following Nor were their Councils now less violent punishing some of their own Members by expelling them the House and persecuting several of the Judges and others faithful to the King Nor did this suffice For they not only voted but past a Bill which they called An Act to aisable the Duke of York from inheriting the Imperial Crown of England and Ireland and all the Territories thereunto belonging But it went no further for being carried up to the Peers by the Lord Russel after a second reading it was thrown out of the House After this Dec. 17. the Lord Viscount Stafford was brought to his Tryal being prosecuted by the Commons upon the Testimonies of Oates Turberville and Dugdale and condemned by the Suffrages of the Peers was beheaded Not were the Commoners thus satisfied They press the Bill of Exclusion a-new and demand Permission for the Protestants to associate themselves for security of the Protestant Religion They declare all other Remedies in sufficient and obnoxious to Dangers And that therefore they could give the King no Supply without Danger to his Person Hazard to the Protestant Religion and Vnfaithfulness to those by whom they were trusted Nay they required That the Lords Hallifax Worcester Clarendon Rochester and Feversham should be removed from all Offices of Honour and Profit and from his Councils and Presence for ever And with the same Breath with unheard of as well Fury as Arrogance Vote That whosoever shall lend or cause to be lent by way of Advance any Money upon the. Branches of the King's Revenue arising by Custom Excise or Hearth-Money should be adjudged to hinder the sitting of Parliaments and should be responsible for the same And when they perceived that the King wearied with such monstrous Insolence designed to Prorogue their Session they had 〈◊〉 vote and denounce That whosoever advised the King to prorogue that Parliament to any other purpose than in order to the passing the Bill of Exclusion should be lookt upon as a Betrayer of the King the Protestant Religion and the Kingdom of England a Promoter of the French Interest and a Pensioner of France But Mar. 24. the Parliament being however Prorogued and then Dissolved by Proclamation the King intimated his pleasure to call another which should convene in March following at Oxford as a place less Subject to Faction and Tumults Which so stung the Common Council of London and such Peers as were emancipated to the Party that they endeavoured by Petitions to divert his Majesty from thoughts of so remote a Design upon imaginary reason of Danger and Unfitness praying it might therefore sit at Westminster But to no purpose So that the Parliament met at Oxford composed for the most part of the same Delegates The major Part of the Deputies as also the Fanatick Lords depending upon their numerous Attendants and Friends which they were accompanyed with drove on futiously and neglecting the King's Admonitions who had declared That as he had resolved never to use Arbitrary Government himself so he was resolved never to suffer it in others rage with more Fierceness against the Duke and press the Bill of Exclusion with so much Violence that the King putting a stop to their career immediately dissolved them And it was time seeing they designed not only to retrench his Prerogative but also to seize his Person Upon that Accompt Rouse Hains White College and the Earl of Shaftsbury were committed to Prison Of those College and Shaftsbury were brought to their Tryals But in vain being acquitted by their Juries against the Testimonies and Evidences of irreproachable Witnesses Which was no Wonder the very Coâ—rts of Justice being enslaved to the Faction and acted by their Prescripts So that the King who himself was religious in the equal Distribution of Justice to all Men could not obtain Justice for himself But College being brought before another Tribunal less subjected to the Authority of the Faction received such Punishment as his Treason deserved He had no less offended at Oxford than at London and was try'd and executed there The Fellow was of the Lees of the Rabble a Joyner by Trade vain restless inquisitive and perpetually busie in Affairs that least concerned him But Shaftsbury's Fortune was better who eluding the Publick Justice by a Jury addicted to himself and the Faction and retorting the Danger upon his Accusers triumphed whilst they hardly escaped the Fury of the Rabble And 't was no wonder for this destructive Faction was so prevalent in the City that it had infatuated the People and the Companies of Tradesmen with a reverent Opinion of their Sanctity And spreading wider the Contagion had diffused it self into most of the Provinces of the Kingdom And now all such whose Crimes had rendered them Guilty or Indigence bold such whose Zeal made furious or Ambition lofty joyned themselves to them The same Pretences of Liberty Property and Religion and the same Methods wherewith the Reign of Charles the Martyr had been involved in Blood and Confusion were now again made use of mostly by the same Men cunning restless and implacable to seduce weak and irresolute Persons as also to disturb that Peace which we hitherto enjoyed to the Envy of all Europe By such Instruments the mildest of Governments was branded with the Name of Tyranny The Church of England is traduced and the faithfullest Ministers and Servants to the King and Crown calumniated with Male Administration In the mean Time Schism and Sedition are every where promoted Jealousies and vain Terrors are suggested proditorious Discourses and infamous Libels are scattered about and things abhorring from Christianity are dayly exercised under the genuine Veil of Protestantism Finally the old Opinions and Doctrines of the Democraticks so ruinous to Monarchy are now again countenanced and asserted with the same Fierceness and Confidence as they had been in the late Rebellion With these pickeerings of Rebellion they gradually proceeded to Action Parties are distinguished Names and Signs of Separation are distributed Unlawful Conventicles in despite of the Laws are patronised Tumultuous Banquets and factious Clubs are every where set up Clandestine and seditious Assemblies are frequented Unusual Quantities of Arms are bought up by private Men. Insolent Progresses are made through the Country to the End they might shew how numerous they were spread their Terror about as they moved discover their Party and demonstrate their readiness upon all Occasions Nor were these Caballings unknown to the King who when he saw his Clemency so highly abused by those whom he had pardoned yet greater Offences resolved to chastise them and oppose the severity of Law to their Extravagancies In the Two preceding Years Two Favourers of the Faction being Lord Mayors by Turn had promoted turbulent Fellows to the Magistracy and chief Employments in the City Of these the Two Sheriffs were chief who directed the choice of Jury's at pleasure which gave the licentious Liberty to offend For what durst they not attempt who were
been kept thus long by the Parliament to awe the King and now sufficiently Burthensom to the Kingdom the Parliament having served their Turn of them were to be sent Home The Scots dismissed and are now dismissed having exacted by Contibutions Rapines Spoils Gratuities and Stipend above a Million of Money from the English and their Representatives Posterity will certainly blush when they shall consider the inglorious Actions of their Predecessors in receiving and treating the rebellious and invading Scots as Friends which makes it manifest that their Coming was an Invitation not Invasion Nor would our grave Senators have honoured them with the Title of Dear Brethren or procured an Order to declare them faithful and loyal Subjects having been proclaimed Rebels by the King and that in all the Churches and Chapels upon a Thanksgiving day nor have contributed so largely to their Subsistance but that they had conspired with them and propogated their Councils by the same manner of rebelling For it would have cost less in Money and Honour to have forced them as Enemies out of our Borders than to retain them in England by a sordid Compliance as Friends By allowing them Quarters they impose a Burthen upon the Country which they ease by a Taxation upon the Subject But their Design had always been to keep the. Treasury low and involve the King in Debts which should necessitate him to agree with the Parliament for the ruining of Strafford the Extirpation of Episcopacy and the perpetuating of their own Session About this Time the Armies in England and Ireland were Disbanded the Noise of War ceasing with their Dismission But lest the Irish who had been raised against the Scots to the Number of Eight Thousand should attempt any Commotions the King had given leave to the Spanish and French Ambassadors to transport them for their Masters Service But that was opposed by the Parliament upon the earnest pressing of the Irish Commissioners who having now removed Strafford resolved to add to that Rebellion they had Designed by the Accession of those Common Souldiers The King goes into Scotland The King followed his Countrymen into Scotland where he not only confirmed the Concessions they had extorted in England but graciously conferred upon them whatsoever they demanded of him not considering that degenerate and ungrateful Persons are not to be obliged with any Favours whatsoever Nor was it in England only Oct. 23. 1641. The Irish Rebellion that Discord had displayed her Arts of Faction and Tumult The Irish following the detestable Example of the Scots who had attained by Arms what their Ambition had designed outwent them only in this That they Rebelled more bloodily 'T is strange with what industry so universal and so nefarious a Conspiracy was concealed which was scarce discovered but with the inhumane Slaughter of an Hundred Thousand Persons And it is scarce conceivable that those who were at the Helm of Government should be so negligent or supine as to suffer a Plot of this horrid Nature to gather to a Head and break out to the Infection of the whole Body Politick without any the least Discovery or penetrating into it Especially seeing his Majesty whose Eye was still awake for the Preservation of his People Mar. 16. had Cautioned the Lords Chief-Justices Parsons and Burlace of some dangerous Designs in agitation in Ireland and that Six Months before this fatal Eruption which His Majesty also signified to them he had been acquainted with from his Ambassadors and Agents in Foreign Courts Nor was the Information of Sir William Cole who certified them Twelve Days before it broke out of unusual Resorts and Concourses of suspicious Persons amongst themselves so despicable but that it ought to have been inquired into and such Means and Preparations should in common Prudence have been used as might have checkt any sudden Attempts or Insurrections whatsoever And truly the great Supineness and Security of the English in general did not a little contribute to their Ruine For they could apprehend no Danger considering the perfect Intelligence betwixt them and the Irish cemented by inter-Marriages and all other imaginable Ties of Friendship which seemed the more secure seeing the Catholicks were permitted the private Enjoyment of their Religion and had obtained not onely a considerable Abatement in their Subsidies but many advantageous Redresses from the King's Favour in all their Concerns so that they were at this present in a more flourishing Condition than they had yet enjoyed since their first Subjection In this Security the Irish Army had been disbanded but the Soldiery not disposed of according to the King's Intention and Promises to foreign Embassadors who for want of other Employment proved very assisting to the designed Rebellion by engaging in it But the Irish who had so often and for so many Ages endeavoured to vindicate their Liberty and shake off the heavy Yoke of the English thinking now the Occasion by the Death of Strafford Their Reaesons and the disbanding of the Army he had raised very inviting they eagerly laid hold on it hoping to emancipate themselves from the Slavery they groaned under or at least in Imitation of the Scots acquire by Arms as they had done new Immunities and Privileges But the main thing insisted upon was their Religion which had been derived to them by an immemorial Series of Ancestors and which they always adhered to with inexpressible Bigottry so that observing it to be extreamly persecuted in England and fearing the like Measure at Home it served for the main Pretence of their Rebellion Nor is it absurd to believe but that the Conspirators in England contributed equally to these Tumults as they had done before to the Scottish Commotions since * Clotworthy Pryn Parsons Loftus some of their Party affirmed That the Conversion of the Irish was to be effected with the Sword in one hand and the Bible in the other Ireland could not do well without a Rebellion to the end the Remnant of the Natives might be destroyed They would not leave a Priest in Ireland but extirpate their Superstition and Nation So that it was thought by many that the Irish were forced by the English by these Provocations to take up Arms that they might upon so plausible a pretext be intirely ruined and rooted out as Rebels and Traytors What other Reasons they gave as Oppression Grievances Privileges c. common to all Rebellions may pass as such but that they should pretend to vindicate the King's Prerogative by destroying it is only proper to them and those nefarious Regicides who did so naturally copy them But whatever were the Pretences of the Revolters it is but rational to believe they had never broke out but for the Prospect they had of a Breach which they could not but know from their Committee at London most whereof were Catholicks and many as the Lord Germanston c. prime Actors in the Rebellion betwixt the King and Parliament For they
but fell unlamented by Reason of their Inconstancy Of the Hothams I have made some mention already And of Carew I will add this not unworthy to be noted which happened at the Tryal of the Earl of Strafford Sir Bevil Greenville a Person never to be mentioned but with Honour at the passing the Bill of Attainder said to Sir Alexander sitting then next him and both serving for Cornwall Sir pray let it not be said That any Member of our County should have a Hand in this Ominous Affair and therefore pray vote against this Bill But the other instantly replied If I were sure to be the next Man that should suffer upon the same Scaffold and with the same Axe I would give my Consent to the passing of it And wee have seen how truly and how circumstantially exact he foretold his own Fate Archbishop Laud murthered January 10. William Laud Archbishop of Canterbury followed next more truly lamented of all good Men. They had abolished the Book of Common-Prayer and the Liturgy as Preludes to his Fate and Function But not daring to hazard his Tryal by a Common-Jury for no Law could condemn him nor by the Peers as equally dubious he then was voted Guilty in the Commons House the Lords by an inauspicious Compliance sitting with them The Scots had formerly declared him an Incendiary and a publick Enemy upon which Accompt he had been thus long kept in Prison And now they demand his Life as a grateful Retribution for their Assistance which was also sacrificed to their Ambition and Fears Thus the Covenant betwixt both Nations was to be cemented with Episcopal Blood This Great Pillar of our Church as he had been eminent in his Life for Vertue was no less remarkable at his Death for his Piety He preached his own Funeral Sermon upon the Scaffold and that with a Countenance no less serene than his Mind which he was going to offer up to his Creator and far from that seeming Weakness as he then Prophesied which appeared in him when the Illustrious Strafford going that same way called to him for his Benediction Generous Spirits being no less affected for their Friends Sufferings and sometimes more than their own And thus fell this Good Man and Good Bishop by the nefarious Ambition of Pretended-Reformed Christians We must acknowledge that the Bishops fell by the Envy of the Presbyterians who stirr'd up the People against them as too seemingly imperious Not that they would have their Power abrogated for That they pretended to themselves being resolved to assert that of Archbishops in their National and that of Bishops in their Provincial Synods whilst every Individual Presbyter should exercise more than Prelatick Jurisdiction in his own Classis The publick Severity requiring more Blood the Lord Macquire and Macmahon Two Irish Noblemen Chief Contrivers in the Bloody Conspiracy in Ireland deservedly suffered the Gallows though not proportionable to their abominable Contrivance And yet these especially Macquire had been tampered with to accuse the King as an Abettor in this nefarious Rebellion which he yet generously enough disowned upon his Death Fortune as yet or rather Providence had not decided the Quarrel The War was unhappily prolonged and there appeared some Hopes of composing our Troubles by Treaty and particularly in that of Vxbridge The Treaty of Uxbridge The King as is already mentioned after his routing of Waller at Copredy-bridge and defeating of Essex at Lestithiel had sent Messages to the Parliament with offers of Peace which he now again renews from Oxford no less graciously than affectionately inviting them to comply with him in restoring these harassed Kingdoms to their former Tranquillity But it proved fruitless and all the King's Concessions how indulgent soever could effect nothing For the Demands of the Faction were so high and their Propositions so unreasonable that the King could not assent to them without ruining his Conscience as a Christian and his Majesty as a Prince For these modest Men did require The Extirpation of Hierarchy by the Abolition of Episcopacy and the Liturgy and the Introduction of Presbyters and the Directory in their stead They would divest the King of all his Power both Military and Civil And did press That the Nobles and such as had been true to their Duty should be delivered over to their Justice that is to Death to Imprisonment and Exile Which appeared so Inhumane and Tyrannical that it is abhorring to Sense and Reason whilst these nefarious Conspirators do not think that the King hath done enough in pardoning his Enemies unless he also betray his Friends By this it appeared how inclinable they were to Peace As also by their sudden breaking of the Treaty contrary to the King and his Commissioners Desires they did demonstrate that they were resolved to permit the Decision of the Cause to the Sword and to perpetuate themselves thereby in their Usurped Tyranny Shrewsbury surprized About this Time Major General Mitton surprized Shrewsbury betrayed to him being of very great Detriment to the King Scarborough and Weymouth were also taken which happening presently after the Treaty the Houses ordered a Day of publick Thanksgiving for these great Victories as being Evidences from Heaven of their Sincerity Sir Thomas Middleton had formerly beaten Colonel Marrow from the Siege of Oswestry Nor was he less fortunate at Montgomery He had surprized the Castle by Intelligence which by reason of the Consequence of its Situation being an Entry into North-Wales was again Besieged by the Lord Byron General of those Countries But Middleton with the Assistance of Brereton Meldrum and Sir William Fairfax with their conjoined Forces relieved the Place and after a sharp Fight The Fight at Montgomery routed the Cavaliers Fortune seemed at first to favour the juster Side by forcing away the Enemies Horse but changing the Rebels carried the Day The slain of the Royallists were at least Three Hundred and no fewer wounded though the Enemy scarce lost a Hundred except Fairfax and Symons And now Essex a no less Victory to the Independents as also the Earls of Denbigh Manchester and Warwick and the rest of the Chief Officers lay down their Arms resting Inglorious and only not neglected especially Essex who denied to give Peace to the Kingdom Essex discarded though invited to it by the King himself when it was in his Power And now retiring from Business he languished away the Residue of his Days in Discontent and an irksome Retreat BOOK III. The Continuation of the Irish Rebellion The Lords of the. Pale side with the Rebels Their Model of Government The Cruelty of the English in Ireland Ormond makes first a Cessation then a Peace with the Irish Delivers Dublin to the English The King vindicated from any Correspondence with the Irish Rebels Fairfax marches Westward recalled besieges Oxford The King relieves Chester Takes Leicester The Fatal Battel of Naesby described The King's Cabinet taken and published Fairfax relieves Taunton The
Fight at Langport He takes Bridgwater Sherburne and Bristol The King's Travels and Labours The Scots besiege Hereford They quit it The Fight at Rowton-Heath Digby and Langdale defeated in the North. Barclay-Castle the Devizes and Tiverton taken Cromwell takes Winchester and Basing-House by Assault The Fight at Torrington The Prince passes into France The Lord Hopton disbands his Army Distractions at Newark The King returns to Oxford The Lord Ashley defeated Continuation of the Rebellion in Ireland IT is now time to return to the Irish History we have hitherto discontinued with design not to interrupt the English And shall now take the same Liberty to represent this to the Rendition of Dublin to the English in one continued Relation The King had committed the Government of Ireland to the Earl of Leicester a Favourite of the Faction upon a Supposition that that Kingdom would be the better provided for But he observing the backwardness of the Parliament however pressed by frequent Addresses from the Council there and by reiterated Messages from his Majesty nearer had no mind tho' invited to it and entrusted with it to stir or engage himself in so hazardous an Enterprise He therefore lest he might seem wholly to neglect his Province commissioned the Earl of Ormond a Person made up of Honour and Loyalty to be his Lieutenant General in that Kingdom which was likewise approved of by his Sacred Majesty the best Judge of Men and Abilities and who afterwards Honoured his Merit with the Chief Government of the whole Which he performed with so much Courage Constancy and Prudence as will raise him a Trophy of Honour in the Annals of Time Upon his Arrival at Dublin with a Troop of a Hundred Horse well armed having been summoned thither by the Lords-Justices he revived by his Presence the desponding Courage of the City He also immediately proposed in Council the raising of a small Army which might in the Infancy of the Rebellion have suppress'd or else stopt its Progress but they being either not able or not willing and the Reader may believe both as will too visibly appear hereafter the Business was laid aside The Conspirators especially in Vlster where they were most predominant having with the Extremity of Rage and Cruelty drowned slain spoiled stripp'd and ejected infinite Numbers of the poor Protestants made Sir Phelim O Neal their General He was of the House of Tyrone but bred up in Lincoln's-Inn and a Protestant till of late though indeed of no famed Conduct or Courage However he took Dundalk which was surrendred to him and besieged Tredah by Sea and Land Tichburne the Governour doubtful of the Event had demanded and obtained the Grant of Succours from Dublin Six Hundred Foot were sent to him under the Command of Major Roper with a Convoy of Fifty Horse for their Security But they were surprized in a Mist by the Irish and defeated scarce one Hundred of the Foot escaping to Tredah with the Major though the Horse with Weems their Commander brake through and returned back to Dublin It is not conceivable what Courage this Success then great infused into the wavering Irish Those who were content to look on before became hereupon Actors in this Tragedy Nay The Lords of the Pale join with the Rebels the Lords of the Pale who had hitherto stood upon their Guard now upon the uncontrouled Progress of the Rebels and the no Appearance of any considerable Forces from England the Breach there betwixt the King and Parliament daily wid'ning to oppose them they also contrary to the sacred Vows of Duty and Allegiance forfeited both by joining with their Countrymen Nay all the Provinces in the Kingdom broke out into a detestable Rebellion being instigated thereunto by their Priests and Confessors with the Appearance nay Assurance of Liberty and Heaven Besides they had understood that their Country was to be enslaved and their Estates to be divided amongst the English Adventurers to each proportionable to the Money raised by them for the Use of the War Nay further that they not only designed to suppress the Rebellion but the very Religion of the Rebels They therefore now declare That they fight for their Altars for their Subsistance and for their Lives seeing their Countrymen were denied Quarter in England So that their taking up Arms was no Rebellion their extream Peril unavoidably obliging them to it These and the like Arguments obliged all to run to their Natural Defence so that there was no Corner exempt from this dismal Infection And yet it was not so universal but that some of the principal of the Nobility continued to their great Honour unshaken in their Fidelity to the King nor so bloody but that some Marks of Humanity appeared in the very Actors in this Tragedy who sheltered cloathed fed and delivered very many from the Barbarities of their Associates Which ought not to be silenced without Injustice and Ingratitude The Rebels settle a Form of Government And now the Rebels finding their Strength and Numbers considerable institute a Form of a Common-wealth and choosing amongst themselves a Council of the most eminent Persons of the Party gave it the Title of The Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland and framing an Oath of Association by which all were bound to obey them assumed the Form of a Regular Government This Senate consisted of Five and Twenty Six out of each Province the Twenty Fifth being Castle-Haven newly escaped from Dublin where he had continued a Prisoner a great while They also made them a Great Seal coined and raised Money erected several Courts of Judicature appointed several Officers of State and amongst other Points of Regality constituted Four Generals of the Four Provinces Preston for Lemster Barry Munster Owen Roe O Neal Vlster Burk Their Four Generals Conaught They had cleared most of the Inland Countries of the English and did really bear all before them until those few English sent over joining with the Protestants at Dublin put a stop to their Carier In the mean Time they put out their Remonstrance where amongst other things they declare That they had taken up Arms for Defence of the Roman-Catholick-Religion their own Rights and Privileges and the King's Prerogative c. exactly copied afterwards by the Rebel-Parliament in England The Irish had hitherto lived in Amity with the Scots apprehending the Neighbourhood of Scotland and lest they should buckle with Two Enemies at once but finding their Power grow they also fell upon their Quarters using them with no less infamous Barbarities than they had done the English But the Siege of Tredah went but slowly on for tho' they practise all the Arts of Force and Intelligence in the assaulting of it They raise the Siege of Tredah yet upon the Arrival of Sir Simon Harcourt with a strong Regiment out of England despairing of carrying it they quitted it notwithout considerable Loss For the Governour falling in his Rear
