could not be well tempered with vulgar Blood a Servant of the Arch-Bishops who had trusted himself to these Guards and Walls is forced to betray his Lord. He brings them into the Chappel where the Holy Prelate was at his Prayers where he had celebrated Mass that Morning before the King and taken the Sacred Communion where he had spent the whole Night in watching and Devotion as presaging what followed He was a Valiant Man and Pious and expected these Blood-hounds with great Security and Calmness of Mind when their bellowing first struck his Ears he tells his Servants that Death came now as a more particular Blessing where the Comforts of Life were taken away that Life was irksome to him perhaps his pious Fears for the Church and Monarchy both alike indangered and fatally tied to the same Chain might make him weary of the World and that he could now dye with more quiet of Conscience than ever a Quiet which these Parricides will not find when they shall pay the Score of this and their other Crimes However the Flattery of Success may abuse our Death-bed represents things in their own Shape and as they are After this the Rout of Wolves enter prophanely roaring where is the Traitor where is the Robber of the Common People He answers not troubled at what he saw or heard Ye are welcome my Sons I am the Arch-Bishop whom you seek neither Traitor nor Robber Presently these Limbs of the Devil griping him with their wicked Clutches tear him out of the Chappel neither reverencing the Altar nor Crucifix figured on the top of his Crosier nor the Host these are the Monks Observations for which he condemns them in the highest Impiety and makes them worse than Devils and as Religion went then well he might condemn them so They drag him by the Arms and Hood to Tower Hill without the Gates there they howl hideously which was the Sign of a Mischief to follow He asks them what it is they purpose what is his Offence tells them he is their Arch-Bishop this makes him guilty all his Eloquence his Wisdom are now of no Use he adds the Murder of their Soveraign Pastor will be severely punished some notorious Vengeance will suddenly follow it These Destroyers will not trouble themselves with the idle Formality of a Mock-trial or Court of their own erecting an abominable Ceremony which had made their Impiety more ugly they proceed down-right and plainly which must be instead of all things He is commanded to lay his Neck upon the Block as a false Traitor to the Commonalty and Realm To deal roundly his Life was forfeited and any particular Charge or Defence would not be necessary his Enemies were his Accusers and Judges his Enemies who had combined and sworn to abolish his Order the Church and spoil the Sacred Patrimony and what Innocency what Defence could save Without any Reply farther he forgives the Headsman and bows his Body to the Axe After the first hit he touches the Wound with his Hand and speaks thus It is the Hand of the Lord. The next Stroke falls upon his Hand e'er he could remove it cuts off the tops of his Fingers after which he fell but dyed not till the eighth Blow his Body lay all that day unburied and no Wonder all Men were throughly Scared under the Tyranny of these Monsters all Humanity all Piety were most unsafe The Arch-bishop dyed a Martyr of Loyalty to his King and has his Miracles recorded an Honour often bestowed by Monks Friends of Regicide and Regicides on Traitors seldom given to honest Men. In his Epitaph his riming Epitaph where is shewn the pittiful ignorant Rudeness of those times he goes for no less he speaks thus Sudburiae natus Simon jacet hic tumulatus Martyrizatus nece pro republica stratus Sudburies Simon here intombed lies Who for the Common-wealth a Martyr dies It is fit says Plato that he who would appear a just Man become Naked that his Vertue be dispoiled of all Ornament that be he taken for a wicked Man by others wicked indeed that he be mocked and hanged The wisest of Men tell us There is a Just Man that perisheth in his Righteousness and there is a wicked Man that prolongeth his Life in his Wickedness The Seas are often calm to Pirates and the Scourges of God the Executioners of his Fury the Goths Hunns and Vandals heretofore Tartars and Turks now how happy are their Robberies how do all things succeed with them beyond their Wishes Our Saviours Passion the great Mystery of his Incarnation lost him to the Iews his Murtherers Whereupon Grotius notes it is often permitted by God that pious Men be not only vexed by wicked Men but murdered too He gives Examples in Abel Isaiah and others the MESSIAH dyed for the Sins of the World Ethelbert and Saint Edmund the East-Angles Saint Oswald the Northumbrian Edward the Monarch c. Saxon Kings are Examples at Home Thucidides in his Narration of the Defeat and Death of Nician the Athenian in Sicily speaks thus Being the Man of all the Grecians of my Time had least deserved to be brought to so great a Degree of Misery It is too frequent to proclaim Gods Judgments in the Misfortunes of others as if we were of the Celestial Council had seen all the Wheels or Orbs upon which Providence turns and knew all the Reasons and Ends which direct and govern its Motions Men love by a strange Abstraction to seperate Facts from their Crimes where the Fact is Beneficial the Advantage must canonize it it must be of Heavenly Off-spring a Way to justifie Cain Abimelech Phocas our Third Richard Ravilliac every lucky Parricide whatsoever Alexander Severus that most excellent Emperor assassinated by the Militia or Souldiery by an ill Fate of the Common-wealth for Maximinus a Thracian or Goth Lieutenant General of the Army a cruel Savage Tyrant by Force usurped the Empire after him replyed to one who pretended to foretell his End That it troubled aim not the most Renowned Persons in all Ages dye violently This Gallant Prince condemned no Death but a dishonest fearful one Heaven it self declared on the Arch-bishops side and cleared his Inocency Starling of Essex who challenged to himself the Glory of being Headsman fell mad suddenly after ran through the Villages with his Sword hanging naked upon his Breast and his Dagger naked behind him came up to London confest freely the Fact and lost his Head there As most of those did who had laid their Hands upon this Arch-bishop coming up severally out of their Countrys to that City and constantly accusing themselves for the Parricide of their spiritual Father Nothing was now unlawful there could be no Wickedness after this they make more Examples of barbarous Cruelty under the Name of Justice Robert Lord Prior of St. Iohn and Lord Treasurer of England Iohn Leg or Laige one of the Kings Sergeants at Arms a
with the Mischiefs of the Day drunk and asleep without Guards or Watch the Earl of Salisbury and the Nobility against whose Lives Honours and Fortunes these Beasts had conspired desire the King to try all fair and gentle Ways of appeasing them which Counsel he approves They were not so kind to themselves many lost their Lives by the Hands and Swords of their Companions every petty discontent or grudging being enough to provoke them Thirty two of them being drunk in a Cellar of the Savoy were immured there finding in the same place Death and the Grave together Some of them threw Barrels of Gunpowder which was little known then into the Fire and are blown up with part of the Palace Proclamations were formerly made in Tylers Name not in Straws as Polydore would have it Straw was this while busied elsewhere The Country about was by these Proclamations summoned to repair to London with all speed to spoil this Babylon the close Menaces lest they provoke Gods Iudgments pluck them down upon their Heads which themselves explain if ye fail if ye and your Officers give not Obedience freely to the Protector we will send out 20000 Men 20000 of our Locusts who shall burn the Towns of the Children of Disobedience Those of S. Albans and Barnet whose Famous Deeds challenge a place in this Story by themselves struck with the Thunder of this Edict haste to London in their Journey thither at Heibury a retiring House of the Lord Prior of S. Iohn near Istington they find 20000. or thereabouts casting down the firmer parts of the House which the Fire could not consume Iack Straw Captain of this Herd calls these new Comers to him and forces them to swear to adhere to King Richard and the Commons How long this Oath will be sworn to we shall see and how much the safer the King will be for it We shall see too what is lost by this new Union of King and Commons by the new Fellowship to observe the horrible Irreligious Hypocrisie of these Clowns who only would be thought the Protectors of his Crown and Person They alone had decreed his Ruin who swear thus often to prevent it to guard him from it A Treason not to be believed by some then till it had taken The Commons were then divided into three Bodies this with Iack Straw the second at Mile-end under the Essexian Princes Kirkby Treder Scot and Rugge the third on Tower-hill where the Idol and Priest Baal were in Chief This last Crue grew horribly rude and haughty the Commons there were not contented to be the Kings Tasters and no more they snatch the Kings Provision violently from the Purveyors he is to be starved for his own Good and after Harpies or Vultures chuse you whether strike high like brave Birds of Prey they will kill no more Flies this was the Way to secure their smaller Mischiefs Polydores conceit that the Arch-bishop and Lord Prior of S. Iohn were sent out by the King to allay their Heat is not probable Walsingham relates it thus that they demanded these two with full Crys no doubt of Iustice Iustice with some others Traitors by their Law a Fundamental never to be found or heard of before to be given up to them by the King with all the Earnestness and Violence imaginable They give him his Choice bid him consider of it they will either have the Blood of these their Traitors or his they making all those Delinquents who attended on him or executed his lawful Commands whom say they the King with a high and forcible Hand protects will not be appeased unless they be delivered up conjuring him to be wise in time and dismiss his extraordinary Guards his Cavaliers and others of that Quality who seem to have little Interest or Affection to the publick Good Whether the Tower Doors flew open at this Fright or the Man-wolfs crowded in at the Kings going out to appease the Party at Mile-end as Sir Iohn Froissart tells it Wat the Idol with Priest Baal are now Masters of the Tower into which on Fryday the 16th of Iune they entred not many more than 400 of their Company guarding them where then were commanded six hundred of the Kings Men of Arms and six hundred Archers a Guard not so extraordinary as was necessary then all so faint-hearted so unmanned at the Apparition at the sight of these Goblins they stood like the Stones of Medusa remembred not themselves their Honour nor what they had been The Clowns the most Abject of them singly with their Clubs or Cudgels in their Hands venture into all the Rooms into the Kings Bedchamber which perhaps had been his Scaffold had he been there sit lie and tumble upon his Bed they press into his Mothers Chamber where some of the merry wanton Devils offer to kiss her others give her Blows break her Head She swoons and is carried privately to the Wardrobe by her Servants Some revile and threaten the Noblest Knights of the Houshold some stroke their Beards with their unclean Hands which beyond the Roman Patience in the same Rudeness from the Gauls is endured and this to claw and sweeten they meant it so they gloss with smooth Words and bespeak a lasting Friendship for the time to come they must maintain the Injuries done to themselves must not disturb the Usurpers of their Estates and Rights must not shew any Sense of Generosity of Faith of Honour it concerned Tyler that they should be the veriest Fools and Cowards breathing if they stir make any Claims they shall be reputed Seditious Turbulent and Breakers of the Publick otherwise and plainly Tylers Peace It was never heard says the Emperor Charles in Sleydan that it should be lawful to despoil any Man of his Estates and Rights and unlawful to restore him Our Tyler and his Anabaptists thought otherwise As Walsingham they went in and out like Lords who were Varlets of the lowest Rank and those who were not Cowherds to Knights but to Bores value themselves beyond Knights Here was a Hotchpotch of the Rabble a mechanick sordid State composed as those under Kettes Oak of Reformation after Of Country gnooffes Hob Dick and Hick with Clubs and clouted woon A medley or huddle of Botchers Coblers Tinkers Draymen of Apron-men and Plough-joggers domineering in the Kings Palace and rooting up the Plants and wholesome Flowers of his Kingdom in it This place was now a vile and nasty Stye no more a Kings Palace who will value a stately Pile of Building of Honourable Title or Antique Memory since Constantine when it is infected with the Plague haunted by Goblins or possessed by Thieves The Knights of the Court were but Knights of the Carpet or Hangings No Man seemed discontented all was husht and still White-hall was then a Bishops Palace The Tower was to be prepared for Tylers Highness and his Officers but the Cement of the Stratocracy of the Government by Sword and Club Law
