wade through a Suit without fear of being over-whelm'd it being impossible to suffer but by Judgment of his Inquest as it was then and hath been ever since call'd which consisting of twelve men could not have continued thus long after so many strivings and struglings for Liberty as have been since that time had not the wisdom of so many Ages judg'd it to be the greatest priviledge the Subject could be capable of being that indeed which no less Circumscribes the Soveraigns Power then the Subjects Obedience so that doubtless he hop'd to naturalize himself by it into their good opinion and liking But that which frighted them most was the black Censual Roll therefore call'd by that dismal Name of the Dooms-day Book which discovering the secrets of their Estates left them under strange apprehensions of ensuing Oppression and Tyranny however it was no otherwise intended then as an Instrument to confirm his own by establishing their Rights and Proprieties which having been before under a very uncertain Title and very odly qualified the Tenures of †That is by Charter or Writing Bokeland which they call'd Freehold belonging only to the Nobility being perchance no better then the ancient Fifes that depended on the Will of the first Donors he made absolute and hereditary The Tenure of ‖ Or the Land of the common Foâ—k Folkland which was without Writing and so much worse then Tenants at Will at this day that we need not doubt to call it Villenage he chang'd into Estates for Life which have since shew'd us the way to those in Tail neither did he clog their Estates with many Taxes however reputed very avaricious but found out many witty sleights to avoid the necessity of Land Taxes as knowing how clamorous and burthensome they are laying only that of Escuage upon them which yet was done by way of composition rather then imposition in lieu of which he took off that of Danegelt which was sufficient one would have thought to have abated the Grievance Yet such was their Obstinacy Ingratitude or Disdain that they never ceas'd to plot or practise Treason against him giving him renew'd Jealousies from their successive and like to prove successful Conspiracies which as great Waves came thick upon the back of one another never breaking but with so apparent danger as threatned him with a wreck in Port after his escape of all the storms at Sea First Edric the Forrester incouraged by the Welch after Edwin and Morcar Brothers to the late Queen incourag'd by the Scots thinking their splendor eclipsed by the interposition of so many stranger Princes as waited daily in his Court flew to Arms and drew many after them of the Lay Nobility whilst the two Arch-bishops who followed them were attended by as strong a Party of the Clergy the first pretended to make the war legal the last to render it meritorious and whiles he set himself to suppress this danger in the North a new Rebellion presented it self in the West The Citizens of Exeter and those of Oxford incourag'd by the report of new Forces brought out of Ireland by the Sons of Harold not only shut up their Gates but perswaded the Countries also round about to expostulate their Liberties with Swords in their hands and whilst he turns to these they of the North are reinforc'd again by the arrival of two Sons of Swain King of Denmark with a Fleet of no less then 300 Sail and whilst he sent another Party to confront these there rose a storm behind them out of the Isle of Ely and after all this the wide distent of these Tumors fed from many secret Veins swell'd up into a general Combination of all the Neighbour Princes together so that no less then six Kings drew upon him at once the King of France who had 100000 men in readiness to invade him in Normandy the King of Denmark who had prepar'd a Navy of 1600 Sail to invade him by Sea the King of Ireland who appeared with 65 Sail more to second him and the Kings of Scotland and Wales opening their Ports to let them in This though it made the danger seem so much the more considerable by how much it was scarce to be prevented without such a vast Expence of Treasure and Blood as might hazard an irrecoverable Consumption if not put him again to the winning of England yet the resolutions of his great Mind being prae-ordain'd for the great work he had undertaken he shew'd no manner of Consternation at all till at last a way was found to bring himself against himself by setting up his eldest Son Robert to disseize him of the Dutchy of Normandy without any colour of Right This Rebellion indeed was so much the more grievous to him because unnatural and therefore the only one he thought fit to repress by the Authority of his own Presence wherein he proceeded not as one that went to take revenge upon an Enemy or reduce a Rebel but as he ought to chastize an undutiful Son proceeding however with that calmness as if he designed to defeat his Enterprize and not him or in truth rather to surprize then subdue him casting about how he might make him more asham'd then afraid not doubting but like Caesar to overcome him as soon as he came over to him but such was the malignity of his Stars as to make his Son a double Conqueror over him first in commanding his life which shew'd his Power then in giving it back again to him which shew'd his Piety but this as it was too great a Gift to be acknowledged