were taken of the Royallists near Five Thousand and Six Hundred supposed to be slain The Baggage Cannon Eight Thousand Arms and the vast Spoils of the Field fell into the Enemies Hands Six Colonels a Hundred and Four Inferiour Officers and Two Hundred Colours were taken by them at present and afterward the Supreme Power as a Dependence upon their Victory for The Royallists being entirely broken lost at the same time all possibility of renewing the War The King's Cabinet taken and published with malicious Annotations The Rebels took amongst other Spoils of the Field for the opprobrious Actions of their Triumph must be also told the King's Cabinet with his Letters which he had writ to the Queen and other particular Friends These they caused to be printed with most malicious Annotations It was a common thing for these impure Barbarians to calumniate the King and to worry his Reputation who preferred his Honour before his Scepters with Pasquils and infamous Reflections But these Epistles effected the contrary as being writ with Ingenuity with Candor and a Majestick Style Besides the pretended Parliament was justly blamed for divulging the Secrets betwixt Husband and Wife against the Laws of Modesty and Humanity and that by a Brutality that Infidels would blush at The Casualties of humane Affairs are so various and changeable that they no less surprize us than move our Admiration And here we have a lively Representation of their Incertainties The Royallists disappointed in their vast Hopes are now necessitated to endeavour their own Security not attempt upon others The Field at Naesby being lost they fled to Liecester where depositing their sick and hurt Men the King went to Ashby-de-la-Zouch that Evening And hearing of the Enemies Advance left it about Midnight and hasted to Liechfield and thence into Wales to Hereford a Place of more Safety for the present where by the Assistance of the Neighbouring Counties he might raise Foot which he mainly wanted and which were in some Measure furnish'd to him by draining of the Garrisons in his Obedience and the Accession of a Thousand Foot and some Horse sent him by Gerard from the Siege of Pembrook Langdale fled as is said to Newark and 't was wonder'd he escaped Gell then marching with Two Thousand Horse from Nottingham to Leicester Fairfax in Pursuit of his Victory followed the Royallists close and laying Siege to Leicester takes it without any considerable Opposition Here it was sometime disputed Whether they should follow the King to hinder and obstruct his Levies or hasten to the Relief of Taunton reduced well-nigh to the last Extremity Both press'd and therefore in order to either he marched with his Army through Warwickshire toward the Severn in Expectation of Orders from his Superiours but upon receiving some Letters intercepted from Goring to the King the latter was preferred especially the Scots being advanced as far as Nottingham in order to their March towards Worcester and Wales to disturb the King 's Recruits A cunning Fellow upon raising of the Siege before Oxford stole into the Town some time before and told the Secretary Sir Edward Nicholas somewhat of the King's Progress as also of the designed Removal of the Camp and Siege which gained him so much Credit that he was employed though with seeming Reluctancy into the West At Bath he met with the Prince our since glorious Monarch who richly rewarding him sent him further to Goring lying before Taunton Fairfax marches to the Relief of Taunton who also speedily returned him to the King with Assurance that in Three Weeks he should take Taunton and his Majesty be Master of the West humbly advising him by no means to engage till he had joined him with his Army But this suborned Villain being an Agent of Watson's the Scout-Master General brought these Letters to Fairfax which if the King had received 't is more than probable that his Majesty had declined fighting when he did Fairfax quickned with this Advice and lest Goring might still join his Forces with the King 's whose Horse were almost entire and so renew the War receiving also Orders from the pretended Parliament and the Committee of both Kingdoms to hasten his March into the West with all Expedition he moved accordingly He took High Worth in his Way and dispersing the Club-Men who pretended to be Neuters and only up in their own Defence advancing with all Diligence the Siege seemed to be raised by the Fame of his coming Goring was not ignorant of Fairfax's Motion and therefore removes from the Siege with a tumultuous Retreat supposing that the besieged transported with the Joy of their Deliverance would sally out upon him which they did with much Confidence But the Royallists turning upon them beat them back with considerable Loss and shut them up closer than before But this last Restraint was of no long Duration for Fairfax approaching indeed the Besiegers drew off in good earnest and marched toward Langport with design to join the Horse they expected from the King They at first encamped at Sutton having broke the Bridges of that River guarding the Avenues and Fords of it that the Enemy might not pass to them But the Rebels having forced the Passage at Evil and repaired the Bridge they got over with all their Forces And thus Taunton now again upon the point of being forced was delivered having been bravely defended in both Sieges by Colonel Blake the Governour who will also signalize himself hereafter at Sea for Courage worthy to be transmitted to Posterity if he had not sullied it by employing it against his own Prince Colonel Massey was sent with Four Thousand Horse and some Regiments of Foot to disturb General Goring's Rear which he did being also well received Fairfax followed with the Rest of his Army and drawing up upon a Hill near Langport saw the Enemies Horse in Battalia upon another opposite to him being marched out of Town to defend a Passage which hindred Massey to join with the Fairfaxians The Rebels made a sound Charge upon the said Avenues and after a brave Resistance forced the Royallists out of the Hedges and their Horse charging vigorously into the Lane Langport Fight were as vigorously repelled until being seconded with Reserves of Horse and Foot their Cannon also having done much Dammage amongst our Cavalry they forced the Passage the Royallists in their Retreat setting the Town on Fire In this Fight and Rout for the Enemy pursued within Two Miles of Bridgewater there were not slain above Four Hundred on both Sides but near two Thousand of the Royallists taken a Thousand Horses Twenty Foot Colours One and Thirty Cornets Two Guns and all the Baggage Lieutenant General Porter and Fifty other Officers were numbred amongst the Prisoners The loss on the Rebels Side was very inconsiderable only Two Captains one Lieutenant and Fifty private Souldiers Bethel and Cook with some others of the forwardest being wounded Fairfax did not pursue the Run-aways being
the City with his Troops whilst he himself followed with the main Army in order to a formal Siege This obliged the King to think of a Retreat He had attempted all ways of Peace and invited those barbarous Tyrants at Westminster to it though neglected by near Twenty Messages They refused a Pass for the Duke of Lenox with Propositions though the King had in vain conjured their Assent they being then as they said themselves upon others to be sent to his Majesty They also flatly refuse the Scots Commissioners who pressed for a Treaty pretending to great interruption in their Affairs by the delays and difficulties the joint Councils of both Kingdoms produced And therefore vote That the King's Answer shall be desired to their Propositions without Treaty And being indeed weary of the Scots they also voted That they do intend to carry on the War of Ireland with the Forces of England and that the Scots Forces should be called away The Parliament design to gratifie their Grandees In their Debate about the Propositions to be sent the King they think it time to gratifie their Grandees and in order to it Vote That Sir Thomas Fairfax be made a Baron with Five Thousand Pound per Annum settled upon him and that his Father be made an Earl Cromwel a Baron and two Thousand five Hundred Pound per Annum Northumberland Essex Warwick Pembroke Dukes Salisbury Manchester Marquesses Roberts Say Willouby of Taram Wharton Howard Earls Sir William Waller a Baron Hazelrigg Stapelton Barons each Two Thousand Pound per An. Vane a Baron Brown fifteen hundred Pounds per An. and Skippon a Thousand Pound Thus they were dividing the spoil whilst the good King offered provided they would suffer his Friends to live securely at home whatever the most nefarious of Criminals could desire to wit An Act of Oblivion for what is past the Fruition of all they had acquired Accession to Offices and Dignities And because they might have no colour or pretence for Jealousies and Suspicions he would immediately disband all his Forces and would not only return to his Parliament but also ratifie whatever they should judge necessary for restoring his afflicted Kingdoms to their former Tranquillity But all this was absolutely refused by these modest Men who at length laying the Veil of Hypocrisie aside did not blush to declare to the whole World That there was nothing less in their thoughts than what they had so often solemnly declared promised protested vowed and sworn to perform which was To rescue the King out of the hands of Evil Counsellors and to bring him back to his Parliament Nay now they take care by Proclamation that he shall not come and command their Militia-Officers in case he attempted it to secure his Person and detain all his followers Prisoners The King perceiving himself in such unusuall streights this potent Monarch of three Kingdoms and sometimes Supream Arbitrator of Peace and War knows not now where to lay his Head Heu faciles dare summa Deos eademque tueri Difficiles He therefore reassumes his Thoughts of a Retreat Being rejected by the Parliament The King leaves Oxford and goes to the Scots Army he had a design to throw himself into the Arms of the Army but being refused by these also he puts himself into disguise And accompanied only with two Attendants Ashburnham of his Bed-Chamber and Hudson a Divine he left Oxford and conveyed himself to the Scots Army then at the Siege of Newark Monsieur Montrueil the French Resident then in the Scotch Camp had stipulated for security and equitable conditions for his Majesty who upon that confidence and the assurance he had entertained of his Countrymen's Loyalty as he wrote to the Marquess of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he cast himself into their Protection May 1646. Some thought he was gone into Wales still true however oppressed to his Interests Others that he was withdrawn into Scotland to the renowned Montross and not a few were of opinion that he was conceal'd in the City Which the Parliament so far believed that they declared by beat of Drum and sound of Trumpet That what Person soever shall harbour or conceal or know of the harbouring or concealing of the King's Person and shall not reveal it immediately to the Speakers of both Houses shall be proceeded against as a Traytor to the Commonwealth forfeit his Estate and die without Mercy A while after contrary to the opinion of all Men he was rumoured to be in the Scottish Camp which was also signified to the Grandees at Westminster by the Commander in chief of the Scots Army The pretended Parliament as soon as they were informed of the King's Departure and were assured of his being in the Scotch Army desire and require of the Scotch Commissioners at London and of the Scots General in the Camp That they would deliver his Majesty into their Hands to be secured in Windsor-Castle until the Parliament should otherwise dispose of him Moreover they barbarously Vote That the King by going to the Scots Army He goes with the Army to Newcastle did prolong the War against the Parliament and foment the Discord betwixt the Two Nations But the Scots not ignorant of the value of their purchase gave no Ear to their Dear Brethren but breaking up with their Army a Rumour being spread that Cromwell was advancing towards them with all his Horse marched in haste to Newcastle with the King affirming That as his Majesty came to their Camp of his own Accord so he followed it with the same Liberty the Army neither perswading nor opposing him And this was a place garrisoned with their own Soldiery and near the Confines of their own Country The Royallists being as is related shut up in their Fortresses and languishing with the despair of Relief some of them taking occasion from their adverse Fortune surrender'd upon demand Whilst others defended themselves till they were forced as Col. Stanhop at Shelford or famished out as the Heroick Countess of Darby at Lathome-House which she had kept two Years against all the Insults of the Rebels But the Fate of Hereford was more dismal which having baffled and beat the Scots from her Walls was not able to prevent the surprizal of a less considerable Enemy The Colonels Morgan and Birch with Two Thousand Men drawn out of Gloucester and other neighbouring Garrisons by the favour of an obscure Night and a quick March accomplished the Enterprize For having sent Six choice Souldiers with a Lieutenant who pretended to be a Constable all in Country-Habits Hereford miserably surprized early to the Gate the said fictitious Constable calling to the Guard told them That he was come thither with his Men according to the Governour 's Command to break the Ice in the Moat expecting only till the Bridge was let down Being admitted with their Rural Instruments which they carried for show they immediately making use of the Arms they had under their
the Method and Formalities of their Proceedings rejected the Opinions of such who would have the King first deposed and then put to Death as dangerous by its delay and savouring of Popery But those who gaped after the Government the Democratick would have the King tryed as King that by the Effusion of his Blood as such they might extinguish Majesty and destroy Monarchy it self For several of them confessed That Charles his only Crime was his being King and that the Eminency of his Vertues together with his Right of Succession rendered him uncapable of being a Private Man They therefore having first by their Serjeant at Arms with sound of Trumpets cited such profligate Witnesses as they could get the stress of whose Depositions was That they had seen the King in Arms at several Battles and Encounters Having also the same Day voted the making of a New Great Seal because of the incongruity of using the King 's against himself those Sanguinary Judges met in Weminster-Hall at the End whereof they caused a Theater to be erected on which they acted the ensuing Tragedy of Horror and Blood John Bradshaw the Shame of the Long Robe and only known by this horrid Fact the impudent President of this execrable Court commanded the King to be brought before them where he was accused of all the Blood-shed in the late Wars The King is arraigned with the injurious Terms of Tyrant Traytor and Murtherer and required to give his Answer to the Charge The King with an inimitable presence of Mind and a Fortitude truly Royal slighting what he had heard instead of an Answer demands of these Novel Judges By what Authority he was brought thither Adding he knew very well that there were many unlawful Authorities as those of Thieves and Robbers He bid them remember he was their King and would know by what lawful Authority he was seated there and he would answer In the mean time he would not betray his Trust derived to him from God by old and lawful Descent The President replied That he was brought thither by Authority of the People of England by whom he was elected King His Majesty denied this affirming the Kingdom of England never to have been Elective but Hereditary for near a Thousand Years He stood more for the Liberties of his People than any there and therefore desired to know by what lawful Authority he was brought thither and he would answer otherwise not But the President often interrupting the King and chattering the same Tune of the Peoples Authority His Majesty said That no body did more esteem a House of Commons rightly constituted than himself He saw no House of Lords that might with the King constitute a Parliament Was this the bringing of the King to his Parliament Is this the bringing an End to the Treaty in the Publick Faith of the World Let him see a Legal Anthority warranted by the Word of God the Scriptures or Constitutions of the Kingdom and he would instantly answer But the President urging that unless he would answer the Court would consider how to proceed His Majesty replied That unless they would satisfie God and the Country concerning the Premises he would not betray his Trust and the Peoples Liberty For he did avow That it was as great a Sin to withstand lawful Authority as it was to submit to a Tyrannical or any other ways unlawful Authority He was not afraid of their Bill And this was the Sum of the first Days Convention Two Days after the King the Best of Princes was again brought before these Worst of Rebels his Judges Where the President upon the Solicitor's Motion requires his Positive Answer again or else the Charge may be taken pro Confesso He added That this Court was fully satisfied with their Authority which he also ought to acquiesce in and therefore they yet again required his particular Answer by confessing or denying it If the later Witnesses were at hand in behalf of the Nation to make good the Charge against him To this the King said If it were his own particular Case he would have satisfied himself with the Protestation he had made against the Legality of the Court and by demonstrating that the King of England cannot be tryed by any Superiour Jurisdiction upon Earth But it not being his Case alone but the Freedom and Property of the People he must stand for their Liberties For if an illegitimate Power might make and break the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom at Pleasure no Man could be secure of his Life or Goods He did expect Reasons to know by what Law what Authority they did proceed against him but hearing none he would produce his with as much brevity as he could But he was interrupted here the President telling him They must suffer no arguing concerning the Authority of the Court nor hear any Reasoning against it The Votes of the Commons in Parliament were the Reason of the Kingdom not to be questioned by any to which also he and his Predecessors were always obnoxions and responsible This being denyed by the King he further denyed That the Commons of England were ever a Court of Judicature Which vext the President to that Degree that he told him That he was not to be permitted to go on in that Speech and those Discourses and if he would not Answer he should be recorded as contumacious Hereupon the King desired That his Reasons at least might be heard but was answered That his Reasons were not to be heard against the highest Jurisdiction Whereunto the King returned That they should shew that Jurisdiction that would not hear Reason To which the President replied That they shewed it him there and that the next time he should know more of their Pleasure perhaps their final Determination Commanding withal That they should take the Prisoner away Who bid them remember That the King was not suffered to give his Reasons for the Liberty and Freedom of the People The next Day the King being brought now the Third time before this nefarious Tribunal continued with the same Constancy as at first to deny the Authority of the same And being insulted upon by the President was required at length to submit and that with Threats That although he would not understand it he should find that he was before a Court of Justice which knew no respect of Persons But the King replied As for the Charge he did not value it a Rush it was the Liberty of the People he stood for and therefore he neither would nor could being a King acknowledge a new and unheard of Court against their Priviledges and the Fundamental Laws of the Land The Prefident hereupon subjoyned That the King had now denied the Authority of the Court Three times contemning the Dignity thereof Adding That his Actions Writ in bloody Characters throughout the Kingdom did sufficiently demonstrate how far he had preserved the Priviledges of the People The King had designed to deliver his Reasons
Prince of Wales made an Act prohibiting the proclaiming of the Prince of Wales without consent of Parliament and that under pain of High Treason This Decree being dispatched by swift Messengers into all Counties the High Sheriffs had likewise Orders sent them to see the same publisht with all Expedition which was likewise done Their next care was to disable the Secluded Members from being admitted to sit for the future which was performed by voting them quite out of the House as desiring no more sharers in their Oligarchy The House of Lords came next under consideration These had sent a Message to the Commons for a Committee to settle the Kingdom which upon no great Debate was refused Admittance They abolish the House of Lords and a Vote pass'd that the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous and ought to be abolished and consequently was laid aside being the less pittyed because they had so unnaturally abandoned their Sovereign Only they had this Comfort left that they might sit in the Lower House if they had the luck to be elected which some did as Pembrooke Salisbury Escreek This is in no wise mentioned to reflect upon those honoured Peers who attended the King in all his Fortunes those we honour for their eminent Courage and Loyalty but upon that hated Juncto that continued their Session even to this Moment And yet they will not separate without a Protestation against these Tyrannical Proceedings of the Commoners affirming And Monarchical Government their Treason and Insolencies exceeded those of the Malignants that is the Loyal Party And now the Kingly Government was likewise abolished under pretence that it was chargeable useless and dangerous And that Monarchy which had continued from the Beginning of Times changed into a detestable and many-headed Tyranny under the Chymerical Title of a Free State This being done the Pseudo-Parliament for they still abused the reverend Title of Parliament by assurning it as most grateful to the People to ease themselves of part of the Government choose a Councel of State upon which they transfer the Execution Part of the same Choose a Council of State These were Forty in Number chief Officers of the Army and other principal Sticklers of the party sufficiently infamous in their own Persons tho they had not chosen that execrable Parricide Bradshaw for their President whom they also gratify with the Donation of 2000 l. per Annum The City seemed all this while uneasie which put our Usurpers upon diminishing their Greatness which they did Reynoldson the Lord Mayor had refused to publish their Act for abolishing Monarchy which enraged them to that Height that they cast him into the Tower fine him 2000 l. and also put him from his Employment electing Alderman Andrews Displace and fine the Lord Mayor for refusing to proclaim the Act for abolishing Kingly Government one of the Regicides in his place They further empower any Ten of the Common Council which was modelled to their Design by new choice of young needy enthusiastick Fellows in stead of the grave and wealthy Citizens whom they had elected to convent this City-Senate where they pleased tho the Lord Mayor should not consent to it But as they had displeased some they would content others especially the Populace which they did by rescinding the old Laws against Heresy and Schism which opening a vast Door to Libertinism procured them very many Proselytes Abrogate Laws against Schism and Hereâ—y This Religious Indulgence in opinions strangely distracted the Common-wealth insomuch that they burst out into infinite Errors and Schisms being mainly animated by the Hystrionick preaching of their Itinerant Teachers industriously displaying the Doctrine of the Democraticks and holding forth a Liberty in Holy Things But upon more serious consideration lest these Concessions of Liberty might terminate in Confusion it was thought fit at least seemingly to countenance Presbytery as most popular but with a strict inhibition For these busy Ministers were curbed by an Act wherein according to the method of the Low Countries they were forbid under severe Penalties to meddle with any Affairs of State They moreover endeavour Allow of Presbytery to draw these Dissenters to their Fold promising generally to all their Preachers Settlements out of the Kings Revenue Nay further they tell these that differing from the King in Civil Interest puts them at a greater Distance from him than any Contests about Religion could do They add that the Presbyterians first raised War against him subdued him and delivered him to the Independants to be put to Death That his Successor therefore would consider them as equally noxious and criminal and therefore insinuate that they ought in Prudence for their own preservation to joyn with them in their common Defence Declare they will maintain he Fundamental Laws However they will flatter the People by declaring that they were fully resolved to maintain the Fundamental Laws of the Nation as to the preservation of the Lives Liberties and Properties of the Subject saving those Alterations concerning the King and House of Lords already made And yet at this very time they levyed Taxes by Souldiers permitting them free Quarters and contrary to all Laws erect a pretended High Court of Justice with the same bloody President But erect a High Court of Justice who being gorged with Royal Blood would not stick at any other Sacrifice how Sanguineous soever And now as they had subverted Monarchy the most excellent Form of Government by murthering their Prince so they will lay the Foundation of their new Republick in the Blood of his Nobles Hamilton Holland and Capel condemned and murthered by iâ— Duke Hamilton by the Title of Earl of Cambridge was the first that ascended this Fatal Tribunal of whom it was doubted whether his Ambition or Infidelity were greater The Earl of Holland the most ungrateful of Men followed him yet both deserving our Sentiments of Pity in this that when they would have been good they could not Both had pleaded Quarter but in vain tho Hamilton had offered vast Sums for his Ransom and Holland urged the many Sâ—â—vices he had formerly done for the Parliament The generous Lord Capell was the third in this Scene of Blood involved in the same Fate with the other but lamented with more real Sorrow because of his eminent Loyalty and Vertues He had not been wanting in his defence with those unmerciful Judges who had already resolved his Death chiefly insisting upon the Quarter given at Colchester but to no purpose Fairfax then in Court no less impiously than unsouldierly interpreting that the said Quarter regarded only the Military not the Civil Power His Colleagues had argued much in extenuation of the Crimes objected against them But he being brought to the Scaffold behaving himself with a most Christian Bravery looking upon the People with Assurance told them amongst other Things That he was brought thither for obeying the Fifth Commandment written by