conquering Arms and striking his Sword which shewed the present Power on London-stone The Cyclops or Centaur of Kent spoke these Words From this Day or within four Days all Law or all the Laws of England as others shall fall from Wat Tylers Mouth The Kings indeed had bound themselves and were bound by the Laws They were named in them Tyler was more than a King he was an Emperor he was above the Laws nor was it fit the old over-worn Magna Charta should hold him The Supreme Authority and Legislative Power no one knows how derived were to be and reside in him according to the new Establishment Tyler like Homers Mars 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was a Whirl windâ—… he was Egnatius in Paterculus rather a Fencer a Swash-Buckler that a Senator his right Arm his brutish Force not Justice not Reason must sway all things Tyler will not rule in Fetters his Will his Violence shall be called Law and grievous Slavery under that Will falsly Peace Had those whom no Government never so sweet and gracious will please unless the Supreme Power be given the People seen the Confusion and Dangers the Cruelty and Tyranny of these few days they would quickly have changed this Opinion The Knight performs his Embassy he urges the Idol with great Earnestness to see the King and speedily He answers if thou must be so much for Haste get thee back to the King thy Master I will come when I list yet he follows the Knight on Horse-back but slowly In the Way he is met by a Citizen who had brought sixty Doublets for the Commons upon the publick Faith This Citizen asks him for his Money he promises Payment before Night and presses on so near the King that his Horse touched the Croup of the Kings Horse Froissart reports his Discourse to the King Sir King says the Idol seest thou yonder People The King answers Yes and asks him what he means by the Question He replys they are all at my Command have sworn to me Faith and Truth to do what I will have them He and they had broke their Faith and Truth to their Prince and he thinks these Men will be true to him Here though it be a Digression too much I cannot omit a passage of the late Civil Wars of France begun and continued by the Iesuiced Party to extirpate the Royal Family there Villers Governour of Roüen for the Holy League tells the Duke of Mayen Captain General of the Rebellion That he would not obey him they were both Companions and Spoilers of the State together The King being levelled all Men else ought to be equal The Idol as he that demanded so the Knight nothing but Riot continues his Discourse thus Believest thou King that these People will depart without thy Letters The King tells him He means fairly that he will make good his Word his Letters are near finished and they shall have them But the Glory of the Idol which was meerly the Benefit of Fortune began to fade his Principality was too cruel too violent to be lasting Vengeance here hovered over his Head and he who had been the Destruction of Multitudes hastens nay precipitates his own Fate and ruins himself by his own Fury he puts himself into the Kings Power who should in his first towring had he been wisely wicked like a Vulture of the Game have flown at his Throat The judicious Politick will not begin to give over However will never venture himself in the Princes Hands whom he has justly offended by Treasons against his Government Charles of Burgundy confesses this to be a great Folly his Grandfather Philip lost his Life at Montereau upon the Yonne by it and our Idol shall not escape better Sir Iohn Newton the Knight imployed to fetch him delivered his Message on Horseback which is now remembred and taken for an high Neglect besides it seemeth the Carriage and Words of the Knight were not very pleasing Every Trifle in Omission was Treason to the Idols Person and new State He rails foully draws his Dagger and bellowing out Traitor menaces to strike the Knight who returns him in Exchange the Lye and not to be behind in Blows draws his This the Idol takes for an intolerable Affront but the King fearful of his Servant cools and asswages the Heat he commands the Knight to dismount and offer up his Dagger to the Idol which though unwillingly was done This would not take off his Edge The Prince who yields once to a Rebel shall find Heaps of Requests and must deny nothing The King had given away his Knights Dagger Now nothing will content Tyler but the Kings Sword with which the Militia or Power of Arms impliedly was sought This he asks then again rushes upon the Knight vowing never to eat till he have his Head When the Nobility and Gentry of the Kingdom whom neither Necessity nor Misery could animate lye down trampled on by these Villaines without Soul or Motion in comes the Mayor of London Sir William Walworth the everlasting Honour of the Nation a Man who over did Ages of the Roman Scaevolae or Curtii in an Hours Action and snatches the King and Kingdom out of these Flames He tells the King it would be a Shame to all Posterity to suffer more Insolences from this Hangman this Lump of Blood This the rest of the Courtiers now wakened by their own Danger for he who destroys one Man contrary to Law or Justice gives all Men else Reason to fear themselves and take heed are Ecchoes to This puts Daring into the young King he resolves to hazard all upon this Chance This Way he could not but dye Kingly at least like a Gentleman with the Sword which God of whose great Majesty he was a Beam gave him in his Hand The only Way left to avoid a shameful Death was to run the Danger of a brave One and a wise Coward I will not say an Honourable One considering the Incertainty of things under that Iron Socage Tenure would think so The King commands the Mayor to arrest the Butcher This was Charge enough and rightly understood indeed there was then no time for Form nor Tryal the Suspension of the Courts was Tylers Act his Crime and he ought not to look for any Advantage from it An Historian says the Duke of Guyse's Power was so much that the Ordinary Forms of Justice could not be observed fair Law is handsome but it is not to be given to Wolves and Tygers Tyler was a Traitor a common Enemy and against such says a Father long agone every Man is a Souldier whosoever struck too struck as much in his own Defence in his own Preservation as the King 's And the Safety of the King and People made this Course â—…ecessary besides Tylers Crimes were publick and notorious The generous Lord Mayor obeys the Sentence which was given by the same Power by which the Judges of Courts sat and acted
grow and prevail than one single good one There is a Proneness in unruly Man to run into Debauchments and no wonder that the arrogant misled silly Multitude capable of any ill Impressions should deprave and disorder things where all Ties of Restraint are loofened nay where Disorders are not only defended by the corrupt Wits of Hirelings but bidden strengthened by a Law and Villanies made legal Acts. Had the Idol King Tyler with his Council not gone on too far in the Way of Extermination but endeavoured to repair the Breaches of his Entrance it would have been no small Labour to have restored things to any mean and tolerable Condition if Presbyter Wickliff and his Classes by their pernicious Doctrines as they are charged to this Day did first pervert and corrupt the People and broach that Vessel with which Father Baal and Straw poysoned them they must have ruined themselves by the Change sure enough they had been no more comprehended in any of Tylers Toleration than the Prelatical or Papistical Party In the Turmoils and Outrages of this Tyranny had it taken Innocence Virtue Ingenuity Honesty Faith Learning and Goodness had been odious and dangerous The Profit and Advantage of the new Usurpers had been the Measure of Justice and Right The Noble and Ignoble had died Streets and Scaffolds with their Blood not by Laws and Judgment but out of Malice to their Height and Worth out of Fury and Covetousness to enrich publich Thieves and Murtherers The Jealousies too and Fears of Tyler had made all Men unsafe Yet the Repute the Renown of the Founders could not have been much The Glory of Success cannot be greater than the Honesty of the Enterprise there must be Justice in the Quarrel else there can be no true Honour in the Prosperity Cato will love the conquered Common-wealth Iugurtha's Fame who is said to be Illustrious for his Parricides and Rapines will not make all Men fall down and worship On Munday the Fifteenth of Iuly not of October as Walsingham is mis-printed the Chief Justice Tresilian calls before him the Jury for Inquiry who faulter and shamelesly protest they cannot make any such Discovery as is desired The Chief Justice puts them in Mind of the Kings Words to them upon the Way promising Pardon if they will find out the Offenders else threatning them with the Punishment they should have suffered who through such Silence cannot be apprehended Out they go again and the Chief Justice follows them He shews them a Roll of the principal Offenders Names tells them they must not think to delude and blind the Court with this Impudence and advises them out of a Care to preserve wicked Mens Lives not to hazard their own Hereupon they indict many of the Town and Country which Indictments are allowed by a second Inquest appointed to bring in the Verdict and again affirmed by a third Jury of Twelve charged only for the Fairness of the Tryal So no Man was pronounced guilty but upon the finding of thirty six Jurors Then were the Lieutenants Greyndcob Cadindon and Barber and twelve more condemned Drawn and Hanged Wallingford Iohn Garleck William Berewill Thomas Putor and many more with Eighty of the Country were Indicted by their Neighbours and Imprisoned but forgiven by the King's Mercy and discharged They were forgiven most by the Kings Mercy for he had forbidden by Proclamation all Men to sue or beg for them a Command which the good Abbot sometimes disobeyed and he shall be well thanked for it No Benefits can oblige some Men A true rugged Churl can never be made fast never be tyed by any Merit whatsoever Nothing can soften him See an unheard of Shamelesness till then These lazie tender-hearted Clowns who could hardly be got to discover the Guilty now run with full Speed to betray the Innocent They indict the Abbot as the principal Raiser and Contriver of these Tumults which struck at his own Life and the Being and Safety of his Monastery The Abbot as it is said sent to Tyler upon his Ordinances some of the Town and Monastery but to temporize and secure himself This is now supposed by the very Traitors indeed Treason by Common Law and Statute against the King his Natural Liege Lord. This having not the Fear of God in his Heart c. but being seduced by the Instigation of the Devil is compassing the Death c. the Deprivation and deposing of his Soveraign Lord from his Royal State c. as such Indictments use to run This must goe for levying War against the Lord the King adhering to comforting and aiding his Enemies by open Fact Which are the Words of the Statute of Treason declarative of the Common Law The Chief Justice abominating and cursing the treacherous Malice and Perfidiousness of these Brutes makes them tear the Indictment which themselves though urged are not wicked enough to swear to nay which publickly they confess to be false in the Face of the Court. Villeinage was not now abolished though some think otherwise but by Degrees extinguished since this Reign Besides the Letters of Revocation before restoring all things to their old Course a Commission which the Abbot procured from the King out of the Chancery then kept in the Chapter-house of this Monastery makes this manifest which speaks to this Effect RIchard by the Grace of God King of England and of France and Lord of Ireland c. To his Beloved John Lodowick John Westwycomb c. We command you and every of you upon Sight of these Presents c. That on our Part forthwith ye cause to be proclaimed That all and singular the Tenants of our Beloved in Christ the Abbot of S. Albans as well free as bond the Works Customs and Services which they to the foresaid Abbot ought to do and of ancient Time have been accustomed to perform without any Contradiction murmur c. Do as before they have been accustomed The Disobedient are commanded to be taken and Imprisoned as Rebels In the Time of King Henry the Seventh there were Villains This I observe to make it appear how little it is which the miserable Common People without whom no famous Mischief can be attained are Gainers by any of their Riots or Seditions whatsoever the Changes are their Condition is still the same or worse If some few of them advance themselves by the Spoils of the publick Shipwrack the rest are no happier for it the insolent Sight offends their Eyes they see the Dirt of their own Ditches lord it over them and the Body of them perhaps more despised than ever Tyler who could not but have known that nothing can be so Destructive to Government as the Licentiousness of the base Commons would doubtless when his own Work had been done quickly have chained up the Monster he would have perched in the Kings sacred Oak all the Forrest should have been his Bishopricks Earldoms nay the Kingdoms had been swallowed by him Instead of a
