being to advise at the price of his own Head the Arch bishop of York like a man of great Faith was of Opinion to sight them with such present Strength as the King had trusting to the Justice of the Cause the Dukes of Ireland and Suffolk men of Action but wanting the means were for delivering up Calais to the French King to purchase his Assistance But the Majority of Voices coming from such men whose Fears made them rather wise then honest were for appeasing the Enemy with fair promises till there were a fit opportunity to suppress them the first Proposal was thought very hazardous the second much more besides there was such a bitterness in the Pill that no preparation could make the King to swallow it who not knowing what effect it might have when it was done utterly rejected it upon which they secretly withdrew that gave the Counsel and left him to himself Whereupon the Lords Regent found an opportunity to be admitted to a Parley with him who producing to him Letters from the King of France which they had intercepted pursuant to the Design of bringing in a Forreign Enemy they mov'd him no less by shame then dread of the Consequence to consent to the calling another Parliament Upon the day of the Convention the King came not to the House being infinitely troubled in his mind at News he had just then received of the Earl of Derby's Intercepting the Duke of Ireland who being gone as far as Chester in order to his passing into that Kingdom was set upon by the said Earl and totally defeated who hardly escaping fled into the Low-countries where not long after he dyed The Lords heightened with this Success sent a very harsh Message to him letting him know that they attended him there and if he would not come to the House according to promise they would chuse another King that should hearken to their faithful advice This though it were in effect no other but to tell him they would depose him without his consent if he would not come and consent to be depos'd yet having no Retreat from it but down a steep Precipice he chose rather to compâ—y and put himself under the mercy of Providence then under the uncertainty of their Mercy Upon his first appearance they presented him with a black Roll of those whom he call'd his Friends they his Enemies some to be prescrib'd some to be imprison'd and others banish'd and in this last List there were not only Lords but Ladies found Delinquents Some were accus'd of imbeziling his Treasure others of purloyning his Affection all for robbing him of his Honour whereupon some were to be try'd for their Lives others for their Fortunes and all for their Liberties but in respect of their other great Affairs which were in order to what followed they referred it to the succeeding Parliament not unfitly call'd the Parliament that wrought wonders which contrary to all other Parliaments that used to swear Obedience to the King requir'd an Oath of him himself to observe such Rules and Orders as they should prescribe to him Here now we have this unfortunate Prince brought to the last year of his Rule though not of his Reign beginning then to enter into his Wardship as he call'd it when he thought he was just got out of it All power was put into the hands of the Dukes of Lancaster and Gloucester who managed all Treaties abroad concluded War and Peace as they thought fit and were indeed absolute in every point but the Command of their own Passions and uncontroulable by any but themselves The Duke of Lancaster having now digested the Kingdom in his thoughts procures the Dutchy of Acquitaine to be setled on him as an earnest of what was to follow being the Inheritance of the Crown and descended on the King from Prince Edward his Father and having married up the King to a Child of eight years old by whom 't was impossible he could have Issue with a Portion that scarce defraid the Charge of the Solemnity he secur'd his own Pretensions by Legitimating three of his Bastard Sons in case his lawful Issue should fail The Duke of Gloucester had the same Ambition in his heart as well as the same Blood in his Veins but Nature having put a disadvantage upon him by placing him so far behind being the sixth Son of King Edward the Third he was forc'd to gratifie his Envy instead of his Ambition and rest content with the hopes of doing his Brother a Mischief when time serv'd without any great probability of doing himself good Accordingly he made a Faction who conspir'd with him to seize the King his two Brothers Lancaster and York and to put them all up in Prison and after to execute divers Lords whom he thought to be more his Enemies then their Friends but the end of his Treason being to be himself betray'd by those he made use of Lancaster came thereby to stand single like a great Tree which being at its full height spread his Limbs the wider and grew to be so conspicuous that the succeeding Parliament desired to shelter themselves under the shadow of his power hereupon he reduced the number of the thirteen Regents to seven only which being all his Confidents he with them concluded aforehand all Affairs of moment and directed how they should pass in Parliament An Example not less mischievous to the Kingdom then the King so that now there wanted no more to make him the Soveraign but the putting on the Crown But see the uncertainty of humane Glory Having just finished the great work of his Usurpation an unexpected blow from that invisible hand that turns about the great Wheel of Causes broke the frame of his projection in pieces His Son Henry Duke of Hereford accused by the Duke of Norfolk of Treason was forc'd to purge himself by the Tryal of Combat a Law that might condemn but never acquit him since it was only possible to discharge himself of the danger but never of the suspition of the Crime This being urg'd so far that they were both brought into the List there was no way left to avoid the uncertainty of the Fight but banishment of both wherein though the Duke of Lancaster got the favour to make the Exile of his Son but temporary when the others was perpetual yet the affront that Fortune seem'd to give him by this accidental Disgrace came so near his heart that his Son had no sooner taken leave of his Country but he bid adieu to the World and so left the King once more Hors de page Thus Time and Fortune seem to have conspir'd in vindicating the wrongs of this abused Prince ridding him at once of those two great Corrivals in Power whose Authority had so far outweighed his that they kept him in the condition of a Minor till they had made the People believe him insufficient for Government the one being remov'd beyond all possibility the other beyond all
himself of Northumberland Godfrid his younger Brother held Mercia but King Athelstan fell upon both and took from the last his Life from the first his Kingdom which was recovered again not long after by his Son VI. date of accession 946 ANLAFF the Second thereupon esteem'd the third King of the Northumbers His reign was not long for his Subjects weary of continual wars set him besides the Saddle to make way for VII date of accession 950 ERIC the Third or as some call him IRING Son of Harold the Grandson of Gurmo King of Denmark recommended to them by Milcolmb King of Scots but he being elected King of Sweden the Northumbers submitted to Edgar the younger Brother or next in succession to Edwyn and from that time it continued a Member of the English Crown till about the year 980 when VIII date of accession 980 ANLAFF the Third understanding they were affected to his Nation arriv'd with a fresh Supply and making his Claim was admitted King but being over prest the Title came to IX date of accession 1013 SWAIN King of Denmark who made this his first step to the Engâ—ish Throne into which as he was mounting death seiz'd on him and kept the Room empty for his Son Knute DANES Absolute Kings OF ENGLAND I. date of accession 1017 KNUTE was deservedly surnam'd the Great as being the very greatest and most absolute King that ever England or Denmark knew those of the Roman Line only excepted for he was King of England Scotland Ireland Denmark Norway Sweden and Lord of a great part of Poland all Saxony some part and not a little of Brandenburgh Bremen Pomerania and the adjacent Countries most of them not to say all besides Denmark and Norway reduc'd under his Obedience by the valour of the English only upon his death Denmark and Norway fell to his Son Hardycanute the rest as Sweden c. devolv'd upon the right Heirs whilst England was usurp'd by his Natural Son II. date of accession 1036 HAROLD surnam'd Harfager or Golden Locks who being the Elder and having the advantage to be upon the place entred as the first Occupant thereby disappointing his legitimate Brother III. date of accession 1041 KNUTE surnam'd the Hardy design'd by his Father to be the next Successor to him as bearing his Name though upon tryal it appear'd he had the least part of his Nature for he had not the Courage to come over and make any claim as long as Harold liv'd and after his death he drown'd himself in a Land-flood of Wine losing all the Glory his Predecessors had gotten by wading through a sea of blood which made the way to his Throne so slippery that those English that came after him could never find firm footing But upon the very first Encounter with the Norman caught such a Fall that could never recover themselves again This Gurmo came out of Ireland I take it in the second year of King Elfrid not without a confident hope of making good his Predecessors Conquest which had cost already so much blood as made his desire of Rule look like a necessity of Revenge the Monarchy of Denmark it self being put if I may so say into a Palsie or trembling Fit by the loss of the Spirits it had wasted here So that he came with this advantage which those before him had not That the Cause seem'd now to be his Countries more then his own who therefore bore him up with two notable props Esketel and Amon men of great Conduct and known Courage the one of which he plac'd as Vice-Roy in Northumberland t'other in Mercia And having before expelled Burthred the Saxon he fixed himself in East-Anglia as being nearer to correspond with Denmark and most commodious to receive Reâ—ruits Upon his first advance against King Elfrid Fortune appear'd so much a Neuter that either seem'd afraid of other and striking under line preferr'd a dissembled Friendship before down-right Hostility And to shew how much the edge of their Courage was rebated they mutually accorded to divide the Land betwixt them Gurmo was to be Lord of the North and East Elfrid to hold the South and West part of the Isle The politick Dane after this suffered himself to become what the English would have him to be a Christian to the intent that he might be what he would have himself to be absolute changing his Pagan name of Gurmo into that of Athelstan which being of all others the most grateful to the Saxons he render'd himself by that Condescension so acceptable to the whole Nation that they consented to his Marriage with the fam'd Princess Thyra King Elfrids vertuous Sister by whom he had Issue Harold Blaatand that liv'd to be King of Denmark after himself and another Knute whom he left in Ireland to make good the Acquests of the first Gurmo there a Prince of so great hopes and so belov'd by him that the knowledge of his death being slain at the Siege of Dublin gave him his own for he no sooner apprehended the tidings thereof by the sight of his Queens being in mourning but he fell into such a violent fit of Grief as left him not till he left the World whereby the Crown of Denmark fell to his Son Harold the Title and Possession of East-Anglia with its Appurtenances he bequeath'd to his Brother Eric who having perform'd the first Act of Security to himself in having taken an Oath of Allegiance of all his Subjects suffer'd them to perform the last Act of Piety towards him in giving him all the Rites of an honourable Interment at Haddon in Suffolk which place it seems he purposed to make the Burial place of all the East-Anglian Kings But this Ambition of his beginning where it should have ended with a design of assuring to himself more honour after he was dead then he was able to make good whiles he was living ended as soon as it began as will appear by his Story following Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum Upon which his Queen frighted with the horrour of their Inhumanity fled back to her Brother Athelstan to seek from his Power Justice Protection and Revenge whiles Anlaff took upon him to be King The Equality of Power as well as of Ambition ripen'd the Factions on both sides very fast by the heat of their Contest But before they came to Maturity there was a Parliament conven'd at Oxford that took the matter into consideration where the Lords fearing that the Question if delay'd might be decided by Swords and not by Words out of a deep sence of the lingring Calamities of a new War all the wounds of the old being not yet cured or at least not so well but that the Scars were yet fresh in many of their Faces they declar'd for the King in possession but with such a wary form of Submission as shew'd they did it rather out of regard to themselves then him whereupon Goodwin produced the deceased Kings Will in opposition to theirs but the