or forgotten so he receiv'd it with such inward indignation as shew'd he only pardon'd what he could not punish But it appear'd afterwards that it was not in the young Rebels power to give back the life he had proceeded so near taking away for the wound in his Spirit was so much deeper then any of those on his Body that it could never be cured however skin'd over bleeding inwardly unperceiv'd till he died which however it were not long after yet he out liv'd most of those great men that were Actors with him in his Undertakings and left not the world till he had sufficiently requited the King of France for this unpardonable injury of seducing his Son taking a slight occasion from a Jest to shew how much he was in Earnest in his Revenge For that King having scoffed at his great Belly saying That he lay in when he was sick at Roan he return'd him word That he should have notice of his Upsitting by the many Bonefires he would make in the heart of his Country Neither was he worse then his Promise for he depopulated all the Towns of note that lay in his way till he came to Mants in the destruction of which goodly City he got his own the Ream of his Belly being broke as 't is thought by a sudden leap of his Horse frighted at the sight of the Conflagrations as he passed by the
of action takes the measure of his hopes from that of their fears and whilst they judg'd it hard to repress them because they were thus divided he took that advantage to break them like single sticks as he found them lye scatter'd one from the other who had they been united under one Bond could not have been so easily confounded After which he heal'd the wounds he gave them by gentle Lenitives relaxing their Tributes remitting their Priviledges and indulging them to that degree as never any King before him did by which means he prevail'd with the very same men to carry the War into Normandy whereby wounding his Brother Robert with the very Arrows taken out of his own Quiver and the same which he had directed against him it appears how much he had the better of him in point of Understanding as well as of Power This breach with the elder gave him the first occasion of breaking with his younger Brother for having a strong Army on foot Duke Robert after his having concluded a dishonourable Peace with him desir'd his aid in reducing the Castle of Mount St. Michael detain'd from him by Prince Henry who being not paid the money he had lent him to carry on the War against King William for Robert had pawn'd to him the Country of Constantine but afterwards took it away again seiz'd upon this Castle in hope by the help of some Britains he had hired to serve him for his Money to have done himself right but Robert made this advantage of the dis-advantage King William had brought upon him to ingage him in reducing t'other unhappy Prince that doing a kindness to one lost both his Brothers the one taking offence at his demand t'other at the Occasion whereby both set upon him at once and besieging him forty dayes brought him to the point of yeilding but the same evil Spirit that first divided them to do more mischief did this good to unite them again working upon the good Nature of Duke Robert and the ill Nature of King William the same effect for upon his Submission William to be revenged on Robert for having entertain'd his Competitor Atheling judg'd Henry to be satisfied his Debt by a day certain out of those very Lands which the other had assign'd to Atheling for a Pension upon which Robert's pity turn'd immediately into spight and when Henry came for his Money he clap'd him up in Prison and kept him in Duress till he releas'd the Debt Henry complaining of this Injustice to the King of France his Brother William being then return'd into England was by him put into Arms again and by the surprizing the Castle of Damfront recover'd back most of his Security with all the Country of Passais besides Robert hereupon pleads that King William had fail'd of paying him in certain Sums of Money due by promise to satisfie Henry and that by reason of this failure he could not perform with him and to satisfie himself for the Damages done him by this pretended breach of Williams he fell upon King William's Castles This drew him over the second time whether to right Prince Henry or himself was not declar'd who putting on a Vizard of Indignation to afright Duke Robert as if he had intended nothing less then the Conquest of all Normandy sends back into England for an Army of 30000 to joyn with those Forces he had there by the fame whereof having done more then perhaps any body could with the men themselves if they had arriv'd he sent private Orders to his General being then at the Water-side to dismiss every man that would lay down ten shillings by which queint trick of State never practised before he rais'd so great a Sum as not only serv'd to pay the King of France his Bribe for not assisting his Brother Robert and to defray his own present charge but in effect to purchase all Normandy which thereupon was Mortgaged to him by Robert to furnish himself for that great Expedition of recovering the Holy Land from the Infidels An Undertaking politickly recommended by Urban the Second to all such Princes as he fear'd or had a mind to fool as so meritorious a work that it was indeed as he represented the matter