SIR will you grant and keep and by your Oath confirm to the people of England the Laws and Customes to them granted by the Kings of England your lawful and religious predecessors and namely the Laws Customes Franchises granted to the Clergy by the glorious KING St. Edward your predecessour according to the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdome and agreeing to the prerogative of the Kings thereof and the ancient customes of this Realm The King Igrant and promise to keep them Lord Bishop Sir will you keep peace and Godly agreement entirely according to your power both to God the holy Church the Clergy and the people King I will keep it L. Bishop Sir will you to your power cause law and justice and discretion in mercy and truth to be executed in all your judgements King I will L. Bishop Sir will you grant to hold and keep the rightful Customes which the commonalty of this your Kingdome have will you defend and uphold them to the honour of God so much as in you lyeth King Igrant and promise so to do The Petition of the L. Bishops read by the L. Bishop of ROCHESTER O Lord our King we beseech you to grant and preserve unto us and the Churches committed to our charge all Canonical priviledges and due Law and Iustice and that you would protect and defend us as every good King in his Kingdome ought to be a Protector and defender of the Bishops and Churches under their Government The King answered With a willing and devout heart I promise and grant my pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches committed to your charge all Canonical priviledges and due law and justice and that I will be your Protector and Defendor to my power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdome ought in right protect and defend the Bishops and Churches under their Government Then the King went to the Altar where laying his hand upon the Evangelists he took the Oath following The things which I have here before promised I shall perform keep so God me help and by the contents of this Book and so kissed the Book The Homage of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury for himself and all the Bishops he kneeling down and all the Bishops behind him said I William Arch-Bishop of Canterbury shall be faithful true Faith Truth shall bear unto you our Soveraign Lord and your Heirs Kings of England and I shall do and truly acknowledge the service of the Lands which I claim to hold of you as in right of the Church So God me help Then he arose and kissed the Kings left cheek as did the rest of the Bishops The Homage of the Nobility I James Duke of York become your Leigeman of life and limb and of earthly worship and Faith and Truth I shall bear unto you to live and dye against all manner of folk So God me help The Oath of a Lord Chancelour YOu shall swear that well and truly you shall serve our Soveraign Lord the King and his people in the office of Chancelour and you shall do right to all manner of people poor and rich after the laws and usages of this Realm and truly you shall counsel the King and his Counsel you shall layne and keep and you shall not know nor suffer the hurt or disheriting of the King or that the rights of the Crown be deceased by any means as far forth as you may let it and if you may not let it you shall make it cleerly and expresly to be known unto the King with your true advice and councel and that you shall do and purchase the Kings profit in all that you reasonably may As God you help and by the contents of this book The Oath of a privy Counceller YOu shall swear to be a true and faithful servant unto the Kings Majestie as one of his privy counsel you shall not know or understand any manner of thing to be attempted done or spoken against his Majesties Person Honour Crown or Dignity Royal but you shall let and withstand the same to the utmost of your power and either cause it to be revealed to his Majestie himself or to such of his privie Councel as shall advertise his Highness of the same You shall in all things to be moved treated and debated in Councel faithfully and truly declare your mind and opinion according to your heart and conscience and shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed unto you or shall be treated off secretly in Counsel and if any of the same Treaties or Counsels shall touch any of the Councellers you shall not reveale it unto him but shall keep the same until such time as by the consent of his Majesty or of the Councel publication shall be made thereof You shall to your uttermost bear Faith and Allegiance unto the Kings Majestie his Heirs and lawful successours and shall assist and defend all jurisdictions preheminences and authorities granted to his Majestie and annexed to his Crown against all forraign Princes Persons Prelates and Potentates by act of Parliament or otherwise And generally in all things you shall do as a faithful and true servant and Subject ought to do to his Majestie So help you God and by the holy contents of this book The Oath of a Secretary of State YOu shal swear to be a true faithfull Servant unto the Kings Majestie as one of the Principal Secretaries of State to his Majestie you shall not know or understand of any manner of thing to be attempted done or spoken against his Majesties person Honour Crown or Dignity-royal but you shall let and withstand the same to the uttermost of your power and either do or cause it to be revealed either to his Majestie himself or to his privie Counsel you shall keep secret all matters revealed and committed unto you or that shall be secretly treated in