England will take it they are resolv'd not to strike a stroke in their Quarrel How this Covenant obtained amongst us and how it was received in this Kingdom I shall not need to tell you Let me only say this and the truth of it That it was only made use of here as a trick of State for the Râ—â—ner of the Church and the Extirpation of her Discipline I had like to have added the Damming of mens Souls for it was directly contrary to the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so that he that took both Them and the Covenant must of necessity be Perjur'd and whereas they called it A Solemn League and Covenant with God I dare boldly say in the Prophets Phrase Isa 28.15 It was a Covenant with Death and an agreement with Hell But to return to the War This War was managed on His Majesties side with the greatest disadvantages imaginable for the Parliament had seized upon His own Revenues sequester'd His Friends and to keep His Subjects from serving him out of Love and Loyalty they maliciously spread abroad false and scandalous Reports of His Person Thus by the permission of God Almighty who sometimes in Judgment lets the Wicked prosper His Majesties Army by several considerable Losses being extremely reduced and weakened and Money which is the strength and sinews of War being wanting to recruit them He resolves to give over the War and betake Himself to the Scotch Army which lay then before Newark and did so having this only comfort in the world besides that of a good Conscience that the Event never states the Justice of a Cause With what killing thoughts and terrible apprehensionâ—â— do we think His Majesty threw Himself into the power of these perfideous Men of whom he himself said after they had sold him That they were just in this that they had not deceived him How lamentable was his condition when upon mature deliberation he thought it his greatest safety to trust those in whom he knew there was no Trust Immediately after his arrival there he issues out his Warrants to all the Governours of Towns and other Officers in his Army to capitulate with his Enemies make such Conditions as their circumstances would admit and surrender And certainly it could not chuse but be a very great affliction to so large and noble a Soul as that of his to think that at last so many Brave and Loyal men must leave his Service without any Reward but that of Heaven and be expos'd to the Fury of those wicked men whose very tender Mercies he knew were Cruel The News of His Majesties putting himself into the protection of the Scots you may think quickly arriv'd at the Parliament who immediately agree with them about his Price I must not say Ransom and so he is bought and sold and deliver'd into the hands of his Implacable â—nemies conducted to Holmâ—y and confin'd And this brings to the third Section of His Majesties Sufferings to wit During His Imprisonment which part of his affliction comes nearest the literal sense of the Text To bind your Kings in Chains I shall need to say little especially in this Audience of the pressures and difficulties of a Prison to the very meanest and most vulgar of men But that a King should be bound in Chains the Assert or of the Peoples Liberties confin'd a Sovereign Prince so Great so Good so Just Imprison'd by his own Subjects in his own Kingdom may challenge the wonder and amazement of this age and perhaps exceed the belief of some of those that are to come The boldness and malice of his Enemies was a wonder so also was His Majesties Virtue and Patience And certainly had not his Spirit been buoy'd up and wonderfully confirm'd by the sweet and comfortable Influences of God Almighty's his restraint would have deluded their last Revenge and put an end to his miserable Life before the day Immediately after his Enemies that their malice and bitterness might want no aggravation command his Guardians to retrench both the Expences of his entertainment and his Retinue The Countrey-people that flock'd thither to be cur'd of that Disease which we commonly call the King 's Evil are not admitted to his Presence but repell'd with Scorn and Reproaches But that which was the most Prodigious and Inhumane of all their Cruelties and hard usage was that as if like the Devil they had envy'd the well-fare of his Soul notwithstanding all his Sollicitations in this Extremity they refus d him the attendance of his Chaplains a greater Rigour and Barbarity than is ever used amongst Christians to the meanest Prisoners and greatest Malefactors By the first they might think to lessen the Quality of his Person By the second to diminish his Credit and Esteem among the People But by the last I know not what they could intend unless it were to hedge up his way to Heaven and if it were possible murder his Immortal Soul I will not adventure to tell you how his Majesty resented this passage I refer you to his own Book A while afterwards some mis-understanding arising between the Parliament and the Army the General sends a Party of Horse seizes his Majesties Person and carries him from one place to