his Head he resolves once more to venture his own In the mean time those of the Isle of Ely the remainder of Leicester's Party that had held out from the time of his death with incredible courage and patience taking new life and hope from this Revolt make many excursions and spoils to the great charge and vexation of the King and the Publick Neither could the Pope 's Legate prevail with him to come in though upon tearms safe and honourable tendering the Publick Faith of the Kingdom and which was then thought greater that of the Church to them So much were they transported with the Opinion of their Cause or by the falshood of their hopes till this stubbornness of theirs provok'd the King to raise a new Army the Command whereof was given to his Son Edward that prosperous Prince whose Fortune then being not able to resist he had the honour to conclude that War and consequently to put a Period to all his Fathers turmoâ—ls who being shaken at the Root did not long survive the happiness of that tranquillity the end of whose Troubles were the beginning of his own ingaging upon the conclusion of that in a War so much more dangerous by how much more distant the benefit whereof was to be expected only in the other World this was that Undertaking in the Holy Land which separating him from his Father beyond all hope of ever seeing him again gave some occasion to question the old Kings Understanding others his good Nature But as the great concerns of Religion are as much above Reason as that is beyond Sense so we must impute that to the resolute Zeal of the Son which we cannot allow for Devotion in the Father who had he had any thoughts of going into the other World as his great Age might have prompted him to would rather have taken care for a Grave for himself then for so hopeful a Successor who only by seeking Death escap'd it Now whether the ingratitude of the Clergy or the Ambition of the temporal Lords were a greater tryal of his wisdom or Power I know not but the course he took to reduce either to terms of modesty and submission shows the world he had no want of understanding however he was forc't to put up the front of his Lay-peers in order to the facillitating his Revenge upon the other whom he mortified by a strain of State which none of his Ancestors durst venture upon Whilst he not only put them out of his Protection but all men out of theirs denying them not only his favour but his Justice not only the benefit of his ordinary Courts but the priviledg of sitting in that higher Court of Parliament A severity not to give any worse name to it of so acrimonious a nature that it not only expos'd them to all the injuries and affronts triumphant malice and scorn could put upon them but was made more intollerable and grievous by his docking their Revenues as after he did by several * Stat. 3 Edw. 1. cap. 19.33 Stat. cont formum collation Statute Laws amongst which I cannot but take notice though by the By of the particular contempt express'd in that odd Statute aginst †Stat. de Asportatis Religiosorum c. An. 3 cap. 34. ravishment where it is declared Felony to use force to any Lay-Woman and only a trespass to ravish a Nun. Neither was it thought enough to make what abscission he thought fit without their greatness were rendred incapable of any further growth to which intent he cauteriz'd if I may so say the wounds he had given them by that Statute of ‖ An. 3. C. 32. Mort-main which as it was the most fatal of all others to them so it might have prov'd so to himself had he not at the same time he thus disoblig'd them oblig'd the Laity by another suppos'd to be the wisest Law that ever was made to wit that of Westminster the second entituled De Donis Conditionalibus which tending so much to the preservation of particular Families and adding to their greatness no less then their continuance is by some Historians call'd Gentilitium Municipale and had this good effect that it brought the temporal Nobility firmly to adhere to him against the Pope when amongst many others that intituled themselves to the Soveraignty of Scotland a Kingdom too near to be lost for want of putting a claim his Holiness became his Rival and thought to carry it as part of St. Peter's Patrimony This Victory at home which brought the proud Prelates to purchase his Justice at a dearer rate then probably they might have paid for his mercy had their submission been as early as it was afterwards earnest I take to be much greater then all those he had got abroad by how much fortune had no share in it and fame was the least part of his gains extending to give him not long after as great an advantage over the Lay Nobility whom having first discern'd of their Patronage wholly and of their other priviledges in a very great part he did as it were cudgel them into Submission by the authority of his * vid. lib. Assis fol. 141.57 Trail Baston a commission which however it were directed to the Majors Sheriffs Bayliffs Escheators c. and so seem'd to have been aim'd at those of the lower rank onely which were guilty of those Enormities of Champorty Extortion Bribery and intrusion crimes much in fashion in those days yet by a back blow it knockt down several of the great Men who either countenanc'd or comply'd with the offenders and which was more terrible this writ was kept as a Weapon in the Kings hands to use as he saw occasion And to say truth he was so expert at it and indeed at all other points of skill that brought him in any profit that he was too hard at last for the Lawyers themselves those great masters of defence Canvasing his Judges as well as his Bishops when he found both alike rich both alike corrupt Beyond these he could not descend to the consideration of any Criminal save the Jews only for whom perhaps it had been no great Injustice to have taken their Estates if at least he could have been prevail'd with to have spar'd their Lives but as so great Courage as he had would not be without some mixture of Cruelty so 't is the less wonder to see that Cruelty heightened by Covetousness as that Avarice by Ambition the adding to his Treasure by these Exactions being in order to the adding to his Dominions which were not yet so entire as consistent with his safety much less the Glory he aim'd at Wales being then as a Canton of the same Piece divided by a small seam which yet had a Prince of their own blood descended from the antient Stock of the Unconquer'd Britains who it seems had so little sense of the inequality of Power betwixt them that he had given this King great provocations
made Captain of his Guard All persons out-law'd for Treason had their Utlaries revers'd all the bad Subjects were declar'd good and some of the best declar'd Traytors A Treaty of Peace was concluded with England upon Conditions that the Queen-Mother should never be releas'd and in order to the bringing on her Tryal as after it fell out which Tryal of the Mother prov'd yet a greater tryal to the King her Son who having before lost his Father and Grandfather by a dismal Fate both privately murther'd was much more abasht to appear so much a King and no King as to be a helpless Spectator now of his Mothers Tragedy made away by such a publick Tryal as seem'd to proclaim his weakness and shame more then her guilt This seem'd to be the very dregs of that bitter Cup whereof he had drank so largely a little before but being as he hop'd the last draught he was to take of Infelicity he bore it with suitable patience as became a Christian and a King But his Destinies decreed that there must yet be one Throw more before the Birth of his Greatness For however his Majesty clear'd up from the time of his Mothers departure like the Sun after a stormy Morning which becomes brighter and brighter as it draws nearer its Meridian yet there happen'd after all this an Eclipse that lasting only half an hour had like to have extinguish'd all his Light and Glory if a Hand from Heaven had not rescued him For the young Gowry who at the time of his Fathers death and long after continued in Italy the Country where they are learn'd in the Art of Revenge having found an opportunity to draw him again into that fatal Castle where he was before Prisoner to his Father under pretence of shewing him some Chymical Rarities got him up into some higher Rooms whiles his Servants were retired to eat it being presently after he had dined himself where by the help of his younger Brother and another appointed to assist them they intended to have assassinated him had not he that was to do the horrid Deed not only relented at the very instant when he drew his Sword upon him but turn'd his point upon his Fellow Regicide and thereby gave him time to step to a Window and call for help which came so timely to him as to rescue him by the death of the two Gowrys This though it was the last of Treasons was not yet the last of dangers he met with For after this mov'd by what Obligations besides that of Love I know not which commonly is not so domineering a Passion over Princes as private men he run as much danger at Sea as he had before at Land exposing himself to the mercy of that unruly Element at the most dangerous Season of the year to fetch over his Queen the Daughter of Frederick II. King of Denmark who having attempted several times to come to him was drove back and as 't is said by the power of Sorcery into Norwey which hazard being afterward recompenced by the satisfaction he had in the Vertue of his Wife and the hopes conceiv'd of the Children he had by her two Sons and a Daughter as he had no further cause to Fear so he had nothing further to wish but that lucky hit that came by the death of the late Queen Elizabeth to have the Glory of bringing this Isle so long divided from all the World to be at Unity within it self And now to the end he might take the Inclinations of the People at the first bound wherein no man was ever more skilfull then he he abrogated the two names of Distinction England and Scotland and reconciled them to each other under the comprehensive Appeliation of Great Britain restoring England to its old Name as he from whom he claim'd had restor'd the Crown to its ancient stock Fain he would have brought them under the unity of the same Laws but finding neither Nation pleas'd with the Proposal either being partial to their own Constitutions as fitted with due and different respects to their different Tempers Interests and Proprieties he quitted that Design as a Labour of too hard digestion But however the Reasons of State varied he was resolv'd to reconcile the Polity of the two Churches as in an Union of Possession so in an Uniformity of Government and Worship Those of his own Country having then no other Form but that impos'd upon them by Boanerges Fox without taking Counsel of Prince or Prelate which was not otherwise to be made good but by the same Violence with which it was at the first introduced against the Will of any of the Nobility but such whose Ancestors were brib'd by the Alienation of the Church Lands But before he could impose any thing upon them understanding there were many here in England that followed that Classical way he resolv'd to have a free Conference with the ablest of their Demagogues to the end that sounding the depth of their Principles he might if possible fathom that of their Piety which no man could better do then himself being an universal Scholar as well read in Men as Books and so transcendently versed in the last that he was not improperly stil'd Rex Platonicus How confident he was of his skill in discussing all points Theological appears by his entring the List with Pope Pius the Fourth and making him give ground Neither was he a little provoked to this Spiritual Warfare by a clamorous Petition pretended from a thousand dissatisfied Ministers who not having yet matter enough of just Complaint made up the Cry by the number of Complainants To whom while he was considering what Answer to give or rather how to make them answer themselves as after he did by taking each of them apart and commanding him to set down in Writing what it was he singly desired which when compared altogether prov'd so contradictory and absurd that like men brought to cudgel one another in the dark they withdrew with broken Pates he was interrupted by the Discovery of a Treason which coming on so early in the Dawn of his Government could not well be discovered what it was nor whereto it tended For whereas most other Conspiracies are hatch'd by men of the same Faction Interest and Judgment this strangely involv'd People of all sorts and conditions without respect to any Repugnancy of Quality or Concern Priests and Laymen Papists and Puritans Noblemen and Ignoble Citizens and Country-men were all piec'd up together in the same Combination but whether ingaged by Faction Ambition Covetousness or Malice was not known or at least by the Kings Wisdom conceal'd However by the well-known Names of the Principal Conspirators the Lord Cobham who was Lord-Warden of the Cinque Ports the Lord Gray of Wilton who had a great Post in the late Queens Government Sir Walter Rawleigh Lord-Warden of the Stanneries Sir John Fortescue Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Griffith Markham Sir Edward Parham and several
