Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n
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A31027
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A just defence of the royal martyr, K. Charles I, from the many false and malicious aspersions in Ludlow's Memoirs and some other virulent libels of that kind.
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Baron, William, b. 1636.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing B897; ESTC R13963
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181,275
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448
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Council were generally Members in one House or other and as well able to acquaint them with the true State and Interest of the whole Nation as any particular Member of that private Burrough he Represented and were credited accordingly which produc'd an exact Concord and Harmony between every Part of the Constitution On the contrary when the Members divide and jar one with another when all the King advise with must be suspected for Enemies to the Publick tho no such thing can be prov'd and he upbraided for consulting or imploying them and that by such as affect their Places or design to abridge his just Power what an Ocean of Mischiefs must this toss us in What but a Shipwrack can be expected at last As indeed it happen'd 'T is a pretty Remark and Simile of Sir W. T. who tells us he had observ'd All set Quarrels with the Age and pretences to Reform it by their own Models to end commonly like the pains of a Man in a little Boat who tuggs at a Rope that is fast to a Ship it looks as if he resolv'd to draw the Ship to him but the Truth and his meaning is to draw himself to the Ship where he gets in when he can and does like the rest of the Crew when he is there But this would not do in King Charle's Time there was not Room enough to hold all that pull'd to come in at leastwise Provision to support them when there For however Ludlow upbraids the poor King with the Profuseness of his Court the standing Revenue of the Crown was about 400000 l. per Annum too little by far to supply his great and urgent Occasions Would they have given him Mony plentifully some new Places might have been made or other Ways and Means found to gratify their Kindness but as they knew the King's Honor and Integrity would not Stoop to such indirect Courses so 't is probable 't was considered on the other side this would put them upon a worse extream instead of giving nothing they must give more than all Nevertheless some were taken in Sir Thomas Wentworth Mr. Noy and a while after Sir Dudly Diggs who had their several Posts assign'd them and behav'd themselves with great Honor and Resolution there which so incenc'd the rest as they became more implacable than ever plotted all Ways imaginable to seize upon the Vessel which at length having obtain'd they first threw the King and his whole Crew overboard and then sunk it All which the Good Man was advis'd of long before for in the heat of their Prosecution against the Duke there was a Letter put into his Hands ab Ignoto whereof Mr. Rushworth gives only a sneaking Abridgment like a partial Somewhat as he is for the whole deserv'd to have been Transmitted as well as any one thing in all his Volumes however 't is at large in the Cabala giving him an Account of their several Parties and dangerous Designs that King Iames had given too much way to their popular Speeches and Parliamentary Harangues which since the time of Henry the VI. were never suffer'd as being the certain Symptoms of subsequent Rebellions Civil Wars and Dethroning of our Kings Amongst others he tells him the Lawyers in general fomented these Heats for that as Sir Edward Coke could not but often express our Kings have upholden the Power of their Prerogatives and the Rights of the Clergy whereby their comings in have been abated And therefore the Lawyers are fit ever in Parliaments to second any Complaints against both Church and King and all his Servants with their Cases Antiquities Records Statutes Presidents and Stories But they cannot or will not call to Mind that never any Noble Man in Favour with his Sovereign was question'd in Parliament except by the King's leave in Case of Treason or unless it were in the Nonage and Tumultuous Times of Richard II. Henry VI. or Edward the VI. which happen'd both to the Destruction of King and Kingdom And that not to exceed our own and Fathers memories in King Henry VIII's Time Wolsie's exorbitant Power and Pride and Cromwell's Contempt of the Nobility and Laws were not yet permitted to be discus'd in Parliament though they were most odious and grievous to all the Kingdom And that Leicester's undeserved Favour and Faults Hatton's Insufficiency and Rawleigh's Insolence far exceeded what yet hath been tho most falsly objected against the Duke Yet no Lawyer durst abet nor any else begin any Invectives against them in Parliament This is clear Matter of Fact an impartial Account both of the Distemper and its true Original Cause I wish he could as easily have prescribed the Cure but it was now too late to remove what was so deeply rooted and become habitual King Iames might easily have prevented its rising to so high a Crisis had he observ'd that one Maxim of the Precedent Reign kept up his Prerogative and those other Arcana Imperij which were his Peculiar with as much Majesty and Resolution as Queen Elizabeth did who found this Pragmatical Spirit at work in her Time But so observ'd and kept it down as had the same Course been continued no Danger could have accrew'd thereby To ascribe any thing of Divinity to Princes above other Mortals will I am sure at this time of Day be censured for a gross piece of Pedantry yet really there are several Inducements would go a great way to perswade that this happy Queen was so far inspir'd as to see further into the Thoughts and Designs of Men than any or all about her especially that these busy Reformers affected a Parity in the State as well as Church design'd not only the Mytre but the Crown to be under their Check and Control which made her on all Occasions exert so briskly in defence of her Prerogative and other just Rights Insomuch as Roger Coke owns there were three things she was impatient of having debated in Parliament The Succession of the Crown after her Death Her Marriage and attempting any Alterations in the Church from its Establishment in the first Year of her Reign For the last of these I have had occasion already to mention how Morris burnt his Fingers by meddling therewith and the Iournal gives the like Account about the former how one Wentworth and some others were sent to the Tower for concerning themselves with the Succession but whereas Roger Coke saith they were soon discharg'd is one of his own Maggots and a shameful perhaps willful Blunder since the Iournal would have inform'd him that the House becoming humble Sutors to her Majesty for the release of such Members as were under restraint It was answered by the Privy-Counsellors then Members of the House That her Majesty had committed them for Causes best known to her self and that to press her Highness with this Suit would but hinder those whose Good it sought That the House must not call the Queen to an Account for what she did of her