against the King and the Government and Blasphemy against God daring to say That if they were deceived or misled God had deceived them Thus no less wickedly than foolishly charging God with their Fancies and Delusions year 1661 The King having dissolved his First Parliament which he had honoured with the Title of the Healing Parliament had summon'd another 'T is remarkable with what Industry the Presbyterians stickled in the Elections to choose Members of their own Faction Tho to no purpose for the People now freed from the Impostures of the Godly using their own Liberty in giving their Voices and not forgetful of the Tyranny of the Disciplinarians did openly reject them which mainly contributed to the Settlement of the Peace and Religion of the Kingdom So that this Parliament by their endeavours to restore the Commonwealth to its antient Splendor so far irritated those Wasps of Independency and Presbytery that they did dare to buz after a New Change The Champions of the late Anarchy were the principal in this Conspiracy But being detected before they broke out the * Barebone Moyer Salmon c. chief of them being apprehended the design vanished without doing any great harm except to the Contrivers of it year 1662 About the end of this Year the Novellists were again suspected to hatch new Designs which gained Credit so far that the City Train'd-Bands kept extraordinary Guards all the following Summer But the Plot being discovered by the Confession of one of the Actors in it was also expiated by the Execution of Philips Tongue Gibs and Stubs for High-Treason They had conceived a new Form of Government their most secret Councils being actuated by a Juncto of Six Ludlow the Regicide was designed to be their General having devoted the King the Duke and the present Government to Destruction and to surrogate a new Domination of Enthusiasticks in their Place Nor were the Fanaticks deterred with these Severities against so many Criminals The Poyson diffused and the Factions uniting closer amongst themselves contrive how to lay the Foundation of a New War Their Consciences were so exagitated with their former Guilt that their Fear of Punishment obliged them to move in Contempt of the King's Mercy as well as his Justice The executed Regicides were represented to the People as Martyrs and their last Speeches upon the Gallows were obtruded as the Oracles of expiring Saints The Pulpits thundred Curses and Terrors and the Streets crowded with Libels One amongst the rest that magnified the Example of Ehud who kill'd the King of Moab by Surprise was timely supprest as it was peeping Abroad year 1663. May 21. The unquiet Faction were still acting or contriving and now they lay the Scene further off They designed to intercept the Castle of Dublin together with the Lord Lieutenant the Duke of Ormond in the Desguise of Labourers whilst others were appointed to seize the Tower of London and White-Hall and others again to surprise the Passages of the Severne Trent and Tine by possessing themselves of Nottingham Gloucester and New-Castle All the Rable of Sectaries were engaged in this Conspiracy some of Cromwell's Old Souldiers as also the Assertors of the Long Parliament how dissenting soever amongst themselves yet agreeing like Herod and Pilate to ruin the Government and crucify the Lord 's Anointed But this as the rest of their Conspiracies vanisht in Smoke Fifteen of them confronted and convicted of this Black Treason being executed some at Leeds in York shire some at York who dyed not only in their Impenitency but with strange contempt of Death it self London the Old Forge of Rebellion had also its Pseudo-Martyrs a Printer being hanged for publishing Seditious Pasquils and others Pillory'd for the same Crimes Preludes to the designed Attempts of these bold Enthusiasticks year 1664 And yet they continue their Endeavours by false Rumors to separate the King from his Friends and by the same Arts more strictly to unite theirs amongst themselves They would begin a New Rebellion by the intercepting of Carlile In order to which some of them met at Kirby-Stevens but being fewer in Number than were expected they again dispersed themselves Three only being taken who having been also engaged in the former Conspiracy were executed as Travtors at Appelby Their Names were Waller Weatherhead and Petty fit to be inserted in the Martyrology of these Perjur'd Saints In the following Years these Domestick Evils broke out with new Violence taking rise from our Distractions occasioned by the War with the Dutch and the Plague raging amongst us to which it may be presumed the Negligence of our Inferiour Magistrates did so much contribute The Sword the Pestilence and Fire which well-nigh consumed the City as if they mockt at the publick Calamities were made use of to enrage the very Madness of the People exagitating their Consternations with fictitious Stories and Prophesies and not obscurely pointing at our Chief Magistrates and Governours as the Authors and Causes of all these Calamities This subtile and contagious Spirit of Rebellion creeping into the Minds of Men did at length infect with its Poison the very Parliament it self which will too evidently appear by the Sequel In the mean time Eight of the late Vsurper's Veteranes were hanged at Tyburn for contriving to murther the King and subvert the Common-wealth One Alexander furnished these Wretches with Money and Advice for the carrying on of their Wickedness but they deferred the executing of their Designs till the Third of December following for having erected a Scheme they fancied that would be a Fortunate Day a Planet averse to Monarchy being then predominant year 1666 The Scourges of War and Pestilence were followed by a terrible Conflagration in London Where however Thirteen Thousand Houses were consumed with the Fire the Sacrifice could not expiate their former Rebellion and their not opposing the Murther of their Sovereign which some of them had encouraged all permitted The Tumults in Scotland were carryed on with the same Licentiousness and Contempt of Authority Sir James Turner for his more severe Prosecution of the Laws against Dissenters as was pretended was barbarously used by them to the endangering of his Life For being violently taken out of his Bed at Dunfreese he was by the wild Rabble dragg'd naked into the Market-Place hardly escaping their Fury by the Perswasion of some of the more moderate amongst them Nor were they contemptible for Numbers being by the Accession of the Multitude encreased to Sixteen Hundred so that they durst march in a Body towards Edenburgh But being at Glencarne and fought by the Royallists they were broke and routed Five Hundred of them were slain upon the place and One Hundred taken whereof some of them being affixt to the Gallows for the Terror of others the rest were pardoned by the King's Clemency year 1678 But now the Factious have new Matter to work upon the Odium of conspiring being thrown upon the Papists All Things were quiet at Home Our Wars
BEATAM AETERNAM CLARIOR E TENEBRIS CELI SPECTO ASPERAM AT LEVEM CHRISTI TRACTO In verbo tuo Spes mea MUNDI CALCO SPLENDIDAM AT GRAVEM Alij diutius Imperium tenuerunt nemo tam fortiter reliquit Tacit. Histor Liâ—â— 2. c. 47. p. 417 THE HISTORY OF THE Rebellions IN England Scotland and Ireland WHEREIN The most Material Passages Sieges Battles Policies and Stratagems of WAR are impartially Related on both Sides FROM The YEAR 1640. To the Beheading of the Duke of Monmouth in 1685. In Three Parts By Sir ROGER MANLEY Kt. late Governour of Land-Guard-Fort Quaeque ipse Miserima vidi LONDON Printed for L. Meredith at the Angel in Amen-Corner and T. Newborough at the Golden Ball in St. Paul's Church Yard MDCXCI THE PUBLISHER TO THE READER IN regard the Reputation of Histories is generally raised on the Worth of their Authors I thought it convenient to acquaint the World That the Compiler of This was a Gentleman of known Integrity bred in the Church of England for whose Cause joined with that of the Royal Family he was a valiant and zealous Champion having been Personally engaged in the most considerable Battles which his Royal Master King Charles I. fought against his Rebellious Subjects You are not therefore here to expect the Reversion of other Mens Labors no borrow'd Fragments or Scraps of Records no patch'd or imperfect Collections but an entire uniform History with great Impartiality and for the most Part of his own certain Knowledge Yet to free him from Suspicion of any Mistake in these Memoirs it is sufficient to observe That he collected them in those Troublesome Times whose Iniquity would not admit the Publication of them which he reserv'd till there was a clear Stage for Truth to appear on And having surviv'd this Great Rebellion for many Years he has added to the History of that an Account of all the Remarkable Transactions with the Conspiracies Insurrections and Tumults that happ'ned in the Reign of King Charles II. And concludes with the Invasion and Overthrow of the Duke of Monmouth in the West I shall say no more but that this Gentleman dying soon after he had finished these Commentaries the Publication of them was entrusted with me Which I did very readily undertake since I had the Honour to know the Author so well that his very Name was a sufficient Recommendation of the Work And all honest Men that knew Sir Roger Manley were very desirous of a History from his Hand whose Pen was aâ—â—oyal and Just as his Sword Reader honour the Memory of this brave Man and think not ill of the Publisher who like a faithful Executor presents thee with this his last Legacy And if thou take my Pains in good part 't is all the Acknowledgment I expect from thee Adieu THE CONTENTS PART I. BOOK I. THE Vnion of the Kingdoms of Great Britain The State of Affairs in England The Scots Tumults and their Causes They Rebel and Arm. The King Marches against them but concludes a Peace They break it and enter England with an Army The Little Parliament call'd and dissolved The Treaty at Rippon referred to the Parliament which met in November 1640. The Preludes to their ensuing Rebellion Strafford Impeach'd and Beheaded The Fatal Act of Continuance The Scots dismissed The King follows them into Scotland The Irish Rebellion breaks out The King upon his Return is pompously received by the Londoners The King enters the House of Commons The Bishops accused of High Treason The King forced by Tumults retreats Northward Contests about the Militia His Majesty is repulsed at Hull p. 1. BOOK II. The King attempts Hull in vain Propositions sent to his Majesty to York Most of the Lords and many of the Commons repair to his Majesty He erects his Standard at Nottingham and raises an Army Essex the Rebels General at Worcester at Keynton The famous Battle of Edge-hill Fight at Branford The King fortifies Oxford Some Actions in other Provinces The Queen lands at Burlington Goes to Oxford The Battle of Lansdowne Of Rownday Downe The Siege and Relief of Glocester The great Battle of Newbury The Parliament invite the Scots to their Succour They enter England The Siege of York The fatal Battle of Marston Moor. The Fights at Brandon Heath and Copedry-bridge Essex defeated in the West The second Battle of Newbury Alexander Carew and the Two Hothams beheaded Mac-Mahon and Macquier executed The Archbishop of Canterbury martyr'd The Treaty at Uxbridge Essex discarded and Sir Thomas Fairfax made General in his Place 38. BOOK III. The Continuation of the Irish Rebellion The Lords of the Pale side with the Rebels Their Model of Government The Cruelty of the English in Ireland Ormond makes first a Cessation then a Peace with the Irish Delivers Dublin to the English The King vindicated from any Correspondence with the Irish Rebels Fairfax marches Westward recalled besieges Oxford The King relieves Chester Takes Leicester The Fatal Battel of Naesby described The King's Cabinet taken and published Fairfax relieves Taunton The Fight at Langport He takes Bridgwater Sherburne and Bristol The King's Travels and Labours The Scots besiege Hereford They quit it The Fight at Rowton-Heath Digby and Langdale defeated in the North. Barclay-Castle the Devizes and Tiverton taken Cromwell takes Winchester and Basing-House by Assault The Fight at Torrington The Prince passes into France The Lord Hopton disbands his Army Distructions at Newark The King returns to Oxford The Lord Ashley defeated 84. BOOK IV. The King leaves Oxford and goes to the Scots Army Hereford is surprized and Chester surrender'd Oxford besieged and taken The other Royal Garrisons follow Massey's Forces disbanded Contests with the Scots Their barbarous Vsage of the King They sell him He is imprisoned in Holmbey-House The History of the Scots Rebellion and valorous Actions of Montross Independency triumphant The Army mutinies and seize upon the King at Holmbey They court him but deal treacherously with him He flies to the Isle of Wight 122. BOOK V. The King in the Isle of Wight His Message for Peace The Four Dethroning Bills The Votes of Non-address Cap. Burleigh attempts the King's Delivery Rolfe his Life The King appeals to the People They rise in several Parts of the Kingdom Are suppressed Pembroke taken The Scots defeated and Hamilton a Prisoner Colchester surrendered The Treaty in the Isle of Wight broken by the Army They seize upon the King Garble the Parliament The perjur'd Remains of the Commons assume the Supream Power Constitute a pretended Court of High Justice Arraign Condemn and Murther their King His End and Elogy 169. PART II. BOOK I. The Regicides prohibit the proclaiming of the Prince of Wales They abolish the House of Lords and the Government by Kings Choose a Councel of State Displace and Fine the Lord Mayor for refusing to publish the Act for abolishing of Monarchy Declare they will maintain the Fundamental Laws Erect a High Court of Justice Hamilton Holland and
Capell condemned by it and murthered Several Acts of State The Scots proclaim Charles II. Some Actions of the Levellers The King leaves Holland and goes by Brussels into France The Duke of Gloucester banished Continuance of the History of Ireland The King at Jersey Prince Rupert Sails from Kinsale to Portugal Loseth his Brother Prince Maurice by a Hurrycane The King at Breda Treats and Concludes with the Scots Montrosse's unfortunate End Fairfax routed and Cromwell General His Actions in Scotland The Scots barbarous Vsage of the King They are defeated at Dunbar The King crowned at Schone He enters England The Battle of Worcester The King 's miraculous Escape 109 110. BOOK II. Cromwell enters London Triumphantly Continuation of the Irish Affairs Ormond leaves Ireland and Clanrickard his Deputy there Ireton dyes of the Plague Monk takes Sterling Dundee and Subjugates Scotland The Isles of Scilly Barbadoes Garnsey Jersey and that of Man surrendered to the Regicides Their Greatness They are courted by the Neighbouring Kings and States They send a solemn Embassy into Holland Cromwell Cabals Turns out the Mock-Parliament Chooses another Is chosen Protector The Wars with the United Provinces The various Sea-Fights betwixt the Two States Cromwell makes a Peace with them and a League with France The Expedition of San Domingo and Jamaica Blake's success at Tunis and Santa Cruz. Dunkirk taken The Death of Oliver Cromwell His Character 249. BOOK III. Richard succeeds his Father in the Protectorate He is deposed by the Army The Rump restored Lambert defeats Sir George Booth Montague returns with the Fleet out of Denmark Lambert turns out the Rump Monk dissents and declares for the Rump Lambert marches against him Being deluded by Treaties he is deserted by his Army The Committee of Safety routed and the Rump yet again restored Monk marches to London Readmits the Secluded Members The Parliament dissolv'd by its own Act. An Abstract of the King's Actions and Motions abroad He is proclaimed by the Parliament Returns into England His glorious Reception The End of our Troubles 278. PART III. BOOK I. The REBELLION breaks into new Flames Some Millenaries secur'd Venner's Insurrection and End The Presbyterians stickle for new Elections Several Seditious Tumults detected and punished The Plague consumes the People The Conflagration of the City Tumults in Scotland Oate's Plot. The Parliament insist upon removing the Duke from the King's Presence and Councils It is dissolved Another Parliament call'd The Duke retires from Court A new Council chosen The Parliament refuse the King Money and insist upon the Bill of Exclusion It is also dissolved another being Summon'd A new Rebellion in Scotland The Arch-bishop of St. Andrew's inhumanly butchered The Rebels are defeated at Bothwel-Bridge The King sick He recovers The Duke returns to Court Monmouth Cabals and is outed of his Employments The Lord Stafford beheaded The Parliament dissolv'd and succeeded by another at Oxford which is likewise dismiss'd College is hang'd and Shaftsbury try'd The strange Encrease of the Fanaticks Their Insolence and Power in the City They form a Conspiracy The Council of Six The Plot to Murther the King and Duke The Providential Fire at New-Market Keeling discovers the Conspiracy Russel and Sidney are executed Monmouth absconds but upon his Submission is pardoned He again transgresses and is banished The King dyes of an Apoplexy The Duke succeeds 312. BOOK II. The Rebellion breaks out in Scotland under Argile in England under Monmouth Both are vanquished taken and executed The Final Ruin and End of the Rebellion 336. COMMENTARIES ON THE REBELLION OF England Scotland and Ireland PART I. BOOK I. The Vnion of the Kingdoms of Great Britain The State of Affairs in England The Scots Tumults and their Causes They Rebel and Arm. The King Marches against them but concludes a Peace They break it and enter England with an Army The Little Parliament call'd and dissolved The Treaty at Rippon referred to the Parliament which met in November 1640. The Preludes to their ensuing Rebellion Strafford Impeach'd and Beheaded The Fatal Act of Continuance The Scots dismissed The King follows them into Scotland The Irish Rebellion breaks out The King upon his Return is pompously received by the Londoners The King enters the House of Commons The Bishops accused of High Treason The King forced by Tumults retreats Northward Contests about the Militia His Majesty is repulsed at Hull THE Kingdoms of Great Britain being United under the Dominion of one Prince and the Animosities and Emulations which usually disorder Neighbour-Nations thereby removed gave a sudden Rise to a very great and formidable Power which could not be destroyed but by it self The Moderator of this vast Empire was JAMES VI. King of Scotland and First Monarch of Great Britain undoubted Heir to both as well by Right of Succession from Margaret the only Daughter of Edgar Atheling the last of the Saxon Princes as by that of Force derived to him from the Norman Conqueror This Wise and Learned Prince Charles I. succeeds to the Crown being gathered to his Fathers the loss which his Dominions suffered by it however great was abundantly repaired by the Succession of his Son CHARLES who being truly Heir to his Father's Greatness and Vertues as well as Scepters did excel all his Predecessors in the more severe Disquisition of what was Fit and Just so that our Tragedies will scarce find Credit with Posterity whilst the Ages to come mistrusting the Reports of such enormous Villainies will look upon our unheard-of Vicissitudes but as the Fancies of Poetry and the Decoration of Theatres For how is it possible to believe that the Best of Princes should meet with the Worst of Subjects on whom he had conferred more Graces than the whole Series of his Ancestors and that he who valued his Kingdoms and Life at a lower Rate than the Happiness of his People should by a Judicial Parricide be sacrificed to the ambitious Violence of a prevailing Faction in their Representative and that under the pretence of Usurpation and Tyranny But these things happened an everlasting Reproach to the Nation and not to be atoned for by any Resentment or Hecatombs of Victims King James left a flourishing Kingdom behind him but an empty Treasury and his Successor engaged in a War with Spain and what was worse the Parliament that oblig'd the Father to Arm abandoned the Son when they had exposed him Nor were the succeeding Parliaments more Obsequious or forward in supplying his Necessities how great soever either in recovering the Palatinate or rescuing the French Protestants though undertaken in Defence of the Reformed Religion 'T is true his Third Parliament voted him Five Subsidies but we must own also The Petition of Right that the Petition of Right being a Condescension even to Supererogation deserv'd their best Acknowledgements for raised with that Grant they that very Session questioned the Tribute of Tonnage and Poundage though perpetually enjoyed by his Predecessors Kings of England affirming
That he had resigned what Right he could pretend to it by that very Concession which they urged with so much Violence that forgeting the Rules of Modesty the King was forced to Dissolve them and to punish some of the most Factious of that Seditious Convention But the Causes of these Heats must be further sought In the Reign of Queen Mary a great Number of People withdrew themselves out of England whereof many Some pretended Causes of Sedition infected with the Discipline of Geneva upon Queen Elizabeth's Assumption to the Crown returning brought that uneasie Preciseness with them which suddenly grew to that height by the Carlessness or Pusillanimity of the Magistrates under King James that it did not only insinuate it self under the veil of Piety amongst the People but even into the Court and Parliaments where joining it self to those of Anti-Monarchic Principles it endeavoured to diminish the Prerogative and subject the King to those Necessities which might force him to unusual Ways of supplying them Which also happened for being pressed by the indispensible Exigence of his Affairs and perceiving no hopes of Subsidies from Parliaments he began to have an Aversion for them so Constituted and search for Refuge in his Prerogative And yet he had so much Reverence for the Laws that he would act nothing contrary to them as appears in Ship-Money which Tax however it were imposed to vindicate the Honour of the Sea against Pyrates and our Potent Neighbours he would not exact it till it was adjudged to him by all the Judges of Westminster and that under their Hands But the Common People despising the Moderation of their Prince and instigated by those who desired a Change crying out That their Laws and Liberties were endangered mutinied attributing all the Errors and Misfortunes in the Government for the Undertakings Abroad had not been very successful to his Counsellors that they might transversly smite him and blast his Reputation To this the exuberant Power of the Clergy that pretended Exemption from the Jurisdiction of the Laicks did not please The unusual Introduction of Ceremonies as they cried out and the placing of the Communion-Table at the East-End of the Church with the more severe Imposition of Rites however indifferent except in the Command did trouble them and were the occasion of very great Tumults in many Parishes But nothing did equally move their Choler and Pity as the Punishment of some Seditious Scriblers against Ceremonies and the Bishops their Authors by Incarceration and cutting off their Ears who however Guilty and deserving what the Rigour of Justice could inflict were yet thought to be hardly dealt with considering the serene Tranquillity of those Halcion Days And truly Peace and its Concomitant Plenty flourish'd amongst us to the Envy of our Neighbours continuing to the Fourth Lustre of the King's Reign The Flourishing Condition of the Nation which might have been perpetual being inexpugnable from Abroad if it had not been destroyed by the more than Civil Rage of our Mischievous Dissenters Nothing seemed wanting to our Felicity before it was disturbed by these nefarious Tumults and our People if they could have seen their own Happiness were considering the inexhaustible affluence of all Things the Liberty of Commerce and the free Enjoyment of what they had acquired the happiest of any Subjects under any known Government in the World But our Luxury encreasing with our Abundance we grew wanton and fell into such a Surfeit that nothing but a violent Bleeding could effect a Cure The true Cause of these Evils had its Rise from the noxious Indulgence of our Physicians who neglecting to stifle the Factious Humours of the Puritans in their Infancy gave such force and boldness to this Contagion that it unhappily Infected the whole Body Politick to the Ruine of Hierarchy the best of Spiritual and Monarchy the best of Temporal Governments 'T is scarce conceivable that there were found any in so happy a State that should seem to desire a Change And yet such there were amongst which Who they were who desired a Change the chief Ring-leaders were the Presbyterians who had their Missionaries and Lecturers in all the Quarters of the Kingdom and those swarms of Sectaries their Brood who contended for an equal Liberty in Civil as well as Sacred Things The Catholicks wished for the Dominion of Rome in Spirituals But the Gentry and Lesser Nobility which composed the House of Commons out of Contemplation of their own Greatness whilst they sate there preferred Democracy before all other In the mean time this disguised Impiety grew up under the plausible pretence of Sanctity seducing the Vulgar with a Shew of Religion into a Reverence of it It is not imaginable how far this Sacred Novelty prevailed by the seditious Fury of its Preachers and their uncontrouled railing against the received Rites of the Church and the lawful Power of the King It had bewitch'd the Town the Country and Private Families into an Opinion of it nor were the great Representatives of the Kingdom exempted from its Contagion which the King had abundantly Experimented in all the Parliaments he had summoned For in them the Novellists and Democraticks pretending the Liberty and Defence of Religion against the Designs of the Court and Popery oppressed the Prerogative to advance their own endeavouring to raise the Authority of the People whose Vicegerents they were upon the Ruines of the King To this they branded with the Odious Title of Papists all that opposed them by which means they deceived the People who are still the more addicted to their Superiors by how much they observe them the more Zealous for the Advancement of Religion And truly the depravedness of the Age was so great that whatever was said in behalf of the King and his Ministers against Popery had no Credit but on the contrary whatever was affirmed to perswade the People that the Court did Favour Superstition was greedily swallowed down without any regard to Reasons of State which sometimes obliged to a Compliance with the Desires of Foreign Princes and Embassadors But the true Source of our Miseries came from Scotland this Embryo of Rebellion gathering Strength from Foreigners upon this Occasion The Nobility in the Infancy of King JAMES had by the Connivance of Murrey the Governour The Scots Tumults usurped the Lands and Possessions belonging to the Cathedrals and Monasteries of that Kingdom which they also enjoyed untill King Charles pressed with foreign Wars and but ill supplied from Scotland resolved by the Advice of his Council there to reunite the said Possessions to the Crown again which he did by an Act of Revocation with a Commission of Surrend'ries of Superiorities and Tithes But those Nobles resolved to turn all upside down rather than part with their Usurpations and be deprived of the Vassalage of the Ministers and Land-owners And so conspiring against the King himself designed to oppose his Authority both Sacred and Civil in the next
