At first his Majesty conceived that the Bishop had made choice of that Chapter as being very agreeable to his present condition But when he understood that it was the Chapter which the Church had appointed for that day in her publick Kalendar he seemed to apprehend it with some signes of rejoycing No sooner had he done his Devotions but he is hurried to VVhite-Hall out of the Banqueting-house whereof a way was forced to a Seaffold on which he was to act the last part of his Tragedy in the sight of the people Having declared that he died a Martyr for the Lawes of this Kingdome and the Liberties of the Subjects he made a Confession of his Faith insinuating that he died a true Son of the Church of England he betook himself to his private Devotions and patiently submitted that Royal Head to an Executioner which had before been crowned with so much outward Pomp and Splendour The Members of both Houses had often promised him in their Petitions Messages and Declarations that they would make him a great and glorious King and now they were as good as their words changing his fading but painfull Crown of Thorns which they first platted for him to an immarcessible Crown of Glory At his first coming to the Crown one of his Chaplains in Ordinary and now a Bishop in this Church taking good heed unto the close contrivances of some and the seditious actings of others in his two first Parliaments thought fit to give him and his Council such an item of it as might awaken them to prevent those mischiefs which otherwise might ensue upon it And thereupon he preached before them on these words of S. Matthews Gospel viz But when the husbandmen saw the Son they said among themselves This is the heir come let us kill him and let us seize on his inheritance Mat. 21.38 In the dissecting of which Text he made such an Anatomy of the Husbandmen whom he had in hand with reference to some Plots and Practises which were then on foot and his whole discourse upon the same that he gave the King and those about him such Remembrances as might make them have an eye unto themselves and the publick safety But then withall though he carried on the matter with great care and prudence he drew so much danger on himself from some leading Members in the second Parliament who thought themselves as much concerned in the Sermon as the chief Priest and Pharisees did in the Parable that he was upon the point of leaving the Kingdome when he had news that his Majesty had dissolved the second Parliament in no small displeasure What he then preached concerning the said Husbandmen was after practised and that he then fore-signified was accomplished now Which shewes him to have been both a Priest and a Prophet if at the least the name of a Prophet may be given unto any man who foretelleth not of things to come by Divine Revelation but out of a deep insight into businesse But we return unto the King whom if we looke on in his Children the most lively Images and Representations of deceased Parents we shall find him to have been the Father of four Sons and five Daughters 1. CHARLES-JAMES born at Greenwich on Wednesday the 13. of May 1629. but died almost as soon as born having been first christened by Dr. Web one of the Chaplains in Attendance and afterwards a Bishop in Ireland 2. CHARLES Duke of Cornwall by Birth Prince of Wales in Designation and Knight of the Garter born at his Majesties house of Saint James neer VVestminster May 29. 1630. solemnly crowned King of the Scots at Edenburgh on the first day of January Anno 1650. But being invaded by an Army from England under the command of Generall Cromwell he was forced to quit that Kingdome and try his fortunes in the other so closely followed by the Army which compelled him to that Expedition he was fought with neer VVorcester on the third of September 1651. before the Earl of Darby and some others of his party here could come to aid him with their Forces In which Battel though he acted beyond the expectation of his Friends and to the great applause of his very Enemies yet it so pleased the Divine Providence that he lost the day and being miraculously preserved notwithstanding the diligent search which was made after him he passed safely over into France to the Queen his Mother Finding that Court unsafe for him he passed into Flanders accompanied with his Brother the Duke of York Anno 1654. where they have continued ever since 3. JAMES born in the same place on the 13. day of October Anno 1633. entituled Duke of York by his Majesties command at the time of his birth created so by Letters Patents bearing date at Oxford January 27. Anno 1643. and not long after made Knight of the Garter Taken prisoner at the surrendry of Oxford June 24. 