universal darkness (t) Tertullian Tertullian that liv'd not long after taking thence occasion to upbraid the unbelieving Jews by telling them that the Britains whom the Romans could not conquer were yet subject unto Christ and to say truth their obedience to the Cross was the chief cause of humbling themselves under the Fasces Lucius being the first King that stipulated for the enjoyment of his own Laws at the price of a Tribute which if it were some diminution of his Majesty was made up with advantage by his Successour Constantine the Great whom therefore the (u) In M. Ant. In Arc. Cott. Panegyrist not unfitly stiles Divus Orbis Britanniae Liberator 7. However in respect the Romans had some hold-fast here for near a hundred years after Constantine's death it may be by some perhaps thought more reasonable to begin our Computation from Vortigern who having neither Competitor nor Compartner in the Government there being not one Roman left in the whole Isle to controul or contend with him was without doubt the first that as Tacitus speaks of Augustus Nomine Principis sub Imperium accepit circa An. Chr. 440. At what time all the Neighbour Princes round about him were under the common yoak of Servitude The French themselves who stand so much upon the Antiquity of their Monarchy falling short of this Account near four hundred years who being govern'd by Dukes till the year 420 had not in almost thirty years after any more of France in their Intire possession then that Canton which the Romans call'd Belgicum which was the more inconsiderable by being parcel'd out into many Petty (w) As were Burgundy Lorrain Guien Aquitain Normandy Champagne Fâ—ix Orange c. Royalties that could not unite till the time of Charlemaine who liv'd about the latter end of our Heptarchy after whose death the whole fell into five pieces again four whereof ceas'd to be French which gave so great disturbance to all their Kings of the Second and third Race that they were so far from being Masters of that little that they had that they were scarce (x) Vide Du Serres in Proem Hist Lords of themselves being forc'd to pawn the best part of their Inheritance to enable them to keep the rest none of their Successors being in condition to redeem any considerable part till Lewis the Eleventh who happily having recovered the Earldom of Provence and Dutchy of Burgundy made his boast that he had brought his Kingdom Hors de Page Much more distorted was the Empire of the Spaniards if so be we may allow them to have any thing like absolute Soveraignty till this very last Age when Ferdinand the Second worthily reputed their first Monarch happily united Castile and Aragon with their Appendixes their Predecessors till then being so inconsiderable that the Kings of Scotland took place of them In how obscure a condition all the Northern Kings were for by that common appellation those of Muscovy Sweadland Denmark and Norway past undistinguish'd till about the year 800 I need not say Since by being thought not worth the conquering there was not much more notice taken of them than of the rest of the barbarous Nations their Neighbours who may be rather said to be antient then honourable the Germans only excepted of whom to speak slightly were to defile our own nest since by them we derive our selves from Kings as great before the Flood as since The Precedence of the Kings of This Isle 8. Now as the Monarchy of this Isle is as Lanquet the Chronologer expresses it antienter then the Records of any time so the Kings thereof having held out a Succession of an hundred thirty nine Kings where as France reckons but sixty four taking in First Second and third Race have by the right of Custom as our particular Law expresses it Du temps dont memorie ne cúrt a le contrarie and by the consent of all Nations which is the Law universal to Ratifie and Regulate all respects taken and been allow'd the (y) As appears by the old Roman provincial second place inter Super Illustres for by that term Civilians make a great distinction and difference in point of Majesty even amongst Kings themselves A term which who so understands not may see the difference plainly in that old Formular printed at Strasburgh Anno 1519 where there is set down a Quadrupartite Division of Supream Principality the first place allow'd by them as reasonably they ought to their own Soveraign Kesar i. e. the German Emperour the Second to Romischin Koning i. e. the King of the Romans his Successor and their Countryman too The third place they gave to the Vier Gesalbt Koning i. e. the four anointed Kings In the last place came the Mein Koning or Ordinary Kings The difference betwixt these last and the Quatuor Vncti which were the (z) Javin Theatramundi Kings of France England Jerusalem and Sicily was this that with the holy oyl they receiv'd the Title and Adjunct of (a) Rhivallus ap Tooke in Carism Sanct. Cap. 6. Sacred being therefore anointed In Capite to signifie their glory above the other Princes of the same Rank In Pectore to denote their Sanctity In Brachiis to Emblematize their power this appears by the Styles of the Literae Formatae the antient forms of Addresses and the Frontispicians to the antient Councels where we find the various Styles of Sanctio Sacrietas and Divinitas apply'd to these to those were given only that of Dominatio and sometimes Celsitudo Regia conformable to this were all the phrases of the antient Laws of this Realm which Style the Crown-Lands (b) Cook sur Littleton Sect. 4. Sacra Patrimonia the Prerogative Royal Sacra Sacrorum the Laws themselves in respect they take their life and being from the King (c) Fortescu Leg. Aug. fol. 8. Sanctae Sanctiones The Kings presence was held so Sacred that if a (d) Plowd Com. 322. Villain heretofore cast himself ad Sacra Vestigia as they phras'd it his Lord could no more seize him than if he had been in the Sanctuary before the Altar it being upon the same Ground as great a crime to strike in the Court as in the Church and as if this were not enough they ascribe unto the King as unto God Infallibility (e) Edw. 4. 25. 24. Rex non potest errare Immortality (f) Crompton Jurisaic fol. 134. Plowd 177. B. 1 Ed. 5. Rex non potest mori for in all Pleadings they never mention the death of the King but call it the Demise Justice in perfection Rex non quam injuriam fecit Omnipresence in so much that he cannot be non-suited in any of his Courts because he is suppos'd to be always present and for the same reason all Persons are sorbid to be cover'd in his Chambers of presence though he be not there Lastly they give to him as to God the Issues of Life and
Britannis Imperio Less ambitious but not less amorous was the Sanguine SAXON who bewitcht with the beauty and fertility of the place quit the certain profits of his old Inheritance at home for the uncertain hopes of new here purchasing with the loss of their Lives a Title as mutable and frail as their fortune The DANES their Successours esteem'd the Conquest of this Country worth the unpeopling their own Invading the Invaders with such incredible numbers as left their Wives and Children without defence there whilst they strove to Captivate those here surprizing the Saxons as the Ichneumon does the Crocodile which finding his Jaws open to devour his prey leaps into his mouth and makes a passage through his Bowels The NORMANS and they like little Torrents hastning to loose themselves in the fathomless depth of our British Ocean which chang'd their Natures as well as their Names and gave them another Spirit fit for another World for so was this Island esteem'd and accordingly is to be consider'd in the next place as the third and last Instance of its glory 3. In being it self esteemed another World 14. It was a great advance of Cesar's name and made no small noise through all the Streets of Rome when they heard he had past the danger of that dark Ocean Qui geminos interluit Orbes When he had shot that dismal Gulph which ran betwixt two Worlds under the Arch of Heaven and as it was scarce credible that he could e're return so upon his Return they look'd on him as come from the Gods and with a suitable adoration he was saluted by the Senate with that Title of Divus never given to any bâ—fore but whom they thought Immortal but this glory of his like that of Lightning frighted them at the same time it shin'd in their faces to that degree that the horrour continued in their apprehensions to the very time of Caligula who designing to transport his Army out of Holland into Britaine was on the sudden surpriz'd with such a Pannick Fear at the Sight of our dark Sea that as one depriv'd of all sense of honour he contented himself with having only look'd towards us and return'd Laden with no other Spoils than a few Cockle shells gather'd in the Belgick Shoar The like apprehensions had those Legions in Gallia whom Claudius sent to attend him in his expedition here mutining against their Officers and crying out with one voice that they would not make War in any other World but their own This conceit of Britains being another World held to the middle times as appears by that Title given to our Countryman Constantine stil'd by the Panegyrist Divus Vrbis Orbis c meaning Britain and accordingly 'tis reported that when the British Souldiers saluted him Emperour at York they presented him with a Tufa or Golden Ball as a Symbol of his Soveraignty over the World of Britains upon which being the first of that kind he after his Conversion to Christianity placing a Cross it is since become the usual Ensign of Majesty and usurpt I will not say how improperly by all other Christian Princes being reck'ned amongst the Regalia as the Crown and Scepter neither hath this conceit of Britains being another World been so antiquated but that Vrban the Second had respect thereto when in the Councel of Cleremont he caus'd the Arch Bishop of Canterbury to sit at his Feet and Decreed that he should take the same place in all future Councils Tanquam alterius Orbis Pontificem The Reason of this Conceit came not from the distance of the place so much as the greatness of the Isle the greatest saith (a) Tacit. vit Augusti Tacitus ever known to the Romans the greatest saith (b) Java Borneo Sumatra and Madagascar being not discovered at that time Dionisius ever known to the World and truly if we make our Computation as the Antients did theirs from the Limits of the Sea which as I noted before they thought to be comprehended by Britain or within it the bounds thereof will appear to be boundless extending to those far distant Regions now become a part of us and growing apace to be the bigger part in the Sun-burnt America c Grotius Silvar lib. 2. Finis hic est qui fine caret Quae meta Britannis Littora sunt aliis Regnique accessio tanta est Quòd ventis velisque patet 15. But I am loath to lessen our greatness by Extending it The Geometrical Greatness of the British Empire since the Isle it self without Consideration of any of its Appendixes Contains Ground enough within the Integral Limits of its Terra firma to keep up the Repute of being stil'd as we find it in Aristides by way of Excellence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Island for by the narrowest Computation of our modern Geographers 't is not less than (d) Dion in Ser. reckonâ— h 891 miles eight hundred Italian miles in length and above four hundred broad but taking in the (e) By the Greek Writers call'd the Hesperides Sorlings at the South west Cape of the Land and the Isle of Schetland generally suppos'd to be the antient Thule that was always reckon'd a part of Britain at the utmost North cast point with the lesser Islands thereunto belonging it is little less than 1500 miles long the breadth since the addition of Ireland bearing a due proportion by the present scale and therefore 't is no marvel that upon the Division of Christianity into Nations at the two general Councels of Constance and Pisa the first the very greatest that ever was the last not the least England gave voice as one fourth part of Christendome the other three being France Germany and Italy which being Iberia Major contain'd Spain as Iberia Minor 16. The Land forâ—e of this Isle Others there are that take the measures of our greatness from the number of those Forces this little spot of Earth hath maintained in all ages the Reputation of whose Victories both at home and abroad hath added so much more to the Opinion Strangers have had of our Grandeur by how much they find their own Historians more faithful Witnesses to our Glory than any born amongst our selves How far fam'd were those 6000 Tribelius Max. carry'd hence to strengthen Otho's Faction in Germany neither was there a less value put upon those 8000 transported away by Honorius Flac. to make good Vitellius's party More famous but less fortunate were those 10000 for they were no less that were tempted by Claud. Albinus to partake of his Fate in France Numberless were the numbers on which Constantine founded his greatness as appears by that (f) Little Britaigne in France call'd bâ—fore Armorica Province whereof a remnant only peopled that thereupon took its name from us Constantine the Second carried away no less than 30000 to maintain the hope he had conceiv'd of being Lord of the greater as well as the lesser World These were