not stir out of the Kingdom in 41 till gratify'd with Strafford's Blood so they would not return in 43 without an assurance of Laud's A blessed Religion must those Covenanters be of in thirsting as much after Blood as Wolves and Tygers could I believe a Metempsychosis I should very much incline likewise to think that the Souls of those Pharisees and other Iews which persecuted our Saviour and his Apostles were now at length got so far as our Northern Clyme and taken up their Habitation in the several Members of our Scotch and English Sanhedrims The first particular Charge as to the English Church and Nation Ludlow brings against this great Man is the Clergy sitting in Convocation after the short Parliament in 40. was dissolv'd took upon them to frame Canons and Oaths and impose four Shillings in the Pound upon Ecclesiastical Benefices throughout the Kingdom p. 10. Roger Coke likewise Harps upon this String so doth the Defence and it was one of the most considerable Branches of his Charge at his Tryal whereto he reply'd that he did nothing but by the King 's express Order had the Iudgment of the Council learned in Law and exactly follow'd a Precedent of Archbishop Whitgift's in the Happy Days of Queen Elizabeth the Original whereof the House of Commons commanded away that the poor Man might be the less able to make his Defence although therein they were disappointed too discovering only their own mean Spirits and his great Parts And for the Oath c. or rather c. in the Oath which made such a ridiculous Noise 't is pity but Posterity should be acquainted with their Impertinency and Prejudices therein the Words which the c. included were after Deans Archdeacons where the c. cuts off And other Persons having peculiar and exempt Iurisdiction which was mention'd at large in the Precedent Canons and here contracted by the Clerk tho' design'd as the others when Engross'd however through haste forgotten and that nothing more could be intended by it clearly appears from the Restraint of the following Words viz. as it stands now establish'd But if People are resolv'd to strain Knats and swallow Camels 't is impossible to perswade them otherwise till they have nigh Choak'd themselves Roger Coke is very witty upon the foremention'd Tax and saith the Clergy who now Taxed their fellow Subjects without Consent of the Commons shall ever after be taxed by the Commons without Consent of the Clergy where in the mean while is Magna Charta whose first Article speaks Ecclesia Anglicana debet habere suas Libertates Privilegia illaesa And they tax'd none but themselves and none else by Law can do it 'T is likewise false that they never Tax'd themselves since there was a Convocation in 61. which did it But upon the Dutch War in 65 the old Way of Tenths and Fifteenths arose so high upon the Bishops and Dignify'd Clergy as it was thought easier to be thrown in common with the Laity amongst whom likewise the new Rebel improvement of a Land Tax and Monthly Assesments were substituted in room of Subsidies to their very great Edification What I most admire herein is that when this Course was agreed upon to throw them both together there should be no care taken then nor since by the Fathers of our Church the only Representative she hath in that Body to have some of the Clergy in Commission throughout each Laud's Publick Spirit and Fatherly Care would not have been guilty of such an Omission for want of which they are as much enhanc'd in their Taxes as defrauded in their Tythes whereupon I know a Person who when he would express the Summum jus of any rigorous proceeding doth it in this Phrase was as kindly dealt with as the Country-Commissioners deal with the Clergy I do not find Ludlow bringing any other particular Charge against this Great Man the Defence mentions the Heads of 20 he should have added four more which would have equall'd those Articles from the Commons and done a great Kindness in telling us how well they had been prov'd for after seventeen Days Prosecution by Three as Virulent Tongues as ever spake in Westminster-Hall he made so full and vigorous a Defence so effectually refell'd all their Cavils and Evidences that they were forc'd as in the Earl of Strafford's Case to have recourse to that dead striking Bill of Attainder by Accumulating those many Charges they had not prov'd altogether to make that Treason in the Conclusion which could not be gather'd from the Premises This was very uneasy to the Lords though none of them his Frinds as not knowing how soon it might be their own Case till frighted by the several Threats from the Lower House now become Paramount Six Mean-Spirited Peers pass'd the Ordinance all the rest though they had not Courage to appear against it yet were asham'd to give their Votes in so illegal and inhumane an Act. I cannot omit one Instance of their Barbarity He having obtained leave at his first Commitment to repair to his Study at Lambeth and take thence such Papers and Memomorials as might conduce to his Defence that Miscreant Pryn obtained an Order of the House to seise upon and ravish them from him neither were they so satisfi'd but came again and rob'd his Pockets of his Diary and carryed away the very Manual of his Devotions to see what they could discover which was only their own Shame That Account likewise of his Troubles and Tryal fell into the same base Hands although by a signal Providence retriev'd to be an Everlasting Record of their infamous proceedings This brief Relation I thought proper to give of these two great Ministers for that they were the main Prop of all Royal Dignity and chief promoters of whatever true Policy fell under debate in Order to the King and Kingdom 's safety And had their Advice been follow'd the Scots had never entred England but receiv'd the due Reward of their Rebellion at their own Doors nor Irish thought at leastwise attempted theirs so long as Strafford held the Rains without which Abettors and Advantages the English Confederates could have carryed on none of their Designs But what with the King 's Good Nature Natural Kindness and strange Irresolution his only Fault together with the Factions Solemn Professions of Duty and Loyalty that they would make him the most Glorious and Potent Prince in Europe he lost so much ground at first as afterwards it was impossible to retrieve it they still pressing for one Concession after another till in the end they gain'd enough to ruine him as well as his Ministers for whatever popular Clamors were made none stood up so much for the true English Constitution as they never denying that Parliaments were the best Expedient to settle Affairs in all great Emergencies if they would go regularly about it but they Both thought what the One hath declared that Corruptio optimi est