1646. he was carried to his Majesties house of Saint James and there kept under a Guard with his Brother and Sister but being attired in the habit of a young Lady he was conveyed thence about two years after by one Collonel Bamfield who brought him safely into Holland and presented him a most welcome guest to the Princesse of Orange from whence he past afterwards into France to his Mother and Brother 4 HENRY born on the eighth of July designed to the Dukedome of Glocester and so commanded to be called Left by his Majesty at the House of Saint James the place of his birth at such time as he withdrew towards the North Anno 1642 he remained there till the Death of his Father and some years after and then upon the promise of an Annual pension was permitted to go into France to his Mother and the rest of the Kings Children But in the year 1654. almost as soon as his two elder Brethren had removed themselves into Flanders he found a strong practise in some of the Queens Court to seduce him to the Church of Rome whose Temptations he resisted beyond his years and thereupon was sent for by them into Flanders 5. MARY born on the fourth of November 1631. and married to Count VVilliam of Nassau Eldest Son to HENRY Prince of Orange on Sunday the second of May Anno 1641. conveyed by the Queen her Mother into Holland in February following where she stil remains Her Husband having succeeded his Father in all his Titles and Estates died young and left her the hopefull Mother of a Son now Prince of Orange 6. ELIZABETH born the twenty eighth of January 1635. survived her Father but died with hearts grief not long after 7. ANNE born the seventeenth of March 1637. died before her Father 8. KATHARINE who died almost as soon as born 9. HENRIETTA born at Exceter June the sixteenth 1644. conveyed not long after into France by the Lady Dalkeith to the Queen her Mother where she still remains It is observed of the VVolf that as
the pleasure of the Houses are extorted by tumults And by the terrour of the like the Act for Knighthood is repealed and the imposition for ship-money condemned as an illegall Tax and abolished also The like Acts passed against the office of the Clerk of the Market the Court of Stanneries his propriety in the making of Gun-powder the authority of the Council-Table the Courts of Star-Chamber and High Commission the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiasticall Courts as also the Presidiall Courts held for a long time in York and the Marches of VVales And finally that he might lose both his strength in Parliament and his power with the People they extorted the passing of two Acts the one for taking away the Bishops Votes and place in the House of Peers the other for disclaiming of his power in pressing Souldiers enjoyed by all his Predecessors for defence of his Person and the Realm And that they might the better awe the King to their Concessions the Army of the Scots must be maintained with pay and plunder till there was almost nothing left for them to crave or the King to grant But being at the last sent home his Majesty followed not long after to settle his affairs in that broken kingdom where to oblige that Nation to him he confirmed not onely all his former concessions by Act of Parliament but all such things also as had been acted by them in their Assembly held at Glasco And more then so he parted with so much of his Eoyall Prerogative invaded usurped by them in the late Confusions that he had allmost nothing left remaining to him but the empty title the having of a Sword carried before him and some other outward pomps of Court which signifie just nothing when the power is gone This good successe of the Scots encouraged the Irish Papists to attempt the like and to attempt it in the same way as the Scots had gone that is to say by seizing his Towns Forts and Castles putting themselves into the body of an Army banishing or imprisoning all such as oppose their practises and then petitioning the King for a publick Exercise of their Religion The 23. of October Anno 1641. was the day designed for the seizing of the City and Castle of Dublin and many places of great importance in the Kingdom But failing in the main design which had been discovered the night before by one Ocanelle they break out into open arms dealing no better with the Protestants there then the Covenanters had done with the Royall party in Scotland Of this Rebellion for it must be called a Rebellion in the Irish though not in the Scots the King gives present notice to his Houses of Parliament requiring their counsel and assistance for the extinguishing of that flame before it had wasted and consumed that Kingdome But neither the necessity of the Protestants there nor the Kings importunity here could perswade them to levie one man towards the suppression of those Rebels till the King had disclaimed his power of pressing souldiers in an Act of Parliament and thereby laid himself open to such acts of violence as were then hammering against him Which having done they put an army of Scots their most assured Friends into the Northern parts of Ireland delivering up into their hands the strong Town and Port of Carickfergus one of the chief keys of that Kingdom and afterwards sent a small body of English to preserve the South which English forces having done notable service there against the Rebels were kept so short both in respect of pay and other necessaries by the Houses of Parliament who had made use of the mony raised for the relief of Ireland to maintain a War against their King that they were forced to come to a Cessation and cheerefully returned home again to assist the King in that just War which he had undertaken for his own defence The ground and occasion of which War we are next to shew At such time as he was in Scotland and expostulated with some of the chiefs among them touching their coming into England in an hostile manner he found that some who were now leading men in the Houses of Parliament had invited them to it And having furnished himself with some proofs for it he commanded his Attorney Generall to impeach some of