3. and that brought on the Treaty betwixt that King and Gregory the Eleventh which after two years debate ended with this express Agreement (t) Walsingham Hist 1374. Page 184. Quod Papa de caetero reservationibus beneficiorum minime uteretur which Dignities Henry the Fourth made no scruple to collate to his own use notwithstanding his being anointed with that Oil which came from Heaven the vertue whereof was to encline all the Princes that were inaugurated therewith to be favourable to the Church His Son Henry the Fifth for his exemplary Piety stil'd the Prince of Priests thought fit to demand of Martin the Fifth several Ecclesiastical Priviledges which his Predecessors had got from the Kings of England at several times and his Ambassadors finding the Pope to stick at it and give them no ready answer told him plainly That the King their Master intended to use his own mind in the matter whether he consented or no (u) In vit Hen. Chichley Pag. 56 57. Edito Anno 1617. Vtpote quae non à necessitatis sed honoris causa petat Thus the Papal power as it was interrupted in all times so from this time it sensibly languish'd till it received its fatal blow from Henry the Eight who if I may so say did as it were beat out the Popes Brains with his own Keys and had he not afterward used violence to himself by referring the point of his Supremacy to the Parliament to be confirm'd by Statute Law that was sufficiently firm'd before by the Common Law that cannot change he had undoubtedly been more absolute Lord of himself than any Christian Prince whatever and acknowledg'd Head of the Church nullis Exceptionibus as Tacitus expresses it in another case but laying the burthen of that weighty Question of the Supremacy upon the Shoulders of Divines which had been better supported by those of the great Lawyers he was perplext with many Scruples and in the end forced to enter the List in Person and fight the (w) Antiqu. Brit. Eccles p. 384. 37. Pope at his own weapon the Pen wherein by great good fortune being a great master of defence that way he had the better of it and by the Authority of his Example drew many to Second him his Supremacy being afterward Justified by the whole Convocation of Divines in both the Universities and most of the Monastical and Collegiate Theologues of the whole Kingdom whilst only four adventur'd to assert the Pope's Right to be de Jure divino 29. And now to conclude this whole discourse The Government of this Isle alwayes Monarchial it may perhaps be thought a Point of glory not unworthy our Remarke to observe that the Government of this Isle was never cloath'd in any other form but what appeared Monarchial notwithstanding the many chances and changes I cannot say alterations which Time conspiring with Fate hath brought forth wantonly disposing the Scepter of these Isles not only to several Persons and Families but different People and Nations The Genius of the very first Natives the Aborigines as Caesar observes of their Ancestors the Gaules being always inclinable to be rul'd by one single Person affecting Monarchy as Naturally as the Greeks did Aristocracy the Romans Democracy or the Germans and indeed all the Northern Nations Oligarchy and however we read of no less than four Kings in Kent by which may be guest a proportionable number of the like kind in other Provinces which Cesar had no Knowledg of yet it appears by those who wrote after him with more certainty That all these Reguli were under one Chief Tacitus to whom it matters not what Title was given by themselves Speaking of Caraciacus since Tacitus calls him more Romano Imperator Britannorum After the Romans got the Government into their hands though there was a seeming Pentarchy yet the Emperour saith Herodian reserv'd to himself all Appeals from the Presidents and Lieutenants not excepting the Cesars themselves here During the Saxon Heptarchy when each of those Royteletts had a distinct Legislative power within his own Kingdom striving like Twins in the Womb of their Conquest which should be born first yet one saith Bede was saluted by common consent with the stile and Title of Rex Anglorum So during the still-born Tetarchy of the Danes Knute was not only Primus but Princeps Uniting the Trine Power of his Predecessours in his single Person Neither did the Genius of the Normans affect any other form notwithstanding the intestine Feuds betwixt divers of those Kings and their Nobles these striving to recover what they had lost those resolving to keep what by advantage of time and sufferance they had got ingaged them in desperate Resolutions for however the Populacy prevail'd against King John Henry the Third Edward the Second and Richard the Second taking the boldness to commit so many Insolencies as sullied the memory of those times and gave Strangers occasion to brand the whole Nation with one of the basest Characters that malice could invent Les mutins Anglois yet was not their ill disposition heightned to that degree of madness as to follow Providence in the pursuit of their Liberties beyond the bounds of Magna Charta for though they left succeeding Ages a President they never found in deposing the two last acts no less dishonourable to themselves than them yet they admitted the Son of the one and the Uncle of the other to succeed Nor was it want of power to do otherwise Vox Populi being at the same time Preached up by no meaner a man than the Primate of England to be Vox Dei and pass'd for as good Divinity as Policy The like may be observed in those disorderly times when the two fatal houses of York and Lancaster justled one another out of the Throne with such alternate success as gave advantage to the Plebiscitum to Elect which they pleas'd the Soveraignty being so weakned by the blood lost on either side that the people had it in their power not only to turn the Scale as they thought fit but to break the Beam of Majesty on which the weight of that destructive Quarrel hung and so by taking away the Cause have prevented the Occasions of ensuing mischiefs yet still we find they kept within the Circle of their Allegiance and though they directed it variously to several Lines yet all tended to supporting the main Nave of the Monarchy continuing the Government as it had ever been in a single Person which Devotion to Monarchy was as St. Hierome observes in one of his Epistles rewarded from Heaven with this great blessing upon the Incolae in general of this Isle That by their Obedience to one Prince they were the more easily brought to the belief of One God who blest their early Faith with the Honour of having the First Christian King and Emperour of the World amongst them 30. But This last Age of ours I confess hath brought forth an unnatural Race of
defensive War for three hundred years with so good success that they not only kept what they call'd their own but were for the most part on the winning side being once in as fair a probability to have enlarg'd their Territories as any of their Neighbourhood had they not been over-charg'd in the Flank by an unequal Enemy and of all others least expected the Invincible Dane a People prepar'd for mischief and heightned by the Desolations they had made in Northumberland Yorkshire Nottinghamshire and the Countreys thereabouts the Fame of whose cruelty having made their way they broke in upon this tyred Province weary'd and weakned with giving and taking wounds from their own Countreymen surprizing them ere they had time to recover strength or means to recover time to make so good a defence as otherwise they would have done Yet they did not submit to the first misfortune nor fell like Fools or men affrighted but strugâ—ed with all their power near fifty years without any other aid than what was maintain'd by their own proper strength and courage being the Bulwark that defended all their Neighbours against the Dane who the whilst wasted each other with intestine Feuds till they fell a Sacrifice to their private lusts and ambition and these only to the publick safety THE ORDER OF THE KINGS OF NORTHUMBERLAND VII I. date of accession 584 ETHERICK the fourth Son of Ida Lord of Bernicia was the first that stiled himself King of Northumberland though indeed he had but the half call'd Bernicia which descended on his Son II. date of accession 593 ETHELFRID sirnam'd the Wild a Prince of much fierceness and insolence which render'd him so odious to his Subjects that his Enemies easily found an opportunity to depose him and set up one III. date of accession 617 EDWIN the Son of Ella Lord of Deira which was the other part of Northumberâ—and who was the first Christian of this House and got such repute that he was acknowledged the eight Monarch of the Engâ—ishmen he was at last however unhappily overcome and slain by the Pagan Penda King of Mercia IV. date of accession 633 OSRICK Son of his Uncle Alfrid succeeded him whose Reign was as confus'd as the time he liv'd in he was Lord of Deira only which upon his death was united to Bernicia and so descended on V. date of accession 634 OSWALD the ninth Monarch whilst he liv'd and dying esteem'd the first Martyr of all the Englishmen his Successor was VI. date of accession 643 OSWY the tenth Monarch of the English who left the Succession to his furious Son VII date of accession 671 EGFRID who making War with the Picts that were backt by their Confederates the Irish he was by them slain and his Bastard Brother took place VIII date of accession 686 ALKFRID a Prince more beholding to Providence than Nature for the first gave him the right of a Son when the last deny'd him a Son to enjoy that right whereby the Crown devolv'd upon IX date of accession 705 OSRED a Child of eight years old of a collateral Branch and as indirect a Disposition not old enough to govern himself nor wise enough to govern others so that his Subjects withdrew their Allegiance to give it to X. date of accession 716 KENRED the next of the whole Blood who conspiring with Osrick the next of kin to himself to kill Osred the next of kin to the Crown was undermin'd by his Confederate who set up for himself XI OSRICK the second knew better it seems how to get than to keep a Kingdom for he was as easily depos'd by XII date of accession 729 CEONULPH younger Brother to Kenred one of the most glorious of all the Northumbrian Race this was he to whom Bede dedicated his History of England and one that render'd himself more glorious by a voluntary obscurity preferring a Capush before a Crown whose Example was a Rule to his Successor XIII date of accession 738 EGBERT who did the like being mov'd by the delusion of this pious fraud to surrender to his Son XIV date of accession 758 OSWOLPH who liv'd not long to enjoy the pleasure of his Royalty being made away by some of his Domesticks as was his Successor XV. date of accession 759 EDELMAULD commonly call'd Mollo slain by his own Steward XVI date of accession 765 ALURED who had no better Title than his successful Villany which being rais'd upon the sandy foundation of the Peoples favour quickly foundred and fell to the ground so that XVII date of accession 774 ETHELRED Son of the aforesaid Moâ—â— recâ—ver d the thrâ—ne who nâ—t answering the expectation was depos'd to make way for XVIII date of accession 778 ALFWALD Brother to Alured a Prince worthy of greater Title and better Subjects for the Northumbrians being flusht with the blood of their Princes began to be very tumultuous and disloyal and amongst the rest murther'd him to make way for one XIX date of accession 789 OSRED a worthless person but the Darling of the multitude he hâ—ld the Scepter till it was taken from him by XX. date of accession 790 ETHELRED who liv'd to revenge his indignity upon the Heirs of his Adversaries and being puff'd up with that success and an alliance he afterwards made with the great Mercian Offa grew cruel and provoked his People to fly to Arms who in one battel took from him both his Life and Kingdom XXI date of accession 794 OSWALD a common Man was put up in his place for the good Omen of his Name but his good Fortune lasted not above thirty days so fickle is the favour of the common People not unfitly compar'd to the Sea whose fluxes and refluxes are of no long continuation before XXII date of accession 794 ADULPH was set up in his stead he was a banisht Duke and look'd on as their Martyr for taking part with them against Ethelred but his glory was not much longer liv'd than the others so that XXIII date of accession 795 ALSWALD succeeded who having only shew'd himself upon the Stage turned about and made his Exit to give place to another XXIV date of accession 795 ETHELRED a Man of a hated Name and not very well belov d who stept up to make way for three of his Sons to come after him one of which having committed some insolence against a Danish Lady gave that cruel People a just occasion to fall into this Countrey and haraze it to that degree that it became not long after a prey to the West-Saxon THIS though it were the first intire Province the Saxons were Masters of yet it was the last made a Kingdom being the only part of the whole that cost them no blood to get it for it was by consent delivered up to them by the Britains to make a Colony against the Picts but that of all others cost most to defend it for besides those without they had Enemies within themselves having cut themselves into two distinct Principalities either