better a Nero than a Committee There is less Execution by a single Bullet than by Case-shot Now a Committee-man is a party-colour'd Officer He must be drawn like Ianus with Cross and Pile in his Countenance as he relates to the Souldiers or faces about to his fleecing the Country Look upon him martially and he is a Justice of War one that hath bound his Dalton up in Buff and will needs be of the Quorum to the best Commanders He is one of Mars his Lay-Elders he shares in the Government though a Non-conformist to his bleeding Rubrick He is the like Sectary in Arms as the Platonick is in Love keeps a fluttering in Discourse but proves a Haggard in the Action He is not of the Souldiers and yet of his Flock It is an Emblem of the Golden Age and such indeed he makes it to him when so tame a Pigeon may converse with Vultures Methinks a Committee hanging about a Governour and Bandileers dangling about a fur'd Alderman have an Anagram Resemblance There is no Syntax between a Cap of Maintenance and a Helmet Who ever knew an Enemy routed by a Grand Jury and a Billa vera It is a left-handed Garrison where their Authority perches but the more preposterous the more in fashion the right hand fights while the left rules the Reins The truth is the Souldier and the Gentleman are like Don Quixot and Sancha Pancha one fights at all Adventures to purchase the other the Government of the Island A Committee-man properly should be the Governour 's Mattress to sit his Truckle and to new-string him with sinews of War for his chief use is to raise Assessments in the Neighbouring Wapentake The Country people being like an Irish Coâ—… that will not give down her Milk unless she see her Calf before her Hence it is he is the Garrison's Dry-Nurse he chews their Contribution before he feeds them so the poor Souldiers live like Trochilus â—…y picking the Teeth of this sacred Crocodile So much for his Warlike or Ammunition-Face which is so preternatural that it is rather a Vizard than a Face Mars in him hath but a blinking Aspect his Face of Arms is like his Coat Partit per-pale Souldier and Gentleman much of a Scantling Now enter his Taxing and deglubing Face a squeezing Look like that of Vespastanus as if he â—…ere bleeding over a Close-stool Take him thus and he is in the Inquisition of the Purse an Authentick Gypsie that nips your â—…ung with a Canting Ordinance not a murthered Fortune in all the Country but bleeds at the Touch of this Malefactor He is the Spleen of the Body Politick that swells it self to the Consumption of the Whole At first indeed he ferreted for the Parliament but since he hath got off his Cope he set up for himself He lives upon the Sins of the People and that is a good standing Dish too He verifies the Axiom Iisdem nutritur ex quibus componitur his Diet is suitable to his Constitution I have wondred often why the plundred Country-men should repair to him for succour certainly it is under the same Notion as one whose Pockets are pick'd goes to Mal Cut-purse as the Predominant in that Faculty He out-dives a Dutch man gets a Noble of him that was never worth six pence for the poorest do not escape but Dutch-like he will be dreyning even in the driest Ground He aliens a Delinquent's Estate with as little Remorse as his other Holiness gives away an Heretick's Kingdom and for the truth of the Delinquency both Chapmen have as little share of Infallibility Lye is the Grand Salad of Arbitrary Government Executor to the Star-chamber and the High Commission for those Courts are not extinct they survive in him like Dollars changed into single Money To speak the truth He is the Universal Tribunal For since these Times all Causes fall to his Cognizance as in a great Infection all Diseases turn oft to the Plague It concerns our Masters the Parliament to look about them if he proceedeth at this rate the Jack may come to swallow the Pike as the Interest often eats out the Principal As his Commands are great so he looks for a Reverence accordingly He is punctual in exacting your Hat and to say Right is his due but by the same Title as the upper Garment is the Vails of the Executioner There was a time when such Cattle would hardly have been taken upon suspicion for Men in office unless the old Proverb were renewed That the Beggars make a Free Company and those their Wardens You may see what it is to hang together Look upon them severally and you cannot but fumble for some Threds of Charity But oh they are Termagants in Conjunction like Fidlers who are Rogues when they go single and join'd in Consort Gentlemen Musicianers I care not much if I untwist my Committee-man and so give him the Receipt of this Grand Catholicon Take a State-martyr one that for his good Behaviour hath paid the Excise of his Ears so suffered Captivity by the Land-Piracy of Ship-money next a Primitive Freeholder one that hates the King because he is a Gentleman transgressing the Magna Charta of Delving Adam Add to these a Mortified Bankrupt that helps out his false Weights with some Scruples of Conscience and with his peremptory Scales can doom his Prince with a Mene Tekel These with a new blew-stocking'd Justice lately made of a good Basket-hilted Yeoman with a short-handed Clerk tack'd to the Rear of him to carry the Knap-sack of his Understanding together with two or three Equivocal Sirs whose Religion like their Gentility is the Extract of their Acres being therefore Spiritual because they are Earthly not forgetting the Man of the Law whose Corruption gives the Hogan to the sincere Juncto These are the Simples of this Precious Compound a kind of Dutch Hotch-Potch the Hogan Mogan Committee-man The Committee-man hath a Side-man or rather a Setter right a Sequestrator of whom you may say as of the Great Sultan's Horse where he treads the Grass grows no more He is the States Cormorant one that fishes for the publick but feeds himself the misery is he fishes without the Cormorant's Property a Rope to strengthen the Gullet and to make him disgorge A Sequestrator He is the Devil's Nut-hook the Sign with him is always in the Clutches There are more Monsters retain to him than to all the Limbs in Anatomy It is strange Physicians do not apply him to the Soles of the Feet in a desperate Fever he draws far beyond Pigeons I hope some Mountebank will slice him and make the Experiment He is a Tooth-drawer once removed here is the difference one applauds the Grinder the other the Grist Never till now could I verifie the Poet's Description that the ravenous Harpie had a Humane Visage Death himself cannot quit scores with him like the Demoniack in the Gospel he lives among Tombs nor is all the Holy Water shed by Widows and
Disguise Where ever Men where ever Pillage lyes Like ravenous Vultures our wing'd Navy flys Under the Tropick we are understood And bring home Rapine through a Purple Flood New Circulations found our Blood is hurl'd As round the lesser to the greater World In civil Broils he did us first engage And made three Kingdoms subject to his Rage One fatal Stroke slew Justice and the Cause Of Truth Religion and our sacred Laws So fell Achilles by the Trojan Band Though he still fought with Heaven its self in 's hand Nor would Domestick Spoil confine his Mind No Limits to his Fury but Mankind The Brittish Youth in Forreign Coasts are sent Towns to destroy but more to Banishment Who since they cannot in this Isle abide Are confin'd Prisoners to the World beside No Wonder then if we no Tears allow To him that gave us Wars and Ruin too Tyrants that lov'd him griev'd concern'd to see There must be Punishâ—…ent for Cruelty Nature her self rejoyced at his Death And on the Waters sung with such a Breath As made the Sea dance higher than before While her glad Waves came dancing to the Shore FINIS THE Rustick Rampant OR RURAL ANARCHY AFFRONTING Monarchy IN THE INSURRECTION OF WAT TYLER By I C. Claudian Asperius nihil est humili cum surgit in altum LONDON Printed by R. Holt for Obadiah Blagrave at the Bear in St. Paul's Church-yard 1687. Iohn of Lydgate Lib. 4. ANd semblably to put it at a Prefe And execute it by clear Experience One the most contrarious Mischief Found in this Earth by notable Evidence If only this by Fortunate Uiolence When that Wretches churlish of Fature The Estate of Princes unwarely doth recure A Crown of Gold is nothing according For to be set upon a Knaves heed A Foltish Clerk for to wear a Ring Accordeth not who that can take hede And in this World there is no greater Dread Then Power give if it be well sought Unto such one that first rose up of Fought There is no manner iust Convenience A Royal Carbuncle Ruby or Garnet For a chast Emeraud of Uirtues Excelence For Inde Saphirs in Copper to be set 〈◊〉 Kind'ly Power in foul Metal is let And so the State of politick Puysance Is euer lost where Knaves have Governance For a time they may well up ascend Like windy Smoaks their fumes sprede A crowned Ass plainly to comprehend Uoid of Discretion is more for to drede Then is a Lyon for that one indede Of his Fature is Mighty and Royal Uoid of Discretion that other Beastial The gentle Fature of a strong Lyon To prostrate People of kind is merciable For unto all that fall afore him doun His Royal Puissaunce cannot be vengeable But churlish â—…olves by Rigour untreatable And folty She-asses eke of Beastialty Failing Reason braid ever on Cruelty Fone is so proud as he that can no good The leuder heed the more Presumption Most Cruelty and Uengeance in low Blood â—…ith Malaperâ—…ness and Indiscretion Of Churl and Gentle make this Division Of outhor of them I dare right well report Fro thence they came thereto they wyll resort To the Reader THe Beginnings of the Second Richard's Reign are turmoiled with a Rebellion which shook his Throne and Empire A Rebellion not more against Religion and Order than Nature and Humanity too a Rebellion never to be believed but in the Age it was acted in and our own in which we find how terrible the Overflows of the common People ever delighted in the Calamities of others untyed and hurryed on by their own Wills and beastly Fury must prove Though Masanello is short of Tyler yet if we compare that Fisherman with our Hind the Neapolitan Mechanicks and our Clowns we shall not find them much unlike not in their sudden Flourish and Prosperity not in the Mischiefs they did and the barbarous savage Rudeness in the doing them Masanello made a Shew of foolish unseasonable Piety to the Prince and Archbishop which became not his part which made him the more imperfect Rebel the worse Politician however he might seem the better Man but these too might be but counterfeit Reverence this might be his Disguise and he might have come up to more according to the new Lights which we may imagine was breaking in The Continuance and Mis-rule of these Worthies were much of a Length in a few ' Days