Counsel and if any of the said treaties or Counsels shall touch any of the Councellors you shall not reveal the same unto him but shall keep the same until such time as by the consent of his Majestie or the Connsel publication shall be made thereof you shall to your uttermost bear Faith and Allegiance to the Kings Majestie his heirs and lawful successours and shall assist and defende all jurisdictions preheminences and authorities granted to his Majestie and annexed to his Crown against all forraign Princes Persons Prelats or Potentates c. By act of Parliament or otherwise Generally in all things you shall do as a true and faithful servant and subject ought to do to his Majestie So help you God and by the holy contents of this book Subscription of such as are to be made Ministers according to the 37 canon and constitution Anno Dom. 1603. and in the reign of our Soveraign Lord Iames by the grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland
Kingdomes or Dominions or to authorise any Foreign Prince to invade or annoy him or his Countries or to discharge any of his Subjects of their Allegiance and obedience to his Majesty or to give license or leave to any of them to bear Arms raise Tumults or to offer any violence or hurt to his Majesties Royal Person State or Government or to any of his Majesties Subjects within his Majesties Dominions Also I do swear from my heart that notwithstanding any Declaration or sentence of Excommunication or Deprivation made or granted or to be made or granted by the Pope or his Successours or by any Authority derived or pretended to be derived from him or his See against the said King his Heirs or Successours or any Absolution of the said Subjects from their Obedience I will bear Faith and true Allegiance to his Majesty his Heirs and Successours and him and them will defend to the uttermost of my power against all conspiracies and attempts whatsoever which shall be made against his or their Persons their Crown and Dignity by reason or colour of any such Sentence or Declaration or otherwise and will do my best endeavour to disclose and make known unto his Majesty his Heirs and Successours all Treasons and Trayterous Conspiracies which I shall know or hear of to be against him or any of them And I do further swear That I do from my heart abhor detest and abjure as impious and heretical this Damnable Doctrine and Position That princes which be excommunicated or deprived by the Pope may be deposed or murthered by their Subjects or any other whatsoever And I do believe and in conscience am resolved that neither the Pope nor any person whatsoever hath power to absolve me of this Oath or any part thereof which I acknowledge by good and full Authority to be lawfully administred unto me and do renounce all pardons and dispensations to the contrary And all these things I doe plainly and sincerely acknowledge swear according to these expresse words by me spoken and according to the plain and common sense and understanding of the same words without any equivocation or mental evasion or secret reservation whatsoever And I do make this Recognition and acknowledement heartily willingly and truly upon the true faith of a Christian So help me God c. The Oath of Supremacy I A. B. Do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience that the King 's Highnesse is the onely Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other his Highnesse's Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal And that no Foreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preeminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forraign Jurisdictions Powrs Superiorities and Authorities and do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith and true Allegiance to the King's Highnesse his Heirs and lawfull Successours and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Preeminences and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and successours or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the contents of this book These Platforms and models of Oathes as they are of holy use to unite our fidedelity to God and Man so they are of Divine Authority and seem to be influential from Heaven from whence we have the Sacred example so the Scriptures testifie Exod 33.1 Depart hence unto the Land which I swear unto Abraham Isaac and Jacob. Thus divine usage is very frequent with God Deut 1.8.34.35 Psal 95.9 Luk. 1.73 Heb. 6.13 Heb. 7.21 And as God pleased to confirm his promise with an Oath So King David Gods annointed voweth and sweareth calling on God and praying Lord remember David and all his Afflictions how he swear unto the Lord and vowed to the mighty God of Jacob. Psal 132.1 2. And Solomon his royal Son gave Counsel to all his subjects and all the world I counsel thee to keep the Kings commandement and that in regard of the Oath of God Eccles 8.2 Having now set fourth the sacred ☜ Oaths and obligations of the Kings and Queens of England and of some of the cheif Officers and Ministers of State together with the Homage of the Ecclesiastical Hirarchy and temporal Nobility and of the three great Officers of Court the Lord high Steward the Master of the Horse and the Lord Chamberlain by their Oathes as privy counsellors under whose immediate command and power all servants at Court are sworn to fidelity and obedience in their respective relations and ranks of order degrees and subordinations It is plain and easie to every rational subject to discern and see the most excellent form of Government that the prudence and piety of former ages hath