them of high Treason that is to say the L. Kimbolton a Member of the House of Peers Mr. Hollis Sir Arthur Haslerig Mr. Hambden Mr. Pym and Mr. Strode of the House of Commons But sending his Serjeant at Arms to arrest their persons there came a countermand from the House of Commons by which the Serjeant was deterred from doing his office and the Members had the opportunity of putting themselves into the Sanctuary of the City The next day being the 4. of January his Majesty being no otherwise attended then with his ordinary Guard went to the House of Commons to demand the five Members of that House that he might proceed against them in a way of justice but his intention was discovered and the birds flown before his coming This was voted by the Commons for such an inexpiable breach of priviledge that neither the Kings qualifying of that Action nor his desisting from the prosecution of that impeachment nor any thing that he could either say or do would give satisfaction Nothing must satisfie their jealousies and secure their fears but the putting of the tower of London into their hands together with the command of the Royal Navie as also all the Forts Castles and the Train-bands of the Kingdome all comprehended under the name of the Militia which if his Majesty would fling after all the rest they would continue his most loyall subjects On this the King demurs a while but having shipt the Queen for Holland and got the Prince into his own power he becomes more resolute and stoutly holds on the denyal Finding the Members too strong for him and London by reason of the continuall Tumults to be a dangerous neighbour to him he withdraws to York that being in a place of safety he might the better find a way to compose those differences which now began to embroil the kingdome At Hull he had a Magazine of arms and ammunition provided for the late intended war against the Scots and laid up there when the occasion of that War was taken away Of this Town he intended to possesse himself and to make use of his own Arms and Ammunition for his own preservation but coming before the gates of the Towne he was denyed entrance by Sir John Hotham who by the appointment of the House of Commons had took charge of that place The Gentry of York-shire who had petitioned the King to secure that Magazin became hereby more firmly united to him The like had been done also by the Yeomandry and those of the inferiour sort if his proceedings had not been undermined by the Committee of four Gentlemen all Members of the House and all of them
noise of a Declaration which they had then upon the Anvil he dissolved the Parliament on the eighteenth day of June then following No sooner was he freed from this but the necessity of his Affairs involved him in another Embroylment The French Priests and Domesticks of that Nation which came into England with the Queen were grown so insolent and had put so many affronts upon him that he was forced to send them home in which he did no more then what the French King had done before him in sending back all the Spanish Courtiers which his Queen brought with her But the French King not looking on his own example and knowing on what ill termes the King stood both at home and abroad first seized on all the Merchants ships which lay on the River of Burdeaux and then brake out into open war So that the King was fain to make use of those Forces against the French which were designed to have been used against the Spaniard and to comply with the desires of the Rochelers who humbly sued for his protection and Defence But the Fleet not going out till after Michaelmas found greater opposition at the Sea then they feared from the Land being encountred with strong Tempests and thereby necessitated to return without doing any thing but onely shewing the Kings good-will and readinesse toward their assistance 1627. But the next yeare this design was followed with greater vigour by the Duke of Buckingham who hoped thereby to make himself of some consideration in the eyes of the people The gaining of the Isle of Re which lay before the Town of Rochel and imbarred their Trade was the matter aimed at and he had strength enough both for Sea and Land to have done the work if he had not followed it more like a Courtier then a Souldier suffering himself to be complemented out of the taking of their chief Fort when it was almost at his mercy and standing upon points of Honour in facing those Forces which were sent from the French King to raise the siege when he might have made a safe retreat unto his ships without losse or danger In the mean time his Majesty neither neglected his Affairs at home nor his Friends abroad At home he found the Puritan faction to be much increased by the remisnesse of the goverment of Archbishop Abbot whom therefore he suspended from all his Metropoliticall Jurisdiction and confined him to his House at Ford in Kent committing the exercise thereof to the Bishops of London Durham Rochester Oxford Bath and Wells by Letters Patents bearing date the 9. day of October Anno 1627. Abroad he found the Princes of Germany wormed out of their Estates one after another by the Emperours Forces the King of Denmark whom they had made the Head of their League being driven out of the Countrey by Count Tilly and hardly able to defend his own Dominions No Prince so fit for the prosecution of that cause as Gustavus Adolphus King of Sweden