hold out than while it was preserv'd by the Courage of such active Princes as those that appear'd upon the Throne the four last Descents following who spight of Fate made good their Ground for an hundred years without any Interruption to the course of honour save by the Interposition of Edwin whom yet the hatred of the Clergy is suppos'd to have made worse than he was EDWARD the Martyr date of accession 975 THE Globe of Soveraignty like that of the Earth is so plac'd that it never stands still but as the Ocean the Emblem of human frailty has its Ebbs and Flows its Falls and Swellings so hath it its Turnings Tumblings and Revolutions No sooner were Edgar's Halcyonian daies done but there appear'd new Signs of the old Troubles and Commotions which like the meeting of contrary Tides prest in each upon other with dreadful noise and Tumult the Laiety opposing the Clergy the Nobility scorning the Populacy and they again dividing from one another But amongst the rest no Feud seemed so fatal as that betwixt the two Unhappy Sons of this so happy Father the one trusting to his Primogeniture t'other standing upon his Legitimacy the right of either being so equally ballanc'd that there wanted only the affections of the Multitude to turn the Scale either way whilst the Clergy favour'd the Eldest the Temporal Lords the younger The head of the Church-Faction was the A. B. Dunstan then and all the time of the last King chief Minister of State Principal of the Lay Faction was Ordgar the great Earl of Devon back'd by the Queen Mothers Party So equal was the power so pressing the necessity on either side that both Consented to stand to the determination of a Publick Convention of all the States at London Accordingly a Parliament was held at Westminster where the bold St. Dunstan not tarrying for the result of any Debate upon the point De Jure set the Crown upon the head of Edward the Elder Brother and so presented him De Facto to the Assembly as their lawful Soveraign which confident Act of his either satisfying or surprizing those of the opposite Party met with an universal submission every Body acquiescing and dissembling their discontent except the Queen only who being his Step-mother could not forget much less forgive an injury so grievous to the Son of her own Body turning therefore her passion of Ambition into that of Revenge she broke over all the bounds of Nature and Right to find the nearest way to the Throne nor wanted she a dismal opportunity however taken from a pretence of humanity and kindness to set up her Darling by the murther of this guiltless Prince who coming alone estray'd from Hunting and altogether unattended to visit her at her Castle of Corffe in the Isle of Purbeck was by her Command slain by an Assassme that took the advantage to stab him in the Reins of the Back as he was drinking her Health at the gate on Horse-back the helpless Youth finding himself wounded clapt spurs to his Horse in hopes to have out-rid her malice but his Spirits failing he fell out of his Saddle and so unfortunately that his Foot fastned in the Stirrup at which his poor Beast affrighted became alike accessary though not alike guilty of his death by dashing our his Brains before that Life had got its passage through his wounds So perished this harmless Prince in the infancy of his Royalty as well as of his Age being rather sacrific'd than slain by a kind of double Death without so much as a single Crime laid to his charge the same malice that envy'd him the honour of being a King becoming instrumental thereby to the dignifying him with the glory of being a Martyr the Charity of those times or rather the Affection of the Clergy leaving him enshrin'd in the Kalendar of Saints Which shews how deplorable his death was wherein the whole Nation were so much more sufferers than himself that it may be truly said that the Same stroak which took away his Life gave the Deaths wound to the English Monarchy bringing upon them the misery of being in Bondage to a Stranger Nation of all other the most cruel and insolent who ow'd their Rise next the immediate determination of Providence to nothing more than the unexpected Fall of this hopeful Prince with whose blood they may be said to have mixt the Morter of that Foundation they after laid taking the same advantage of the Sins of the English as they before of those of the Britains and breaking in upon them as they upon t'other with a Resolution not so much to conquer as to confound them which may be some Excuse for the cruelty of the next King that massacred so many of them in cold blood whilst who like Sampson in the midst of his Enemies thought there was no way left but removing the Pillars of the house and perishing together with them ETHELRED date of accession 978 'T IS easie to imagine by the Title of Martyr given to the last King what Reflex his Death had upon this who like an ill-set plant unhappily plac'd in the same Room from which the other was taken never could recover any firm rooting and consequently never thriv'd being continually wind-shaken from the very first moment that he was set up and vext with uncessant troubles the Sword never departing from his House as 't is reported St. Dunstan preaching at his Coronation boldly foretold till the common Enemy became Master of his ill-got Glory repaying him with the misery of loss and that infelicity which always attends it shame and reproach For 't is observ'd that notwithstanding there were scarcely any King that ever setled the constitutions of his Government upon firmer principles that fought his Battels with braver Resolution that encountred all Emergencies of State with like indifferency and temperance yet neither could his vigilance or valour his prudence fortitude or patience so prevail against Destiny but that all his designs were stifled in the birth or frustrated at the very point of dispatch as if Heaven had decreed to lay such a curse upon the wickedness of his Parent as should weigh down all the merit of his Vertues and â—â—ast the hopes conceiv'd from them One while Famin was his Foe another time Pestilence and it was not rare for the very Elements themselves to fight against him it being more than once or twice that he had a kind of Battel with Heaven it self for his Fleets were in danger of being fired by unexpected Lightning and Thunder-Storms neither was it for a little time that he thus strugled with the perverseness of his Stars hoping the malignity of their Influences might spend it self in due season but finding they gave him no opportunity or incouragement to perform any worthy Action for several years together having plac'd all Glory so far above the reach of his Sword that 't was impossible he could at the same time appear to be
little disordered by it but those since who have found the benefit of having the Laws mysterious and less intelligible have little cause to decry him for it unless for this cause that they are never pleas'd with any fighting King In fine he strain'd not the Prerogative so high but his Son Henry the First let it down again as low when he restored to the People their ancient freedom of General Assemblies or rather permitted them a kind of share with himself in the Government by instituting a form of Convention so much nobler then any thing they had been acquainted with in elder timety in that the Peerage sate as so many Kings parting stakes with Soveraigns if what * Who was Lord Chief Justice to his Grandson Hen. 3. Bracton tells us be true who saith there were many things which by law the King could not do without them and some things which legally they might do without him which those that have read upon the Statute of Magna Charta can best explain This was not therefore improperly call'd the Parliament in respect of the Freedom of parlying after another fashion then had been permitted to their Ancestors in former Meetings which being Ex more or as they were wont to phrase it of Custome Grace during all the time of the Saxon Kings we cannot imagine their Debates to be much less restrained then themselves who attending in the Kings Palace like the Lords of the Councel at this day having had the honour to give their Opinions in any point of State submitted the final Judgment and determination to the Kings will and pleasure And whereas then the Commoners were wholly left out of all Consultations unless with the Learned Lambert we may think them included in the word Barones which seems to have been as equivocal a term heretofore in England as that of Laird yet in Scotland they now were made partakers of the like priviledge of voting as the Lords so that in Henry the Third his time to look no further backward we find them call'd by the yet continued stile of Knights Citizens and Burgesses to consult together with the Lords pro Pace asseverandâ firmandâ c. as the †lib. St. Alban f. 207. 4 H. 3. Record expresses it neither sate they when they met as Cyphers to those great Figures For when Pope Alexander the Fourth would have revoked the Sentence of Banishment past upon his proud Legate Adomare Bishop of Winchester for that he was not as he alledged subject to lay Censure they took upon them to give their Answer by themselves and it was a bold one That though the King and Lords should be willing to revoke it ‖ Vt pat Chart. orâ—g sub sigil de Mountford Vic. tot Communitat Rot. Parl. 42 Hen. 3. Communitas tamen ipsius ingressum in Angliam nullatenus sustineret How far their Priviledges were afterward confirmed and enlarged by several Kings successively but more particularly by that most excellent Prince Henry the Fifth who first allowed * 2 Hen. 5. The Petition of Right and permitted it to be entred in their Journals as the Great Standard of Liberty is not unknown from which time it hath been esteemed the second Great Charter of England whereby we were manumitted into that degree of Freedom as no Subjects in the world enjoy the like with like security from the fear of future bondage For as no man can be made lyable to the payment of any more or other Taxes then what himself layes upon himself by his representatives in that great Pan-Anglio call'd the Parliament so all the Kings of England since that time have been pleas'd to accept the Aids given by them even for the necessary support of the Government as so many Freewill-Offerings And well it is that they esteem them free since they are not obtained without a kind of Composition I might say obligation to give good Laws for good mony wherein the performance on the Princes part alwaies precedes that on the Peoples But there is yet something further then all this that renders the Norman Conquest so much more considerable then either that of the Romans Saxons or Danes by how much it spread its wings over the Seas into those goodly Provinces of the South never known to the English before thereby not only giving them Title to keep their Swords from rusting as long as they had any Arms to draw them forth but the Advantage therewithal of a mutual Conversation with a civiliz'd People who introduced so happy a Change in Laws and Language in Habits and Humours in Manners and Temperature that not only their rough I might say rude Natures no way inclin'd before to any kind of Gaiety admitted of smoother Fashions and quicker Motions but their dull Phlegmatick Complexions pale and wan by the continued use of dozing dreggy Liquor Ale became as ruddy as the Wine they drank which having more of Spirit and Fire then that other heavy composition sublimated their Courage and Wit and render'd them more lofty and eloquent both in Action and Language the last being before so asperous harsh and gutteral that an hours discourse together would have indanger'd the skin of their throats but being softned by the French and Latine Accents it became so gentle and smooth that as a Modern Master of Elocution hath observ'd 't is now so soft and pleasing that Lord Faulkland Prefat to Sands his Translation of the Psalms those From whom the unknown Tongue conceals the Sence Ev'n in the sound must find an Eloquence From the Normans likewise we had that honourable distinction of Sirnames which however they borrowed in the first place from the French who as Du Tillet tells us were about the year 1000 much delighted with the humour of Soubriquets * Vid Buck. Vit. Rich. 3. or giving one another Nic-names as we commonly call them insomuch that two of the very chiefest Houses amongst them the Capets and the Plantaginets had no other rise for their Names were continued no where with that certainty and order as amongst us here to the great renown and honour of our Families whose Nobility if it exceed not the date of the Norman Conquest may yet without any disparagement compare with any of those who call themselves the unconquer'd Nations of the World It being space long enough considering the vicissitude of time and power of Chance to antiquate the glory of great States much more of private Families and few there are that have attain'd to that Age. For however Honour like old Age magnifies its reverence by multiplying its years yet it is to be considered that there are visible decayes attend Veneration and it may so fall out that Names as well as Men may out-live themselves while the glory of a Family by over-length of time being less known may be the more suspected to have been but imaginary as some who exceeding the common bounds of certainty do pretend to justifie