conveyed to the English to this present time and we cannot do less then admire and magnifie the gracious providence and riches of Gods favours to the Kingdome of England who hath with the golden chain of harmonious Government so lincked Kings and Queens to himself and all their subjects and people to their soveraign Princes that no Kingdome under the canopy of Heaven hath a better frame of Government either for Church or State or the transaction of Ecclesiastick or civil concernments and affaires in which there is such an incementing concatenation by wholesome laws and customes for justice and the happy preservation of all the peoples Rights that as the King may sit as happily and securely on his Throne as any Monarch on earth so his people may as prosperously thrive under his gracious Government and reposing themselves under their own vines and figtrees as cheerfully enjoy the inestimable blessings of their own just rights and labours Milk and Hony with the overflowing favours of Peace and Plenty How great a crime must it then be to wrest or break one of the invaluable lincks of this golden concatenation which Soveraign Princes graciously please to strengthen and consolidate if possible by their sacred Oathes to God which cannot but indear and more oblige ingenuous subjects to greater exactness of duty and fidelity considering that these pious proceeding are more acts of Grace and voluntary and Princely condescentions flowing from the fountaines of their own royal goodness being methods of high degrees of kindness and love where words or promises and those at their royal wills and pleasure are to be looked on not only as certainties and assurances but as deeds and compleat performances The civil Law expecteth as much from Noble men and Persons of Honour that there words be equally esteemed as their deeds m Promissa nobilinm pro factis habentur And Iser c. 1. Tantum fidei legalitatis presumitur in Nobilibus ut si quicquam promiserint id per equesit certum ac indubitatum ac si jam factum esset And Iser c 1.
2 Sam 15 vers the 32 Behold Hushai the Archite came to meet the King with his coat rent and earth upon his head Loyalty amongst REBELS The True ROYALIST Or HUSHAY the Archite A happy Counsellour in King's DAVID'S Greatest Danger Say unto Absalon I will be thy servant O King 2 Sam. 15.34 I Counsel thee to keep the Kings Commandement and that in Regard of the Oath of God Eccles 8.2 Written by EDWARD WOLLEY D.D. and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Sacred Majesty King CHARLES the II. LONDON Printed for Iohn Williams at the signe of the Crown in S. Paul's Churchyard 1662. To the Right Honourable JOHN Baron Grenvil of Kilkhampton and Biddiford Viscount Grenvil of Lands-Down and Earle of Bathe Groome of the Stool and first Gentleman of the Bed-Chamber Lord Warden of the Stanneryes Lord Lieutenant of the County of Cornwall and High Steward of the Dutchy and Governour of his Majesties Town Island Fort and Castle of the Garrison of Plimouth MY LORD I Have had the honour and happines to know you from your tender years and have discerned your cordial affections and endeavours to serve the Church as an obedient Sonne your Prince as a most Loyal Subject your Countrey as a most faithful Patriot And as Pompey when but a youth to experience your Fortitude fidelity to the Crown and without injury or flattery it may in some degree be said of you as Plutarch writes of that Noble Roman Is etiamnum adolescens totum se factioni Syllanae addixit cumque nec Magistratus nec Senator esset magnum ex Italiâ contraxit exercitum That you were a very early Commander in your youth and those four terrible wounds which you received in the fight at Newberry three in your head and one in your arm Continue those marks and cicatrices which as honourable badges of loyalty will bear you company to your Grave It was a question once started about Ascanius by Andromache whether he was like his Father Aeneas or his Vncle Hector Ecquid in antiquam virtutem animosque viriles Et Pater Aeneas a vunculus excitat Hector Andromache in Virgil Aeneid de Ascanio But there is not any need of such a question concerning your Lordship in whom the varietie of your Noble Ancestors seem to concenter So that the pietie of Richardus de Granâ Villâ who founded the Abbey of Neath in Glamorgan-shire in the fourth year of the raigne of King William Rufus liveth in you The courage of Sir Richard Grenvil your great Grandfather who commanded the Rear-Admiral a Ship called the Revenge wherein he so gallantly behaved himself that in a desperate fight at Sea with the Spaniards he sunk destroyed infinite numbers of Qu. Elizabeths enemies when others made all the sail they could to avoid the danger And the loyalty and great worth of Sir Bevill Grenvill seem as thriving seeds to grow up and flourish in you And it will be an honour and happiness to your Lordship to be not onely a Son and Heire of his Name loynes but of his virtues who so loved the Church of England that in person he guarded the late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury against the fury of the tumultuous Rabbles in all commotions and Rebellions either of England and Scotland in the late blessed Kings Raign he manifested the dutie of a Loyal Subject and of a noble Commander at the fight at Stratton he was successful against the enemie with a handful of men And at the fight at Lands-downe like another Epaminondas though he lost his life he got the Victory Et cum sentiret vulnus esse lethale non prius ferrum eduxit quam audisset Thebanos vicisse tum satis