflections upon those men who once swore Allegiance to him and afterwards forgetting all their Obligations treated him as one of their Slaves or Footboys But however it would be some allay to a man's Grief if he could find the present Generation of this Kingdom especially many of those whose Ancestors had too great an hand in these vile and scornful Treatments of this Great and Excellent Person to make an atonement for the Faults of their Progenitors by bewailing of them and by a constant forwardness to give this Good man that just and true Character that his Worth and Merits do call for at all honest and considering mens hands But alas when I find at this time of the day instead of this these very men who succeed in Principles those who imprisoned and at last murdered him I say when I find so great numbers of them vindicating his Death and in order to that loading his Memory with all the filthy Accusations and groundless as well as false Aspersions that Wit and Malice put together can amasse and heap up never speaking of him but as a Tyrant a Rogue a Rascal nay and a Papist too though he so strenuously asserted and pleaded the Protestant Cause as it is professed by the Church of England and calling the day on which he was murthered and which is appointed by the Supreme Power of the Nation to be religiously observed The Madding Day as it is in a late lewd Pamphlet that goes under the name of Ludlow Why I must needs say this swells my Grief above its usual Bank as well as stirs and raises my just Indignation against such a vile Brood who under pretence of Duty and entire Affections to Their present Majesties believe them who will or can are daily abusing him from whose Loins they came and whose Virtues they daily imitate And therefore from these two Passions of Grief and Anger thus justly grounded I am resolved in the ensuing