a kind of taking Heaven by Violence whereby he so wrought upon the easie Faith of that Active and Ignorant Age that without any great difficulty he prevail'd with them to cast themselves under a voluntary Ostracisme whilst himself and those that were Parties in that holy Cheat imbarazed in a Contest with the Emperor about Superiority were deliver'd from the men of Power and Credit they most suspected to take part with him and by the purchase of their Estates and Seigniories greatly inriched the Church af erward King William thus happily rid of his elder Brother who as I said before had pawn'd his own Land to recover that for the Church was at leisure to return home to make even all reckonings with his elder Enemy the King of Scots by whose death and his Sons both kill'd in the act of Invasion he made himself so far Master of their Country as to compel them to accept a King from him who having serv'd him in his Wars and being for that Service prefer'd by him they durst not yet refuse though they might reasonably expect he would be alwayes at his Devotion This made the King of France so jealous of his growing Greatness that to prevent his coming over Sea again he tamper'd with the discontented Norman Nobility to set up Stephen E. of Albemarle his Fathers Sisters Son upon what pretence of Right appears not but he whose manner 't was to meet danger and not tarry till it found him out prevented the Conspiracy by seizing on the chief Conspirators Mowbray d'Ou and d'Alveric who being the first Examples of his Severity were so cruelly treated that if any men could be said to be murther'd by the Sword of Justice they were but the Ill of this Severity had that good effect that this first Instance of his Cruelty made it the last occasion to him to shew it so that from that time all War ceasing he betook himself to the pleasures of Peace And now deeming himself most secure he met with an unavoidable I cannot say unexpected Fate for like Caesar his Parallel he had sufficient warning of it both by his own and his Friends Dreams the night before the Nature whereof was such as he could not but contemn it because he could not understand it and having never been daunted by his Enemies he was asham'd to seem now afraid of himself however the perplexity of his thoughts disorder'd him so far that in despight of his natural Courage which was perhaps as great as ever any mans was he could not find in his heart to go out all the morning of that day he was kill'd and at Dinner which argued some failure of his Spirits he drank more freely then his usual custome was that accelerated his Fate
which broke out like a Fire that being long smother'd was all in a Flame as soon almost as it was perceiv'd and however Fate for some time seem'd to make a Pause whether she should begin the Tragedy which she could not end turning the Storm another way by several Invasions from Scotland which held long enough to have diverted the virulent humour and let out blood enough to have cool'd all their heat allaying it so far that easie Intercessions prevail'd to keep them asunder for some years yet nothing could so stop the Course of Nature but that the monstrous Issue when it was come to its birth forc'd its way the Discontents that had been so long ripening even from the time of this Kings Great-grand-father breaking out like a Boyl surcharg'd with Anguish and Corruption which was no sooner emptied by the death of one but it was fill'd with Rancor and Envy by the Entertainment of New Favourites As Gaveston before so the two Spencers afterward the Farher and the Son took upon them to Monopolize his Grace and were thereupon generally charg'd with the odious design of bringing in an Arbitrary Government with imbezeling the Treasure of the Nation and doing several ill Offices betwixt the King and Queen maintaining their own by apparent wrong to the Estates of other Lords particularly of the Earls of Hereford and Mortimer out of whose hands it seems they had bought some Lands which lying convenient to their Estates was in the first place offered to them These though they were such Objections as relating but to particular Persons perhaps not without particular Reasons might be excus'd if not justified yet being heaped up together made a general grievance and the Earl of Lancaster the Bell-weather of Rebellion at that time thought it worthy the Barons taking up of Arms to punish them The King answer'd for them and undertook they should come and answer for themselves the Father he said was imployed by him beyond the Seas and the Son was guarding the Cinque Ports according to his Duty and therefore he thought it was against Law and Custome to condemn them unheard But nothing would satisfie their Accusers without a Declaration of Banishment and though the President was such as might as well affect themselves as their Posterity yet Hatred being no less blind then Love they preser'd their present Revenge before the Fears of a future inconvenience All differences being thus compos'd I cannot say calm'd an accidental affront given to the Queen by one that was over-wise in his Office put all again out of order beyond recovery A Castelan of the Lord Badlismers at Leeds denying her Majesty Lodging there as she was passing by in her Progress out of a Distrust she might possess her self of the Castle