another till at last he is committed Prisoner to the Isle of Wight And here the Parliament send their Commissioners to Treat with him again where they find his Concessions such that they tell him they doubt not but that the Peace will suddenly be concluded and all differences between Him and his People adjusted and determined Upon their return to London the Army wherein it is probable there were many Cains and Judass's who thought their sins too great for Pardon puts forâ—h a Remonstrance wherein they demand That Justice may be done upon all the Actors and Contrivers of the late Civil War and particularly upon his Majesty as the Author and Beginner of that Calamity Hereupon his Majesty is committed close Prisoner his Servants dismiss'd and he himself a while after brought to Windsor and so to London with a strong Guard where the usual Respect and ceremony of the Knee is quite wav'd and omitted by most of those that are about his Person nay there were some that would scarce vouchsafe him the Hat And now to add the last complement to their Iniquity which is to Establish it by Law the House of Commons declare That by the Fundamental Laws of the Realm it is Treason in the King of England to levy War against the Parliament and Kingdom That the Legislative Power is in the People That the Commons assembled in Parliament are the Supreme Authority of the Nation That all the People of the Nation are included in the Parliament although the King and House of Peers do not consent thereunto That the King himself took Arms against the Parliament and therefore is Guilty of all the Bloud-shed in the late Civil War and that he ought to expiate the Crime with his own Bloud
The first appearance of this Storm was in that fatal unquiet Quarter the North. The Cloud arose in Scotland and was at first no bigger than a mans hand but at last it grew so great that it covered three Kingdoms and drench'd almost every corner of them with showers of blood The pretence indeed of this disorder was Religion but it appeared by the sad consequences that the thing design'd and intended at least by the Ring-leaders and first movers of it was Violence and Rapine and Sacriledge Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Who would think Religion should make men so wicked They begin first of all with Paper Arms mutinous and Treasonable Pamphlets and insolent and senceless Petitions Then the evil Spirit grew so unruly and disorderly that it assaulted the Bishops upon the Streets nay the very Churches and Pulpits could not secure them from violence And at length this heat and insolence broke forth into an open flame of Hostility and Rebellion But that which made every good mans apprehensions of this mischief the stronger was that the Rebels were conniv'd at if not favour'd and encouraged under hand by a party of their Brethren in England For at the same time there were many Seditious Pamphlets scattered about here likewise which did most impiously reflect both upon the Church and Government yea which was yet infinitely more intolerable several of the Authors who had been taken into custody and confin'd for them were afterwards by the House of Commons delivered and vindicated and commenced the date of their Fame and Popularity as Herostratuâ— from the burning of Diana's Temple from those a bominable beginnings and upon those dangerous Foundations erected the structure of their rising Fortunes This I say to put you in mind that sometimes men arrive at strange degrees of honour and esteem only by the merit of their Crimes And I am of opinion we have seen but too many examples of the like kind very lately who to please the people and make a fortune neither cared what they said or swore or did But let me tell you by the way that such attempts and practices as these are for the most part very unfortunate in the end and when the Peoples eyes are opened they that before cryed Hail Master will then cry Crucifie him Crucifie him and they that to day cry Hosanna will to morrow cry Away with him to Golgotha But I came not here to Prophesie The Male-contents in England after the example of their rebellious Neighbours begin to cry out aloud for Liberty and Religion and a thorow Reformation Hereupon his Majesty thinking it the most proper remedy for these Agonies and Convulsions of State calls a Parliament And this as it happened afterwards proved a remedy worse than the Disease it self For instead of healing and composing differences and grievances they made it their business to aggravate and make them worse They themselves immediately begin to complain of Bishops and the whole Hierarchy of Ecclesiastical Officers in the Church and of evil Counsellors in the State and about his Majesties Person Nay they begin to descend to particulars His Grace the Lord Arch-Bishop is Impeached and afterwards Executed for high-Treason nor can the Reverence of his Office nor the Integrity of his Manners secure him About the same time the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland of whose Innocence his Majesty and all the World