usually attributed to his Counsellours with the usual Reflections upon himself But the Misfortunes and what Errors were committed ought truly to be laid at their Doors which they were not ignorant of seeing the Parliament absolutely denied to supply the Necessities of the Crown both at Home and Abroad whereby things often miscarried The Parliament publish their Remonstrance and Money was sometimes raised by extraordinary Ways But the King informed of their Design and not ignorant of the Force of ingenious Calumny had desired them not to emit the said Remonstrance not that he feared the Truth but that he apprehended the Poison of plausible Malice But these modest Men refused to comply in so small a matter with their King which produced an Answer from his Majesty no less just and reasonable to all Men of Sense than that monstrous Libel was fertile of falsity and imposture The Commons to gain Credit to the Terrors wherewith they had exagitated the People and lest they should have the least Suspicion of hazard to the Service of God 1641. Frame the Protestation had in May framed a Protestation and Oath without acquainting the King or House of Lords with it which rendered it ipso facto illegal which was swallowed by most Men none of the Lower House nor scarce any of the Upper refusing it and afterwards imposed upon the whole Kingdom which generally took it without observing the Poison hid under it This Protestation appeared very plausible at first sight promising to defend Religion according to Law and the King according to Religion if it had not administred occasion to those fictitious Bug-bears of Fears and Jealousies or planed and ushered the way to that rebellious Confederation called the Covenant betwixt these perfidious Wretches and their no less perfidious Brethren the Scots The Faction also in process of time explaining this Protestation affirmed their meaning to be That by the true Reformed Protestant Religion expressed in the Doctrine of the Church of England against all Popery and Popish Innovations contrary to the same Doctrine is meant only the publick Doctrine professed in the Church so far as it is opposite to Popery and Popish Innovation and that the said words are not to extend to the maintaining of any Form of Worship Discipline or Government nor of any Rites or Ceremonies of the said Church of England so that upon the Matter it seems manifest that the Hierarchy of Bishops and the Liturgy were plainly designed for Extirpation The other Arts whereby the Bell-weathers of the Faction daily incensed the People were the feigning and then themselves detecting of Plots and Conspiracies and imaginary Designs wherewith they strangely troubled and afrighted the giddy Rabble who by an implicit Credulity believed all that was told them to the prejudice of the King or his Friends whom they stigmatized with the odious Characters of Papists and Malignants Nor was it an Artifice of less Cunning in them to procure Subscriptions from the unthinking Crowd to occasional Petitions of their own framing pretending Grievances and Dangers and demanding Remedies against them as in publick Calamities On the other side the King hitherto patient seeing his Clemency more and more abused by the Contumacy of his Adversaries resolved to punish these Disturbers of the Publick Peace And being informed that some Members of Parliament had private Meeting and Caballing with the Scots who also had countenanced the late Tumults he gave Warrants to seize their Papers and secure their Persons but they being withdrawn he caused One of the Vpper House and Five of the Lower to be accused of High-Treason His Majesty had had Advertisement of their Caballing when he was in Scotland but had forbore them hitherto upon hope that his Indulgence might have laid the Storms these Men had raised but finding the contrary he caused them to be Impeach'd by his Attorney General Sir Ed. Herbert and sent a Sergeant at Arms to demand them of the House which they were so far from complying with that they immediately voted That no Person whatsoever should offer to Arrest or Detain any Member of that House without Order from the House But they had forgot their own Resolves in Sir George Ratcliff's Case who being a Member of the Parliament in Ireland had it determined against him That no Privilege of Parliament there nor here should reach to Protect him in Case of High-Treason The King therefore entring their House in Person The King enters the House of Commons required they should be delivered to the Law The Crimes objected against them were That amongst other Things they had endeavoured to subvert the Laws had invited Foreigners the Scots to Invade the Kingdom that they had raised Tumults and Seditions and had alienated the Subjects Affections from their King But these Traytors having private Notice of the Design against them by one of the * Countess of Carlisle Court Ladies withdrew themselves into Westminster-Hall where hiding themselves that Night they in the Morning fled into the City from whence they in a few Days returned with no less Pomp than Impudence 'T is scarce credible with what Bitterness the seditious calumniating Spirits in the Commons House traduced this Act of the King 's They cryed out Their Privileges were destroyed and that never such Violence had been offered to so great a Court by any of his Predecessors Not considering That there is no Sanctuary for Rebellion which was the present Case and they themselves will hereafter turn out the whole Body of the House During these Traverses the tumultuous Uproars being encouraged by the Puritans grew daily more licentious insomuch that a Preaching Iron-monger dared to throw a Libel intituled To your Tents O Israel into his Majesty's Coach the Multitude bellowing without ceasing Privileges of Parliament Privileges of Parliament The Parliament hereupon transfer their Session into the City their Adjournment being to keep up the Belief that they did not Sit in Safety and to countenance the Attempt upon the Militia which they now were designing where infusing into the People gave them also a false Alarm by their Emissaries who running through the Streets of the City at dead time of the Night cryed terribly A terrible Alarm in the City That the King was coming with an Army of Papists to destroy them which wrought so effectually that the Inhabitants raised with the Horrour of the imaginary Danger took Arms and in an instant got into a Body of no less than Fourty Thousand Men whilst the Women also filled the Streets with Benches Stools Tubs c. to hinder the Passage of the Horse and provided scalding Water to throw upon them The Non-appearance of these Souldiers in the Air could not undeceive the People being kept warm with successive hourly Discoveries of Plots and Dangers so that the Parliament which was returned guarded by great Numbers from London to Westminster as it were in Triumph importuned the King again for Guards and that under the
Command of Essex pretending Danger from I know not what Ambushes and Conspiracies But the King though he shewed the Vanity of these imaginary Terrors and offered his own Person Bayl for their Security was not heard Nay he offered them Two Hundred of the City Militia under the Command of the Lord Chamberlain whose Province it was to take care of the Parliament which they rejected ordering Two Companies under Skippon a Slave to the Faction to attend them whilst an infinite Number of the enraged Rabble as it were assaulting Whitehall and Westminster crying No Bishop Down with Antichrist c. forced the King's Friends who would have entered the House to retire And these Fellows being for the most part such whose Domestick Affairs were either inconsiderable or desperate and consequently as usual most busie and most concerned for the Publick exclude and force away the Bishops knowing them to be immoveable in their Loyalty and Obedience to the King and Government Twelve Bishops committed to the Tower And when this Sacred Order had protested against this Violence the Houses enraged at it sent Twelve of them whom they had voted Guilty of High-Treason to the Tower whereby they secured themselves from their Votes destroying afterwards as much as in them lay their very Function Nor did these Miscreants forbear to vomit their Gall against the Sacred Person of the King himself by villainous and licentious Speeches some of them crying out That he was the Traytor others That the Young Prince would govern better and a prime Leader yell'd out That the King was not fit to live Insomuch that his Majesty perceiving their unbridled Rage which was cherished by those Sons of Violence in the Houses and having though in vain attempted all ways to appease their Fury he removed with his Queen and Children to Hampton-Court After some Stay there his Majesty and the Queen went to Dover with the Princess Mary married some Time since to the Prince of Orange from whence the Queen passed into Holland The Queen goes to Holland under Pretext of conveying her Daughter to her Husband but truly to secure her Person which was not meanly threatned upon Account of her Religion and Conjugal Affection At Canterbury being every where importuned by Messages from the Parliament he was perswaded though much against his Will to Sign a Bill for taking away the Bishops Votes in Parliament But no Concession could satisfie Unreasonable Men insomuch that his Majesty being returned to Greenwich he went thence with the Prince and Duke of York to Theobalds and so Northwards This Conduct as it happened proved Fatal to the King And some prudent Men did then wonder that his Majesty would leave the City the Seat of his Kingdom which had been also that of his Predecessors filled with Multitudes of his Friends abounding in Riches and all Military Provisions and the only proper place both for Peace and War The King leaves Whitehall and withdraw himself into the Country where all these Advantages were wanting But the Terrors wherewith his Followers and particularly the Royal Family were agitated and the Apprehensions his Majesty had entertained upon their Account as also the Hopes that these Animosities and Heats in the Lower House might cool in Time seem to excuse his Retreat Nor was the King so abandoned by his People but that many honest and brave Men as well of their own Accord as very many more by Gurney the Lord Mayor's Procurement mingled themselves with the Rabble with design to defend the King 's Sacred Person from the Insults and Violence of the Crowd if they should presume to attempt any thing against him Nay the whole Society of Grays-Inn which shewed That the Law as well as Reason was for him coming to Whitehall in order offered themselves to guard his Majesty which seasonable profession of Duty drew from the King both his Acknowledgements and Thanks though he otherwise waved the offer supposing those popular Heats and Insurrections might be best allayed by removing and yielding and lest also he might be thought to meditate a War But the Parliament to add Credit at least Colour to the Terrors they had imbued the People with gave Power to the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace in the Counties to suppress all seditious and suspected Assemblies and seize upon all Arms and Instruments of War and secure the same Amongst other terrible Triflings it was affirmed That the Lord Digby and Colonel Lunsford had appeared in Arms at Kingstone with great Numbers though their Cavalry amounted but to a hired Coach with Six Horses which they ordered to be suppressed and the Colonel was taken and sent to the Tower After this they follow the King to Royston with an insolent Petition and goes Northward wherein they demanded the Tower the Fortresses and Militia of the Kingdom to be delivered to them But these being inseparable Flowers of the Crown were not to be parted with to any and his Majesty being again pressed to it continued immoveable telling them in short That their Fears and Doubts and Jealousies which he looked upon as wild and irregular were such as he would take time to satisfie the World of but that his own were not trivial occasioned by the many scandalous Pamphlets seditious Sermons sundry publick Tumults hitherto uninquired into and unpunished But the Faction seeing the Constancy of the King formed a Declaration wherein after a nauseous Enumeration of Grievances Fears and Jealousies they again peremptorily demand the disposal of the Militia and being again refused resolved to extort it from their King with all their Force Nor was it absurd in them for being conscious of their Crimes and Deserts they could not imagine how to secure themselves from the Punishment due to their Guilt but by asserting the Power of the Sword in their own Hands They therefore passed their Ordinance for the Militia though with solemn protesting That they had not the least Intention or Purpose of any War with the King but how falsly which made it swallowed the easier They then seized upon the Fleet The Parliament arm and the King is excluded at Hull appointing the Earl of Warwick their Admiral and possessed themselves of Hull lest the King should secure the Magazine there by whose Governour his Majesty when he would have entered the Town was shut out by an unheard-of Insolence and manifest Disobedience And this is that Hotham the unhappy Monument of improsperous Infidelity who falling from one Inconstancy to another suffered at length Punishment together with his Eldest Son who to aggravate his Misery was executed before him due to so flagitious a Crime being beheaded by those for whose Sake he had so desperately rebelled The Dye of War being thus cast at Hull the Parties flew out into open Action but lest they should not pretend Justice the Cause was defended on both Sides with Declarations Apologies and other publick Writings which because they are extant I will only add That
Holland under pretence of conducting as is already observed her Daughter the Lady Mary to the Prince of Orange her Husband for which pious and just Fact tho they formerly looked upon it as a Scandal when it was rumoured that they had a Design to accuse her she was proclaimed Traytor by these barbarous and worst of Rebels Some were of Opinion that the Faction was not ignorant of the Conveyance of this Treasure but connived at it upon a Supposition that the King upon the Confidence of it might be more refractary to their Demands and consequently engage in a War against them which they mainly desired as the plausiblest way to ruine him His Majesty notwithstanding the Accession of his Friends and Power desired the Ways of Peace not War Earl of Southampton Earl of Dorset But all his Messages and gracious Offers though sent to them by the Principal Nobles about him were rejected with Scorn and Insolence For the impetuous Faction in the House having a great Army on Foot and abundance of Treasure would hearken to no Accommodation This obliged his Majesty to intend his Safety the more so that levying Soldiers in the Counties he passed he daily increased even beyond Expectation For having made a solemn Protestation at the head of his Men at Wellington The King 's solemn Protestation viz. That he would defend the Protestant Religion as by Law established The Laws of the Land and the Liberty and Property of the Subject his Numbers visibly augmented Passing through Chester into Wales having made a Pathetick Speech to the Inhabitants thereof and gained entirely upon their Affections naturally inclined to serve their Prince he went thence to Shrewsbury where the Country being assembled by his Order he at the Head of them made this following Oration which for its Excellency and that it contains the Ground and the Truth of the Quarrel I thought fit to insert here Gentlemen and Speech to the Gentry and Inhabitants near Shrews-bury IT is some Benefit to me from the Insolence and Misfortunes which have driven me about that they have brought me to so good a part of my Kingdom and to so faithful a part of my People I hope neither you nor I shall repent in coming hither I will do my part that you may not and of you I was confident before I came The Residence of an Army is not usually pleasant to any Place and mine may carry more Fear with it since it may be thought robb'd and spoiled of all my own and such Terror used to fright and keep all men from supplying of me I must only live upon the Aid and Relief of my People But be not afraid I would to God my poor Subjects suffered no more by the Insolence and Violence of that Army raised against me though they have made themselves wanton even with Plenty than you shall do by mine and yet I fear I cannot prevent all Disorders I will do my best and this I promise you no man shall be a loser by me if I can help it I have sent hither for a Mint I will melt down all my own Plate and expose all my Lands to Sale or Mortgage that if it be possible I may not bring the least pressure upon you In the mean time I have summoned you hither to do that for me and your selves for the Maintenance of your Religion and the Laws of the Land by which you enjoy all that you have which other men do against us Do not suffer so good a Cause to be lost for want of supplying me with that which will be taken from you by those who pursue me with this violence And whilst these ill men sacrifice their Money Plate and utmost Industry to destroy the Commonwealth be you no less liberal to preserve it Assure your selves if it please God to bless me with Success I shall remember the Assistance that every particular man here gives me to his Advantage However it will hereafter how furiously soever the minds of men are now possest be Honour and Comfort to you that with some Charge and Trouble to your selves you did your part to support the King and preserve the Kingdom With this Speech and the Majesty and Reverence of his Person the People as it were inspired listed themselves by Troops in this Sacred Warfare so that the King being in a little time become Master of considerable and formidable Forces dared to provoke that Enemy whom he had hitherto avoided Essex goes to his Army Essex was waited upon in great State by the Parliament-Members out of Town and with quick Marches hastens to Northampton the Rendezvous of his Army consisting of Fourteen Thousand Men high and confident seeing they were to combat fresh and for the most part undisciplined Soldiers Amongst other Instructions Essex had received a Petition from his Masters to be presented to the King wherein they desire That his Majesty would desert his Followers who were REBELS and TRAYTORS and suffer them to be suppressed by the Earl of Essex But his Majesty abominating so sinful a Thought The King marches towards London leaving Shrewsbury marched with Six Thousand Foot Three Thousand brave Horse and Two Thousand Dragoons towards London This unexpected Motion of the King perplexed the City and Senate not a little before disordered with the Success of Prince Rupert who had broke and destroyed a Wing of their Horse near Worcester and kill'd Sands the Colonel Both Houses therefore to obviate the Danger from the King's Army and lest he should attempt the City where it was supposed the Parliament might easiest be suppress'd exhort the City-Militia to stand upon their Guard to watch to raise such Fortifications as could suddenly be made to make Batteries for their Cannon dig Trenches and set up Courts of Guard for the Souldiers omitting nothing for their Defence against the King's feared Approach They also sent Ten Companies to secure Windsor whilst they Imprison such of their Citizens as were suspected to Favour the King's Party Essex in the mean Time came to Worcester quitted by the Royallists where he continued whilst the King passed by without giving his Majesty any Interruption But the Rebels followed close in his Rear which he perceiving turned short upon them lest he should be enclosed betwixt the Rebels and the Rebellious City of London This occasioned that memorable Battel the first of these Unhappy Wars which was fought in the Vale of Red-Horse not absurdly called so considering the streams of Blood which were spill'd there that Day The Parties fought with equal Courage and Fortune though both pretended to the Victory which had been infallibly the King 's and the Rebellion stifled in its Infancy if the Right Wing of our Horse had not pursued the Enemy farther than they ought to have done But God who was not pleased that our Sins should be expiated at a Common Rate determined otherwise The Battel of Edge-Hill Oct. 23. 1642. The Royallists
for haste by the Bell-Rope and taking Horse ran away with his Troop for which Crime he had been cashier'd had it not been for the powerful Mediation of his Friends I mention this of this so famous Chieftain in the following Wars to shew how the Temperature of Body and Mind may by Use and Ambition be entirely altered The King takes Banbury-Castle c. The King continued his March having the Town and Castle of Banbury surrendred to him in his Way the Two Regiments of Foot and Troop of Horse which Garrisoned there putting themselves under his Majesty's Protection and Pay Broughton the Lord Say's House was also delivered and now the King with many Prisoners and Captive-Colonels entred triumphantly into Oxford Enters triumphantly into Oxford But he did not stay long there for Prince Rupert with a great Body of Horse swiftly moving up and down the Country infested all the Ways and Avenues to London on that Side and the King following with the rest of the Army assaulted and forced Brentford Hollis and Hamden's Regiments with part of the Lord Brookes's routed at Brentford breaking Two of the Enemies best Regiments there taking Eleven Colours and Thirteen Pieces of Ordnance which were sunk by reason of their Encumbrance in the adjoining River Many were slain and drowned and Five Hundred were made Prisoners but the King gave these their Liberty upon their Engagement never to bear Arms again against his Majesty But the Parliament loth to lose so many brave Men ordered Stephen Marshall a fierce Presbyterian Minister to absolve them from the Religion of their Oaths which he did with a more than Pontifical Authority The Consternation this blow occasioned filled the City with Terror They shut their Shops immediately upon the News and mustering their Trained-Bands and Auxiliaries joining with such Forces of their Army as were nearest Essex drew them all up in Battalia upon Turnham-Green Essex at Turnham-Green Three Thousand who lay at Kingston were also sent for for which their General was after blamed for abandoning so considerable a Post which might have distressed the King if made good For his Majesty having Intelligence of the numerous Strength of the Rebels and indeed wanting Bullets for a Skirmish lest he might be surrounded by them retreating over Kingston-Bridge abandoned as is said broke it down after him and having garrisoned Redding in his Way returned triumphantly to Oxford Whilst these Things were a-doing the City and the Two Houses apprehending the King's Advance had sent for Essex to whom they had given Five Thousand Pound as an Acknowledgment for his great Services at Edge-hill to hasten to their Succour But the King being gone the Citizens returned to their Labours and the Essexians to recruit their shatter'd Regiments with new Levies The King being come to Oxford The King returns to Oxford and Fortifies it and finding it a Place very commodious to make his head Quarters of it being in the Heart of the Kingdom and not far from London commanded it to be Fortified which the Rebels had seasonably omitted to do and surrounded with a deep Moat and Bulworks according to the Modern Practice which was done with all imaginable Diligence and Haste In the mean Time the War was carried on in other Provinces of the Kingdom with no less Courage and Vigour Not only the Towns and Counties but most of the best Families divided in their Opinions many engaging according to their Interest but most according as they affected the Parties But the various Battels Fights Velitations Sieges and the like as they deserve no Triumphs happening in a Civil War so they merit a better Description than is yet extant for they were for the most part eminent for Courage famous for Conduct and by so much the more severe in their Actings by how much the Parties were the more excited with the Opinion of doing well I do not therefore design to relate the whole War as being above my Force I will leave that Province to the Writers of Histories and content my self to describe the Chief Actions of it and those Things I my self for the most part saw but with designed Brevity Whilst the Armies were in their Winter-Quarters they were not so idle but that many Horse-Skirmishes Excursions Velitations Beating-up of Quarters and the like Feats of War were daily practised and that with various Success The King's Affairs had hitherto succeeded well considering his Circumstances although he never received any Advantage without Sorrow seeing it was gained from his Subjects And hence it was that as often as his Arms were Successful his Thoughts were intent upon Peace pressing and inviting the obdurate Faction to it by reiterated Letters and Messages though to no purpose for those Puritans relying upon the Assistance of their Brethren the Scots were wholly averse from it They had indeed formerly sent Propositions to the King at York but more severe than any Denunciation of War Several fruitless Attempts for Peace The Chief were That the Chief Officers of State should be of their naming and the Militia by Sea and Land at their disposing That the King should disband his Forces abandon his Friends and not dispose of his Children but by their Consent His Majesty did not refuse an Answer to these Demands although they seemed rather Impositions of Slavery than Peace which he sent by the Marquis of Hartford and the Earl of Southampton Two Eminent Noble-men with Command to deliver it in the House of Lords But being refused Admission they returned without having effected any thing Neither were the Mediation of the French and Dutch though offered by both how sincerely I know not accepted by the Houses who answered That they could not suffer that any Foreign Prince or State especially the French should interpose in their Affairs And to shew how little they valued the Monsieur his Coach was stopped and searched for Letters as he was passing to Oxford his Complaint of that Insolence being slurred over with a faint Excuse The Parliament would admit of the Scots their Brethren in Iniquity whom the King did justly reject as equally Rebels They had indeed formerly after the Battel of Edge-hill upon the King 's Advance with his victorious Army towards London apprehending his Approach sent Two Lords and Three Commoners to stay him under Pretence of treating which when they could not they seemed in Revenge upon his Majesty's Retreat to resolve to treat no more though afterwards upon the Instance of some of the more moderate amongst them they again sent Twelve Delegates to Oxford with Demands rather than Propositions the Chief whereof were Jan. 30. 1642. That his Majesty should Disband his Army Return to the Parliament Abolish Episcopacy Abandon the Militia to their Disposal c. The King on the other Side demanded His Revenues his Magazines his Cities Navies Fortresses c. and that whatever they had done contrary to Law should be Abrogated But nothing was concluded