the Brands themselves had fired broke upon their own Heads they were pluck'd up before their full Growth like airy flitting Clouds they were blown over e'er they could pour down the Storm they were big with The Colours of these Tumults were fair and taking such as their Architects Baal and Straw the Priests had laid such as the Masters of these Schools have deliver'd in all Ages The Weal publick the Liberty of the free-born People pilled and flayed by the King's Taxes and the cruel Oppression of the Gentry Iustice Reformation or Regulation of Fundamental Laws long subverted considerable Names if we may believe them set them on The King his Glory his Honour his Safety the King and the Commons are cry'd up But the King was compassed with Traitors and Malignants they will have it so and it is their Care to remove them Root and Branch they will fire the House to cleanse it much other Business they had much was amiss much to be reformed but in the first Sally all is not noised what was not handsome what might give a fuller Fright was lapped up in Folds to be discovered as they had thriven to be swallowed but gilded with a Victory we know Crimes carried in a happy Stream of Luck lose their Names in it are Beautiful and must be thought so The Ordale of the Sword justified Caesar and condemned Pompey not his Cause Adversae res etiam bonos detractant says Salust Good Men if they miscarry do not only lose themselves but their Integrity their Iustness their Honesty they are what the Conqueror pleases and the silly Multitude which ever admires the glitter of Prosperity will hate them Providence preserved the English Nation from this Blow The Lawrel of Success crowned not the Rebels they crumble to their first Dust again are ruined by their own Weight and Confusion They had risen like those Sons of the Dragons Teeth in Tempests without Policy or Advice Their Leaders were meerly fantastical but Goblins and Shadows Men willing to embroyl and daring whose Courage was better than their Cause and who to advance the Design would not boggle at a piece of Honesty an Oath a Protestation or Covenant a Verse of St. Paul or St. Peter a Case of Conscience in the Way of brave bold manly Spirits yet without Heads or Wits to manage the Great Work which in so vast a Body suddenly composed like the Spawns of Nile of Slime and Dirt of so different Parts so unequal Members was fatal to the Whole Tyler had no Brains he could not plot nor contrive and those about him were as
Husbandman does in Overflows of Waters who clears and drains his Ground repairs the Banks but does not usurp upon the Stream does not inhance within the Channel and farther that quarrels to his Government and Laws are unreasonable from those who out of Ambition arm to overthrow both that Reformation is not the Work of Sedition which ever disorders what is well setled He conjures them to forsake these Furies who says he abuse their Lightness meerly for their own Ends whose Companions and Masters they were lately now are they but their Guards and that if they refuse a Subjection according to all Laws Divine and Humane to his Scepter they must become Slaves and Tributaries to their Iron to the Flails and Pitch-forks of some Mushroom of their own Dirt and that advancing their Mushroom thus upon his Power by the Ways of Force gives an Example to the next Tumults against themselves There can be no Safety for any new Power raised upon this Force the Obedience to that upon these Rules being limited and annexed to the Force and Success and to yield and give Way to the next Power visible which shall overbear it A way to thrust a Nation into a State of War continual Perjury and Impiety to the Worlds End This Realm as he goes on is my Inheritance which I took Possession of after the Death of my Grandfather being a Child and did I claim only by your Gift which I shall never grant yet are not you free to make a new Choice you are bound to me by Oaths and Compacts and no Right of new Complyance or Submission can be left you to transfer He concludes That Despair was a dangerous Sin which would drive them head-long to Destruction that whatsoever their Offences had been they were not above his Mercy He bids them not trouble themselves for Tyler a base Fellow who thrust them into Dangers and blew them into a Storm to raise himself upon the Billows upon the Ruins of his Country He promises to lead them he will be their Captain if they will follow him he will please them in all their Desires This he spake to draw them off farther into Smithfield fearing they would again fall to burning of Houses They now wanted their Devil who possessed them and being in Doubt whether they should kill the King or return Home with his Charters there being no Incendiary to command follow the King in Suspence Baal and Straw about this time amazed at the Idol's Fall lose Courage and slip away In the mean time the stout Mayor spurs to the City with one Servant where in a few Words he acquaints the Citizens with the Kings Peril and his own and requests their sudden Assistance if not for himself for the King who says he is in Danger now to be murthered Some Loyal Hearts some good Men of the Kings Party arm and joyn to the Number of one Thousand and range themselves in the Street expecting some of the Cavaliers of the Kings Knights to conduct them resolved either to overcome or not to fear the Conquerors Sir Robert Knowles a renowned Commander in the French Wars of the King's Grandfather called falsly Canol by Polydore and others undertakes this Charge Sir Perducas D'Albret called D'Albreth a Noble Gascoign and a Commander too in those Wars Nicholas Brembre the Kings Draper and other Aldermen come in with their Levies and march to the King in sight of the Rebels There the King knights the brave Wil Walworth Iohn Standish one of his Esquires Nicholas Brembre Iohn Philpot 'a most generous Citizen famous for his faithful Service to his Prince in the times succeeding and others The Nobility about the King desire him to strike off an hundred or two of the Clowns Heads in Revenge of the Injuries and Infamy they had received from them Sir Robert Knowls would have him fall on and cut them all to pieces The King dislikes both these Counsels He says many of these unhappy Men were awed to side without either Malice to his Person or Power and that if the first Advice were taken the most Innocent might be punished and the Guilty scape If the Second the very Rebel and the Counterfeit the forced one must be swallowed up together which was high Injustice Yet were there many of these Rebels called to an Account and their Acts of Blood Rapine and Burning cost them dear but these Acts of theirs done against Law were punished Legally upon the finding of Juries when the Tumults were composed Which was fair and handsome and shew the Honourable Justice of our King All that was done against them that Night was to forbid the Citizens by Proclamation to entertain any of these Men in the City or communicate with them and to command all Men who had not dwelt there for one Year before to depart So far was the young King from approving the Cruelty of the late Counsels that in the next Place he causes the Charters which he had promised them to be delivered Yet some may suppose this but a Pardon of Shew and the Pardon-piece of the Charters as well as the other part rather a Piece of Policy than any thing else the Countrys being yet Tumultuons the Clowns were upon their good Behaviour that was a Condition of their Pardon which they would not observe they commit new Outrages break the Kings Laws and pluck down the Vengeance of Justice upon their Heads afresh they did not give over their Mischiefs after their Return says Wals. By the King and his Counsel the Charters at extorted out of Force and Necessity were recalled and though the Meynie generally were pardoned the King again provoked staid but for a fit time to take Vengeance on the Ring-leaders and punish particular Offenders who could not be forgiven It being necessary in so desperate a Revolt for the Terror of others to make Examples of some such malicious Disturbers of the Peace as would never have been reclaimed The King 's Charters contained a Manumission of the Villains and Abolition of the Memory of what was past for the rest The Tenor says Walsingham of the Charters extorted from the King by Force was this he gives us only that of Hartfordshire the Province of his Monastery RIchard by the Grace of God King of England and of France Lord of Ireland To all his Bayliffs and others his Trusty to whom these Letters shall come greeting Know ye that we of our special Grace have made free all our Lieges and every of our Subjects of Hartfordshire and we free those and every of them from all Bondage and quit them by these Presents and also we pardon the same our Lieges and Subjects for all Fellonies Treasons Trespasses and Extortions by them or any of them in any wise done or committed and also every Outlary or Outlaries if any against them or any of them are or shall be published and our full Peace to them or any of them therefore we grant In witness
Intrusion and of the Violence upon which he began To fill up their tattered Regiments their Fellow Leaguers or Covenanters of Barnet Luton Watford and the Towns round enter St. Albans of the same Sacrilegious Affection to the Abby In all these Conspiracies the Church was the main Mark aimed at about the Carcases of the Cathedrals and Abbys they were now nothing else did these Vultures gather In the same Conjuncture of times enters Richard Wallingford Head-borough or Constable of the place who tarried at London for the Kings Letter of Manumission and Pardon which Greyndcob had been so earnest for bearing the Kings Banner or Pennon of the Arms of St. George being the red Cross before him according to the Fashion of the Clowns of London The Commons hearing of his coming pour themselves out in Heaps to meet him He alights strikes the Penon into the Earth and bids them keep close and encircle it like a Standard He intreats them to continue about it and expect his Return and the Lieutenants who were resolved with all Speed to treat with the Abbot and would suddenly bring them an Answer to their Propositions Which said he and they enter the Church and send for the Abbot to appear before them and answer the Commons only Sacred then and to whom all Knees were to bow The Abbot was at first resolute to dye for the Liberty of his Church a pious Gallantry which will be admirable but overcome with the Prayers of his Monks who told him as things stood his Death could advantage nothing that these stinking Knaves these Hell-hounds were determined to murder the Monks and burn the Monastery if they had the Repulse and that there was no Way of Safety but to fall down before these Baals he yields After he was come to the Church and a short Salutation past Wallingford reaches out to him the Kings Letter or Writ as Walsiâ—…gham calls it in these Words as I have rendred them out of the barbarous French of that Age. BEloved in God At the Petition of our loved Lieges of the Town of St. Albans we will and command you That certain Charters being in your Custody made by our Progenitor King Henry to the Burgesses and good People of the said Town of Commune of Pasture and Fishing and of certain other Commodities expressed in the said Charters in what they say you doe as Law and Reason requires So that they may not have have any Matter to complain to us for that Cause Given under our Signet at London the 15th Day of June the fourth year of our Reign Here certainly again is a Mistake of the Day for till Friday the 16th of Iune the Clowns of Saint Albans as is observed stirred not Thus is the King forced to be the Author of other Mens Injustice to consent to those Insolences and Wrongs which must undoe all those who are Faithful to him to please a base Rabble engaged to turn in the end their destroying Hands upon himself and his Royal Family the Abbot receives the Letter with due Reverence and reads it Then thinking to work upon the Consciences of these Hell-hounds he begins a Discourse of Law Reason Equity and Justice Law and Reason were the Princely Bounds betwixt which the Kings Commands ran He tells them whatsoever was demanded by them had been long agoe determined in the Courts of Justice by the publick Judges Persons knowing and honourable sworn to do equal Right That the Records were kept amongst the Kings Rolls at Westminster whence he inferred That