not excepting his very Enemies who took care that his case should be no president for Posterity were very well satisfied was also Committed to the Tower Condemned and Executed upon the like accusation All this while his Majesty was but a helpless looker on for the Common People upon his occasion ran together in such Multitudes and clamorous Tumults as endangered not only the Servant but the Master A hard case and a pitiful that a King whos 's the Laws are could not deliver an innocent Person from being Condemned and suffering Death contrary to Law and a sad presage of his own misfortunes In the mean time the Parliament is plyed with Petitions from all sorts of men and women too except the good and Grievances and Fears and Jealousies of I know not how many kinds But the main common places were Religion and Liberty Alas what Religion do they dream of that strike at the very roots and foundations of it Or what Liberty can the Subjects expect when the King himself is not free However they and the Parliament mutually encourage one another and strengthen one anothers hands in wickedness The clamours of the People make the Parliament bold and the boldness of the Parliament makes the People clamorous All this while his Majesty to shew how much he tendered the peace and quiet of his Subjects and to satisfie them all if it were possible at their importunity recedes in some things from his Right and Prerogative He passes a Bill for the Triennial Parliaments and afterwards settled this during the pleasure of the two Houses A wonderful condescention and goodness in a King the like of which we have never met with in all our English Chronicles And now let us see how they requite him About this time his Majesty charged some of the Members of the House of Commons and not without just cause with High-Treason and demanded them in the House himself in Person But this they exclaim of as a high breach of Priviledge and the accused Members who were for the present fain to abscond were in a little time afterward brought again to sit in the House and vindicated without Tryal Thus finding the ground they had got of his Majesty their demands grow every day louder and more unreasonable They do not blush to demand the power of the Militia the Command of the Navy the Government of all the Strengths and Garrisons in the Kingdom So that Royalty was now to be strips of all her Ornaments and Soveraignty to be Vox praeterea nihil An empty Name and nothing else And now what is become of our old English Loyalty and Honesty when our King shall by his own Parliament be divested of all the Ensigns of his Honour and Majesty and the Father of his Country become a Slave to his Subjects About this time did the Natives of the Kingdom of Ireland encouraged by the example of the Scots and the attempts of this Parliament upon the Crown cast off the Yoke of their Allegiance and run into open Rebellion and made such a Massacre of his Majesties Protestant Subjects as never was heard of before in the three Kingdoms And here notwithstanding his Majesties continual solliciting and importuning the Parliament for the reducing and settling that Kingdom it is very observable that they still declin'd it And some men were so barbarously scandalous and so unreasonably malicious as to object the cause of that Rebellion to his Majesty himself and intimate to the World that it was secretly begun and favoured by his Authority and Commission Thus did the three Kingdoms as
Subject and the circumstances of the Story will oblige me to speak of them mixtly and confusedly and as they shall present and shew themselves upon several occasions and emergencies However that I may observe as much of form and order as the nature of the thing will bear I will part the following Tragedy according to the custom of those bloody entertainments into these five Sections The first will contain His Majesties Sufferings and Troubles before and to the very time of the late open Rebellion The second will shew us His Misfortunes and ill success during the time of that Civil War till he was delivered up by the Scotch Army and confin'd The third will consist of the story of His Confinement it self The fourth of His Sufferings in the Persons of His Loyal Nobility and such good Subjects as followed His Fortunes in that general calamity And the fifth and last Act which is the Catastrophe or winding up of the Tragedy will tell us the sad story of His Death and Martyrdom For which this polluted Land which drank His Royal Blood mourns to this day under the Judgments of a righteous Avenger and for which and for our sins which were the remote cause of it every good man cannot chuse but have his eyes full of tears and his mouth full of such lamentations How are the Mighty fallen The Crown is fallen from our Head and wo unto us that we have sinned wo unto us that we have sinned and done so wickedly as to bind our Kings in Chains and our Nobles in links of Iron Before I enter upon this ungrateful Province instead of a Preface I will first of all shew you His late Majesty of