so many Graces upon them upon his being in Scotland having refused them nothing they had demanded of him that their Parliament taken with so great Indulgence had decreed That if any whosoever should levy Men or take up Arms upon any Pretence whatsoever except by the King 's Express Order he should be guilty of damnable Treason Nay they profess farther upon Oath That in Case the King's Person should at any Time be endangered they would defend his Majesty's Cause and Honour as they were in Duty bound with their Lives and Fortunes When the King was at Edinbrough he had advanced Two very Ingrateful Persons to great Honour Lesley he made an Earl and Hamilton a Duke The First exstasied with the Greatness of the Favour protested solemnly perjured Wretch That he would never bear Arms more against his Majesty And the other if we may believe publick Fame betrayed all his Master's Counsels to his Enemies but perfidiously concealed Theirs though a Privy Counsellor from his King It may not be unworthy Notice to declare what farther happened at the same Time There was a great Noise rumour'd A pretended Conspiracy against Hamilton and Argyle of a Conspiracy against the Lives of Hamilton and Argyle with some others contrived by the Earl of Crawford and his Party This Report however fictitious and imaginary gained such Credit that the King himself was not obscurely reflected upon Which his righteous Soul took in such Scorn that he could not forbear to tell Hamilton when as the Custom is he delivered him his Patent in Parliament whereby he was created Duke That he did not deserve to be suspected by him who could not choose but remember That at that very Time when he was accused to him of High-Treason he suffered him that very Night to lie in his Bed-Chamber After this the Wars growing Hot in England the King advertised his Privy-Council in That Kingdom of the State of his Affairs in This demanding their Advice and Aid who returned an Answer full of Duty and Loyalty but with a Resolution to perform nothing they had promised For the Business being known at London they of Westminster caressed their lately acknowledged Brethren so effectually that they did not scruple to declare That they would act nothing against the Parliament no not in Favour of the King himself which they also perfidiously faithful did perform Nay more these Ungrateful Wretches forgetful of their Honour and Allegiance invade England with a Great Army causing that Fatal Change in the Kings Affairs till then very Prosperous that cost him his Life and them their Liberty to those whose Encrease they had so obstinately pursued The King perceiving how furiously the prevailing Faction did drive on and that it daily received Strength from London resolved to remove the Parliament to Oxford which he did by publick Proclamation where most of the Lords and amongst them the Earls of Holland Bedford and Clare who were lately come in to the King tho' they left him again with the same Levity and near Two Hundred of the Commons met at a Day The rest in Scorn of their Duty continued at Westminster until they were outed thence by their own Servants The first Business that the Parliament at Oxford undertook was to admonish the Scots by Letters That they should not hostilely Invade England it being no less than High-Treason to attempt it But this as also the King's Dissuasory Message was to no purpose Nay they were so rudely impudent that they caused a Letter writ to them and Signed by all the Lords to be Burnt by the Hands of the Common-Hangman The Scots enter England March 1. They therefore Invade England the Year being far spent with Eighteen thousand Foot Two thousand Horse and One thousand Dragoons and passing the River Tine send their Declaration before them pretending That they designed nothing but the Reformation of Religion the King's Honour and the Peace of the Kingdom The King extreamly surprized with this Invasion having been still kept up with a Belief that the Scots would not enter England finding himself deluded committed Duke Hamilton and his Brother Lanerick who were newly posted out of Scotland as afrighted with the News they brought to Prison The former being accused of several other Treasons also Hamilton sent to Pendennis-Castle was afterwards sent to Pendennis-Castle His Brother escaped to London and so to Scotland which he lately abandoned as unsafe whereof he was Secretary though the Court-Signet had been taken from him But to march with the Scots into England where the Parliament had long since seized upon the King's Castles Forts Arms Ships Revenues Treasure Ornaments c. they now to Complement their new Allies urge their impious Covenant so far that the Subject must either forfeit his Faith or Estate But Religion was always pretended and all their Undertakings veiled with the Masque of Godliness They divest her of her Ornaments under pretence of dressing her and with Impious Hands prophane her Monuments transferred to us from our pious Ancestors who sealed the Faith we own with their Bloods Their zealous Fury extends to our Churches destroying whatever was in them either Reverend for Antiquity or to be Esteemed for its Artifice They turn Temples into Stables and the House of Prayer into a Den of sacrilegious Impurity Amongst other Acts and Triumphs of their Reformation they demolished Charing and Cheapside-Crosses eminent for their Beauty and the Artificiousness of their Structure converting the Superstitious Metals they were composed of to their own Use It may not be from the Purpose to relate a Story of ludicrous as well as impudent Boldness Harry Martin H. Martin Inspects the Regalia who had said in the House That the Felicity of the Nation did not consist in the Family of the Stuarts for which he then to palliate the Impudence had been confined was ordered to Survey the Regalia which he did for breaking the Iron Chest wherein they were kept he took out of it the Crown Sceptre and Vestments belonging to Edward the Confessor wherewith the Kings of England had since been always inaugurated saying though falsly with a scornful Laughter There will be no more Vse of these Trifles With the same unmannerly Impudence he caused George Withers a pitiful Poet then present to be dressed in those Royal Vestments who being also Crowned walked at first stately up and down but afterward putting himself into a Thousand Mimick Postures endeavoured to expose those Sacred Ornaments to the Contempt and Derision of the By-standers These afterwards as also the Robes and Plate belonging to the Church were sold Nor could they be perswaded to leave one Silver Cup to be used at the Communion affirming with barbarous Sacrilege That a wooden Dish would serve the Turn Nor is it any wonder That these Sacred Vtensils were thus abused when the Sacred Function of Ministers was so Inhumanely treated of whom a Hundred and Fifteen in the City and Suburbs were for their
aloud Stop pierced the Throng and having whispered a while Sir Phelim answered aloud in the hearing of several Hundreds of Spectators I thank the Lieutenant General for his intended Mercy but I declare good People before God and his Holy Angels and all of you that hear me that I never had any Commission from the King for what I have done in levying or prosecuting of this War Nor was it only with him but with several other Prisoners that they most impiously endeavoured by Promises of Life Liberty and Estates and no less abominable Artifices to sooth them to Confessions that might entitle the King to this nefarious Rebellion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And 't was thus the Enemy did with exquisite Malice to use the King 's own Expressions in his Divine Meditations mix the Gall and Vinegar of Falsity and Contempt with the Cup of his Affliction charging him not only with Vntruths but such as wherein he had the greatest Share of Loss and Dishonour by what was committed Whereas in all Policy Reason and Religion having least cause to give the least Consent and most grounds of utter Detestation he might be represented by them to the World the more inhumane and barbarous Dublin surrendred to the Parliament The Treaty being concluded with the Committee of Parliament the City was surrendred into their Hands Ormond stipulating amongst other Things a Liberty of going to the King to give him an Accompt of the Progress of that War He found his Majesty in Hampton-Court in the Hands of the Army but seeing how Affairs were carried he withdrew himself into France where he continued until the Confederate Irish terrified with the Preparations made in England to destroy them by their humble Addresses to the Queen and Prince of Wales obtained his Return But it is now time to return into England where upon Essex his being laid aside the Command of the Army was as we have already related given to Sir Thomas Fairfax who with great Industry and Toil modell'd and formed the divers Forces that were dispersed under several Chieftains into one entire Body This being effected he marched from Windsor his head Quarters in the Beginning of May by Orders of the Committee of both Kingdoms to the Relief of Taunton Fairfax marches to the Relief of Taunton which had been long besieged and reduced to great Extremity In the mean Time Cromwell had been sent from Windsor with a strong Party to disturb the King's Preparations about Oxford He defeated two Thousand Horse at Islip-Bridge killing several and taking Four Hundred Horses as also Two Hundred Prisoners with the Queen's Standard Some Runnaways had taken Sanctuary in Blechingdon House where being followed and the Place summoned the unfortunate Governour to gratifie the Fears of his Lady tamely surrendred it which cost him his Life by being shot to Death by the Sentence of a Court-Marshal Sir Willam Vaughan sent with some Foot to Radcot-Bridge was likewise with Two Hundred of his Party intercepted by him Fierce with these Successes and strengthened with Six Hundred Foot from Abington he assaulted Faringdon but not without Loss being bravely received by Sir George Lisle the Governour At the same Time General Goring being sent for by the King to Oxford fell upon Five Hundred of Cromwell's Men under the Command of Whaley near Faringdon where Bethel who led the Van was taken and the rest routed with the Loss of Three Colours But Goring having Intelligence of Fairfax's march Westward returned with all imaginable Haste to oppose his Attempts upon Taunton In the mean time the King taking the Opportunity of Fairfax's Absence sent for his Horse under the Command of his Nephews Rupert and Maurice and marching himself with his Cannon out of Oxford joined them notwithstanding Cromwell and Browne's Endeavour who were commanded to observe him to the contrary His Forces being united for Gerrard having vanquished Langhorne in South-Wales was also come up he grew so formidable the Rebels Army being absent that he was greatly apprehended especially in the associated Counties and neighbouring Countries Fairfax was recalled upon these Apprehensions And though advanced as far as Blainford he there received Counter-Orders commanding his Return which he obeyed sending Col. Welden with betwixt Six and Seven Thousand Men to the succouring of Taunton whilst he himself strengthened with the Addition of Cromwell Browne and some other Chiefs of the Party marches to Oxford and lays Siege to it Besieges Oxford The Royallists at Taunton upon the Approach of Welden supposing the whole Army to be there removed from the Town but perceiving their mistake Goring Hopton and Greenville joining their Forces fight and beat Welden and besiege the Town more closely than before The King relieves Chester The King having united his Forces moved with quick Marches towards Chester one of the Loyallest and Chief Cities of his Party then besieged by Sir William Brereton who drew off upon Report of his Majesty's Advance The King thereupon wheeling about flies to Liecester and by Summons commands the Town to be surrendred to him The Place lying in a fertile Country was also well stored with Ammunition and Provision The Committee of the Shire was then there and consulting with the Townsmen about the Summons told the Messenger they would return an Answer next Morning But that being refused and but one Hour's Space granted for Consultation by a Drum sent on purpose whilst they delayed the Cannon began to play which together with the small Shot they continued to do without Intermission that Evening and the following Night The next Morning the Town was assaulted in many Places at once Leicester taken and after a stout Defence forced The Garrison embodied again upon the Market-Place and continued the Fight with great Resolution till being oppressed with Numbers they were defeated with a great Slaughter The Plunder of the Place followed which was great the Governour * Colonel Gray and the Committee with several other Officers and Gentlemen being made Prisoners The King's Affairs much heightned with this Victory were judged by most Men not inferiour to the Enemies And he himself thought no less when he writ to the Queen in these Terms I may without being too sanguine affirm That since this Rebellion my Affairs were never in so hopeful a Way The Men at Westminster terrified with the Greatness of the Danger and in no less Disquiet by reason of the Diffidence and Dissensions amongst themselves which every Success on the King's Side would improve dispatch'd sudden Commands to Fairfax who had thus long trifled at the Siege of Oxford That be should forthwith follow the King and having overtaken him fight him if possible and so decide the controversie by Battel This City seated in the middle of the Kingdom was a great Eye-sore to the Faction Besides it extreamly incommoded London and being the Royal-Seat of the King and head of the contrary Party it seemed great to attempt it Nor
the main Forces of Scotland suffering well-nigh a Saguntine Famine in its Defence Nor did then quit it but upon equitable Terms for the Security of his Garrison At York also he had extorted good Conditions from their victorious Armies These things being considered Fairfax invites him also to treat with very large Offers which he seemed to hearken to requiring First permission to acquaint his Majesty and to know his Pleasure therein This being denied Commissioners were some time after appointed to treat on both sides But they could not agree for the Terms the Royallists demanded were so high that Fairfax transferred them to the Parliament by which they were rejected as incongruous and new Orders sent to the General to reduce the City with all his Power and Skill But the Treaty was after some time reassumed though no Cessation intervened neither did any Military Action happen worthy the recital and after some Disputes agreed upon being comprehended in Six and Twenty Articles Faringdon was likewise surrender'd upon the same Terms for Sir George Lisle the Governour of that Fortress being then in Oxford Oxford surrender'd Jan. 24th 1645 6. was comprehended in the Oxford-Pacification The chief of the Articles were That Oxford with the Castle Forts Works Arms Cannon and all Provisions of War should be delivered to Sir Thomas Fairfax 's Possession on the 24th of January The Duke of York received and treated according to his Dignity should be permitted to go to London with his Family and continue there with the King's Children until his Majesty should otherwise dispose of him The Princes Rupert and Maurice with their Train not exceeding Seventy Persons should in Six Months depart out of the Kingdom The Seals and Sword of State should be lock'd up in a Chest and secured in the publick Library The Governour Colonels and all other Officers and Souldiers should be permitted to march with their Horses Arms Standards flying Colours Musquets and Pistols loaden Match burning at both ends c. the usual Solace of the vanquished Fifteen Miles which way they pleased where the private Souldiers should lay down their Arms and then at their choice either return to their Homes or dispose of themselves into Foreign Service The Nobles Peers Gentlemen and all others of what Quality soever should not be obliged to compound for above Two Years Revenues of their Estates The Chancellour Masters Professors Students c. of the Vniversity should enjoy their Possessions Customs Institutions Privileges and Government without Disturbance The Citizens should also enjoy all their Immunities and Freedoms nor be burthened with a Garrison or enquartering of Souldiers but upon great Necessity The Kings Houshold-Servants shall together with all his Houshold-Stuff be conveyed to Hampton-Court where they shall continue until his Majesty shall otherwise dispose of them To conclude Immunity for what was pass'd was granted to every Individual and that no Man should be questioned for any thing done during the War or the present Siege And thus this Seat of Loyalty and Learning where the King had kept his Court during the Troubles fell with the Fate of the Kingdom whose Example and Fortune the remaining Royal Garrisons did readily follow the which to gratifie the Reader we will also mention though not without Reluctancy Wood stock Banbury Raynsborough had stormed Woodstock not without great Loss which Place notwithstanding was afterwards surrender'd to him Banbury stoop'd to the same Fate however bravely defended for a long time by Sir William Compton and signalized with several Slaughters of the Rebels Radcot was delivered by ..... Palmer and Bostol-House by another Compton But nothing was more sensible than the Loss of Newark which had been defended by the Lord Bellasis with Conduct and Valour against the united Forces of the English and Scots until delivered up to Poynts upon the King's Order now in the Scots Army Worcester and Wallingford Ragland c. Worcester held out till the Surrender of Oxford and then veil'd Wallingford submitted with the same Facility but better Conditions Ragland was kept during the whole War by the Marquess of Worcester a Man of great Parts and one who had greatly obliged the King who however Bed-rid had an active Soul which made him maintain the Place till there was not a Garrison left to go to upon the Rendition Nor did he yet part with it till Fairfax himself came to receive it The Lord Charles Somerset his second Son Commanded under him who had also signalized himself in many Rencounters during the War but all failing was forced to surrender the Marquess Sacrificing his own Liberty to the freedom of his Soldiers Pendennis involved in the same fate was forced to submit to the same necessity being delivered up by Colonel Arundel There remained yet some few Castles in North Wales which had the honour to hold out longest in this Scene of Blood Conway was taken by force by Colonel Mitton and the Archbishop of York who sacrificed the honour of his Robe and Loyalty to his Ambition and Revenge Ludlow was delivered as also Litchfield to Brereton upon Chester-Articles The Isles of Scylly ran the same fortune The Dutch had much desired the Possession of them for the convenience of Navigation and offered great Sums for them But Sir Jo. Greenville the worthy Governour now Earl of Bath prudently chose rather to deliver them to the English Rebels being not ignorant that if annexed to England they might one day return to their obedience and duty to their Natural Prince again Some time after Holt-Castle and those of Harlegh and Denbigh in which last place as also Denbigh and Harlegh the two last Scenes of this War were delivered up the Author of these Commentaries besides many other Gentlemen was besieged after long and tedious expectation of some good from the North tho' contrary to the Proverb closed the last Act of our unnatural Tragedy Omne malum ab Aquilone The Royallists being wholly subdued it pleased the Parliament the Independant Faction in the House being paramount to order Fairfax their General Massey's Forces disbanded to go and disband Massey's Forces being Five and Twenty Hundred all Horse The pretext was very plausible the easing of the publick charge of the Treasury and 't was therefore perhaps that they allowed them but six weeks Pay whereas they had many Months due to them This considerable Service being done Fairfax came to London where he was received by the Militia of the City in Arms by the Speakers of both Houses with Congratulatory Speeches and Thanks and by the Court of Aldermen and Common-Council with great Assentation and Flattery The King prosecuted by the Scots at Newcastle The King at Newcastle being no less prosecuted and afflicted by the Scots to whom he had betaken himself for Sanctuary than by the Parliament which he had escaped was yet constant to himself And to use his own words in his Divine Soliloquies Not to be compelled by any
hardship to renounce his Honour or depart from his Judgment Not that he would peremptorily deny what was fit to be granted but lest he might yield to that which both Reason and Religion commanded to deny As soon as he was come to Newcastle Leven commanded by Proclamation That no Papists or Delinquents that is any who was Loyal or Faithful to the King should be permitted to approach him And it was moreover cautioned That no Soldiers or Officers should contract any commerce of Friendship or Civility with Malignants that is such as were addicted to his Majesty But the Independant Grandees did fret and fume that the King was detained by the Seots their Mercenaries and Hirelings as they termed them as being nourish'd by their Pay Affirming further Contests betwixt the Independents and Scots That the Kingdom of Scotland had no right or joint Interest in disposing of the Person of the King in the Kingdom of England Hence they come to Threats and Vote That they have no more Occasion for their Assistance the Kingdom being no longer able to bear them Yea they took care to publish to the World by Declaration their Rapines Extortions Cruelties and Errors The Scots on the other side pretending the Laws of Nature of Nations and Hospitality affirm That it is in no Kind permitted them to deliver up the King and especially their own King to any whosoever against his Will His Majesty having refuged himself under their Power of his own Accord But lest they might altogether displease their Dear Brethren they force the King to send Orders to his Governours to deliver such Places as they had yet in their Power to the Parliament to the Marquess of Ormond not to conclude any Treaty with the Irish and to Montross to disband all his Forces in Scotland These things being extorted from the King they also would wrest his Assent to the Parliament's Imperious Propositions which they sent to Newcastle to him viz. That he should ratifie the Solemn League and Covenant abolish Episcopacy deliver the Power of the Sword into the Hands of his Enemies and exclude the Peers made by him with several others of his chief Friends from Pardon c. They had themselves not as yet corrupted with English Gold condemned many of these Propositions which they advance now with Menaces lest both Kingdoms should agree he refusing to settle Peace and Religion without him to his and his Posterity's irrecoverable Loss Nor did they thus terrifie this magnanimous Prince who chose rather to expose his Crowns and Scepters than his Honour and his Religion and to see himself and Posterity divested of the Imperial Dignity of Kings Montross disbands by the King's Command by the violence of others than his own Act by a tame Subscription to the unjust demands of his Enemies The Scots had deputed Duke Hamilton the Earl of Crawford and others to the King altho ' their Parliament had Voted That he should not come into Scotland declaring it to be contrary to their agreement with the English and the Treaty to perswade exhort warn and urge his Assent to the Covenant And that he would be pleased also to approve and enact the English Propositions These were followed by Delegates from their Synod denouncing in case he were refractary The Scots barbarous usage of the King the Wrath of God against him and the hate of his Subjects Some of these were appointed to remove his Scruples and clear his doubts whereof one being admitted to Preach before him after several bitter Invectives in the Pulpit his Sermon being finished he commanded the fifty second Psalm to be sung Why dost thou Tyrant boast c. But the King perceiving his malicious Reflection unexpectedly stood up and ordered the fifty sixth Psalm Have Mercy Lord on me I pray to be sung Which the People neglecting the Parson unanimously did Nor were the Fortunes of David and Charles much unlike the one being detained by the Philistines at Gath and the other by the Scots at Newcastle when this Psalm was composed by the Royal Prophet and sung by the Royal Sufferer But now the main Controversie amongst the Rebels was about the disposal of the King's Person Until the Scots moved by Contumelies and the Sarcasms of the Cromwellists and perceiving the Parliament although they had conquered England did not disband were more inclined to agree with them and perhaps softned by the Parliament's offers after some previous formal disceptations to heighten the Price of their Treachery they at length resolved to deliver him up And he was delivered to the English Rebels by his native unnatural Subjects of Scotland to whom he had fled for Security with all the circumstances of Irreligion of Impiety of Perjury of Treason and of detestable Avarice being sold for Two hundred Thousand Pounds They sell him Which they having received and evacuated their Garrisons in England they returned with this Reward of their Iniquity into their own Country But with a Curse also for it is observable That after that time they did never thrive nor nothing they undertook prosper There had indeed been some attempts made for the King's escape But they were all prevented by the vigilancy of his cruel Keepers Leven assuring the Parliament That he would according to their desire take care that his Majesty depart not away And he was as good as his word for his Majesty having changed his Keepers being as he had truly said Bought and Sold and now in the hands of his bloodiest Enemies He is imprisoned in Holmby and cruelly used was carried to Holmby-House not far from Naesby where he had so unfortunately fought that he might be perpetually tormented with the sight of that odious Companion Nor was he less perplex'd within doors not being permitted to enjoy a freedom in his Solitude His Friends and his Chaplains which a common Civility would not refuse to the most Criminal being inhumanly kept from him whilst some of their own unknowing Factious Levites are obtruded upon him These mistaken Creatures had neither Modesty to cohabit nor Learning to dispute with this Royal Divine who being equally capable of the Mitre as well as Scepter of the Sacerdotal as well as Kingly Office was truly inimitable in both How good a Divine he was appears by his Controversies with the Marquess of Worcester a Person no less Eminent for Learning than Nobility of the Roman Catholick Religion and with the Parliament Ministers especially by his Writings to Henderson a Scots Presbyterian and Champion of the Party who being vanquished by the strength of his Arguments testified his Conviction by his Repentance and died for Grief as is credibly reported that he had offended so good and so pious a Prince not as the Enemy affirm because he could not perswade his Majesty to sign the Propositions a reconciled Son to the Church of England Whilst the King is afflicted in his noisom Prison at Holmby it will not be from the purpose to
The Enemy discovering their number and seeing them so few divided their Forces and followed after them very eagerly not only coming up with them in their Rear and Flank but endeavouring to obstruct their passage to the Mountains The Rebels forlorn of Horse pressed hard upon Montross's Rear but his Foot facing about fired upon them and having slain the three foremost rendred the rest more cautious and the pursuit less hot The darkness of the Night put an end to these Skirmishes By this they were come near Aberbroth where Montross considering that the Enemy might have intercepted the direct way to the Hills with his numerous Horse commanded his Men to turn to the South-westward and march with all imaginable speed by which artifice and incredible toil he deluded his Pursuers slipping by them in the night and wheeling suddenly Northwards he passed the Esk not far from the Castle of Careston And having after some light Skirmishes and a continued March of threescore Miles without Sleep without Meat or any other refreshment gained the foot of the Mountains the Enemy at length left them retiring from their fruitless pursuit Being thus beyond their hopes come into a place of security Montross sent the Lord Gourdon as well to recal those Troops his Brother had debauched as also to augment them by new Levies which he also performed with great industry joining the General in Marr with a Thousand Foot and Two Hundred Horse Being thus inforced the Royallists defeated Hurrey with Three Thousand Foot and Five Hundred Horse at Alderna The Fight at Alderna and Alford where the Lord Gourdon was slain he himself hardly escaping with the Horse Nor was Bayly the most knowing of the Enemies Captains more fortunate at Alford where having left his Foot he also fled with his Horse which the most untimely fall of the noble Lord Gourdon contributed to a loss irreparable to the King and his Party and which cast such a damp upon the Victory that the Soldiers overcome with Sorrow wore the countenance of a baffled not conquering Army But Montross after this strengthened with a numerous recruit of High-landers and by the accession of the Earl of Aboyne who succeeded his Brother Gourdon and Arley who were come up to him with Three Hundred Horse resolved to penetrate into the inmost parts of the Kingdom as well to disturb the Enemies Levies in Fife as to dissipate the Convention of the States at Perth Being come into Fife the richest and most popular Province of the Kingdom he resolved to pass the Forth Which he also did four Miles above Sterling and marching forward encamped at Kilsythe The Rebels fierce with their multitudes thought that Montross's late Marches and his hasty passing of the Forth were the effects of his Fear not Counsel So that they resolve to attack him in that place he had chosen their chief care being to cut off all Retreats especially to the Mountains Montross's Army consisted of Four Thousand Five Hundred Foot and Five Hundred Horse the Rebels of Six Thousand Foot and Eight Hundred Horse But their fortune the same for the Royallists animated by the rare Valour of the old Earl of Arley who being sixty years of age did with his single Troop defeat Three of the Enemy's and dis-engaged a Battalion of Montross's Foot The Battel of Kilsythe too rashly advanced which gave such universal Courage to the whole Army that raising a great Shout they all ran upon the Enemy beat down such as resisted and ruined all scarce One Hundred of the Foot escaping The Arms Baggage and Spoils of the Field were the present reward of the Victors who lost only six Men whereas near Six Thousand of the Enemy fell that day Upon this the Confederate Lords fled out of the Kingdom and such who favour'd the King did no more scruple to discover themselves This Victory having produced a new face of things over the whole Kingdom reconciled the Cities and Provinces thereof to their duty to the King Which he had also maintained if the Horse which His Majesty had sent with the Lord Digby and Sir Marmaduke Langdale had as he hoped come up to him But these being dispersed as is said in England he found other Forces than those he expected thence For the Confederates upon the fame of his Atchievements had sent David Lesley with Six Thousand Horse who by their intelligence with the Earls of Trequair and Rosburg whom the King had unhappily trusted surprized and defeated him at Selkirk The Royallists surprized at Selkirk Montross leaves Scotland Yet did not so far oppress him but that he afterwards became formidable again But the King being in the Scots Army he was by his Majesty's Command forced to dismiss his Soldiers leaving his Country to the disposal of the Confederates It is now high time to return to Holmbey and take a view of His Majesty's Diversions in that wretched Solitude Amongst other things seeing he heard nothing from the Parliament he composed an Answer to the Propositions formerly sent to him Wherein besides many unexpected Concessions he promised To comply with the rest provided he were suffered to come to London But having no Secretary or Clerk to transcribe what he had writ he desired one from the Commissioners attending him otherwise he would himself scrible it over as well as he could This was rejected as soon as sent although he had assented to most and desired a Personal Treaty for the rest they being deaf to his demands and whilst he was thus earnest for Peace Vote him averse to it affirming moreover how falsely The King 's miserable restraint at Holmbey That he had never offer'd them any thing worthy their Acceptation or accepted of any thing they had presented to him In this extremity he turns to God and withdrawing himself writ those Divine Soliloquies which compose his Book spending that leisure time with Heaven which was not permitted him to employ with any he delighted in here below This Book as it surpasseth all other except the Bible in Piety Prudence and Eloquence of Style so it containeth a true and genuine discovery of the state of affairs and consequently fit to be read of all good Men and such who would be satisfied in the reality of our Transactions In the mean time the Pretended Parliament force away the miserable from the unfortunate For seeing the King's unhappiness and restraint had not so far divested Men of that Veneration they owed him but that many sick of that Disease called the Kings-Evil came to him to be healed the Novellists more out of envy than grounded in reason endeavoured tho' to no purpose by Declarations to divert the People from this pretended Superstition as they called it Although all the Kings of England have ever since the time of Edward the Confessor who received this Prerogative from Heaven made use of it with success The Rebels being now Masters of the King and Kingdom having supplanted the true Heir