as it serv'd the King of France his turn to serve him he entertain'd him in that Court adversity knows no other Friends nor upon other Terms But King Henry by his mony quickly took him off and Heaven to requite the good turn not long after took off him for whom all this was done punishing his unjust detaining the livelihood of his innocent Nephew William with taking away the life of his own innocent Son William the only hope of his Family who being shipwrackt in his return out of Normandy with a hundred and fifty Passengers more amongst whom was his beloved Sister the Countess of Perch indeavouring to save her lost himself This Clap of Judgment coming in a Calm of glory when all the busling of his Ambition seem'd to be pass'd over so overwhelm'd the Joys of his past successes that as if his Conscience had shrunk at the horror of seeing his oppression and supplantation so repaid with the extinction of that for which he drew all this guilt upon himself 't is said that from that time he never was seen to laugh more and however he strugled with Destiny for more Issue Male marrying not long after a most vertuous and beautiful young Lady yet all was in vain The invenom'd Arrow stuck still in his Liver and for want of other Heirs he was forced to fasten the succession on his Daughter Maud who being intangled in his fate and as apparently Planet-struck as himself could never attain to be a Queen however a Dutchess and an Empress being disappointed by one that had less right and not so good pretence as her own Father And as the main Line of Normandy fail'd in him that was but the third Inheritor so the succession ever since proved so brittle that it never held to the third Heir in a right descent without being put by or receiving some alteration by usurpation or extinction of the Male blood which saith mine Author may teach Princes to let men alone with their Rights and God with his Providence But such is the unhappiness of Kings that they either understand not Destiny so well as private Men or cannot so readily submit to it and as Ambition is a restless passion which however it may be sometimes weary never tires so it urges them to be still pressing upon Fortune with hopes to compel or corrupt her hoping that if she will not be serviceable to them she may at least not oppose them He found that this rent at home had crack'd all the chain of his courses in France whose King took part with his Nephew William whilst his two great Friends Foulk Earl of Anjou and Robert Earl of Mellent declared against him Yet urg'd by his natural diligence or desire of Rule he could not but still push on till by the death of that unfortunate youth before mention'd all the hopes of his Brother Robert perished and came to be entirely his yet neither then could he take any Rest though he had no body to give him any disquiet his Conscience keeping him waking with continual Alarums without any kind of sleep but what was so disturbed and disorderly as declar'd to the whole World all was not well within Often did he rise out of his Bed in the Night and catching up his Sword put himself into a Posture of Defence as against some Personal assault and sometimes in company he would catch hold of his Servants hands as apprehending they were about to draw upon him Thus was he dog'd with continued fears and those such as perhaps were Prophetical of what follow'd that some body should start up as immediately after there did who taking Example from himself should Spurn his ashes and usurp as much upon his Innocent Daughter and her Son as he himself had done upon his innocent Brother and his Son The Breach at which she first entred was made by King Stephen himself who foreseeing the approaching mischief drew on the evil he would avoid by the same way he thought to prevent it for suspecting the Castles he had permitted to be new built with purpose to have broken the force of any over-running Invasion might now as well become receptacles to the adverse Party he commanded them to be deliver'd up into his hands for securing the publick Peace This begat a general murmure that a dispute among the proprietors whereof those of most note being Clergy-men and Lords of great power and stomach presuming upon the Obligation he had to the Church which as they said advanced him to the Crown without any military help refus'd so give up their Keys into the hands of Laymen upon whom as they thought he had not the like tie of honour nor honesty as upon themselves Hereupon the Legate interpos'd who holding himself nearer allied to his Brother Prelates than to his Brother King urg'd the question of priviledg so far that 't was thought there wanted nothing but an opportunity to shew they could more willingly quit their Allegiance as they had done their Liberty than their possessions for King Stephen upon their refusal to obey his Order clapt up several of them in prison This opportunity Maud by her arrival rather gave than took when she made up the Crie and joyn'd her claim with theirs and thereby made the War to be felt before it was perceiv'd which spread it self like a burning Feaver through all the veins of the body politick but raged by Fits only it so happening that they were not seldom parted by the said new built Castles they contested for many of which standing neuter give stops to their Fury as if intended by Providence to allay their heat till it were temperate enough to admit of some Parley but that proving ineffectual like Game-cocks aftertaking breath they fell to it afresh with equal force and equal confidence the whole Nation being divided betwixt them according to their several interest for affections some taking part with her others with him these to discharge their Consciences those their honour some to advance their fortunes others to secure their advancements King Stephen gave every where proof of his courage she of her wisdom both of their diligence either perhaps worthy a greater Empire than they contended for but whilst the Body politick thus miserably tormented with the convulsions of Might and Right languish'd under the growing distemper behold a sudden change which seem'd the more mortal for that the grief seiz'd upon the head The King is taken prisoner with whose liberty one would have thought all the hopes of that side had been lost but it so hapned that the Feminine Victor found herself ingag'd in a more equal Contest with one of her own Sex and as of the same spirit so of the same name King Stephen's Wife takes up the Sword whilst her husband continues a prisoner who not looking that Fortune should fall into her lap was so industrious to catch it and heading her husbands Forces she brought the Title to a second trial with so
fondness but out of a provident care to settle the Succession and as reasonably to fix his Sons Ambition Neither was his severity to his younger Sons less fatal to him than his indulgence to his Elder whilst thinking to recover the power he lost there by keeping a stricter hand over those here he was bereft of them too by the same way he thought to make them more surer to him for as the eldest by having so much was easily perswaded there was more due to him so the younger brothers believing they ought to have had something more than they had because their elder brother had so much more than he should press'd him out of necessity as much as t'other out of wantonness This looking so like a judgment from heaven gave both the world and himself so full a view of his fate and his failings that from this time he began sensibly to languish under the grief and shame of being so affronted the rancor of his thoughts so festring inwardly that though he asswaged it by all the Lenitives imaginable yet the wound broke out as fast as it was heal'd till the Cause was taken away by the death of those that were the two most unnatural Sons whose ends prov'd to be as violent as their natures after which yet he was no less afflicted by the no less unnatural obstinacy of the two surviving Brothers Richard and John But that which made the troubles of his own house more insupportable was the meeting with as great troubles in Gods house where the disobedience of his Children was out-vied by the contempt of a servant who advanced by destiny to make a mock of Majesty finding a purpose in him to curtail the growing greatness of the Clergy that was arriv'd to that height that they were able to make a King without a Title and might as he suspected by tampering with Posterity be able in time to set up a Title without a King resolv'd to wrestle both single and to compare authority and however he knew the design to be so well backt by the envy of the Laiety that the Pope himself and all the Conclave despair'd of weathering it yet such was his obstinacy having got the help of opinion and the belief of Integrity on his side that he stood the breach of this unhappy Kings Indignation and defied his Thunderbolt till the very minute it blasted him by whose death every one thought the King had got the better of it in that he had the satisfaction of a full Revenge without being touch'd with the guilt since those that murther'd him however they did it to please the King did it yet without his knowledg or privity But such was the Tyranny of Fate that he who in his life time only made him how being dead brought him upon his knees and forced him to acknowledg him as much above his faith afterwards as he was above his will before and then which nothing could be more unfortunate for the very same cause he prosecuted him in his life time as a Traitour being dead he ador'd him as a Saint It were too troublesome to tell of all the troubles of this great Prince much more to bring them into any method which coming from himself and not ending as I said before but with himself however they seem'd to vary in the Lines kept still in the circle of his Family mov'd by the same Causes though not by the same Persons for as his Son Henry before so his Son Richard afterwards was tempted to capitulate with him and to shew the world he was his Brothers successor in point of disobedience as well as of right he did with as great ambition but greater passion require an assurance of the same Kingdom and the same Wife both equally dear to the Father both alike fatal to the Sons wherein meeting with a denial the present fit of Love that was upon him heightened into an extream of hatred with the contagion whereof for it ran in a blood his brother John was not long after infected and so joyning together they made the last Effort upon their now almost tired fathers patience besieging him in the beloved Town where his Father was buried and himself born which he not long after took from him and in it her that was dearer to him than his life the fair Lady Adela now become the old Kings avowed Mistress however affianc'd before to his Son Richard This as it was an indignity that flaw'd his great heart at one single stroak and wounded his spirit beyond all recovery so the loss of the City provok'd him to blaspheme God and the loss of the Lady to curse all his posterity and what sence nature retain'd of the loss of his life that took away the sence of all other losses appears by the intelligence it held with his revenge after death which over-acting its part if I may so say to charge the guilt upon the unnatural offender forced the blood out of his nostrils as he lay bare-fac'd upon his hearse as soon as his Son Richard the murtherer approach'd with dissembled reverence to kiss his hand Thus Thus as he had constant troubles whilst he liv'd so it seems he had no great rest when he was dead being ordain'd by Destiny to be an Example of unparalleld Desolation and which made this unhappiness a kind of Riddle that which renders all other men happy undid him viz. great Wisdom great Power and great Possessions either of which makes great Friends at least great numbers of those that profess themselves to be so whiles he liv'd to see himself forsaken of Wife Children Family Friends and if he were not himself as in Charity we ought to think when he blasphem'd God for the loss of Mentz we may say forsaken of himself too then which there could be no sadder Epilogue to humane Glory And wherefore was all this toyl and charge imbarasing himself and his Subjects but only to hold up the vain-glorious reputation of his Courage and make good that Bestial Adjunct of Coeur de Leon which was not improperly given to him if we consider that the same Creature is as much noted for his Voracity as Courage yet was the excess of his Valour mostly spent in private quarrels the King of France who was ingaged with like Devotion and he falling together by the Ears as soon as they met in Scicily and after he came into the Holy Land he had the like quarrel with the Arch-Duke of Austria with both upon the same point of Precedence though not with like reason the other having out-brav'd him in the common Cause and planted his Colours upon the Walls of Acon before him which he plucking down in scorn t'other made him vail Bonnet to it that is surrender up his Cap of Maintenance as 't was then call'd as a Pledge of his Homage to the Emperor when he acknowledg'd him his Supream Lord. And what was the end of this great Enterprize after having tarried above a