whom therefore he elects into the Noble Order of the Garter and solemnly invests him with it in the midst of his Army then lying at the Siege of Darsaw a Town of Pomerella belonging to the Crown of Poland on Sunday the twenty third of October of the same year also At which time he laid the grounds of that Confederacy which being seconded by the French the States of the Vnited Provinces and the distressed Princes of the Empire brought that King into Germany where he gave the first great check to the Emperours fortunes and had restored the Prince Elector Palatine to his ancient Patrimony if he had not fallen unfortunately at the Battell of Lutzen 1628. Being thus ingaged and embroiled he gave a beginning to his third Parliament on the seventeenth of March and freely declares to them the necessities under which he lay in Answer whereunto the Commons voted five Subsidies but meant he should pay dearly for them before he had them Such grievances as they thought fit to insist upon were cast into the mold of a petition by them called a Petition of Right which if the King granted he must lose his prerogative if he denied it he must lose all hopes of their supply in his great extremities The consideration of which last induced him to yield to their desires and confirm that petition by Act of Parliament the Prerogative never so much descending from Perch to popular Lure as by that concession But though this Act of grace might have given satisfacton even to supererogation as one well observeth yet the Commons were not so contented but were preparing a Remonstance to take away his Right of Tonnage and Poundage as disclaimed by him in that Act which coming to the Kings knowledge on the twenty sixth of June he adjourns the Parliament till the twentieth day of October then next ensuing In the mean time the Duke prepares for the relief of Rochel both by Sea and Land and being ready to set sail was suddenly cut off at Ports-muth by the hand of one John Felton a discontented Officer of the last years Army alledging no other reason for that bloody act but that the Duke had been declared an Enemy to the Common-wealth in a Remonstrance tendred to the King in the former Session But such was the constancy of the Kings temper and the known evenness of his spirit that this sad Accident made little or no stop in the proceedings of the Fleet which at the last set forwards under the command of the Earl of Lindsey who found the Haven of Rochel so strongly barred that it was utterly impossible for his Ships to force their way though it was gallantly attempted and give relief to the besieged who thereupon set open their Gates and received their King into their Town without more delay To smooth his way to the next Session of Parliament adjourned again till the twentieth of January Arch-bishop Abbot is admitted to kisse his hand by whom he is commanded not to fail of his attendance at the Councel table Dr. Barnaby Potter a through-paced Calvinian is made Bishop of Carlisle and Mr. Mountagues book called Appello Caesarem for which he had been questioned and molested in the beginning of the Kings first Parliament must be supprest and called in by Proclamation But this little edified with the faction in the house of Commons who not onely took upon them the reforming of the Church and State but called the Customers in question for levying Tonnage and Poundage not then granted nor ever likely to be granted as it had been formerly by Act of Parliament and distraining such Merchants goods as refused to pay it And in this point they went so high that fearing they should be dissolved before they had vented their own passions in that particular upon the second day of March they lockt the Doors of the Parliament-house kept the key thereof in one of their pockets and held the Speaker by strong hand in his Chair till they had
their severall and respective Diocesses did appoint the like for the avoiding of those frequent inconveniences and prophanations which that sacred Table had formerly been exposed unto This made the Puritan Faction open wider then before they did as foolishly afraid of the breaking in of Superstition by this last Declaration as of Prophanenesse by the other And that they might keep peace with the Scots in all particulars they dispersed many scandalous and seditious Libels against the Governours of the Church and all that acted by and under their Authority not sparing the king himself if he came in their way most certain tokens and prognosticks of those great Combustions which soon after followed in both Kingdomes 1634. Nor were there any lesse Apprehensions infused into them by some zealous Patriots who most ambitiously affected the Title of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} in the Orators language the profest Champions of the Property and Liberty of the English Nation the occasion this The Soveraignty of the narrow Seas had not onely been invaded by the Hollanders during the late troubles both at home and abroad but that invasion had been justified in some publick writings And thereupon by the Advice of Mr. Noy his Attorny Generall he issued certain writs in the tenth year of his Reign Anno 1634. directed to all the Port Towns of the Kingdome to set out a certain number of ships furnisht with Mariners Ammunition Victuals and all other necessaries for defence of the Realm which Writs he afterwards extended also to the inland