and keep it for the King she exasperated the King to that degree that he besieged the place took it and in it the politick Governour whom without legal Process he hang'd up presently and seizing all the Goods and Treasure of his Lord sent his Wife and Children to the Tower This was taken for so great a violation of the Liberty of the Subject that being done by the King himself nothing could determine the Right but the Sword and accordingly they met the second time in Arms where Fortune was pleas'd to confirm the Sentence given by the King by giving up into his hands many more considerable Lives then that for which they were hazarded amongst the rest was that of the Earl of Lancaster himself the first Prince of the Blood that ever was brought to the Block here in England and with him fourteen of the Principal Barons none of which were spar'd but forc'd to give up their Lives and Estates as a Reward to the Victors And not long after the Spencers were recall'd and re-stated who finding the publick Treasure wholly exhausted and a chargeable War yet continued with Scotland thought it but necessary to make such Retrenchments as might enable his Majesty to carry on that great Work wherein he had been so unlucky without oppressing the People amongst the rest they presum'd unfortunately to abridge the Queen lessening hers as they had done the Kings Houshold-Train by which Improvident Providence they so irritated her being a Woman of a proud vindictive Spirit that she privately complain'd thereof to the King of France her Brother who took that occasion to quarrel with the King about his Homage for Gascoigne and upon his Refusal possessed himself of several Pieces there and notwithstanding all that Edmond Earl of Kent could do whom his Brother the King sent over with sufficient Strength as 't was thought to repell him by force continued his Depredations there this bringing a Necessity that either the King must go over himself or the Queen the first to compel or the other being his beloved Sister to mediate with hâ—m for a Truce each equally inconvenient to the Spencers who thought not sit that the King should go in respect of the general and were as loath the Queen should in respect of her particular discontent They chose the least of the Evils as they judged and sent over her who having a great Stomach and but a small Train meditated more upon her own then her Husbands Vindication and accordingly put an end to the difference betwixt her Brother and him but on such terms as afterward made a wider difference betwixt him and her self The Conditions were these that Kâ—ng Edward should give to the Prince his Son the Dutchy of Acquitain and Earldom of Ponthein and send him over to do the King of France Homage for the same which was to excuse that Homage before demanded from himself and thus she pretended to have found out an expedient to save the honour of both Kings in allowing each his end But having by this sineness got her Son into her own power she gave her self so wholly up to her Revenge that she suffer'd her self to be led by a hand she saw not through the dark Paths of dangerous Intreagues managed by those who having other ends then hers did work beyond though under her Authority Principal in her Councel as being so in her Affections was young Mortimer a Servant fit for such a Mistress and such a Master as this Queen and her Husband who having escaped out of the Tower where he had been long a Prisoner and as he thought very injuriously in respect he render'd himself to Mercy before the great Battel with the Barons and by his Submission contributed much to the Kings gaining that Victory contriv'd with her how to set up the Prince and with him himself and because the Earl of Kent was upon the place they made it their first business to work off him to the Party Here began that fatal breach from whence the World concluded that this unhappy King having lost one half of himself could not long hold out before he lost the whole it not being reasonable to expect that his Subjects should be truer
is said to have been transformed into a kind of Copper-colour And having to that brazen face of his such an Iron heart as deem'd nothing too difficult for him to attempt they were easily perswaded to joyn themselves with him whiles he threw himself upon dangers seemingly invincible so seemingly unconcern'd as if he had known or at least believed that he earrled the Fate of the three Nations upon the point of his single Sword So that it is no marvel after a long Series of Successes both in Ireland and Scotland where his very name like that of Caesars made his way to Victory having at the last got the better of the King himself in the fatal Battel of Worcester whom yet with a Politick Modesty he denied to have been defeated by his but as he said by an Arm from Heaven he should be so hardy as with the same Club he wrested out of Hercules hand to dash out the Brains of the Infant Common-wealth not then full five years old making himself the sole Administrator of all its Goods and Chattels to wit the Moneys raised by sale of Crown and Church Lands the growing benefit of all Forfeitures Confiscations and Compositions together with the annual Rent of Ninety thousand pounds per mensem over and besides which he had advantage of all the queint Projections then on foot as the