inquit vixi invictus enim morior To encourage his Souldiers he fought with bleeding wounds and finding that his countrey men like Gallant Thebans won the day animam efflavit he fell gloriously into the bosome of true honour renown These exemplars of virtue have doubtless attracted your Resolutions to imitation of your Ancestors and have enflamed your affections with true and right principles of Nobleness and honour But that which renders you most lovely to all who know your Lordship is that incomparable service which by your prudence fidelity secrecy and courage was transacted effected together with the Duke of Albemarle and his brother the Lord Bishop of Hereford in order to his Majesties Restauration which maketh three Kingdomes happy This is the chiefest loadstone motive that makes me address to your Lordship for patronage and protection in this argument wherein I endeavour to prove that truth may be in company with Traitors and Loyalty amongst Rebels as Hushai the Archite who was King Davids best friend and most faithful subject in his greatest danger It is true many worthyes did attend his Majesties Person in pinching extremityes abroad for many years and many thousand loyal Subjects of the three Kingdomes indured insupportable miseries from usurping bloody Wolves at home and the stings of a sort of Trepanning creeping Serpants as equally venemous as dangerous hardly to be avoided These true Royalists were on all occasions active in their persons in their counsels in their relations their friends in their purses and their prayers and by all wayes and interests to promote his Majesties Restauration But your Lordship as a more signal instrument of much happiness hath received gracious markes of Noble trust honour and favour from his Majesty the thanks of all England in the Kingdomes Representative the Parliament which will prove a happy record of your honour to posterity and blessed for ever be those hands and hearts who have contributed much or cast in if but a mite to that blessed work There is another small tender branch which budded seasonably about seven years since and appeared in the Kingdom under the complexion and colour of a Translation in the case and Parallel of Lewis the fourth the French King This first went abroad to keep alive those loyal sparks which lay-under the ashes of Cruelty and Persecution in the year 1654. meeting with curteous tinder it took fire and inflamed many affections towards the King This small piece was reprinted eight moneths before his Majesties return to England and it proved so prosperous that some thousand copies were dispersed vented in fourty houres And then it grew suddenly a publick discourse in the City and Countrey videlicet the Kings Case in the Parallel of Lewis the fourth of France This Branch leans on your Lordships Patronage and favour is added to this discourse to perpetuate all Subjects resolutions in their allegiance to their Princes and as a part of justice and merit that his endeavours nay be discerned who gave it life first fixed and planted it in England and so not to be any longer fathered on adopted authors * Tulit alter honores Virgil. My Lord I shall not afflict your Lordship with any further present trouble but wishing
protestation have considered of the contrivances intrigues interests of that cunning trap and popular bait they ought to retreat from the danger of those snares now having recovered their sense and reason by repentance and a better consultation may better know how to perform their duty to God in his Church and to their King and Country The mask of the protestation thus pul'd off and the curtaines drawn the face of loyalty is more clear and visible yet there is another brood and sort of persons who cry out of their peirced and wounded consciences and tell the world they have with hearts and hands lifted up to heaven taken the national and general covenant and they cannot quit fairly with this delight and darling of their soules This as Diana from Iupiter they urge fell from Heaven and though the Covenant was the contrivance of a few confederated seditious heads yet the covenanters hold themselves obliged to keep it as stirctly as if it had been the breath motion and dictates of the sacred spirit of God and many suppose that having lifted up their hands in a pious delusion they cannot nor must not let them fall in a repentant and humble submission to their Soveraign and the laws of their Country but such infatuated Zelots are much deceived and ought to see more clearly the scales of their delusion being taken from their eyes but if an irrational sturdy obstinacy still possess their resolutions willfulnesse blind's reason and obduration cauterize their consciences their best cure may be procured by advising with the incomparable reasons of the University of Oxford against the covenant if those reasons prove not a welcome soveraign cordial let such passionate Zelots apply themselves to their Princes remedy and Probatum or for ever hold themselves in their Honour Souls and Consciences to be incurable And the late blessed Royal Martyr t doth most pathetically and powerfully advise and argue Εικον Βασιλικε chap. 14. of the covenant pag. 110. The enjoynings of Oathes upon people must needs in things doubtfull be dangerous as in things unlawfull damnnable no lesse superfluous where former religious legall Engagements bound men sufficiently to all necessary duties nor can I see how they will reconcile such an innovating Oath and Covenant with that former protestation which was so lately taken to maintain the Religion