according to the Laws anciently in Use they had neither Right nor Claim left He adds the Usurpation upon anothers Propriety is Tyranny in the Abstract it is the greatest Injustice The very Heathens will have it unnatural to enrich our selves to make our Advantage from Spoil and Robbery but Force is odious to God and Man that aggravates the Sin Violence is a more heinous Crime than Theft This was ridiculous Wisdom considering who they were the good Abbot spake to he had forgot perhaps how Antigonus armed to invade and seize the Cities and Countries of other Princes laughed at the serious grave Folly of one who presented him with a Tractate of Justice Wallingford with his Hand upon his Sword takes him off pertinently as reflecting upon the Manners of Men whose Treasons prosper and Practise of the times in which now Men did not advance themselves by Vertue by Learning by Justice or Valour but by Murder and Robbery My Lord says he every Story is not true because it is eloquently told you endeavour here to inveigle and deceive us in a long Discourse of Equity of Law and Justice we come not hither for Words but Things we pretend not to refute your Reasons which are but unjust Defences of your Oppression but cunning Subtilties but Colours to paint o'er the Wrongs you do us nor can we the Rudeness of our Education must disable us for this part we have been born and bred under your Dominion Slaves and Villains to you under a Dominion so unmanly cruel you have always kept us deprived not only of all Means of Learning or Knowledge but would willingly have taken away our very Reason and common Understanding that we might groan under our Miseries with the feeling of Beasts but be Masters neither of Sense nor Language for a Complaint It is time now that we of the Commonalty as you call and range us should take our Turn of Command however of Liberty Nor is this to be wondered at if you consider our Strength and the Happiness of the new Model the Eminency of the Commons is visible to every Eye theirs is the present theirs is the Supreme Power We are armed and we will not think of the Laws nor regard them they only submit to Laws who want Power to help themselves Besides these Laws you tell us of are but the Will of our Enemies in Form and Rule they were made by them they favour them and our Captain General Tyler who has conquered a sad unhappy Word where it is used of one part of a Nation against another and of Benjamin against Israel by the worst and least against the better and greater the Makers of them the Law-givers was so become above the Laws themselves your Reasons when these Laws were backed with Force when your King could protect you before our Success might have served well enough now we expect them not nor will we accept them He concludes in Perswasion not to exasperate the Godly Party the Righteous Commons who says he will not be appeased will not give over nor lay down Arms till they be Masters of their Desires The Abbot entring into a new Speech is again stopped and told the Thousand before the Doors of his Monastery sent for him not to parly but consent which they look he should be sudden in if not we says Wallingford the Lieutenants chosen by the Captain Representatives of the People will deliver up and
Ends and Lives too they could not hope better things about the Charter which was no where extant but in the Noddles of these Cluster-fists But Day and Comfort broke out together upon them suddenly this Overflow of Pride and Arrogancy abated their Loftiness fell and their Bristles were somewhat laid very unpleasing Rumours concerning the Army were spread and the Death of the Idol Tyrant Wat of stinking Memory was certainly known and divulged and what was as stabbing that the Citizens of London grown wise and resolute either out of Loyalty or which is the rather to be supposed Experience of their new Master began now to own their Prince their natural Lord unanimously and to side with him against all Seditious Opposers of his Majesty and the just Rights and Liberties of his People which they saw like to perish together Farther a Knight of the Court seconds the Report and by Proclamation in the Kings Name now legal again commands this Herd to keep the Kings Peace under forfeiture of Life and Members from that Hour The King now grown a Protector again of his Subjects sends his Letters Protectory to the Abbot in these Words RIchard c. To all our Lieges and Commons of Hartford c. We pray charge command straightly as we may c. by the Faith and Liegances which to us ye owe that to our Beloved in God the Abbot of St. Albans nor to our House and Monastery of the said Place of our Patronage nor to none of the People Monks nor others nor to none of the Goods of the said Monastery c. Ye suffer to be done as much as in you lies any Grievance Dammage c. Given under our Great Seal at our City of London c. Though now these Carles were well cooled yet e'er the Zeal was quite slackened and the Clouds dispelled which hovered weakly and were likely to scatter with the next Breath of Wind they conclude to perfect their Building which to the great Nuisance of this Monastery they had raised Besides the Lieutenants or Major Generals of Tyler thought it a much unworthiness to droop too soon before those whom they had summoned in to piece up their deformed Insurrection with so much Bravery and Insolence They continue and pursue their Requests to the Abbot but with less Noise than formerly the Abbot was advised by Letters from Sir Hugh Segrave Lord Steward of the Houshold and Sir Thomas Percy created after Earl of Worcester to grant all things assuring him these Grants being thus forced from him would be void in Law and could not hurt his Monastery The Abbots Chamber the Chappel all Places are full of them they give Directions to the Abbot's Clerk for their Charter of Liberties which now they were contented to accept but will have a Bond of One thousand pounds Sterling for the delivering up the Charter unknown before the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin next if it can be found if not that the Abbot with his twelfth Hand an ancient Saxon manner of purging or clearing the Offender where the Offence was secret with twelve of his chief Monks should swear that he neither has nor detains any such Charter with his Knowledge The Abbot agrees he and the Covent Seal but oh the Miracle not to be believed nor understood without another upon our Faith and Understanding the seal in which the Glorious Protomartyr was figured three times together could not be pulled from the Wax no sleight no Strength could doe it to pass by the pious Frauds and Dreams of Monks From thence the Black-bands depart to the Market-place there at the Cross they publish their new Acquisitions the Charters of the King and Abbot with the Kings Protection of the Monastery which was but a Counterfeit of their Love On Munday and Tuesday following the Villains of the Patrimony of our Protomartyr as the others did in all places else imbroiled exact of the Abbot Deeds of Manumission and Liberty according to the Effect of the Royal Charter before which Charter the Abbot recites and confirms From Villains these now conceive themselves Gentlemen of Welsh Pedegree descended of Princes nay as our Monk noble beyond the Line and Race of Kings they are meer Free-holders hold only of God and the Son rather of the Sun and Club and will neither perform their Customs and Services nor pay Rent The common People who are neither swayed by Religion or Honesty stop and check themselves not that they were contented but because they could not nay they durst not go on to more The Plague of this Distemper was not only epidemical but kept its Days on the fatal Saturday fifty thousand Clowns out of Suffolk Essex Cambridgeshire the Isle of Ely places miserably harrassed according to the former Presidents were incorporated by the jugling Tricks of the Essexian Impostors sent out by the Fathers of Disobedience in the first Conception of the Ruffle to inveigle Proselites to the Holy League This was but an indigested Mass without Shape or Form Wraw not Straw as sometimes he is called aâ—…most lewd Presbyter as Walsingham or Priest who came from London the Day before with Orders from Tyler who according to his own Establishment had the executive Power was imployed into those parts to lick and fashion the Monster He with Robert Westbrome King of this Congregation lead the tatter'd Reformers from Mildenhall to St. Edmunds-bury where then stood a most Glorious Monastery and where their Fellow Scoundrels expected them Wraw finds these Choperloches good Disciples willing to learn and quick of Apprehension so capable they understood his least Signs The same Frenzies are again acted by other Lunaticks the Lawyers or Apprentices of the Law as the Monk and their Houses are the first Objects of their spight they do not only cut off them but fire their Nests Sir Iohn Cavendish Chief Justice of the Kings Bench who had been one of the most able Serjeants of this Kings Grand-fathers Reign and was made Chief Justice by him they intercept and behead Orpheus Tracie Nero the Roman Belgabred the Brittain excellent in the Sweetness of a Voice and Skill of Song with Iohn of Cambridge Prior of Saint Edmunds lose their Lives in the same manner as they unluckily fell into their Hands The Cause of the Priors Death is made this He was discreet and managed the Affairs of his Monastery faithfully and diligently he was taken near Mildenhall a Town then belonging to Saint Edmund of the Demain of the Abby the Vassals Hinds Villains and Bond-men of the House sentenced him murthered him by Vote His Body lay five Days Naked in the Field unburied In Saint Edmunds-bury these Cut-throats compass the Priors Head round as in a Procession after they carry it upon a Lance to the Pillory where that and the Chief Justices Head are advanced The next Work was the levelling a new House of the Priors After they enter the Monastery which they threaten
popular who says he forgetful of their Profession and Vows greedy and covetous of Mony foster the People in their Errors call good Evil and Evil good seducing the Great Men with Fawning and the Rabble with Lyes So that in those Days thus he proceeds the Argument held in every Mans Mouth This is a Fryer therefore a Lyer as strong as this This is white therefore coloured Here again is Walsingham at a Stand he complains that it is impossible to relate the Villanies of the Rustick Devils done in all parts We will now return to see what the King does next who was not asleep this while After he had cleared the City lately Tylers good Town of the Kentish Fry he commands the Nobility and Gentry who durst now peep abroad all the Kingdom over to repair to him at London well armed and well horsed as they loved him and his Royal Honour Their own Danger and late Fears add Wings to their Haste Within a few Days forty thousand Horse meet at a Rendevouz upon Blackheath whither the young King who had taken his Sequestration off and restored himself to his Blood and Majesty rides daily upon a Royal Courser to view their Order with his Imperial Banner born before him He delighted to be seen and acknowledged for what he was amongst his own Homagers Here he is informed that the Kentishmen a stirring People but with what generous Resolution will soon be found are again in Mutiny a Mutiny however else contemptible not to be sleighted at that time The King commands his Cavalry on Fire as much as himself to march and root out this perfidious Race of Miscreants Here the Nobility and Gentry of the County interpose and become Pledges for the Commons which appeases the King who now disbands his Army and resolves to take no other Course of Justice but such as was ordinary and usual by Judgments upon the known Laws of the Land and by Juries of twelve Men the Ancient Birth-right of the Englishmen Laws which could not have fitted Tylers Courts nor Tryals but which have been ever the Rule in all just and legal Tryals in all calm and pious Ages The Law Martial being proper to an Army marching to be exercised in it If otherwise all Sentences by Colour of it are against the Magna Charta c. and to the manifest Subversion of the Priviledges of Subjects Upon this fair and Kingly Conclusion of Richard Commissions were given and Justices of Oyer and Terminer to hear and determine the Treasons and Fellonies committed in the late Insurrections and principally to enquire who were the chief Authors Fomenters