years rent laid on Houses built upon new Foundations in and about London the Contributions for the distressed Protestants in Savoy the Collections of the Committee of Propagation as 't was call'd who were to take care for the planting the Gospel in the dark Parts of the World being no inconsiderable Levies These I take to have been the personal Estate of the Common-wealth To the real Estate of Inheritance which he principally aim'd at viz. the Soveraignty and Dominion of the three Kingdoms by Sea and Land since he could make no better Title then as the first Occupant by his Primier Seisin which in effect was none other but plain Disseism so long as the right Heir was alive against whom there could be no bar by Fine or Recovery whilst he continued beyond the Seas the Learned Knaves about him advised him to intitle himself to it by Act of Parliament Now forasmuch as by the first Instrument of Government it was Articled that there should be a Parliament once in three years two whereof he had already call'd that had neither pleas'd him nor were pleas'd with him the first being so bold to question his Authority the next himself he resolv'd now to appear like the Grand Seignior with his Bashaws about him and accordingly he chose several Prefects of Provinces whom he call'd by the name of Major Generals whose business it was first to keep down the unreconcileable Cavaliers secondly to new mould the Linsey-wolsey Covenanters many of whom about this time began to be corrupted with Principles of Honesty and lastly to reform the Elections of Burgesses so that he might with no less satisfaction then safety call as a little after he did the third Parliament whom yet he vouchsafed not the honour of that Name but to shew them how little he feared any Battery of their Ordinance permitted them to be nick-nam'd The Convention a strange Pack made up on purpose for the strange Game he was to play of all Knaves but Knaves as it appear'd afterward of different Complections These having fram'd another Instrument of Government Indeavours to make the Protector King pressed him by their humble Petition and Advice as they term'd it with not unlike flattery and falshood as M. Anthony did Caesar to legitimate his Usurpation by taking upon him the Title of King The Lawyers that were of his Common-Council urg'd him to it for that as they said there was no other way left for him to guard the Laws or for the Laws to guard him The States-men that were of his Privy-Councel provok'd him to it by the Example of Brutus the Roman Liberator whose folly they said it was that having murther'd Caesar he did not set up himself or some other King though by some other name since as he could not be ignorant that such abortive Liberty as he had given life to must needs prove the Parent of a lasting servitude so he might foresee that Caesar had so ingrafted himself into the Body Politick that one could not be separate from the other without the destruction of both and as he had need of Forces so had they of a Head and better one craz'd then none at all His nearest Friends and Relations press'd him upon the point of Honour Neither could there be a readier Argument to perswade him to take upon him to be a Prince then to tell him he was descended from Princes For who knew not that his great Ancestor Cradoc Vraych Vras Earl of Ferlix having as the Herauld said married the Princess Tegaire Daughter and Heir of Pelinor King of Great Britain many hundred of years before either the Norman or Saxon Conquerors could pretend to any thing so that now the Question was not so much with what right he could make himself King of England as by what right he had been so long kept out of it In this confusion of Counsels it came to his own turn at last to advise himself and accordingly he weighed all their Arguments and taking the last first into consideration he easily over-pass'd the honour of his Extraction for two Reasons First for that his was not the chief Family of Wales and secondly for that he was not the Chief of his Family Besides common Fame had debas'd him by an odd kind of Disparagement which however perhaps mistaken took much from the dignity of his Person as being believ'd to have been an ordinary Brewer though it prov'd to be as Daniel observes by Jaques D' Artevile the great Stickler of Flanders in Edward the Third his time a Brewer of more then of Beer Neither did he much more regard the point of Law for that he knew it to be no otherwise binding then as a silken Cord which upon any force used to it is apt to flip and let go its hold That which mov'd him most was the point of State rais'd out of that pinching President of Brutus yet there was an unanswerable scruple rested upon that too to wit How it could be reasonable for him to expect to hold them in with a twine thread of voluntary Submission who had so lately by his own advice broken the strong bond of Allegiance and which yet he durst not object to any but himself he foresaw his Death would make way for some of his Fellow Regicides to usurp by his own Example as much upon his Successors to the disseisin of those who call'd him Father as he had done by disinheriting the Sons of the true Father of his Country This shewing him that the thing call'd Chance would have its share in despight of all his wisdom and providence and that there was