things interpreting their own Promises in a contrary Sence In the mean time the Parliament Vote That the King should be convoyed to Richmond under the Guard of Colonel Rosseter which was also consented to by Fairfax until the Army required That the King should come no nearer London than the Houses would suffer their Camp to be Cromwell who had obtained his End having the Parliament in his Pocket began now to neglect the King whom he had seemingly adored and courted with the charming Promises of his Restitution He did not wait upon him as usual and nauseating his Conversation wished him gone He had formerly deliberated with his Cabal how to destroy him and had once design'd to have him murthered in the Scotch Camp to satisfie his Revenge and at once to throw the odium of the Fact upon them he equally hated But it now seems sufficient to terrifie him with apparent dangers Designs upon the King's Life reserving his final ruine till they gained more Authority by rendring him more odious to the People as averse from Peace Which having obtained his fall would seem less pitied being also perpetrated by a Parliamentary Judicial Act as most plausible Nor was the King ignorant of these rebellious Scelerates designed Villainies having been not obscurely informed of Cromwell's perfidious dealings with him by some whom the Eminence of his Vertues had gained amongst these black Conspirators Neither were his Friends wanting in their wishes and endeavours for his safety Amongst whom we with gratitude applaud the offers of the Scots Commissioners for the Earls of Lauderdale and Lannerick meeting his Majesty as he was Hunting near Nonsuch and but slenderly guarded they having at that time Fifty Horse of their Train with them told his Majesty That they were come thither on design to deliver him out of his Captivity And therefore humbly desired That he would be pleased not to omit this opportunity to save himself out of their too visible perfidious Hands But His Majesty answered That he had passed his Royal Word not to leave the Army without acquainting the Chief Officers and therefore would not violate his Promise to save his Life Some time after he told the said Commissioners That he was now discharged from his Word and after many Propositions about his retreat he seemed much pleased with that of Barwick as then ungarrisoned and in the Confines of both Kingdoms But that was also waved by reason of the violent motion of the Agitators a rumour being also at the same time spread at Court that they had conspired against his Life which was not only conveyed to him by his Friends as believing it but also by Colonel Whaley his Guardian who told him That moved with duty and affection he could not forbear to beseech his Majesty to save himself by a timely Retreat affirming That this also was the Sense of the Chief Officers of the Army who were very imwilling to be Spectators of what they could not at present help His Majesty withdraws from Hampton-Court With these Artifices this best of Princes being circumvented privately withdrew himself from Hampton-Court which by the removing of the Centinels was not difficult Having passed the River in a Boat he found Ashburnham Legge and Barclay on the other side with Horses He had designed to go to London where he also had a Lodging provided for him but upon a Consideration that the Citizens being obnoxious to the Soldiery were not to be trusted and that Ashburnham perswaded the contrary leaving the City they after much Toil and the Errors incident to travelling in a dark and tempestuous Night came to the Sea-side near Southhampton Where not finding a Ship as they expected to transport them to Jersey the King asked Whither they purposed to carry him Ashburnham replied To the Isle of Wight for he had great confidence in Colonel Hammond the Governour Brother to Doctor Hammond the King's Chaplain The King replied That he would not enter into the Island unless he first had assurance from the Governour both of his Liberty and Security from danger Ashburnham therefore and Barclay were sent to propose these Conditions To whom Hammond dear to Cromwell and sent as is supposed to command the Island for that purpose answered That he would provide for the King's Security from danger but could not dispose of his Liberty but with the Army and Parliaments Knowledge Our Delegates having advanced beyond a Retreat were necessitated through fear to accept of the Condition and so brought Hammond with them to the Countess of Southhampton's House near Tichfield where the King privately lay He was no sooner come and His Majesty acquainted with the Terms but clapping his Hand upon his Heart he said too Prophetically alass I am now undone Whereupon his Attendants bursting out into Tears and Expressions of Violence would instantly have kill'd Hammond But His Majesty absolutely forbad it who would not purchase his own Safety at the clandestine Destruction of a most bitter Enemy And so he delivered himself into his Custody and those Toils which the nefarious Cunning of his Adversaries had long since laid for him BOOK V. The King in the Isle of Wight His Message for Peace The four Dethroning Bills The Votes of Non-address Cap. Burleigh attempts the King's Delivery Rolfe his Life The King appeals to the People They rise in several Parts of the Kingdom Are suppressed Pembroke taken The Scots defeated and Hamilton a Prisoner Colchester surrendered The Treaty in the Isle of Wight broken by the Army They seize upon the King Garble the Parliament The perjur'd Remains of the Commons assume the Supream Power Constitute a pretended Court of High Justice Arraign Condemn and Murther their King His End and Elogy THE King upon his Departure from Hampton-Court had left upon his Table amongst other things a Letter to the Parliament The Contents thereof were That Liberty being desired by all Men and no less necessary for King's than others and that he had long suffered the irkesomness of a Prison under hopes of Peace He now finding the contrary and the inconstancy of the Army had withdrawn himself And yet wherever he should be he would use all his Power for the procuring of it and hinder further effusion of Blood Finally if it should be permitted him to be heard with Honour Liberty and Freedom he would quickly break through this Cloud of Retirement and demonstrate himself truly to be the Father of his Country Being arrived in the Island The King's Message for Peace he again earnestly presses the Parliament for what he had so often desired Peace and having sent them Concessions beyond their Hopes and Desires he yet invites them to a Treaty though with the same Success And yet lest these pious Patriots might seem too averse from that they had pretended to the Peace of the Nation they send the old Propositions to him but accompanied with four preliminary Articles Which how unjust soever they require him to assent
to before any further Proceeding They demand The 4 dethroning Bills 1. The Absolute Power of the Militia 2. That the Parliament be not Adjourned Prorogued c. but by their disposal 3. All Oaths Declarations Proclamations against the Parliament should be revoked and annulled 4. All Honours and Titles conferred by the King since carrying away the Great Seal should be annihilated and supprest By the granting of these the King would not only divest himself and that by his own Suffrage of all Right to Govern but take upon him the Guilt of all the Blood-shed in the late War Moreover they desire contrary to Order and Reason the concession of those Things which were to be treated of before the Treaty should begin The Scots-Commissioners also opposed these Demands by Public Protestation before the Parliament at London and in presence of the King in the Isle of Wight as being repugnant to Religion the Honour of the Crown and the Treaties betwixt both Nations Which when the King had inculcated to them they were so far from being moved thereat that these Sons of Violence railed not only against the King but even Monarchy it self One of them proposed Wroth. To have him closely kept in some inland Garrison until he could be brought to judgment In the mean time they should themselves he being entirely excluded govern It was equal to him what kind of Government they setled provided they admitted neither Kings Ireton nor Devils Another urged That his rejecting of the Propositions was no other than the denial of his Protection and that the People upon that accompt did owe him no Subjection being these were reciprocal But Cromwell who was the Bell-weather of the Faction admonish't the Parliament To rule by their own proper Power and Fortitude and not suffer the People longer to expect their Safety from a Man whose Heart God had hardned or subject those who had served them so faithfully to the Fury of an implacable Enemy lest they should force them clapping his hand upon his sword to endeavour their security by some other means The servile Senate being admonished by these Arguments Vote Votes of Non-address That no further Address should be made to the King and that no further Demands should be sent to him or any received for him To these barbarous Votes they add their no less barbarous Commands to the Governour of the Isle of Wight for the King 's closer Detention in Caresborough Castle which he did by a stricter Confinement in redoubling his Guards and by turning away his Servants saying That he was actuated by ill Counsels to the destruction of the Kingdom The King a close Prisoner And yet at the same time he tampered with his Majesty by courting Ashburrham and Berkely who were still retained with him as also the Earl of Southampton who was at large to make new Proposals whereby to gain his Majesty's nearer owning of the Army that whilst they amused the People with appearances they might the more securely destroy him But seeing this did not take their late monstrous Votes were followed by as monstrous a Declaration to mask in as much as in them lay their unjust Proceedings It was stuft with their old exploded Calumnies and so often repeated pretended Misgovernments to abuse the Peoples credulity though in vain however owned by the impious Army who did dare to profess That they would live and dye with the Parliament in maintaining of those dethroning Votes But this did not hinder a worthy however fruitless attempt of Captain Burleigh Captain Burleigh attempts his release who beat a Drum at New port in the Isle of Wight with Design to raise a Force for the delivery of his injured Sovereign but being suppressed by Hammond he was Murthered by Wilde and Mildmay for levying War against the King And yet these Reverend Judges acquitted Rolfe who had been employed upon apprehension of the following Rising to Poyson the King or otherwise to remove him out of the way as conducing to their Affairs which was proved as well in part by his own confession as the discovery of Osburne some time his Confident This wilful Intention of Parricide was found Ignoramus Nor indeed had this Villain been tried at all had it not been to satisfie the Clamors of the People who began as will suddenly appear to be sensible as well of the Perfidy of the Usurpers as of the miserable Condition of their King His Majesty seeing himself secluded from the Society of reasonable Men and considering the untractableness of the Pretended Parliament appeals to the People and Publishing his most Elegant Apology not only clears himself from the imputed Crimes laid to his Charge but retorts all those wickednesses they were so justly and visibly guilty of upon their own heads He further represents His Majesty's Apology his wretched and disconsolate Condition improved by the continuance and rigidness of an irksome Imprisonment He demonstrates with what earnestness he endeavoured the composing of all things in a desirable Peace and gives just and unanswerable Reasons why he could not yield his Assent to the Four Dethroning Bills And Appeal to the People He therefore appeals to the whole World why or how he had deserved to be thus used Especially by those who were his Subjects being he had Sacrificed all for the Peace of his Kingdoms but what was much more dear to him than Life his Honour and Conscience He further mentioned his compliance with the Army and their Interests as also of what importance that was to them and their often repeated Professions and Engagements for his just Rights and Restitution He finally inferred If it was Peace they would have He shewed them the way to it to which he would contribute his utmost Was it Plenty and Happiness They were the inseparable Effects of Peace Was it security He that did wish that all Men would forgive and forget like him had offered the Militia for his time Was it Liberty of Conscience He who wanted it was most ready to give it Was it the right Administration of Justice Offices of Trust were committed to the Choice of the Two Houses Finally was it the Arrears of the Army Vpon a settlement they would certainly be paid with much Ease which otherwise would be scarce Possible But all this was to no purpose so that the People awaked out of that stupid Lethargy they had been lulled in by these Pretenders of Reformation perceived at length that the Tyrants at Westminster had designed wholly to exclude the King and Usurp the Government themselves Which being evident by their late pernicious Votes and that nothing but Slavery and Oppression was to be expected from these new Masters they resolved to vindicate their Sovereign and their Liberty by the way of Arms. But They rise in several Parts of the Kingdom first they would try the way of Petitioning The Men of Essex began being followed by them of Surrey in greater Numbers
in writing against the Jurisdiction of the Court But it was not permitted the President saying He would admit nothing against the Parliament from which there was no appeal And so the King was remitted and the Court Adjourned Three Days after the King was again brought before this Impious Court where He desired the President cloathed now in Scarlet suitable to the Bloody Design of the Day to be heard a Word hoping to give no occasion of interruption But the President refused him saying The Court must be first heard And thereupon told the Auditors how the Prisoner had been several times convented and brought before the Court to make Answer to a Charge of Treason and other Crimes Which he not only refused to do but took upon him to offer Reasonings and Debates against the Authority of the Court and the Highest Court that constituted them to try and judge him which being considered as also his Contumacy and the Probability of the Fact they had resolved to pronounce Sentence against him But the Prisoner desiring to be first heard the Court was content to hear him provided he said nothing against the Authority thereof The King then said Since they would hear nothing of Debate concerning what he thought most material for the Peace of the Kingdom he would wave it only tell them That all Things had been taken from him this many a Day but what he valued dearer than his Life his Conscience and his Honour And if he had respect to his Life more than the Peace of the Kingdoms and the Liberty of the Subject certainly he would have made a Particular Defence for himself whereby he might have at least delayed an ugly Sentence which he believed would pass upon him And therefore if his Zeal to his Country had not overborn the Care that he had of his own Preservation he should have gone another Way to Work He conceived That a hasty Sentence once passed might be sooner repented of than recalled And the same desire that he had for the Peace of the Kingdom and the Liberty of the Subject more than his own particular did make him now at last desire that having something to to say that concerns both he might be heard in the Painted-Chamber before the Lords and Commons This delay could not be prejudical to them whatsoever he said If Reason it would be worth the Hearing if otherwise those who heard him might judge He therefore conjured them as they loved what they pretended the Liberty of the Subject and Peace of the Kingdom that they would grant him a Hearing before Sentence past If not he did protest that so fair shews of Liberty and Peace were but meer shews and not otherwise and that they would not hear their King This being heard however the President had said That it was but a new Delay and a farther declining the Jurisdiction of the Court yet there were some amongst the Judges who would reason the Business in Private And lest they might seem to dissent amongst themselves they withdrew into the Court of Wards Where after some sharp Contests They Vote That what the King had tendered tended to delay Several of the Judges were of a contrary Opinion desiring to know what the King would say to them But it was voted by the major part in the Negative whereupon some of them exagitated with the Terrors of their Consciences went away in discontent The rest being returned into the Court the President in a very long nauseous Speech ripping up all the Misfortunes and Errors committed in the Government imputed them to the King He further affirmed That Kings were inferiour to the People and to the Laws producing Examples of some Kings of England deposed from the Government which happened by Parliaments no less impious than this and more particularly in Scotland where of 109 Kings near half were removed by untimely Ends. This tedious and hated Speech being ended and the Charge read the Sentence followed in these Terms He is condemned That Charles Stuart as a Tyrant Traytor Murtherer and Public Enemy shall be put to Death by severing his Head from his Body It may not be from the purpose to mention some particular Passages that intervened extraordinarily at the various Sessions of this Court. The King behaved himself with that Firmness of Mind Wisdom and Majesty that he did nothing that was not truly Royal cluding their Epithites of Tyrant and Traytor with Smiles Casualties that happened during his Tryal Some time after the Head of his Cane falling off he was himself forced to take it up not one amongst so many Barbarians offering at so small a Civility and perceiving the By-standers seemed to look upon it as sinistrous he said That was nothing The Second Day the King offered his Reasons in Writing against the Jurisdiction of the Court but was not permitted The Third Day of Meeting the General 's Wife whilst he impiously commanded the equal impious Army ventur'd to disturb the Court when they were baiting the King calling out That was a Lye Adding That the Tenth part of the People she might have said the Hundredth were not of that Opinion but that it was done by the Artifice of that Traytor Cromwell She also blamed the Subjects Irreverence to their King Insomuch that the Souldiery had much to do to silence her though Axtel called her Whore and others moved upon that occasion I cannot tell Whether this may not in some sort Parallel that of Pilates Wife But what I was seriously told by one that was present of Bradshaw's Wife comes nearer She the Morning of the Day that the King was Sentenced rushing into her Husbands Chamber fell upon her Knees at his Feet and dissolved into Tears and Sighs besought her Husband That he would have nothing to do with His Majesty nor Sentence this Earthly King for fear of the dreadful Sentence of the King of Heaven You have no Child said he and why should you do so monstrous an Act to Favour others But Bradshaw bidding her get about her business added I confess he hath done me no Harm nor will I do him any but what the Law commands The Sentence being pronounced his bloody Murtherers Seventy Two of them being present stood up thereby expressing their Assent The King delivered to the Souldiers who abuse and mock him After which His Majesty was hurried away by his Guards the Souldiers instigated by Axtel and Peters crying as he went along Execution Execution as the Jews had done formerly to their Saviour Crucifie him Crucifie him To these the King no less immoveable in Adversity than Prosperity replied Alas poor Souls for a piece of Money they would do so by their own Commanders Which also happened upon the Restauration of Charles II. when some of these Miscreants cryed out for Justice against the King's Judges with no less Violence and Clamour There were amongst these Wretches some who puffed Tobacco the Smell whereof was odious to him in his Face
the Universality of Mankind for Quae Regio in Terris nostri non plaena Doloris did lament the undeserved Fate of this Prince Nay the outragious Faction it self did blush to approve the Infamy of so flagitious an Act. The Factions disapproving the Infamy of the Regicide impute it to each other The Presbyterians to shift the Envy of it from themselves threw it upon the Independants condemning upon the Stage what they had designed in the Tyring-room But whether out of true Sentiments of Repentance or that they could act no further let them look to that being equally Regicides in their Intentions though not in the Execution The Independants said That they only put to Death a Private Man and an Enemy The King had been long since killed by the Presbyterians as being despoiled of his Prerogative whereby he excelled others of the Militia wherewith he protected his Subjests and of his Freedom of Vote whereby he made Laws They also remembred How he had been divested and robbed of his Liberty as a Commoner of the Society of his Wife as a Husband of the Conversation of his Children as a Parent of the Attendance of his Servants as a Master Yea of every Thing that might render his Life comfortable So that there was nothing left for the Independants to do but to put an end to the Calamities wherewith this Man of Sorrow had been so cruelly overwhelmed and afflicted by the Presbyterians But who ever were the Authors of this Impiety we grieve at what they did which seeing it cannot be undone we may wish that the Memory of it may perish with them who designed and perpetrated so Hellish a Mischief Nor had the Scelerates of the Faction yet satisfied their Cruelty They were inhumanly barbarous to his Dead Corps Their Inhumanities after his Death His Hair and his Blood were sold by Parcels Their Hands and Sticks were tinged with his Blood And the Block now chipt as also the Sand sprinkled with his Sacred Gore were exposed to sale Which were greedily bought but for different Ends by some as Trophies of their slain Enemy and by others as precious Reliques of their beloved Prince It is certain that Cromwell to satisfy his greedy Eyes had caused the Coffin to be opened in White-Hall and did with his Fingers search the-Wound as if he had still doubted of the effecting of his Hellish Cruelty Nor did it suffice to have raged against him living and dead they will also for as much as in them lies kill his very Fame Which they endeavoured to do by the enslaved Pen of a needy Pedagogue one Milton Salmasius indeed had writ a Defence for the King but he being a Presbyterian as the other an Independant both very good Latin if we believe the Learned Hobbs and hardly to be judged which is better and both very ill Reasoning and hardly to be judged which is worst And thus both Houses as they had often sworn with hands lift up to Heaven did make him a Great and Glorious King by changing his Fading Crown which they had interwoven with Thorns into an Immortal and Incorruptible one They made him great indeed great in Suffering in Patience His Character and great in his Martyrdom Thus fell Charles the Great and Just Monarch of sometimes Three flourishing Kingdoms A great Example if any of both Fortunes The Best of Kings The Meekest of Men. His Countenance was Comely and Majestic He was Constant Valiant Pious Eloquent of infinite Reason and Reading His Integrity was entire and no Guile found in his Mouth His publick and private Vertues were eminent He had been born for the Good of Mankind if he had not fallen amongst Monsters not Men. The best of Princes the best of Men the best Parent the best Husband the best Master Famous for Patience for Piety for Chastity for Justice and of an unshaken Fidelity towards God and Man His Greatness only rend'red him Guilty being by the Suffrages of his most bitter Enemies worthy of Empire if he had not reigned The Royal Corps being embalmed and exposed for some Days to publick View at St. James's was afterwards delivered to Mr. Herbert And Funeral one of his Servants to be translated to Windsor He had earnestly solicited to have had it deposited in Henry VII's Chappel near to the Monument of King James But they refused it lest the Place as they said might be prophaned by the Superstitious Concourse of the People He was therefore carried â—o Windsor by the Direction of the Duke of Lenox the Marquess of Hartford and the Earls of Southampton and Linsey who had got leave â—â—om the Faction for the decent Enterrment of their â—ear Lord provided the Funeral-Charges did not â—xceed Five Hundred Pounds These Sacred Reâ—â—ques being then born by the Officers of the Garriâ—on attended on by the Four Lords were laid 〈◊〉 Henry VIII's Vault It is observable that â—â—ough the Air was serene when they set out â—efore they reacht the Chappel-Door the â—â—erse of Black Velvet which covered them was all White with Snow which seemed to fall to testify their Candor and Innocence But it troubled the Assistants that the Fanatic Governour would not permit them the Use of the Common-Prayer the Bishop of London attending there to do this Last Office to his Dearest Master So that he was interred with the Sighs and Tears of his Servants And thus Lam. C. 4. V. 20. the Breath of our Nostrils the Anointed of the Lord was taken in their Pits of whom we said Vnder his Shadow we shall live among the Heathen COMMENTARIES ON THE REBELLION OF England Scotland and Ireland PART II. BOOK I. The Regicides prohibit the proclaiming of the Prince of Wales They abolish the House of Lords and the Government by Kings Choose a Councel of State Displace and Fine the Lord Mayor for refusing to publish the Act for abolishing of Monarchy Declare they will-maintain the Fundamental Laws Erect a High Court of Justice Hamilton Holland and Capell condemned by it and murthered Several Acts of State The Scots proclaim Charles II. Some Actions of the Levellers The King leaves Holland and goes by Brussels into France The Duke of Gloucester banished Continuance of the History of Ireland The King at Jersey Prince Rupert Sails from Kinsale to Portugal Loseth his Brother Prince Maurice by a Hurrycane The King at Breda Treats and Concludes with the Scots Montrosse's unfortunate End Fairfax routed and Cromwell General His Actions in Scotland The Scots barbarous Vsage of the King They are defeated at Dunbar The King crowned at Schone He enters England The Battle of Worcester The King 's miraculous Escape CHarles the Martyr being removed by a Parricide black as its Authors as is declared in our former Commentaries the Regicides endeavour with the same Fury to supplant his Son Heir of his Diadems and Vertues in order to which they immediately after his Fathers Death The Regicides prohibit the proclaiming of the