blessed memory in all his sometime Pomp and Greatness incircled with all those blessings that may make a Monarch happy and the care of Governing tolerable That so from those mighty heights and advantages you may have the fairer light and take a better view of the humble valley of His Tears and Misery It is but too well known that men in adversity measure their misfortunes and present evils by all the steps and degrees of Honour or Riches that ever they were possest of Fuimus Troes Is but a miserable comfort to have been happy to have been rich or honourable is one of the bitterest circumstances and aggravations that Affliction is capable of Celsae graviore casu decidunt turres High Buildings fall heavy And for this reason says the Son of Sirach O Death how bitter is thy remembrance to a man that lives at ease in his possessions Now I must put you in mind that His Majesty who furnishes us the Subject of this discourse was once it may be one of the happiest Princes of the World He was Royally Born and Related There was scarce a Crown in Europe of any great consideration but he had some alliance to it His Person and Presence were pleasing and Majestick and every way becoming His Birth and Quality And then for His Soul it was fair and Princely too like the Mansion it dwelt in He was a Person of a most undaunted Resolution and Constancy of a present and ready Wit a profound and discerning Judgment and in a word a most universal Knowledge and Learning witness those excellent those incomparable Writings of His the best Legacy except His great and holy Example which he could have left to Posterity Writings that are throughly inform'd not only with the Majesty of a King but alsâ— the Reverence of a Divine Alas that so much Worth and Learning and Goodness should be murdered in one man To complete his happiness he married a Wife Great and Virtuous like himself by whom God gave him a numerous Issue in some of whom we are and may we be long so blest and happy to this very day In short a time there was and pity it was so good a time had wings when this mighty Monarch wanted nothing that 〈…〉 or Industry could think â—â—f to 〈…〉 Crowâ—â—â—◠〈◊〉 nothing that might render him considerable and esteemed abroad or honoured and obeyed at home Yea Rebellion her self like the sin of Witchcraft sought the shadow of the Night and dwelt in the dark She crouch'd and crept into corners She was both afraid and ashamed of the Light and as yet durst work no worse effects in the Kingdom than what she could do with thinking and Imagination Till at length when the number of our sins were fulfilled and when their Cry had justly provoked God Almighty to anger he suffered his own and his anointedâ—s Enemies like Jesurun to wax fat and kick and from thinking and wishing evil to fall to murmuring and running into privare Cabals and Treâ—sonable Meetings From murmuring and private Meetings to advance as far as undutiful and disloyal discourses upon the Streets and running together into insolent and unwarrantable Tumults from Tumults to open Rebellion and Slaughter thence to the Confinement and Imprisonment of his Majesties Sacred Person so to the Plundering Sequestration and Murdering of His True and Loyal Subjects and last of all to that bloody Murder and Martyrdom of the best of Kings under the notion of a Traytor and Malefactor by a pretended course of Law and Justice By the imperfect touches I have given you of his former prosperity and comparing them with the subsequent story of his afflictions you may take some kind of measures and give some sort of guess at his sufferings and sorrows And when we have trac'd him through all the Tumults Wars Imprisonments and Sufferings that befel him in his Life and added to them the horrid manner and circumstances of his Death you will believe with me that next our Saviour He may pretend the second best Title to the words of the Holy Ghost Behold now and see all ye that pass by if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow Behold and see a King once indeed a mighty King bound in Chains and his Nobles in Links of Iron But to begin with his story according to the order I have proposed When His late Majesty of Blessed Memory first received the Crown the too happy Kingdom had so long enjoyed an uninterrupted Peace that it was even grown sick of its own Prosperity and lost and swallowed up in its own happiness We had surfeited of our own plenty and like those that had eaten too much Honey could not relish our own enjoyments And as this is ordinarily the time that men grow wanton and wicked and forget God so is it very often a forerunner of Rebellion against his Anointed And hence is that common observation both in History and Policy that the best and most indulgent Princes that have the most carefully consulted the Peace and Happiness of their Subjects have for the most part been worst obeyed Such was the hard fate of this Good King whose Fatherly Piety and Tenderness towards his People made them as is common in ill Natures to forget their duty and Allegiance towards him