established in the Church of England since they count discipline so great a part of Religion And in the the next page the King saith in the candor and kindness of his spirit I am prone to believe and hope that many who take the covenant are yet firm to this judgement that such later vows oathes or leagues can never blot out those former gravings and characters which by just and lawful Oathes were made upon their Souls And again the blessed King urgeth the third time that which makes such confederations by way of Solemn Leagues and covenants more to be suspected is that they are the common road in all factions and powerful perturbations of State or Church where formalities of extraordinary zeal and piety are ever more studied and elaborate then when Politicians most agitate desperate designs against all that is setled or Sacred in Religion and Laws which by such service are cunningly yet forcibly wrested by secret steps and less sensible degrees from their known rule and wonted practise to comply with the humour of those men who aime to subdue all to their own will and power under the disguises of holy combinations These were the counsels and command of a dying King who sealed these truths with his royal bloud and they may serve as cautions or preventive physick not to be refused as cordials to comfort languishing and fainting spirits as soveraign remedyes to recover relapsed patients to a sound and heathful disposition of both Soul and body and they are not to be neglected or despised by any rational subjects but who doom themselves to discontent or willfully are dementated to a self perdition When the protestation and the covenant 3. Engagement like old and useless Almanacks were laid aside a successive jugling prevailing party found out vicious matter to compose new bird lime and shuffling the cards and then cutting and dealing cuningly devised by an Engagement to catch some credulous and timorous complying inclinations or at least utterly to pack the Presbyterian out of the stock of power and interest This obortive Embrìo and Precocious birth was quickly tumbled out of the body of the bear and by some smooth bloudy tongues licked into a form or rather confusion of words which reduced to neither mood or figure were so illogical that the Engagement was looked on as a factious seditious snare and not strong enough to hold the foot of the lightest Larke The weakest person that complyed to be entangled in it as to the form if any it was a subscribed promise before an illegal Magistrate And as to the matter it was a fancy or dream like that of Vtopia of a common wealth which was no where in England unless in some mens brains who were sick of ambition and pride and long'd for Government This republick they stiled setled when the world saw the-three Kingdomes in disorder and confusion and the Authours and Abettors of this Ridiculous monster panting quaking and sculking under continual suspitions and the pinching torments of fears and jealousies but that which occasioned greatest scorn and laughter of this seditious bug-bear was that it was covetously contrived to be a vendible commodity and so easily gain'd from the justice of Peace or his Clark for half a Crown and in a short time it prov'd a more common contemptible drug and was familiarly bought for twelve pence until at last it was not valuable On which devise all judicious and sober Persons did look as a state cheat or a meer moral promise to things imaginary irrational and impossible under the pressure of tyrannical usurpers and in it self no way legal or binding being like tow in an instant set on fire by some sulphurous sparks and flaming for a moment dyed and was suddenly extinguished Vsus jurandi ducit hominem ad perjurium D Ber. ser 32. de perjurio A fourth but more black traiterous and odious obligation and oath was that of the abjuration which most horridly did conjure the perjured swearers to renounce their lawful King and his royal line and the successors of that imperial and renowned family Sicut mentiri non potest qui non loquitur sic pejerare non poterit qui jurare non appetit D. Bernard ser 32. de perjurio And this potion though dangerous and damnable like viper wine went pleasantly down with two many who if not soundly purged with true repentance may feel the acerbity of this venemous composition attended with pangs and torments in their gauled consciences for ever This was a treason of the highest degree a fin of a great magnitude a daring crime aiming
of your Princes as well as they do with yours Or to speak something yet nearer to the quick why doe you not repair these disorders by your own more exact obedience The Prince alone is obvious in a Battail to the infamie Cowardise and misfortune of his whole Army and you are thousands who are obliged to strengthen the Authoritie and honour of your King which he cannot support with his single valour Believe me if all Subjects would be loyal no Kingdome could be miserable and if all Princes thought more of severity then of Clemencie there would not be so many Subjects Rebels Moreover if it were permitted to the Capritious people to take and give Crowns when they fancied a change I conceive there is not a Shepheard but might hope to be a King and not a King but might be reduced to be a Shepheard so unruly and uncertain are their floating judgements But to speak the truth to you these things ought not thus to pass we are your Masters and you ought not to become ours It is not that I am ignorant that God disposeth of Scepters and Crowns as he pleases and gives them as he