the Enemies Progress But Cromwell being abundantly furnished with Recruits and Provisions out of England the Winter drawing to an End takes the Field and having possessed himself of some Neighbouring Garrisons forced Goram betrayed by the Sedition of the Souldiers causing Hammond the Governour with some of his chief Officers to be shot to Death in Cold Blood This done he marched with his victorious Troops to Kilkenny Kilkenny besieged and surrendered This City the Nursery of the late Rebellion and the Residence of the Supream Council was by the Diligence of Castle-haven well provided with Defendants and Provisions Nor were they wanting in a generous Defence having repelled the Enemies Assaults with Slaughter of them But all Hopes of relief vanishing Collonel-Butler the Governour at length surrendered it upon reasonable Conditions Clonmell ran the same Fortune though Hugh Oneal who commanded there having beaten off the reiterated Assaults of the Enemy and slain above Two Thousand of their Men was necessitated through want of Powder to quit the place which he did with so much Secresie that the Enemy ignorant of it gave very good Conditions to the Towns men next Morning The Bishop of Rosse with Four Thousand Foot and Three Hundred Horse attempted to The Bishop of Rosse taken and hanged relieve it but unhappily being routed and taken by the Lord Broghill who without any Respect or Reverence to his Character caused him to be hanged up The Bishop of Cloger runs the same fate Emir Mac Mahon Bishop of Cloger who succeeded Oneal in the Command of the Vlster Army ran the same Fate for being overcome by Coot and Venables who had joyned him with Two Regiments of Foot and one of Horse of Cromwell's Army he was also hanged Coot with the same Facility over-ran Vlster routing both Scots and Irish that opposed them and rendering himself Master of their Garrisons on all sides Cromwell returns into England It is now Time to sail back into England where Cromwell is likewise hastening leaving his Son-in Law Ireton in Ireland to finish what he had so prosperously carried on and put an End to the Reliques of that War whilst he himself is destined to new Empires and new Triumphs Nor was there indeed any thing of moment done by the Mock-Parlâ—ament without his Consent or in his Absence save that the Regalia and the Revenues of the Church were exposed to Sail and a nefaricus Tribunal of Mock-Justice erected as well to terrifie as enslave the People During these Traverses the Scots apprehending the Changes of the Presbyterians in England were glad to look back towards their own King whom they had so cruelly offended They knew it would be no difficult Business to raise an Army by the Influence of his Name and Title Nor were they mistaken tho taking Advantage of his Necessities they would impose upon him The Scots send Windram to the King and therefore demand amongst other Things That he should take the Covenant ratify the Decrees of the late Parliament revoke his Commission to Montrosse drive Papists from his Court and Presence renounce his Negative Voice in Parliament and name a place in the Vnited Provinces where they might further treat of all Things These Propositions were sent by Windram of Liberton to his Majesty who was then at Jersey whither he was retired out of France upon the little Prospect of Relief from that Court as also to be nearer England where the Levellers were stirring and near Ireland now wholly except Dublin and London-derry at his Devotion The Confederates had earnestly desired his Presence amongst them and 't is not doubted if he had gone thither but that he would have been absolute Master of the Kingdom Others were of another Opinion urging that if he miscarried in Ireland he would also loose the Hopes he had conceived of the Protestants in England and Scotland As if a Sovereign Prince were not permitted to make use of his own Subjects of what Religion soever they were for his Service and Defence especially they being willing to assist him and he satisfied in their Loyalty But when the News of the Overthrow at Dublin came the Scots demands were taken into Consideration Some of the Council seemed to reject all kind of Commerce with that People affirming That as they had sold and betrayed the Father so when their Fear and Covetousness prompted them they would serve the Son and therefore there was no Faith to be given to such Perfidious Men. But others more moderate in their Councils advised the King by no means to omit the Opportunity which so fairly offered it self but immediately to close with the Scots for that Kingdom being recovered his Attempts upon the other would be less difficult The Queen-Mother was also of this Opinion He is returned with a satisfactory Answer and so was Montrosse who offered now to go into Banishment as Strafford formerly to Death voluntarily rather than interrupt so Hopeful a Peace The King at length perswaded tho not without Repugnancy dispatcht Windram back into Scotland with no unpleasing Answer and Assurance that he would do every thing for the Good of his People appointing moreover Breda a Town in Brabant for the Place of Treaty commanding and desiring the Committee of Estates to send Commissioners thither to meet him on the 5th of March following year 1649 Windram being sent into Scotland the King left the Island as well upon Accompt of the Regicides Preparations to invade it as of his being at Breda by the Time appointed for the Treaty Whilst the King is in his way it may be proper to say somewhat of the Royal Fleet under the Command of Prince Rupert The Rebels being too strong for him he was necessitated to shelter himself in the Haven of Kinsale where he had long been shut up by them And now Cromwell approaching the City with his victorious Army to besiege it by Land he was forced to adventure to Sea and did break through the Enemies Fleet with the Loss of Three of his Ships and directing his Course for Lisbone he entred the River Tagus with full Sail where he found not only a friendly Reception but Protection also from that Prince The Rigicides irritated with this Civility declare War against the Author of it and sending Blake with a Fleet blockt up the Mouth of the River extreamly interrupting the Traffick of Portugal by seizing their Ships in their Return home He lay long there but not being able to oblige that King by Intreaties or Force to abandon the Prince he at length his Provisions being spent was constrained to go seek for more The Prince taking the Opportunity of his Removal put to Sea and sailing towards Malaga took and burnt several English Vessels but Blake pursuing him mastered and seized the Roe-buck a good Man of War and forced Five more upon the Rocks and Shore The Prince escaped this Misfortune tho reserved for a greater for being forced into the Western Islands
and being unequel to those Veteranes after a sharp Fight he was defeated by them And however he escaped their present Fury by Flight he was afterwards taken in the Battel of Worcester and being brought to Chester was there notwithstanding the Quarter given him beheaded by the Regicides finishing his Course with no less Gallantry than he had lived with Glory The King upon his Entry into England was ploclaimed by a Herald at Arms King of ENGLAND SCOTLAND FRANCE and IRELAND which was also done in all the chief Towns as he passed along and was now repeated at Worcester with greater Pomp and Splendour He had by Letters and Messages in his March invited several of the Rebel-Commanders and Governours to the return of their Duty but in vain He had also desired the same of the Mayor and Common-Council of London but with the same success There were however several Noble Persons who came in to him as the Lord Talbot Packington Howard Broughton and others with about Two Thousand private Souldiers The rest kept back either surprized with the sudden Advance of the King and consequently unprovided or terrified with the Cruelty of the Rump and so durst not appear or averse to the Scots now unseasonably mindful of the former Injuries received from them and would not come The King had been advised and it was his own Opinion to march from Warrington directly to London which in probability ought to have been done if the Army had not been so much wearied with their former Toyles and Labours They therefore came to Worcester a Place convenient enough where having recovered and repaired their Strength they might either expect or promote the War Hither Cromwell came Six Days after with the conjoyned Forces of the Party amounting to near Sixty Thousand Souldiers and Trained-Bands and having beaten Massey from Vpton-Bridge approached the Town The Rebels having passed the Rivers Severne and Tame upon Bridges and Boats advance towards the Walls however very bravely opposed by the Scots out of the Hedges and Ditches in their way But the Royallists being out-numbered were forced to retreat towards the City The Rebels having repulsed and wounded Montgomery at Powick Cromwell advancing drew up near ..... Wood. The King with Forbes's Foot a small Body of Horse for Lesley with Two Thousand more stood a loof of and did not approach and some English Voluntiers charged the Van of the Enemy with so much intrepid Bravery that he not only repelled them but took their Cannon which yet he could not keep by reason of their numerous Reserves and Supplies incessantly relieving each other Insomuch that the King having performed all the Parts of a Great Commander by rallying his broken Troops and embodying his scattered Foot and encouraging them by his Example and Presence in their renewed Encounters being over-pow'red by the adverse Legions Duke Hamilton who kept close to him being also wounded of which Hurt he shortly died he was forced to retreat towards the City which he entered on Foot at Sudbury-Gate being then obstructed by a laden Waggon overthrown in the Passage Nor did he long stay there but mounting another Horse when he saw all was lost and that the Enemy entered on all sides he at length slipping away in the Croud escaped out of the City The Royal-Fort defended by Col. Drummund with Fifteen Hundred Men was taken by Assault where all were put to the Sword The slaughter in the City was not less barbarous the Citizens and Souldiers being promiscuously slain all being filled wiâ—h Rapine and Murther There fell as well without as within the Walls where the Slaughter was greatest Three Thousand Five Hundred and the Prisoners were above Six Thousand most of the English escaping by the Benefit of their Tongue Duke Hamilton having his Thigh broken died there and amongst the Prisoners of most Note were the Earls of Derby Cleveland Lauderdale Rothes Carnworth Kelley as also Packington Greves Fanshaw the King's Secretary and many other Noble Persons taken in their Flight It is a Wonder that the King escaped the Diligence of his Pursuers but the Means by which he escaped doubles the Miracle Five Poor Brethren by Name Pendrills with Francis Yates married to their Sister and Three Females their Companions who concealed conducted and nourisht him justly merited the Glory not only of saving a Citizen as they had done before in the Person of the Earl of Derby whom they had formerly secured but of preserving their Prince No Threats of Punishments or Death nor the offer of a Thousand Pounds to those who discovered him would prevail with these however needy Plebeians whose Loyalty surmounted both their Hopes and their Fears The King having spent several Days in this miserable Solitude passed through many Hands of both Sexes and Religions Men and Women of the Middle and Lowest Sort. And by many Accidents and Spottings of Fortune wandering as it were in a Cloud for the space of Two Months he at length going on Board a small Collier and not unknown to the Master at Bright-hemston in Sussex was conveyed together with the Lord Wilmott his Achates and Companion in Dangers into France reserved by Divine Providence for the Glories that attended his Restitution At Rohan he discovered himself to some English Merchants where he changed his Apparel and went the next Day to Paris where his Fame arriving before him he was met in the way by the Queen his Mother and the Duke of Orleance with a great Train of Nobility Thus convoyed he was brought to Court where he was received with the Applause of all Men and the particular Congratulations of the French King and all the Peers of that Kingdom BOOK II. Cromwell enters London Triumphantly Continuation of the Irish Affairs Ormond leaves Ireland and Clanrickard his Deputy there Ireton dyes of the Plague Monk takes Sterling Dundee and Subjugates Scotland The Isles of Scilly Barbadoes Garnsey Jersey and that of Man surrendered to the Regicides Their Greatness They are courted by the Neighbouring Kings and States They send a solemn Embassy into Holland Cromwell cabals Turns out the Mock-Parliament Chooses another Is chosen Protector The Wars with the United Provinces The various Sea-Fights betwixt the Two States Cromwell makes a Peace with them and a League with France The Expedition of San Domingo and Jamaica Blake's success at Tunis and Santa Cruz. Dunkirk taken The Death of Oliver Cromwell His Character THE Scotch Army being defeated at Worcester and Lesley Midleton and the other Chief Officers who fled with the Horse taken Cromwell having sent his Prisoners before him entered London the Westminster and City Senates and Grandees receiving him with all imaginable Honour and Flatteries And now the Common-wealth having overcome all their Enemies exceedingly gloried in their Acquisitions Ireland was also subdued the remaining Natives being transported into Connaught But of these Tumults it will be expedient to treat more particularly Ireton having been left by his Father-in-law to command in Ireland as
we have already mentioned he began with the Siege of Waterford Which Preston who commanded there seemed resolved to defend until finding himself shut up with Approaches and Trenches and attacked with the adverse Cannon but above all seeing no hopes of Relief he surrendered this strong City upon Articles of Indemnity for the Inhabitants and Liberty for the Garrison to march away with their Colours and Arms. Carlaw and Duncannon ran the same Fate at the same Time Young Preston marching away with the Souldiers of those Fortresses All this while the Confederates continue in their unhappy Dissensions the Catholicks and Reformed teazing each other with their wild and unseasonable Controversies No due respect or obedience were paid to the Lord Lieutenant And now the Clergy endeavoured to distract the Protestants amongst themselves animated particularly against Ormond whom they labour with Calumnies to separate from Inchequin and him again by the same Arts from his Excellency The furious Heat of some of the Bishops grew to that height that impatient of the Government of the Protestants they pronounced it abrogated excommunicating all such who dared to disobey their Dictates Ormond having tried all ways to allay these fatal Differences and perswade them to unite for their Common Defence to no purpose perceiving their Obstinacy he resolved to quit them lest he might be involved in their Ruine To these Indignities they of Limerick besieged on one side by Ireton refused him Entrance on the other though he came with Forces to their Assistance under pretence That they themselves sufficed for their own Defence And yet lest the King's Affairs might suffer by their Folly and his Absence he gave the Earl of Castel-haven the Command of the Forces and by the Suffrages of all constituted the Earl of Clanrickard Deputy of the Kingdom Clanrickard having undertaken the Government more to delay the Rebels Conquest than out of any Appearance of Success in hopes it might advantage the King upon his march out of Scotland makes new Levies recruits the Veteranes provides Warlike Instruments and being powerfully assisted by the Ecclesiasticks endeavours to repair the lapsed condition of their Party Not that he thereby fancied the Recovery of the Kingdom but to give the King Time to try the Fortune of a Day with Cromwell as His Majesty had himself inculcated to him by his Letters Nor were the Forces he raised contemptible amounting to Five Thousand but by the continual Aversness of Fortune they effected nothing of moment They indeed took some small Garrisons of Ireton's he being gone to his Winter-Quarters but being assaulted by Collonel Axtel in the Isle of Milech and their Trenches forced they were broken Five Hundred at least of them being slain and drown'd The Residue attempting no further secured themselves in Connaught interposing the River S ..... and the Curluvian Mountains betwixt them and this Fortunate Enemy guarding the Passages and Avenues of that Province the only thing they were now capable of Nor could they long secure themselves there for the Spring advancing Ireton took the Field and having sent for Coot out of Vlster to meet him he Coot under Pretence of besieging Slego thereby diverted the Enemies Forces passing the Colluvian Mountains whilst the other got over the Shannon at Killalo by the Treachery or Cowardise of Collonel Fenel appointed to guard it Having joyned Forces they took Athole and separating again Ireton besieges Limerick and Coot Galloway Limerick however strong weakened with their own Dissensions did not resist so long as it might have done being well garrisoned and well victuall'd but delivered it self the Garrison marching away without their Arms leaving Four and Twenty of the Principal in it to Mercy Of these the Bishop of Firne and several others active in the first Part of the Rebellion were hanged Nor was this Victory less fatal to the Conquerour who did not long survive it being extinguished by the Plague This Monster having been bred up in the Law whereof he had some smatterings had been largely imbibed from his Youth in the Frantick Ravings of the Ecclesiasticks Which Cromwell observing as also his Ingenuity took him into his Fellowship and Family and matching him to his Daughter made him his Son-in-law He was active vigilant and stedfast nor improper for Council or Execution in War and consequently a chief Champion and Contriver in the exerable Regicide Ireton being dead the chief Command of the Army was at present devolved upon Ludlowe a Man bold and daring to whom Three more Collegues were afterwards associated In the mean time Galloway was surrendered Clanrickard having articled for Permission to depart Neither was any more warring there save against some Mountainers and Tories the Garrisons every where opening their Gates and the Souldiery yet in Arms having conditioned their Transportation passed most of them into the Spanish Service in Flanders a Militia not much more Fortunate than their own Ireland being subdued all vailed to the Conquerors General Monk after Cromwell's Departure besieges Sterling which however filled with Arms Cannon Provisions in Abundance and the Records and Monuments of their Kings was tamely surrendered to him Dundee by the Valour of Lunisdane the Governour held out but being over-powered it was taken by Assault and the whole Garrison put to the Sword The slaughter was cruel and the Town no less unmercifully pillaged by the covetous Souldiers which struck such a Terror in others that Aberdene and the rest of the Scotch Garrisons that they might not be involved in so ruinous a Fate prevented it by a timely Rendition Sir Phillip Musgrave had attempted to raise new Forces in Galloway so did also a Convention of some of the Nobility at Ellit but being surprised the Earls of Leven and Crawford Ogelby Musgrave and others were taken Prisoners The Scots made yet one Attempt more under Midleton Huntley Glencarne and other Highlanders but they also were supprest by the Valour and Vigilancy of Col. Morgan There was no Enemy more that appeared and to take all hopes of embodying from them for the future Four strong Cittadels were built in Four principal Parts of the Country viz. Leith Ayre Innerness and St. Johnstons And now Scotland being sufficiently subjugated was subjected to the Laws of England and incorporated into one Common-wealth with that Kingdom During these Traverses Sir John Greenvil had detained some Merchant Ships belonging to the Dutch at Scylly which so irritated the States that they sent Tromp with Twelve Men of War to reclaim them or require satisfaction for the Dammage He had also Instructions to treat with the Governour for the Surrendry of that Place into their Hands but the Secret was not carried so close but that these Transactions were known to the English who thereupon sent Blake with a Fleet to hinder the Alienation of so Important a Place by reason of its exceeding Commodiousness for Navigation Greenvil being thus assaulted on both sides chose rather to deliver the Isles to his Country-men than
with his Ships of War and fights retreating The Third day the Battle being renewed the Dutch after a stout Conflict got away by Favour of the Darkness having lost Eleven of their Men of War and Thirty of the Merchant Ships The English lost the Sampson but saved her Men as also the Captains Mildmay and Ball commanding the Triumph and Vanguard and Blake himself was wounded in his Thigh The slaughter on both sides especially the Enemies was very great Tromp gained great Honour and that deservedly for saving his Fleet justly attributing the Cause of his Retreat to his Care for his Merchants which he convoy'd The Hollanders admonished by their Losses write to the Rump for a Reconciliation but seeing the other Provinces had not concurred their Letters were rejected But what the Dutch lost in the Channel seemed to be compensated by their Victory in the Tyrrehenian Sea off of Leghorn where Van Galen defeated Appelton taking and sinking Fire Men of War He had formerly taken the Phenix at Porta Longona which was afterwards recovered by Cox sometime her Lieunant who in the Night under the Notion of Fisher-men clapt her on Board with a Hundred Men in Three Boats forcing Young Tromp who commanded her to save himself out of the Cabin Window and brought her to Naples The Danes favouring the Dutch had detained an English Fleet in the Sound loaden with Masts Pitch Tar Hemp and other Naval Provisions which the English mainly wanted Nor would they release them although pressed to it by Captain Ball with a great Fleet of War year 1653 In the Beginning of this Year 1653. Cromwell as is mentioned had dislodged the Rump assuming to himself the Supream Authority over these Nations And now the Dutch proposing to themselves much Advantage by this Change and as they supposed unsetled state of Affairs prepare a great Fleet consisting of Fourscore brave Ships of Force Wherewith Tromp sailing out of the Texel made Northwards to meet their French Merchant Fleet coming round Ireland and Great Brittain for fear of the English who obstructed the Passage through the Channel These being sent Home in safety Tromp sailed to Dover which Town he battered with his whole Fleet a whole Day The English in the mean Time under the Command of Monk and Dean sailing along the Coasts of Scotland Denmark and the Belgick Strands carried no less Terror with them June 2. The Coasts having been thus allarm'd on both Sides both Fleets came in Sight of each other and engaged The Fight as usual was brave and bloody Dean was slain by a Cannon Bullet from the first Broad-side but the Dutch in Revenge were so ill treated that the Night coming on they retired towards Dunkirk securing themselves from the Enemies greatest Ships betwixt those known Sands The next Morning the English augmented by the Accession of Blake with Eighteen Ships renewed the Fight and after a sharp Encounter force the Dutch to flye notwithstanding Tromp who put himself at the foremost of them his Endeavours to the contrary The Belgians lost at least Fifteen of their Ships sunk and taken the Dammage the English suffered being very inconsiderable The Conquerours raised with their Success besieged the Havens and Ports of Holland and Zealand to their very great Detriment for the Ships homeward bound ignorant of what had happened fell into the Hands of the Besiegers and those within durst not venture out The Dutch finding the Inequality of the Party send Embassadours into England to treat of Peace where whilst they are disputing about the Conditions the Fleets again meet not far from the Texel This Naval Battel seemed to exceed all the other in Fierceness and Slaughter though nothing memorable happened that or the following Day by reason of the Tempestuousness of the Weather On the Third Day July 31. being the 31st of July the Fleets from the Texel and Zealand being joyned Tromp and De Witt made up to the English who bearing off at Sea by reason of the Sholes and a Lee-shore quickly tackt upon them and receiving their Attack with equal Fortitude and Fierceness at length repelled them The Fight dured from Six in the Morning till Noon Nor did the Party seem unequal until Tromp was slain being shot in the Breast with a Musket Bullet And thus fell this great Man to be mentioned with Honour for the Glory of his Achievements and his skill in Naval Affairs He finished his Course with no less Reputation than he had continued it seeing he died in Defence of his Country and that the War which he had begun expired with him The Admiral being dead the Valour of his Men vanished with him who unequal to the English in Perseverance fled before them with much Disorder and Loss towards the Texel Nor were they much pressed in their Retreat for Monk however successful bought his Victory dear being necessitated to return into England to repair his Breaches and Losses He had Six of his Captains slain and as many wounded and Two of his Ships lost Pen and Lawson did particularly signalize themselves What the Enemy suffered was not known save that Five of their Captains were made Prisoners and scarce Ninty of One Hundred and Twenty Ships they had fought with escaped into the Texel A day of Thanksgiving was appointed in England for this Victory the Chief Officers and Captains of the Fleet being honoured with Gold-Chains and Medals as Marks of their Valour and good Service Opdam a Person of Honour and of the Nobility which is conspicuous in Holland succeeded Tromp in the Command of the Fleet. And now both Republicks weary of the War seemed desirous of Peace which was also concluded betwixt them upon Conditions honourable enough for the English if the Protector too solicitous for the future had not too much apprehended the Young Prince of Orange then in his Nurses Arms. The Danes were included in the Treaty the Price of the detained Ships being paid by the States Peace was likewise concluded with the King of Portugal as also with the Sweeds by splendid Embassies from both Sides A more strickt League was also made with the French and all upon his own Terms For he forced the Dutch and Portuguese to pay the Charges of the War Nor would he conclude with the French without inserting an Article their King being then under Age That France should upon Demand assist him with Ten Thousand Men to establish his Authority against the King against the People and against the Defections of his own Army which he had reason to apprehend Nay they valued the Friendship and Favour of this Usurper at that Rate that they forced King Charles by an unheard of President upon his Demand to leave that Kingdom banishing him out of his very Exile against the Law of Nations which allows Sanctuary to the distressed and against the Rights of Blood and Hospitality Cromwell being offended with Spain or perhaps in Consequence of the League with France Proclaims War against that