great men of Poictou Britain and Normandy being offended that the Regency of the young King should be committed to a Woman and a Spaniard But this design ending with like precipitation as it was begun after the Expence of some Blood and more Treasure neither of which he could well spare he return'd home attended with a petty Army of those Poictovins and Britains who by taking his part had forfeited their own Estates at home These therefore he conceiv'd himself obliged in point of honour to provide for and which way to do it but by displacing such of his principal Officers who were in places of greatest benefit he knew not These were his Cheif-Justiciary his High Treasurer and the Marshal of his Houshold upon whom therefore he permitted the envious Rabble to discharge a volly of accusations to the end that driving them out with shame and loss he might fill up their places with those strangers These great Pillars for they were men whose wisdom he had more need of then they of his favour being thus thrown down and broken to peices by their fall so shook the whole frame of his Throne that every body expected when he would have fallen himself too divers of the Nobility that were nearest to him removing themselves for fear of the worst Amongst the rest was that famous Richard who after the death of his brother William was Earl Marshal a man questionless of great honour and Probity who finding his violences to increase being heightned by the ill advice of the two Peters De Rupibus and De Rivallis the one a Britain t'other a Poictovin now become the two great Ministers of State combined with the rest of the English Nobility to fetch him off from these Rocks first intreating and after threatning him that unless he would put these and all other strangers from him they would remove both him and them and chuse another King Upon this bold menace the plainest and boldest that Subjects could give a Prince De Rupibus advised him to require pledges for their Allegiance which they refusing to give without any Process of Law he causes them to be Proclaym'd Out-laws and Seizes on all their Lands with the profits whereof he rewards the Poictovins This brought both Parties to Arm again with like animosity but more Cruelty then in his Fathers time So that for two years together there was no cessation from all the violences and depredations that usually attend a civil War till the Bishops finding by the much blood had been shed that the heat on either side was much abated interpos'd with the King to do the Barons reason and forc'd him to yeild though he could not consent to a restoration of their Lands and Liberties and to the banishment of all strangers This however proved to be but a temporary shift which the present necessity of his affaires drove him to for not long after the two great Incendiaries were admitted again to Grace and so near came he to the example of his Father as to endeavour a revocation of his Grants by the Popes Authority being done as he alleadged beyond his Power and without consent of the Church by which harsh Intention though it took not effect it is scarce imaginable how much he added to the conceiv'd displeasure of the People to whom however he had no regard till he had wasted himself so far by his profusion and supine Stupidity that he was reduc'd through extremity of want to truckle under his Parliaments who knowing their own Power and his dependence on them for money for as a modern * Sir R. Bakeâ— Vit. H. 3. writer observes his taxations were so many they may be reckon'd amongst his annual revenues scarce any year passing without a Parliament but no Parliament breaking up without a Tax as so many Tyrants press'd no less upon him one way then he upon them the other till at last he became as weary of asking as they of giving him supplies and having no other means to maintain his Riot after he had canvass'd his Officers by chopping and changing of places and rais'd what he could without right or reason he fell to selling his Lands mortgaged Gascoin pawn'd his Jewels and after his Crown and when he had neither Credit nor pawns of his own left he expos'd the Jewels and Ornaments of Saint Edwards Shrine to whoever would lay down most for them After this he preyd upon the Jews the People that always felt the weight of his necessities Neither were his Christian Subjects so free but that he found means to squeeze them by Loans Benevolences and New-years gifts all which not sufficing he fell at last to down-right Beggery and sent to the Clergy men for several Summes to be given him as Alms. And being reduc'd to this incredible lowness when he found he could not prevail upon their Charity he try'd how far he could work upon their piety by pretending to undertake the Cross but that Project failing him too the last and most fatal shift he had was to resign to the King of France whatever right he had in the Dutchy of Normandy the Earldoms of Anjou Poictou Tourene and Main and all for no more then three hundred Crowns and that of Anjovin money too a pitiful Summ to redeem a half lost Crown The Prince likewise unfortunately participating in the wants of his Father was driven to Mortgage several pieces of his Lands too to supply his Particular Necessities And now all things being gone that were valuable or vendible the Barons finding him naked and disarm'd thought not fit to delay the matter longer but being call'd to that fatal Parliament at Oxford in a hot season of the year when all their bloods were boyling and out of temper without more debate they first secur'd London the onely Magazine to begin a Rebellion by shutting up the Gates and after secur'd the Kingdom by shutting up the Ports to prevent the inlet of Strangers appointing twenty four Conservators as they call'd them to manage the Government whereof twelve were to be nam'd by the King twelve by themselves But he thinking it too great a Diminution of his Majesty to consent to any nomination of his own left their twelve call'd the Douze Peers to take the Reâ—ormation into their hands who displacing aâ—l whom they pleas'd to call Evil Counsellors left none about him that were able or perhaps willing to give him advice and grew so insolent at last as to banish amongst other Strangers some of his nearest Relations Out of these as it happens upon all Changes where the People are to be amus'd with Novelty there was chosen afterwards a Triumvirate to be Super-intendent over the Twelve These were the Earl of Leicester the Earl of Gloucester and the Lord Spencer to whom the three great Ministers of State the Chancellor the High-Treasurer and the Chief Justiciar were appointed humble assistants And because 't was believ'd that the Liberty of the People depended on the
maintenance of their Authority the King himself was compell'd by Oath as he was a Man a Christian a Knight a King Crown'd and anointed to uphold them and acquit them of their Legal Obedience whensoever he went about to infringe the great Charter by which they held this Prerogative Here they had him bound up hand and foot with that Curse upon him which his Father of all others most dreaded and with which his Flatterers most terrified him whenever the Dispute of Liberty came in question of being a King without a Kingdom a Lord without a Dominion a Subject to his Subjects for they had invaded his Majesty usurp'd his Authority and made themselves so far Masters of his Person that they might seize it whenever they pleas'd to declare for a Common-wealth And now to make the Affront more notable as if they had forgotten what was the Fundamental Grievance on which their Usurpation was grounded the Entertainment of Strangers they take a Stranger to head them making Monford who was a French man by Birth and Descent their Chief who having designs of his own different from theirs as the Earl of Gloucester his Compeer found when 't was too late indeavour'd so to widen all Differences betwixt King and People that if possible there might never be a right Understanding betwixt them The King therefore well knowing his Malice and not being ignorant of his Ambition fell first upon him causing the Lord Mortimer to break in amongst his Tenants who quickly righted himself upon those of Mortimer's with whom the Prince thereupon took part as Llewellin Prince of Wales with t'other The Prince takes Brecknock-Castle Monford that of Gloucester and after that those of Worcester and Shrewsbury from whence he marched directly to the Isle of Ely without Resistance The King fearing his approach to London like those who to save their Lives in a Storm are content to sling their Goods overboard demanded a Peace and willingly yielded up all his Castles into the hands of the Barons to the intent they might be as a publick Security for the inviolable Observation of the Provisions of Oxford conceding to the banishment of all the Strangers that were left This Condescention of his however occasion'd rather a Truce then a Peace of which he had this benefit to gain time till he could be better provided A Parliament being hereupon call'd at London the freedom of Debate there renew'd the Quarrel and each side confident of the Justice of their Arms at Northampton they came to Battel which however it was well fought yet the worst Cause had the worst Success The Barons were beaten and amongst other Prisoners of note that were then taken was the young Monford the Heir and Hope of his Father Leicester and Fortune thus uniting with Authority made the Barons stoop though they could not submit to beg the Peace they had before refus'd wherein being rejected with scorn they became desperate who were before but doubtful which Leicester perceiving and being a man skilful in such advantages took that opportunity to bring them to a second Battel in which he supply'd his want of Hands with a Stratagem that shew'd he had no want of Wit placing certain Ensigns without Men on the side of a Hill not far from the place where he gave the onset whereby he so fortunately amuz'd the Enemy that he easily obtain'd a Victory and such an one as seem'd to turn the Scale beyond all possibility of Recovery For in it were taken the King himself his Brother the late King of the Romans the Prince and most of the principal Lords and by killing Five thousand of the common People on the place he so terrified all the rest of the Royal Party that for a year and an half afterwards no body durst look him in the Face all which time he spent in reducing the Kingdom under his own dispose putting in and out whom he pleas'd and filling up all places Military and Civil with Creatures of his own carrying the King about with him as a skilful Rebel to countenance the Surrender of Towns and Castles to him continuing thus the insolence of his Triumph till it swell'd to that disproportionate Greatness that his Confederate Gloucester began to be jealous if not afraid of it and out of that Distrust quarrel'd with him upon pretence of not having made equal distribution of the Spoil nor Prisoners charging him to have releas'd whom he pleas'd and at what rate without the consent of the rest of the Confederacy urging further that he did not suffer a Parliament to be conven'd as was agreed betwixt them to the end himself might be Arbitrary Lastly objected that his Sons were grown Insolent by his Example and had affronted several of the adhering Barons who would have satisfaction of him During this Dispute the Prince by connivance of some of the discontented Faction broke Prison to whom Gloucester joyn'd himself and rallying together the scatter'd Parties that had long attended the advantage of such a turn they made themselves so considerable that in short time they were able to bring the business to a poise Leicester put it to the Decision of another Battel but not without apparent dispondency as appears by what he said when they were going to give the first Charge for he told those Lords that were nearest him That they would do well to commit their Souls to God for that their Bodies were the Enemies However he omitted nothing that might speak him as he was a brave and valiant General till his Son first and after himself were slain at the instant of whose fall there happen'd such a Clap of Thunder as if Heaven it self had fought against him and that none could have given him his death but that power to which he owed his life And so the King was rid of him whom he once declar'd to have been more affraid of then of Lightning and Thunder a Person too great for a Subject and something too little to be a King But had he as he was descended from the stock of * His Father was Simon youngest Son of Simon Earl of Fureux descended from Almerick base Son of Robert sirnam'd the Holy King of France Kings master'd the Fate of this day he had undoubtedly made himself one and broke off the Norman Line to begin a new Race not less noble This happy Victory gave the King some ease but 't was not in the power of any Force to give him perfect rest whilst the distemperature of the Time was such that the Wound which seem'd perfectly heal'd broke out afresh Gloucester himself though he had deserted his old Competitor Leicester would not yet quit the good old Cause but imbracing the very first Occasion of Discontent he met with retired three years after from Court and having got new Forces sinds out new Evil Counsellors to remove Mortimer the great Man of merit with the King is now become the Object of his Envy and rather then not have