and Incendiaries of the Broils are sent into Kent Essex and the rest of the Provinces in Rebellion The most Honourable Mayor of London with others in Commission with him sate upon those of Kent Essex Norfolk and Suffolk c. who were apprehended in London Straw taken in an old rotten House about London Kirkby Treder Sterling are condemned and beheaded Straws Head being set upon London-bridge with Tylers but Iack Straw who was privy to all the Contrivances and Plots of the Confederacy could give Light into the Mid-night Darkness of Tylers Steps through all the close Windings of his Labyrinths of Treasons is urged the Mayor promising with some honest Citizens to be at the Charge of Masses for his Soul the Good of which they desire him to consider to declare his full Knowledge of the Counsels and Votes passed and to what end they had conjured up the wicked Spirits of those Garboyles Iohn was obstinate at the first and would confess nothing but gained by these Promises and a little penitent which was much to be believed of one possessed with Legions he tells them Because I have hopes of Help from your Suffrages after my Death and because this Discovery may be advantageous to the Common wealth I will confess truly to you what we intended When we met at Black-heath and sent for the King by our Captain-Generals Order we purposed to have massacred all the Nobility and Gentry with him then to have lead the King with us respected and treated Kingly from place to place to bait the vulgar by the Authority of his Presence into our League whom they might so have taken for the Head of our Commotion he being by these Means likely to have been supposed by his own Party too to have trusted us when by the Confluence of all the Counties our Companies had been full and the Supreme Executive Power wholly ours we meant to have purged the Nation to have destroyed the Gentry and first the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem with all the Rags of Royalty which by this time had been but a Rag it self Afterwards to have killed the King whose Name could then have been of no Use to us Their Oath to preserve him could not last longer than their Conveniency and Opinions which had then changed We meant so once but we mean otherwise now had been a satisfactory Excuse They had often sworn and covenanted that they neither meant nor had Power to hurt the Kings Prerogative that they intended to maintain the Kings Authority in his Royal Dignity the free Course of Iustice and the Laws of the Land with infinite Expressions and Protestations of this kind They might answer the Time was when all this was real when they would not have subverted the Government nor have destroyed the ancient Family to which says a Statute which we hope it can be no Treason to Tylers Ghost to recite the Dominions and Rights of the Realm of England c. Ought by inherent Birth-right and lawful and undoubted Succession descend and come This we being bounden thus speak the Members heretofore thereunto by the Laws of God and Man do recognise c. The Answer we say might have been easie they would not have done it some time agone they swore and covenanted and covenanted again they would not now they will Tyler is still Tyler but his Liberty false cheating Liberty is every where free both to Will and Dislike as the Safety of the Common-wealth shall require and carry him on This was the Faith and Honesty of that Age by which we may guess at the Cause and Men who acted for it Who were the Undertakers what Trust is to be given to such perfidious Knaves whose Protestations and Covenants of one Day are wiped out by an Inspiration of the next We may say by an Inspiration it was wondrous fit for these Changes Our Proteus should bring Inspiration in All those of Estates and Possessions Bishops Canons Persons of Churches Monks we would have rooted out of the Earth Only the begging Fryars should have been preserved who would have served such Sheep such Shepherds well enough for Church-duties which we may wonder after all these Pranks that they should think of here would have been a very plain Church Questionless after all these Actions the Devotion of these Reformers could not have been much
c. Because we are given to understand that divers of our Subjects who against our Peace c. have raised and in divers Conventicles and Assemblys c. Do affirm that they the said Assemblys and Levies have made and do make by Our Will and Authority c. We make known to all Men That such Levies Assemblys and Mischiefs from Our Will and Authority have not proceeded He adds They were begun and continued much to his Displeasure and Disgrace to the Prejudice of His Crown and Damage of the Realm Wherefore he injoyns and commands c. To take the best Care for the keeping of his Peace and opposing of all such Levies with a strong Hand Further he commands every Man to leave such Assemblys and return Home to his own House under Penalty of Forfeiture of Life and Member and all things forfeitable to the King c. These Clowns charge not the King to be transsported furiously and hostily to the Destruction of the whole People which can never happen where the King is in his Wits but what is fully as mad they will suppose him to arm against his own Life and Power against his own Peace and the Peace of all that love him This Proclamation put Life into the Royalists into all honest Hearts and dismays as much the Rebels yet after this the Essex Traitors gather again at Byllericay near Hatfield Peverel and send to the King now at Waltham to know whether he intends to make good his Grants of Liberties and require to be made equal with their Lords without being bound to any Suits of Court View of Frank-pledge only excepted twice the Year The King and his Council are startled at this Impudence The King answers the Agents That if he did not look upon them as Messengers he would hang them up Return says he to your Fellow Rebels and tell them Clowns they were and are and shall continue in their Bondage not as hitherto but far more basely trampled on While we live and rule this Kingdom by Gods Will we will imploy all our Means and Power to keep you under So that your Misery shall frighten all Villains hereafter And your Posterity shall curse your Memory At the Heels of the Messenger the King sends his Unkle Thomas of Woodstock Earl of Buckingham and Sir Thomas Piercy with a Body of Horse to quell them The Rebels were intrenched according to the manner of Liâ—…sters Camp in the midst of Woods ten Lances of the Avant Currors rout them the Lords when they were come up inclose the Woods round five hundred are killed eight hundred Horses for Carriage taken the broken Remainders of the Defeat escape to Colchester a Town ever honest and faithful to the Prince where the Loyal Townsmen would not be gotten to stir they sollicite the Townsmen says the Monk with much Intreaty great Threats and many Arguments neither Intreaties nor Threats nor Arguments would move them From thence they get to Sudbury making every where such Proclamations as of old they had used where the Lord Fitzwalter whose Seat was at Woodham-Walters in Essex and Sir Iohn Harlestone rush suddenly upon them kill and take them the King meaning to visit Essex in his own Person comes to Havering at the Boure a Mannor of his own Demain of the Sacred Patrimony and from thence to Chelmsford where he appoints Sir Robert Tresilian Chief Justice of his Bench of Pleas of the Crown to sit and inquire of the Malefactors and Troublers of the Country and to punish the Offendors according to the Customs of the Realm known and visible Five Hundred of these wretched Peasants who had no Mercy for others heretofore cast them selves down before the King bare-footed and with Heads uncovered implore his Pardon which he grants them on Condition they discover the great Conspirators the Captain Rogues The Jurors are charged by the chief Justices to carry themselves indifferently and justly in their Verdicts neither swayed by Love or Hatred to favour or prosecute any Man Many upon the Evidence given in and the finding of the Jury were condemned to be drawn and hanged nineteen of them were trussed upon one Gallows Heading had formerly been the Execution of others in Essex Kent and London because of the Numbers of the Guilty which was now thought a Death short of the Demerits of the most foul and heinous Offenders wherefore according to the Custom of the Realm it was decreed says the Monk that the Captains should be hanged The like was done in other Countrys by the Justices in Commission where the King was in Person Here the King with the Advice of his Council revokes his Letters Patents the Charters granted to the Clowns Although so he speaks we have in the late detestable Troubles c. manumised all the Commons our Liege Subjects of our Shires and them c. have freed from all Bondage and Service c. And also have pardoned the same our Liege Men and Subjects all Insurrections by riding going c. And also all manner of Treasons Felonies Trespasses and Extortions c. Notwithstanding for that the said Charters were without mature Deliberation and unduly procured c. To the prejudice of us and our Crown of the Prelates and great Men of our Realm as also to the disherison of Holy English Church and to the Hurt and Damage of the Common-wealth the said Letters we revoke make void and annul c. Yet our Intention is such Grace upon every of our said Subjects to confer though enormously their Allegiance they have forfeited c. As shall be useful to us and our Realm The Close commands to bring in to the King and his Council all Charters of Manumission and Pardon to be cancelled upon their Faith and Allegiance and under Forfeiture of all things forfeitable c. Witness our self at Chelmsford the 2. of July and 5th Year of our Reign False for the 4th In the Case of a Subject and no reason Kings shall be more bound every Act extorted by Violence and Awe upon the Agent is void In the Time of Edward the Third two Thieves which was the Case here force a Traveller to swear that he will at a day appointed bring them a thousand Pound and threaten to kill him if he refuse their Oath he swears and performs what he had sworn By Advice of all the Justices these two were indicted of Robbery and the Court maintains that the Party was not bound by this Oath Yet if this be denyed as unsafe Violence or Force which strikes a just Fear into any Man makes any Contract void say the Casuists Bishop Andrews that most learned Prelate answers to the pretended Resignation of King Iohn urged by Bellarmine that what this King did if any such Act was done was done by Force and out of Fear Widdrington the most Loyal of all Roman-Catholick Priests who writ much against the Gunpowder Jesuits in Defence of the Right of Kings