the General who by his Courage and Conduct had contributed so mainly to it They then Vote Declare and Decree That the Government of England is Monarchical consisting in a King and Two Houses of Parliament After this King Charles I. his Statues thrown down by the Sectaries were set up again and the New Arms of the Common wealth with extream Contumelies tâ—rn and defaced those of the King being put in their Places A â—â—w Days after the King himself the Members of Bâ—th Houses assisting and an Iâ—fâ—nity of People was with the usual Ceremonies but unusual Transports of Joy proclaimed at Westminster in London and afterwards in the whole Kingdom King of Great Britain and Ireland In these following Terms Although it can no ways be doubted but that his Majesty's Right and Title to these Crowns and Kingdoms is and was every way compleat by the Death of his most Royal Father of glorious Memory without the Ceremony or Solemnity of a Proclamation Yet since Proclamations in such Cases have been always used to the End that all good Subjects might upon this occasion testifie their Duty and Respect And since the armed Violence and other Calamities of many Years last past have hitherto deprived us of any Opportunity wherein we might express our Loyalty and Allegiance to his Majesty We therefore the Lords and Commons now assembled in Parliament together with the Lord Mayor Aldermen and Common Council of the City of London and other Freemen of this Kingdom now present do according to our Duty and Allegiance heartily joyfully and unanimously acknowledge and Proclaim That immediately upon the Decease of our late Sovereign King Charles I. the Imperial Crown of the Realm of England and all the Kingdoms Dominions and Rights belonging to the same did by inherent Birth-right and lawful undoubted Succession descend and come to his most Excellent Majesty King Charles II. as being Lineally Justly and Lawfully next Heir of the Blood Royal of this Realm And that by the Goodness and Providence of Almighty God He is of England Scotland and Ireland the most Potent Mighty and Vndoubted King and thereunto we most humbly and faithfully do submit and oblige our selves our Heirs and Posterities for ever At the Ceremony of this Proclamation the Publick Joy expressed by Shoutings Acclamations of God bless the King Bells and Bonfires were no less extraordinary than infinite the People being at length redeemed out of so long and so wretched a Captivity by the miraculous Restauration of their Beloved Prince Our most August Monarch had hitherto as is already mentioned wandered in Foreign Courts and as usual in the Disgraces of Fortune too much neglected especially where Reason of State seemed more prevalent than all the Tyes of Blood or Hospitality He was at Brussels the Metropolis of the Spanish Netherlands when he first heard of this Change in England from whence he removed to Breda a more secure place under the Circumstances of the present Times And now he hastens Greenvill away again with Letters to the Two Houses of Parliament to the City to Monk and to Montague joynt General at Sea In these Writings He Pardons all Men and all Crimes committed against his Royal Father or himself except such as the Parliament should except against promising further The Souldiers their Arrears tho' they bore Arms against him and That he would from that time receive them into his own Trust and Service upon the same Terms they did now enjoy c. This Declaration being received and read in Parliament with inexpressible Satisfaction and Joy was voted infinitely Satisfactory and a splendid Embassy ordered to the forthwith sent to the King with their humble Thanks for his Gracious Declaration and Letters and to invite and press His Majesty's return to his Parliament and People Six Lords and Twelve Commoners with Twenty Principal Citizens with a noble Train of Attendants were sent upon this happy Occasion Who the Wind favouring them after a quick Passage found His Majesty at the Hague in Holland where he had been treated and defrayed by the States of that Province with all imaginable Demonstrations of Honour and Friendship The Embassadours being admitted to the King's Presence and graciously heard had their Desires crowned with a wisht-for Answer So that nothing now impeded His Majesty's Return to his Dominions but the Wind which in favour to the kind Dutch kept him some little time longer there In the interim the Duke of York visited the Fleet lying at Anchor before Scheveling under the Command of General Montague formerly as is mentioned reconciled to His Majesty After a magnificent Reception his Royal Highness taking the Oaths of Allegiance from the Sea-men and having changed the Names of several of the Prime Ships restored this first Pledge of Empire to our Monarch The King having taken his Leave of the States General and of the States of Holland in their Assemblies the Honour of which visit they acknowledged in a most Elegant Speech with all the Expressions of Gratitude and Satisfaction he imbarked in a Boat prepared for him by the States whose Flag had this memorable Inscription Quo Fas et Fata vocârunt The Ways the Downs the Sand Hills and Shores were crowded with an innumerable Multitude of all Sorts of People ecchoing his Departure with Vows for his good Success By the way upon the Approach of a Brigandine from the Fleet he entered into it And going aboard the Royal Charles formerly the Naesby with his Two Royal Brothers the Dukes of York and Gloucester he was receieved there by Montague with all submissive Veneration who again treated him with a Gracious Testimonial of his Affection The Season was very clear and the Sea so calm that his Majesty mounting upon the Poop did daiâ—n to turn his Eyes to the Shore which he had so lately left and seeing the infinite Crowds of Spectators there he was pleased to say That he thought his own Subjects could scarce have more Tenderness for him than those People on whose Affections he saw he reigned no less than he was going to reign on the Wills of the English After this having kiss'd his Nephew * Prince of Orange and the Queen his Aunt * Queen of Bohemia and bid them farewel he had much aâ—o to be separated from his Sister * Princess Royal. This matchless Princess who had born and slighted so many Vicissitudes of Evil and who had frequently solaced the Calamities of her Brothers by her charming Discourses can scarce now without shaking her Constancy endure the Absence of a few Days being what she had desired with so much Impatience and what was so glorious to both of them The Anchors being at length weighed he left this friendly Shore with the thundering of the Cannon on both sides and sailed towards England now truely his own On the 25th of May he came into Dover Road where upon his landing he was received by Monk with Joy and Observance This best of
being husht up by the Treaty of Breda The Plague did devour our People no more its Poison being extinct And the City lately of Wood was now by the King's Munificence rebuilt of Brick and Stone When one Titus Oates who had had his Education and Orders in the Reformea Church of England being afterwards reconciled to that of Rome passed over first into Flanders and thence into Spain Where under pretence of Religion and his Zeal for it he gained so much Favour with the Priests and Jesuits that he had Opportunities as he pretended to penetrate into their most secret Councils This new Proselyte changing Parties again returned into England where he informs the King of a Design of the Papists against his Life against the Reformed Religion and the present Government And naming several Lords as Bellasis Powis Peters Arundel Castelmain Stafford and other Men of Quality as prime Conspirators in this Treason gained so much Credit with the Parliament that the accused were all imprisoned the Papists commanded to remove Ten Miles from the City and all of them to be cashier'd out of all Employments both Military and Civil The mysterious Death of Godfrey inflamed the Parliaments Credulity to Vote That there was a Plot execrable and Hellish as they termed it Insomuch as the King at their instant Desires past a Bill to disable all Popish Peers or other Members so affected to fit in either Houses of Parliament Offering further to comply with any Expedient they should propose for the Security of the Protestant Religion so as they tended not to impeach the Right of Succession Coleman Ireland Pickering Groves Fenwick Whitebread Langhorn Staley Green Berry and Hill condemned by the Testimony of Oates and others of his Associates solemnly attested their Innocence at their Death Nor did so great Effusion of Blood suffice to remove the Jealousies they had of the Papists so that the Houses of Parliament to whom the King had granted all things for the security of Religion not contented with these Concessions proceeded so far as to press the King to remove the Duke of York from his Presence and Councils To this they added the Imprisonment of his Secretary Williamson without his Knowledge Which did so far irritate his Majesty that he dissolved this Parliament after it had continued Seventeen Years Fanaticism which had lurk'd for some Time under a Protestant Mask and infused its Contagion into the Parliament began now under Pretence of Godliness to appear more openly The King having dissolved the Parliament as is said had summon'd another from which he hoped for more good than he had hitherto experimented And lest the Presence of his Brother might prove any Obstacle he commanded him to retire until the Heat of the Faction did a little cool Which he obeyed without Repugnancy that he might in no wise occasion any the least Dissension betwixt the King his Brother and the Parliament But the King's Indulgence and the Duke's Observance were equally valu'd Nor could all his Concessions with those Limitations not meddle with the Succession or his Prerogatives satisfy their Contumacy year 1679 Nay he had dismissed his Privy Council as being ill look'd upon by the Parliament surrogating others in their rooms not so obnoxious to the Faction making the Earl of Shaftsbury President But all this was to no purpose for the Parliament omitting those Things which they were to have treated of and postponing the King's Demands of Subsidies they again attacked the Duke of York absent then in Flanders the Commons voting his Exclusion from the Succession But the King seeing the contumacious Animosity of the Party and not obscurely perceiving that he himself was aimed at through the Duke's Sides July 10. Octob. 17. dissolving this present Parliament commanded another to convene in October following Whilst these things are in Agitation in England the Tumults in Scotland flew higher Dr. Sharp the Arch-bishop of St. Andrews was most inhumanly murthered in his Coach by a Party of the barbarous Covenanters Which done the Rebellion they designed was by the Concourse of those Multitudes that flockt together suddainly formed into a considerable Army consisting of Sixteen Hundred Horse and above Four Thousand Foot Nor were the Royallists less active the King having sent the Duke of Monmouth thither as General who joying with the Scots Nobility they raised such a Force that fighting the Rebels at Bothwel-Bridge chey defeated them The Slaughter was not great for the Enemies Horse not being prest or pursued by the Connivance if not Command of Monmouth for he himself had other Designs as it afterwards appeared retreated in a Body at least Twelve Miles from the Place they had fought in and separating there dispersed themselves some of the Foot being slain A few of the Prisoners were punished for their improsperous Treason After this the King fell sick of a Fever at Windsor which was so violent that the Physitians despaired of his Recovery Upon News whereof the Duke hastened from Brussels to Court But it seemed otherwise good to the Almighty who was pleased to prolong his Life until he could leave the Kingdom agitated at present with so many Distractions settled and composed to his Successor Being restored to his Health the Joy of it was celebrated by the Universality at least the Good Part of the Nation the City also sending their Lord Mayor and Aldermen with a great Train with Thirty Coaches and a Troop of a Hundred Horse for their Convoy to Windsor to congratulate his Hapyy Recovery But Monmouth however illegitimate blinded with Ambition and not content with those great Honours and Places he enjoyed aspired to the Crown it self inviting and alluring with the Baits of Employments and Rewards some of the most interested to his Party But this caballing was discovered to the King by the Earl of Oxford who abhorring the Treason preferr'd his Loyalty before all the Offers of Ambition and Greatness The King being justly incensed against the Ingratitude and Vanity of the Pretender divested him of all those Dignities and Offices which he enjoyed and banished him the Kingdom Moreover to prevent the Chymerical Delusions which the Report of his being married or contracted to the said Duke's Mother might occasion his Majesty by repeated Declarations publickly emitted as also by Writings under his own Hand declared Vpon the Faith of a Christian and the Word of a King that he never Married nor gave any Contract to any Woman whatsoever but to Queen Katharine his Wife This the King did with so much Solemnity to prevent the Peoples being abused by these false and malitious Reports and lest the Factious might thereby mislead them to disturb the Publick Peace or violate the Rights of Succession Whereby also the vain Pretences of Monmouth and the ridiculous Machinations of the Seditious might be disappointed The Parliament 1679. 1680. which the King had summoned to meet in October being delayed by several Motogatives did not come together before the October
certain of Impunity But the King resolved at length to stem this growing Evil. Which he did by restoring the Free Election of the Sheriffs according to the antient Custom and taking the Forfeiture of the City-Charter adjudged so by Law into his own Hands These means however proper for the Common-wealth had like to have destroyed both For when so many Criminals and Wicked-doers saw the Magistrates especially the Sheriffs changed and honest Men put into their Places and considering that there was no Evasion from the Law under pretence of it they resolve upon a high Attempt and worthy their Hellish Conspiracy which was to subvert the King and Kingdom and involve them in the same Ruin Shaftsbury being conscious of his Guilt and not ignorant of the Injustice of the Sentence by which he escaped terrified with the unexpected Change and seeing himself obnoxious to that Justice which he had frustrated and eluded moved with the greater Precipitation he terrifies his Associates with the Greatness of the Danger encourages some to rise others to Parricide resolving to hazard all rather than tamely betray himself into the Hands of his Enemies He therefore exhorts his Companions To vindicate their Liberty Property Religion the old Cant still against Popery Tyranny Superstition Idolatry Oppression Murther and the other growing Evils of Servitude With these kind of Orations they incense the furious So that what they could not effect by Fraud and pretended Sanctity they resolve to compass by the way of Arms. To this End they advise about raising of Forces But Shaftsbury thinking they moved not swiftly enough in it impatient of every Delay and fearing for every Noise alarm'd him of being intercepted as he had already withdrawn himself from his own Dwelling exagitated with his own Guilt he fled the Kingdom and retreated into Holland Where this most torbulent of Men being neglected found that Repose in Death which the impetuous Desire of Ruling had deprived him of here The Conspirators however troubled at the loss of so eminent a Patron and not ignorant that they were advanced beyond a Retreat constitute a Supream Council of Six to manage their Affairs Besides this they had another more Inferiour Court who consulted how to remove the King and the Duke by Assassination or otherwise and to solicite the Revolt of the Commonalty in Order to a War which they resolve to carry on against the King and the Common-wealth The Scots under the Conduct of Arguile were invited to joyn and act in this nefarious Rebellion Who had also their Commissioners at London who together with the English Conspirators should move by consent And it was concerted amongst them that they should break out into open Hostility in both Kingdoms at the same Time They resolve to secure London the Head of their Design by the same Methods it had been circumvented in the former Rebellion They further divide the City into Twenty Parts which they distributed under the Conduct of so many Commanders Some were to seize the Tower and the principal Posts in the City others White-hall and particularly the Guards which were to be surprized and cut off They had a Hundred of Cromwell's Officers at hand ready to head the People upon their Insurrection being abundantly provided with Money and Arms by voluntary Contributions from the Chiefs of their Party The Country was no less addicted to them especially those Parts which Monmouth who was returned from his Banishment without Permission had visited in his Progresses Whilst they thus prepare for War the Design to Murther the King and Duke kept pace with them Hone another Godly Joyner proposed to have them shot from Bow steeple as they passed with Cross-Bows Rumbald the Maltster would have the Play-House blown up with Gun-powder when they were present declaring further That he he had laid a Design Ten Years ago to have slain them as they returned from New-Market if they had not by accident taken another way whereby they escaped the Danger Some designed to attempt them as they walked in St. James's Park which they frequently did with no great Train Some fancied it easie to sink them in the River when they took the Air by Water in their Barge by shocking them with a greater Vessel There were again others who would have them pistol'd in the Play-House whilst intent upon the Comedy or kill'd as they came thence along Bedford-wall Other places betwixt Windsor and Hampton-Court about Winchester and Red-Lyon Fields if they should come there were judged proper enough for this black Parricide But these all as subject to too much Hazard and Danger were laid aside upon mature Deliberation of the more convenient Situation of the Rye a House belonging to the aforesaid Rumbald seated in the Way to New-Market Eighteen Miles from London in the County of Hartford This Place being Moated about and the Passage near it narrow and strongly fenced and wall'd was judged the most proper of any for the Purpose Rumbald himself the Designer of this Wickedness offering in Person to undertake it with Forty more Associates and at once to destroy both the Royal Brothers Which he had probably effected if God the Protector of Kings had not wrought a Miracle in their Favour The Conspirators full of Hopes and Assurance seemed in nowise to question the Success of their so well laid Enterprize when the Divine Providence disappointed in a moment all their Contrivances and Plots by a Fire undoubtedly sent from Heaven which burnt a great part of New-Market The Conflagration was so terrible that the Flames of it approaching the King's Pallace forced him thence to another part of the Town further off Where by reason of the Commodiousness of his Lodgings he proposed to pass some days more in Hunting and the other usual Diversions of the Place But he had no sooner resolved it but the Wind conducted by some Invisible Agent suddenly changing fills his new Lodgings in a moment with Smoke and Cynders Which obliged the King seeing no other convenience for his Reception to declare That he would immediately return to White hall which he also did before he was expected or that the Conspirators Preparations were in a Readiness The Noise of so unexpected an Accident was diversly received by the Parricides Some believed That so unusual Burnings could not happen without the Direction of Providence Walcot profess'd that he thence conjectured That God did not approve of their Design Whilst Ferguson without any the least Horror of so hellish an Undertaking did dare to affirm That he plainly saw that God had reserved the King for his own Judgment And yet one of these Conspirators Keeling by Name a Schismatic greatly addicted to the Faction and number'd amongst the Forty Murtherers perceiving the Averseness of Heaven and agitated with the Terrors and Storms of a Guilty Conscience after many Combats in his Soul resolved at length to disburthen himself by discovering this Tartareous Secret to the King At first the Monstrousness of so
admirable Speech which he made in the House upon passing that Fatal Bill The incensed Multitude flew to that height of Violence that amongst other Insolences they did dare to assault the Spanish Ambassador's House upon Pretence of his shelt'ring of Papists and certainly he had run great hazard of being forced if he had not been timely rescued from their Fury by the then Lord Mayor insomuch that he did not doubt to question whether they were a Civilized People or not seeing they so barbarously violated the Law of Nations The Lord's House enforced by the Tumults did also after much Reluctancy assent to the Bill of Attainder not considering that their Authority would sink with the King 's seeing it was not probable that these Men would spoil the Crown to adorn the Nobles But the King himself satisfied of the Innocence of the Prisoner resisted longer slighting the Uproars of the Populace who by Instigation of the Factions perpetually cryed out for Justice Neither did he much value the Opinion of the Judges their Compliance being occasioned by their Fears against whom he also complained That instead of easing him of his Doubts they amused him by their ambiguous Answers The Bishops also who were to satisfie his Scruples in point of Conscience seemed to refer him to the Judges save only that Doctor Juxton the then Bishop of London had told him That he should do nothing against the Dictates of his Conscience upon any Consideration in the World Which he afterwards remembred to the great Honour of that Excellent Prelate Nor did he comply with the Fears of his Friends and Family until overcome not perswaded by the Earl's own Importunity and Letters who desired it out of Hopes his Death might satisfie these Blood-thirsty Men and atone betwixt the King and his People murthered and He then however unwillingly subscribed though by a Candour not to be imitated he did all his Life after as also at his Death blame this too easie Assent even in himself In the mean time he would make one Attempt more in order to which he wrote a Letter to the Lords all with his own Hand which he also sent by his own Son the Prince wherein he desired That seeing he had assented to the Justice of the Parliament his Clemency might also take Place which some affirm was promised before he Signed the Bill but that was but to extort it by any means for now they tell him by a Deputation of Twelve of their House That it could not be done without the extream Peril of the Royal Family lamented by the King He will however solemnize his Obsequies with Tears for when the Archbishop of Armagh gave him an Account of the Exit of this Illustrious Innocent adding That he had never seen so white a Soul restored to its Creator he could not forbear weeping And thus fell this Great Person being then also Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Second to none for Wisdom Loyalty and Greatness of Mind and who as the King affirmed in his Divine Soliloquies was a Gentleman whose great Abilities might make a Prince rather afraid than ashamed to employ him in the greatest Affairs of State He fell as is said by a Decree à post facto but shall rise again by a Posthume Law upon the Restauration of King Charles the Second he being then by a more Righteous Parliament restored also to the Glories of his Honour and Innocence Nor was it by this Act only that the King contributed to his own Ruine by removing so Excellent a Servant and so firm a Pillar of the State but he also gave his Consent to that of Continuance of this Parliament The Act of Continuance during the Pleasure of both Houses depriving himself by this Fatal Indulgence of one of the Principal Flowers of his Crown which was the Disposal of the Meeting Proroguing and Dissolving of these Conventions at his Pleasure For this signal and unusual Concession of his was abused to that height by these most Ungrateful of Men that they took occasion hence not only to ruine their Benefactor but wholly to subvert the Government which they also effected The Archbishop of Canterbury had been already Impeached and was now close Prisoner in the Tower And seeing he was the Chief Pillar of the Church of England as appears in his Admirable Book against Fisher the Jesuit and he having converted Two and Twenty from the Romish to the Protestant Religion as he asserted in the House of Lords when he was accused there of Popery he was also to be removed For since the Ecclesiastical and Civil Governments were to be extirpated it was thought proper that the Principal Asserters of both should be sacrificed to the Ambition of the English and Scottish Novelists Neither did the Fates of these Great Men suffice to dispel the pretended Fears and Jealousies of the Commons for being elated not satisfied with these unexpected Concessions they only encreased their Appetites and seeing now they were feared and that by the Madness of the People whom they had bewitch'd with an Opinion of their Sanctity there was a way laid open to greater Matters they did not blush to attempt the King 's Royal Person and Family Who though he had granted more to the Petitions of the Parliament than ever any Subjects had demanded he would yet have yielded to more for the Good of his People provided it did not intrench upon his Honour and Conscience But these Concessions did not suffice them who would have all though they did not yet declare so far In the mean time they looked upon what the King had so generously bestowed upon them but as Dues interpreting them to have proceeded from his Necessities not Inclinations so that nothing he could either say or do could gain the Favour of this Ungrateful Faction The King's Concessions After the Death of Strafford his Majesty had denied them nothing that they had not been ashamed to ask The Star-Chamber the Archbishop's Court as also that of the Northern Borders were taken away Other Courts as those of the Stannary and of Ludlow c. were circumscribed in narrower Bounds Monopolies were entirely condemned Ship-Money and those other Maritime Revenues that never Prince had as yet parted with were suppressed To all this a Triennial Parliament lest any should dare to offend for the future and the Continuance of this during the Pleasure of the Two Houses as is already said was unhappily assented unto And further to witness the Candour of his Intentions he admitted several of the most popular of the Faction of his Privy-Council the Lord Say being made Master of the Wards Essex Lord Chamberlain Holland Groom of the Stole Leicester Lieutenant of Ireland and St. John Sollicitor General But what Retribution did they make the King for all these Graces and Indulgences of Favour They gave him no Money nor any Thing else save the empty Promises and Dreams of a Glorious Principality The Scots having