Counties following therein the examples of his Predecessors in which none was better able to instruct him then he that gave him that Advice By means whereof he did not only recover that Dominion which belonged to him on the Sea but very much improved and enricht the Land as before is said Which notwithstanding some of the discontented members of the former Parliament and others of the same party under colour of standing in defence of the Rights and Properties of the Subject did stubbornly oppose the payment of that imposition in which the Honour Wealth and Happinesse of this Kingdome was so much concerned And though the King had the opinion of all the Judges under their hands to justifie his proceedings in it yet chose he rather to proceed against them in a legall way then to make use of any arbitrary power or the opinion of the Judges which extra judicially had been given in the case And so well did he prosper in it that when it came to be argued in the Exchequer-Chamber of the twelve Judges ten absolutely declared themselves for the lawfulnesse of it the other two being Crook and Hutton dissenting openly from that opinion to which they had formerly subscribed So that here being a mixture also both of Christian and Civil Liberties which were given out to be in danger it is no marvel if the Faction in both Nations did conspire together to disturb the peace and happinesse of this flourishing Kingdom 1637. The ground thus laid it was thought fit the first part of the Tragedy should be plaid in Scotland The Bishops of that Church though they liked well enough of the English Liturgy desired a Liturgy of their own for fear of acknowledging some dependency of that Church on this which being composed amongst themselves and approved by some of the English Prelates to whom his Majesty referred the perusall of it was recommended to the Scots for the use of that Church and the twenty third day of July Anno 1637. appointed for the first exercise and reading of it on this occasion followed the sedition at Edenburgh encouraged under-hand by the Marquesse of Hamilton the Earls of Roxborow and Traquair and many other of the Kings false servants both in Court and Councel This sedition afterwards brake out into open Action the principall Sticklers against the Book of Common-Prayer and the Kings proceedings in the same engaging the whole Nation in a solemn Covenant for the Extirpation of Episcopacy and whatsoever they were pleased to comprehend under the generall Names of Heresie and Superstition in which not onely the five Articles of Perth but the whole Common-Prayer-Book was intended by them And that they might be sure to keep their party together they bound themselves in the said Covenant to stand to one another in pursuance and defence thereof against all manner of persons whatsoever the King himself not being excepted And though the King by the perswasion of Hamilton here and his untrusty servants there gave order for the suppressing of that Liturgy the High Commission the book of Canons and even the Articles of Perth though confirmed in Parliament yet nothing could content their pride and insolency but the utter abolishing of Episcopal government which since they found the King resolved not to yield unto they were resolved to do it without him in their Assembly held at Glasco abolishing the Episcopal Order and thundring their Anathema's and excommunications not onely against the Bishops themselves but all such as adhered unto them And that they might be before-hand with him they intercepted his Revenews surprised all his Forts and Castles and finally put themselves into open Armes 1639. This forced the King to set forth against them accompanied with an Army Royall and furnished with such a gallant Company of Lords and Gentlemen as might assure him of a cheap and easie victory But he conceiving that the terrour of his coming would reduce the Scots to obedience without blows or bloodshed resolved in himself not to out-go Muster and Ostentation and thereupon was very easily intreated to refer all differences between them to certain Commissioners of both Kingdoms By their negotiation a generall Accord was made at Barwick on the seventeenth of June Anno 1639. upon which the King presently disbanded his Forces and returned towards London having effected nothing by his chargeable expedition but his making the Scots more insolent then before they were and giving them a greater Reputation in the eye of the world then before they had of which he became assured and sensible when it was too late For no sooner had he disbanded his Army but the Pacification such as it was was openly protested against in the Scots Army and many false copies of it were scattered abroad to make it more dishonourable to the King and of more advantage to themselves The Officers of their Army were retained in pay the old form of holding Parliaments in that Kingdom was altered by them and the prerogatives of the Crown invaded their words and actions tending to a more generall Defection then before So that the King was fain call home his Sheat-Anchor the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whom not long after he created Earl of Strafford in the County of York By whose advice seconded by the Archbishop of Canterbury his Majesty about the beginning of December gave a publick intimation of a Parliament to begin on the thirteenth day of April then next