lists and bestowes them on or takes them from whom he will and what he alwayes doth is without all injustice sometimes permitting that the people shall elevate to the Throne those who never pretended to such a high degree But when such an accident happeneth it is usually in favour to those extraordinary persons in whom Virtue hath imprest a Royal Character so visible that it were almost injustice not to admit them Kings To conclude that which precedes and that which follows ought to be sufficient to justifie the effect and it became Charles Martel Pepin and Charlemain puissantly to erect a Throne which was not founded upon a line of right succession yet even in this re-encounter you will see the event to this present hath not authorized your design The Engine of this enterprize hath been slain in battail The Arch-Bishop of Rhemes preserved not his life but three dayes after he had anointed the Usurper But it is not seasonable to day to exaggerate the injustice of your proceedings I am not willing to particularize other things and I shall satisfie my self with telling you in general that Kings ought not to lose their Crowns but with their lives and that nothing can dispense Subjects from the respect and loyalty which they owe to their Soveraigns nor any pretence whatsoever Authorize Treason and Rebellion If sacred persons may not enjoy their particular priviledge which is derived from none but God they shall be exposed more then others to all sorts of miseries Their guards will appear to them instead of enemies their Thrones will rather seem a direful precipice then a place of honour and safety a King of this kind is no better then an illustrious slave when he shall have as many Masters as Subjects This first disorder will quickly cause a second for when the Nobles of a Kingdom fail in their duty to their Prince their own Vassals and Tenants will forfeit their fealtie to them and then Rebellion communicated from the Grandees to the Commons and so descending from one Soul to another an universal confusion swells and devours all Every one will command and no person obey and in this resentment of Levelling equality each person proves a slave to his own ambition no one either rationally Commands himself or others In effect this is the most sad condition that a Kingdom can fall into when there is no subjection and where for their punishment the Prince hath not force to reduce the people to their obedience For mine own part when I consider my self to be the Son of a King the successour of so many Kings and yet notwithstanding that I immediately succeed not my Father This Idea imprints in me a strange confusion as towards you and an extream grief as towards my self for when I reflect how the same Subjects who inchained Charles in Fetters and gave the Crown to Robert placed Lewis on the Throne the malice which they bore to the Father may it not easily fall upon the Son and may not they fear that the Son will revenge the outrages committed against the Father but yet may some one say those who have searcht after you and pass'd the Seas to present you with a Scepter they need not fear that the memory of their ancient injustice will obliege you to punish them They have reason rather to believe that this submission should blot out the memory of the first disservice It is certain in the exact Rule of justice no noble Action ought to pass without his recompence and it is really as true That no crime ought to escape without his punishment After all these reasons what ought you not to fear and what not to hope you have recalled me to the Throne 't is true but if you had not had you not been as Criminal against Lewis as you had been against Charles he who gives to another that which he hath taken from him restores without doubt that which he hath taken but his restoration is not a free present and he ought not to expect thanks for an Action of that nature No it sufficeth of one punish not the first without intending any recompence for the second I may say also that you understand not rightly all my present concernments for why because you have not left me still in exile because you have rendred what justly appertained to me Because you understood that I came to re-demand mine own not with a powerful Army and being tired with your crimes and miseries you believe you may probably disarm the furie of Heaven by this Act of justice No no confide not in any of these pretences for if I had not stronger considerations then these I should commence my Reign with the punishment of your treasons I should send them to prison who restrained the person of my Father expose them to the most cruel tortures who contrived and caused his death with the greatness of his misfortunes Those black crimes are such which nothing can exterminate Repentance and tears from common errours where humane frailty may plead excuse and not for Traitors and Rebels nor for those who have destroyed Thrones and Scepters inchaind Kings created and protected Tyrants Think not then that by taking an Oath of fidelity which is your dutie that I am thereby ingaged not to doe what becomes a King No I scorn a Throne where I should be a slave and I had rather be obscured in prison as my Father was then not to Reign as Soveraign Those people with whom Loyalty is elective forbear not to make their Kings absolute because they could have no pretence of Iustice to do otherwise judge then if those who hold their Crowns from Heaven ought to acknowledge their subjects for their Masters whether they ought not rather to punish or pardon as best agreeth with their