against those Jesuits who would have cut off the King the Royal Family the Bishops of the English Catholick Church the Nobility and Gentry as their Letter speaks with one Blow says of this Resignation or Donation if we may so he call it so that it was not freely given The Jesuits Challenge the perpetual Dictature or Regency of the University of Pontamousson by Bull of Sixtus the Fifth contrary to the Statutes of the Foundation by Gregory the Thirteenth Were the Bull true says Berclay yet it ought not to be of Force because it was obtain'd presently after his Creation when things are presumed to be rather extorted than obtained Bodin denys that a King deceived or forced can be bound by his Grants The Justice of Contracts is that alone which binds The Distinction of Royal and private Acts is of more Sound than Strength and answers not the Injustice of the impulsive Violence which must be naturally vicious every where and corrupt and weaken the Effects and cannot be good and bad by Changes or as to this or that Grotius who loves this Distinction in another place is positive There must be Equality in all Contracts He condemns all Fear or Awe upon the Person purposely moved for the Contracts Sake and tells us out of Xenophon of those of Lacedaemon who annulled a Sale of Lands which the Elians had forced the Owners to pass out of Fear A Charter of King Henry the Third imprisoned and forced is said by Aldenham to be void upon this Reason and I judge the Justice of this Revocation by the Law of England by which as our old Parliaments such Force is Treason The Fruits of which were here more justly plucked up than they were planted He who gives up his Money to Thieves according to his Oath may lawfully take it away from them However they are bound to make Restitution Nor can any Prescription of time establish a Right of Possession in him who makes his Seizure upon no other Title but Plunder and Robbery The 5th of this King the Parliament declares these Grants to be forced and void Enough to clear the Honour of King Richard as to this part At Chelmsford the King is informed of the whole History of Mischiefs done at St. Albanes and resolved in Person with all his Guards and Cavalry to ride thither and sentence the Malefactors with his own Mouth but Sir Walter Ley of Hartfordshire fearing the much impoverishing the Country if the King should make any long Stay there with such Numbers as then attended him beseeches him to make a Tryal whether things might not be composed without him and offers to reconcile the Abbot and Townsmen if the King would which was consented to The King grants him a Commission and joyns with him Edward Benstude Geofry Stukely and others of the Gentry of that County The coming of these Commissioners was noised at St. Albans The fiercest of the Clowns knowing what they had done was condemned by the Law and not to be defended but by Force which now they had not began to shake and take Fright are plotting to get out of the Way Greyndcob Lieutenant of the late Idol comforts them he perswades to go to Horse let us meet the Knight says he and see whether his Looks promise Peace or not if not the Towns about us have engaged they have associated and are of our League we are rich and cannot want good Fellows who will assist us while our Monys last On St. Peters Day this ill-advised Crue meets the Knight upon the Road who was ignorant of their Resolutions and conduct him Honourably according to their Fashion to the Town Sir Walter had with him fifty Lances and some Companies of Archers listed at random many of them being of the Churls and Confederates with them The Knight cites the Townsmen and their Neighbours to appear before him in Derfold to hear the Pleasure and Commands of the King they fail not There he tells them what Forces the King had assembled how rigorously those of Essex were sentenced That the King was highly incensed at the Troubles and Seditions of this place of which he was the Patron and Defender That with Great Difficulty he had procured of the King a Commission by which himself and others not Strangers or Enemies but their Friends and Neighbours were authorized to do Iustice in the KingsStead he concludes if they will appease the King they must find out and deliver up the Beginners of these Broils and make Satisfaction to the Lord Abbot an holy and a just Man for the Wrong they had done him This many of the Hearers approve and promise to obey The Knight charges a Jury to be made ready the next Morning and make what Discovery they can and gives the People Leave to depart Towards Night he sends for the Jury to his Chamber intending to have apprehended the Lieutenants by the Assistance of the Jury without any Noise These good Men and true know nothing it was the Case of their Fellows in Mischief and might be their own They answer in a plain Ignoramus they can indict no Man accuse no Man Amongst all the sounder of these Swine there was not one who had been Faithless and Disloyal to his Natural Liege Lord not one Breaker of his Peace not one who could appear so to them The Knight seems not to understand the Falsness and Cunning of these Hob-nail perjured Juglers He takes another Way and next requires them within a peremptory time to bring him the Charters which they had forced from the Monastery they return after a short Consultation and in the Abbots Chamber where the Knight then was tell him They dare not obey out of Fear of the Commons what was more they knew not in whose Custody the Charters were The Knight grows angry and swears they shall not go out of the Chamber till he have them which they call imprisoning their Persons Here the Abbot intercedes and though he knew them as very Knaves and Lyers as any Tyler had set on work yet he will not he says distruct their Honesty he will leave things to their Consciences upon which they are freed Another Assembly is appointed at Barnet Wood whither the Villagers about throng in Multitudes Three hundred Bow-men of Barnet and Berkhamsted make here so terrible a Show nothing is done The Commissioners privately charge the Gentry Constables and Bayliffs to seize in the Night Greyndcob Cadindon Iohn the Barber with some others and to bring them to Hartford whither themselves went in all Haste which was performed The Esquires and Servants of the Abby were sent with them to strengthen the Company This enrages the Townsmen afresh they gather into Conventicles in the Woods and Fields so much frightful to the Monastery that the Abbot recalls his Esquires le ts the Prosecution fall and fearfully summons in his Friends to guard him Greyndcobs Friends take Advantage of this Change and bail him for three Days
within which time they were either tyed to agree with the Abby or render up Greyndcob to the Justices again The Townsmen fierce enough still yet earnest to preserve their Worthy are content to part with the Charters but this Greyndcob more Fool-hardy than wise would not consent to Nor does he as knowing the Stifness of his Clowns whine in a Religious Tone never used by him He prays them to consider how Beautiful Liberty is how sweet how Honourable Dangerous Liberty says he is more valuable than safe and quiet Slavery let us live or dye with Liberty in so generous so honest a Contention it will be Glorious to be overcome whatsoever our Fears are worse we cannot be then now we are about to make our Selves Success too doth not so often fail Men as their own Industry and Boldness Fear not for me nor trouble your selves at my Dangers I shall think my self more happy than our Lords if they prosper or their King to dye a Martyr of the Cause with the Reputation of such a Gallantry Let such Courage as would have hurryed you forward to all brave and signal Mischiefs had I lost my Head at Hartford inflame your heavy Sprights Methinks I see the Hero Tylers Ghost chiding our sluggish Cowardice and by the Blazes of his Fire-brands kindled in Hell and waved by Fiends about his Head lead on to noble Villanies Let dreaming Monks and Priests tremble at the airy Sounds of God and Saints he who fears Thunder-bolts is a Religious heartless Coxcomb and shall never climb a Molehill Thus our buskin'd Martyr swaggers after the Raptures put upon him by Walsingham Greyndcob's Stubbornness hardens on the Clowns they now accuse themselves of Baseness that they did not cut off the Knights Head and nail it on the Pillory to the Terror say they of all Judges and false Justices Greyndcob had raised Spirits which he could not lay when he would Three days being expired he is again sent to Hartford Goal where he hears News from his Brother who mediated for him in the Court not very pleasing which he communicates to his Townsmen His Intelligence was to this Effect That Richard of Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and Sir Thomas Piercie with a thousand armed Men were appointed to visit S. Albans At this Report the Rebels startle they fall to new Treaties offer the Charters and Book in which the old Pleas betwixt the Abby and the Town were recorded with 200 l. for amends The Book is received the rest put off till the next Day The Earl of Warwick sends only Excuses he heard his own House was on Fire that the Clowns of his own Lordships were up and he leaves all things else to quell them This raises the fallen Courages of those of Saint Albans they now laugh at their late Fears If the Commons say they must quit their Right of Conquest and surrender their Charters yet will not we the Renowned Mechanicks of St. Albans be their President And as in all Tumults which can never be observed too often Lying is necessary and must not be useless whatsoever else is they lay the Blame of their Obstinacy upon the Inhabitants of Barnet and Watford who threaten so they would have it believed to burn their Town if they deliver up their Liberties Which Inhabitants of Barnet and Watford had humbly surrendred theirs before and submitted to the Kings Mercy Thus we find these Rebels of St. Albans again swaggering in their old Rhodomontadoes An Esquire of the Abbots acquaints the King with these Turnings who vows to sit personally in Judgment upon these Everlasting Malecontents The Abbot full of Pity and Charity who had saved some of these Enemies of his House from the Axe by Intercession at London continues his Goodness still He sollicites Sir Hugh Segrave Steward of the Houshold and others of his Friends to mitigate the King's Displeasure and hinder his Journey thither which was not in their Power Now again are the Townsmen dejected and seek by all means to keep off the Tempest which threatned them They fee Sir William Croyser a Lawyer to make their Defence and mediate with the Abbot wherethere was no Danger An Agreement is concluded the Day of the Kings Entry by which they would bind the Abbot not to disclose them or inform against them He promises if they fail not in Performance on their Part not to make any Complaints to the King of them that he would be a Suiter for their Peace if his Prayers may be heard but that here he cannot assure them Pardons were Acts flowing meerly from the Kings Grace No Man had any Power or Authority to pardon or remit Treasons c. but the King and whether he could prevail for them he knew not This Doubtfulness troubles them it seems to call their Innocency too much into Question They tell him his good Will was sufficient and that as to what belonged to the Royal Dignity they should satisfie the King After Vespers the King made his Entry into the Town being met by the Abbot and Covent the Bells rang aloud and the Monks sang merrily his Welcome He was followed by some thousands of Bowmen and Cavaliers In this Train was Sir Robert Tresilian Chief Justice of the Kings Bench who the next Day being Saturday the 13. of Iuly and first of the Dog-days sat in Judgment at the Moot-hall says Walsingham at the Town-house Greyndcob Cadindon and Iohn the Barber are fetched from Hartford and laid fast till Munday against which time new Jury-men are chosen and charged to be ready with their Verdicts Prophet Baal the Sergius of the new Alcoran the Priest of the Idol and his Calves the Martin of the Yoak of pure Discipline of the Eldership was taken by the Townsmen of Coventry brought to St. Albans the Day before and this Saturday condemned by the Chief Justice to be Drawn Hanged Beheaded Imbowelled and Quartered which was done on the Munday following He confessed to the Bishop of London to whose Christian Piety he ought the two last Days of his Life which were begged for his Repentance that certain hot and powerful Pastors of the Separation Brethren of simple Hearts called by the Spirit he named six or seven had covenanted and engaged to compass England and Wales round as Itinerant Apostles to propagate the Gospel beat down all Abomination of the outward Man Antichristian Hierarchy and Tyranny of the Nimrods of the Earth to cry up the great and Holy Cause and to spread the Law Principles and Heresies of Baal which Disciples says this Rabbi unless they be prevented and taken off will destroy the Realm in two Years He might have said two Months and been believed as to the Civility Humanity Order and Honour never intermitted but in the Confusion of a barbarous impious Age which made England Glorious they had been destroyed and torn up in a less time A few licentious ill Acts easily beget a Custom and an hundred ill Customs quicklier
just legal Power by which the Kings acted an Arbitrary boundless unlimited Power must have been set up instead of a Fatherly Royal Monarchy a Tyranny after the Turkish Mode a Monarchy Seignioral and had he brought in upon the Fall of the Christian Faith and Worship which must have followed his Establishment Circumcision and the Creed of Mahomet as the Spirits of Men were than debased he must have been obeyed All the Kings Right and more must have been his Sultan Tyler's Prerogative would have been found more grievous more heavy more killing than all the Yokes and Scorpions of our Kings no Man when he went to Sleep could assure himself that one Law would be left next Morning the Ordinances of Tyler and his Council flew about in Swarms killing and rooting up the Laws One Proclamation of this Tyrant's was of Force to blow up the ancient Foundation enough to have made Men mad if ever they could wake and understand When the French had conquered Naples the People looked for a golden World they thought their new Master would as the King of Mexico's Oath used to say do Justice to all Men make the Sun to shine the Clouds to rain the Earth to be fruitful They promise themselves Liberty and that the accustomed Imposts of their former Kings of the House of Arragon should not only be taken off but the very Word Gabelle driven out of the Kingdom there should be no such thing in Nature left but foolish Dolts as they were they found an Alteration quickly instead of a Court Cavalry before the new Masters ill established and assured not daring to trust any thing standing Armies were continually to be kept on Foot instead of one Tax intolerable of late they are oppressed with ten their Backs and Shoulders crack under the Load Upon this Fancy of these abused Italians says the Historian This is the Custom for the most part of all People weary ever of the present Condition and inconsiderately gaping after a Change but they receive such Wages of their fond and disorderly Lightness The War undertaken against Lewis the 11th of France by the House of Burgundy Dukes of Berry Brittain and Bourbon called the Weal Publick was not made against the King says the Allies but against evil Order Injustice in the Government and for the Publick Good of the Realm In the Treaty for Peace these fine things are forgotten the wretched Peasants torn and ground with Taxes left to shift for themselves The Prince of the Burgundies demands the Towns upon the Some for himself Normandy for the Duke of Berry and other places Offices and Pensions for the rest some Overtures were made for the Weal Publick says the History that is all the Weal Publick was the least of the Question the Weal Publick was turned to Weal Particular Self-seeking was the Sum of the Business This has been the Fashion of all Rebels hitherto and will be to the Worlds End After these Proceedings the Hartfordshire Men betwixt the Ages of 15 and 60 present themselves according to Command and take the Oath of Allegiance they are sworn too to unkennel and apprehend the late Incendiaries The King having now quieted the Commotions removes to Berkhamsted eight Miles from St. Albans a Royal Castle then and at Easthamsted where he hunts is informed that the Bodies of the Traytors executed were taken down from the Gallows hereupon he directs his Writ or Letter to the Bayliffs of St. Albans commanding them under Penalty of forfeiting all things forfeitable to hang up again the said Bodies now rotten and stinking in Iron Chains which the Townsmen are forced to do with their own Hands A Parliament sitting in May the Fifth Year of this Kings Reign Iohn Wraw Priest of the Reformation at Mildenhall and St. Edmunds-bury was taken and upon the Petition of the House of Commons to the King judged to be drawn and hanged In the same Parliament too it was enacted That wheresoever any Clowns by six or seven in a Company kept suspicious Conventicles the Kings good and faithful Subjects should lay hold of them and commit them to the next Gaol without staying for the Kings Writ In the same Parliament of the King it was made Treason to begin a Riot Rout or Rumour by this Parliament and that of the 6. Provisions are made for those whose Deeds were burnt or destroyed in the late Insurrection and in the 6. of Richard the King pardons the Multitudes for their Misdemeanours in the Tumults The Clowns now every where return'd to their old Obedience and the Winds were laid in all their Quarter Richard a Prince born for Troubles shall be turmoyled with the Rebellions of his Peers and Parliaments deposed and murthered by them yet his Memory shall be Sacred his Peers and Clowns shall dig for him in his Grave Posterity too shall owe all things to his Person After the Death of Maximinius a wicked bloody Thief a cruel Tyrant who invaded the Roman Empire Capitolinus recites a gratulatory Letter written by Claudius Iulianus a Consul to the Emperors Maximus and Balbinus whom he calls Preservers and Redeemers of the Common-Wealth there the Council tells them they had restored to the Senate the House of Lords their ancient Dignity to the Romans their Laws Equity and Clemency established their Lives their Manners their Liberty the Hopes of Succession to their Heirs He adds they had freed the Provinces from the insatiable Covetousness of Tyrannies no Voice Language nor Wit can express says he the publick Happiness King Richard restored to the Church and Universities their Rights and Possessions to the Nobility their Honour to the Gentry their Respect to the Cities their free Trade the Plenty of his Harvest to the industrious Countryman Security Peace and Liberty to all Orders what Prince could bestow greater Benefits upon a People He was the Stator the Saviour of the Nation a Nation not worthy of him whose Ingratefulness to his Sacred Head whose Perfidiousness and Impiety in advancing an Usurper upon his Ruins were punished with a fatal Civil War which lasted Ages with an Issue of Blood which could not be stopped till the true and lawful Heir of this Prince was seated in the Imperial Throne according to the Faith and Oaths of this People which whatsoever may be pretended no Power on Earth can dispence with and according to the fundamental Laws of England FINIS A TABLE TO Mr. Iohn Cleveland's WORKS A. THe Antiplatonick Page 11 The mixt Assembly p. 32 Answer to a Pamphlet written against the Lord Dygby's Speech concerning the Death of the Earl of Strafford p. 100 Against Ale p. 304 Answer to the Storm p. 383 B. On Britannicus his Leap three Story high and his Escape from London p. 247 Elegy upon Ben. Johnson p. 310 A second Elegy p. 303 An Epitaph upon Ben. Johnson p. 353 To a Lady that wrought a Story of the Bible in Needle-work p. 359 On a Burning-Glass p. 375 C. AN Elegy
when Justice flowed down from the Fountain in the ordinary Channel and which the Damm Head being thus troubled by this Wolf could flow no otherwise which was Authority sufficient by this Power Richards Captains must fight when he has them and kill those whom the Courts of Justice cannot deal with Tyler faints and shrinks to what he had been he was as cowardly as cruel and could not seem a Man in any thing but that he was a Thief and a Rebel He asks the brave Mayor in what he was offendedly him This was a strange Question to an honest Man he finds it so The Mayor says Froissart calls him false stinking Knave and tells him he shall not speak such Words in the Presence of his natural Lord the King The Mayor answers in full upon the accursed Sacrilegious Head of the Idol with his Sword He struck heartily and like a faithful zealous Subject Dagon of the Clowns sinks at his Feet The Kings Followers inviron him round Iohn Standish an Esquire of the Court alights and runs him into the Belly which thrust sent him into another World to accompany him who taught Rebellion and Murder first Event was then no Sign of a good Cause All History now brands him for a Traitor which by some will be attributed to his Miscarriage without Doubt had he prospered in the Work he had had all the Honours which goe along with Prosperity The King had been the wrong Doer and his Afflictions if nothing in so much Youth could have been found out had been Crimes we must over-power those whom we would make guilty Henry the Great of France under the Popes Interdict is told by a Gentleman Sir if we be overcome we shall dyne condemned Hereticks if your Majesty conquer the Censures shall be revoked they will fall of themselves He who reads the Mischiefs of his Usurpation will think he perished too late Now I come to an Act of Richards the most glorious of his History which the Annals past can no where parallel here his Infancy excells his after Man-hood Here and in the Gallantry of his Death he appears a full Prince and perhaps vies with all the Bays of his Usurpers Triumphs Alexander the Monarch of the World not more wondered at for his Victories than for that suppressing the Sedition of his Macedons in Asia tired and unable to march whither his Ambition carried him on Wings leaps from his Throne of State into the Battels of his Phalanges enraged seizes Thirteen of the Chief Malecontents and delivers them to the Custody of his Guards knows not what he should impute this Amazement of the Seditious to every Man returning upon it to his old Duty and Obedience and ready to yield himself up into the same Hands It might be says he the Veneration of the Majesty of Kings which the Nations submitted under Worship equally with the Gods or of himself which laid the Tempest That Confidence too of the Duke Alessandro of Parma in a Mutiny of the German Ruiters at Namurs is memorable who made his Way with his Sword alone through the Points of all their Lances into the middest of their Troops and brought thence by the Collar one of the Mutineers whom he commanded to be hang'd to the Terror of the rest The Youth of Richard begat rather Contempt than Reverence of which too these Clowns Breasts were never very full When the Fall of the Idol was known to the Rout they put themselves into a Posture of Defence thunder out nothing but Vengeance to the King and his whom they now arraign of Murder and Tyranny He is guilty of Innocent Blood a Tyrant a Traitor an Homicide the publick Enemy of the Common-wealth Richard Plantagenet is indicted in the Name of the People of England of Treason and other heinous Crimes He is now become less than Tylers Ghost a Traitor to the Free-born People His Treason was he would not destroy himself he would not open his Body to Tylers full Blow They roar out our Captain General is slain treacherously let us stand to it and revenge his precious Blood or dye with him I cannot pass this place without some little Wonder had these Ruffians with whom Kings hedged about by Holy Scripture and Laws Humane are neither Divine nor Sacred been asked whether Tyler the Idol of their own Clay and Hands might have been tryed touched or struck according to their resenting this Blow here Let his Tyrannies his Exorbitances have been what they would they would have answer'd no doubt in the Negative Though Richard might have been struck thorough and thorough Tyler who had usurped his Power must have been Sacred it must have been Treason to touch him Phocas must not be hurt In Tylers Case Straw would allow the old Text again The Powers were to be obeyed Their Bows were drawn when the King gallops up to them alonae and riding round the Throng asks them what Madness it was that armed them thus against their own Peace and his Life whether they would have no end of Things or Demands He tells them If Liberty be their only Aim as hitherto they have pretended they may assure themselves of it and that it is an extreme Folly to seek to make that our own with the Breach of Faith of Laws with Impieties violating God and Man which we may come by fairly But they trod not the Path to Liberty that where every Man commands no Man can be free the Liberty too they fancy cannot be had the World cannot subsist without Order and Subjection Men cannot be freed from Laws If they were there could be no Society no Civility any where Men must be shunned as much as Wolves or Bears Rapine and Blood-shed would over-run the World the Spoyler must fear the next Comer like savage Beasts who hurt others and know not it is ill to hurt them Men would devour Men the stronger Thief would swallow up the rest No Relations would be Sacred where every Man has the Power of the Sword the aged Sire could there be any such must defend his silver Hairs from the unnatural Violence of his own Sons He adds if there can be any just Cause of Sedition yet is the Sedition unjust which outlasts it which continues when the Cause is yielded to and taken away that if his Prerogative has been sometimes grievous his Taxes heavy and any of those they call evil Counsellors faulty they ought to remember in their first Risings and all along in all their Oaths and Covenants they swore continually not to invade the Monarchy nor touch the Rights of his free Crown You ought to remember your own Remonstrances you once declared that you acknowlegded the Maxim of the Law The King can doe no wrong if any ill be committed in Matters of State the Counsellors if in Matters of Law the Iudges must answer for it My Person was not to be violated He expects they should deal with him as the honest