as often as any advantage was offer'd to him during the Barons War playing fast and loose sometimes as an Enemy otherwhile as a Friend as it made for his turn and having it alwayes in his Power by being in Conjunction with Scotland without which he had been inconsiderable to disturb the Peace of England at his pleasure never neglected any occasion where he might gain Repute to himself or booty for his People Upon him therefore he fastened the first Domestick War he had entring his Country like Jove in a storm with Lightning and Thunder the Terrour whereof was so resistless that that poor Prince was forc'd to accept whatsoever terms he would put upon him to obtain a temporary Peace without any other hope or comfort then what he deriv'd from the mental reservation he had of breaking it again as soon as he return'd whereunto he was not long after tempted by the delusion of a mistaken Prophesie of that false Prophet Merlin who having foretold that he should be crown'd with the Diadem of Brute fatally heightened his Ambition to the utter destruction both of himself and Country with whom his innocent Brother the last of that Race partaking in life and death concluded the Glory of the ancient British Empire which by a kind of Miracle had held out so many hundred years without the help of Shipping Allyance or Confederation with any Forreign Princes by the side of so many potent Kings their next Neighbours who from the time of the first entrance of the English suffer'd them not to enjoy any quiet though they vouchsafed them sometimes Peace Wales being thus totally reduced by the irrecoverable fall of Llewellen and David the last of their Princes that were ever able to make resistance and those ignorant People made thereby happier then they wish'd themselves to be by being partakers of the same Law and Liberty with those that conquer'd them he setled that Title on his eldest Son and so passed over into France to spend as many years abroad in Peace as he had done before in War in which time he renew'd his League with that Crown accommodated the Differences betwixt the Crowns of Scicily and Arragon and shew'd himself so excellent an Arbitrator that when the right of the Crown of Scotland upon his return home came to be disputed with Six some say Ten Competitors after the death of Alexander the Third the Umpirage was given to him who ordered the matter so wisely that he kept off the final Decision of the main Question as many years as there were Rivals put in for it deferring Judgment till all but two only were disputed out of their Pretensions These were Baliol and Bruce the first descended from the elder Daughter of the right Heir the last from the Son of the younger who having as 't was thought the weaker Title but the most Friends King Edward privately offered him the Crown upon Condition of doing Homage and Fealty to him for it the greatness of his Mind which bespoke him to be a King before he was one suffer'd him not to accept the terms whereupon King Edward makes the same Proposition to Baliol who better content it seems with the outside of Majesty accepted the Condition But see the Curse of ill-got Glory shewing himself satisfied with so little he was thought unworthy of any being so abhor'd of his People for it that upon the first occasion they had to quarrel with his Justice as who should say they would wound him with his own Weapon they appeal'd to King Edward who thereupon summon'd him to appear in England and was so rigid to him upon his appearance he would permit none else to plead his Cause but compell'd him in open Parliament to answer for himself as well as he could This being an Indignity so much beneath the sufferance of any private Person much more a King sunk so deep into his Breast that meditating nothing after but Revenge as soon as he return'd home securing himself first by a League and Allyance with the King of France to whose Brothers Daughter he married his Son he renounced his Allegiance and defied King Edward's Power no less then he did his Justice This begat a War betwixt the two Nations that continued much longer then themselves being held up by alternate Successes near three hundred years a longer dated difference perhaps then is to be found in any other Story of the World that Rancor which the Sword bred increasing continually by the desire of Revenge till the one side was almost wholly wasted t'other wholly wearied Baliol the same time King Edward required him to do Homage for Scotland here prevailed with the French King to require the like from him for his Territories there this began the Quarrel that the Division by which King Edward which may seem strange parting his Greatness made it appear much greater whilst himself advanc'd against Baliol and sent his Brother the Earl of Lancaster to answer the King of France Baliol finding himself overmatch'd as well as over-reach'd renew'd his Homage in hopes to preserve his Honour But King Edward resolving to bind him with stronger Fetters then Oaths sent him Prisoner into England whereby those of that Country wanting not only a Head but a Heart to make any further resistance he turn'd his Fury upon the King of France hastning over what Forces he could to continue that War till himself could follow after But Fortune being preingaged on the other side disposed that whole Affair to so many mistakes that nothing answered Expectation and which was worse the Fame of his Male-Adventures spirited a private person worthy a greater * Wallis Name then he had to rise in Scotland who rallying together as many as durst by scorning Misery adventure upon it defied all the Forces of England so fortunately that he was once very near the redeeming his despairing Country-men and had he had less Vertue might possibly have had more success For scorning to take the Crown when he had won it a Modesty not less fatal to the whole Nation then himself by leaving room for Ambition he made way for King Edward to Re-enter the second time who by one single Battel but fought with redoubled Courage made himself once more Lord of that miserable Kingdom all the principal Opposers Wallis only excepted crowding in upon Summons to swear Fealty the third time to him This had been an easie Pennance had they not together with their Faith resigned up their Laws and Liberties and that so servilely that King Edward himself judging them unworthy to be continued any longer a Nation was perswaded to take from them all the Records and Monuments whereby their Ancestors had recommended any of Glory to their Imitation Amongst other of the Regalia's then lost was that famous Marble Stone now lodg'd in Westminster-Abby wherein their Kings were crown'd in which as the Vulgar were perswaded the Fate of their Country lay for that there was an ancient Prophesie
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
notwithstanding his great good Fortunes as to see his Glory unravel'd as well as his Happiness in great part there being nothing left him of all his great Gettings abroad purchased with so much Travel Expence and Bloodshed but only the poor Town of Calais which signified no more then a Gate of a City left open when all the rest is possest by too potent an Enemy But we must look on 't as a Curse that he inherited with his Crown not to be permitted to dye till he saw himself as his Father was forsaken of every Body but a poor Priest that only tarried to torment him with the remembrance of his Sins and left him at last as he left the World in such a state of uncertainty that our Historians are yet to seek whether to place him amongst the rank of our fortunate or unfortunate Princes the fatal divisions of his Posterity which took their first rise from his weakness being so pernicious to the whole Kingdom as well as to themselves that if the Dead know any thing of what is done amongst the Living he needed no other Hell to torture his guilty Spirit then the vision of those murthered Princes of his own Blood whose Ghosts just led one another where ere they met HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE DIEV ET MON DROIT Now as it is easie to kindle a great Fire with very little blowing when the matter is fitly dispos'd to burn so it happen'd very unluckily that from the casual Rudeness of an inconsiderable Tax-gatherer that came into the House of a poor Tiler of Deptford and would have turn'd up the Coats of his young Daughter to see whether she were of Age to pay her Poll-mony there was occasion'd so over-grown a Riot as bearing down all respect of Laws Order or Government was not to be appeas'd with the Blood of three of the principal'st Ministers of State that is to say the Chancellor although he were Arch-bishop of Canterbury the Treasurer and the Lord Chief Justice and came at last so near to Majesty it self for some of the Rebels were little less rude with the Kings own Mother then his Officer had been with their Captains Daughter that 't was thought nothing could deliver the King himself from the approaching Danger but meeting it half way which he did with so well temper'd a Courage as never King before him shew'd except Caesar and he but once or his own Father at the Battel of Poctiers when begirt with as many perhaps but not so insolent nor unworthy Foes This being as much beyond the expectation of his Years as of his Enemies charmed them into a Submission for a while but the Distemper being universal and raging and the Contagion spread insensibly through so many parts of the Kingdom it was not possible to heal the Evil with a Touch only However one would have thought so hopeful a Prince as this was the Son of so brave a Father and fortified with so unpregnable a Title could not likely have miscarried but must have stood firm as a Mountain whose top was above all Storms but the same Stars ruling at his Birth that govern'd his Great-grand-fathers Nativity 't is no marvail being of the same temper he should fall under the same fate to be kept by Flatterers from the knowledge of himself till being not himself he too late saw his Error in the experience of their Falshood The first ten years of his Government which were the better though not the longer part of it he reign'd with great splendor if so be we may properly say he reign'd whiles he was under the dispose of others taking all occasions to let those that attempted to disturb him both at home and abroad especially his right and left-hand Enemies the French and Scots feel the sharpness of his Sword and the weight of his Power forcing the first to quit their chief Design having prepar'd a Navy of 1287 Ships to invade him the other to quit their chief City which he thereupon reduced into Ashes to make a Bonefire that might give the whole Kingdom notice of his Victory But after he came to be of Age to do all himself he began very visibly to undo himself hastning the slow pace of his Deâ—â—iny by quarrelling with his Parliaments who being actuated by the subtilty of his emulous Uncles gather'd strength by the discovery of his weakness and taking all advantages against him in point of Right or Reputation urged their Priviledges so far in derogation of his Prerogative that he could not forbear telling them the very next Sessions after he was out of his Wardship as he was wont to call it that he perceived they had a mind to rebel and therefore thought he could do no better then to ask Aid of his Cosin the King of France into whose hands he said he had rather fall being a Prince then submit to his own Subjects A rash and unadvised Reply which however it seem'd to be the Result of a proud and vindictive Stomach was in truth so abject and low so unlike himself and so like his little Great-Grandsire Henry the Third that they taking Example from the Nobility of that time as he from that King immediately put the Government into the hands of thirteen Lords of whom his turbulent Uncle Gloucester was the Chief who having Divisum Imperium lookt like a great Wen upon the Face of the State that drew all the ill humours of the Body Politick to it The Duke of Ireland that was the principal Councellor of his party and his Uncle by Marriage was so amaz'd at the sudden birth of this Oligarchy that not daring to give any Opinion of his own in the Case although he were a man of sufficient Courage and Authority he put him upon advising with all the Judges possibly that what himself should think fit might pass for Law out of their mouths and accordingly Questions were fram'd to be propos'd to them by which it was easier understood what the King would have to be Law then what in truth was so To all which having receiv'd positive Resolves on the Kings side the next Consultation was how to frame such a House of Commons as might be brought to take part with the King against the Lords and forthwith Letters were directed to all the Sheriffs and Justices of Peace in every County to interpose their Credit and Authority for the chusing of such Persons Knights and Burgesses for the next Sessions as the King and his Councel had nam'd in a List sent to them This look'd like so dangerous an Industry that the Regency took the Alarm at it and trusting to no other remedy flew to Arms. The King thereupon demanded Aid of the City of London but they failing his Expectation the Lords grew so bold as to send to him to deliver up his ill Councellors whom they call'd Traytors and Seducers Upon this there were very great and grave Deliberations each man
probability of Return whereby he became so much at ease in his own thoughts that being upon the wing again he thought himself not only Master of himself but of every body else and now despising all after-claps he seized upon all the Dukes Estate to his own use which as it look'd like a Revenge now he was dead that might have past for a piece of Justice if he had been living so it gave many cause to pity the Duke his Son who otherwise could have been well enough content never to have seen him more Neither was this the worst on 't but apprehending from what the King did to him what possibly he might do to any of them they made his particular suffering the ground of their Publick Resentment which Hereford took upon the first bound and made that good use of it that when he came after to claim the Crown that it appear'd the best colour of Right he had was from this wrong whereof yet the King was no way sensible who as I said before despising all dangers at home directed all his Caution to those abroad only taking with him young Henry of Monmouth the Duke of Hereford's and since his Fathers Death Duke of Lancaster's Son and Heir into Ireland whither he went to suppress some Rebels This however it seem'd to be an occasion of Glory which the Bravery of his Youth could not suffer him to pretermit whilst those petty Kings who were eye witnesses of his disproportionate Power taught their undisciplin'd People Obedience by the Example of their own Submission yet it prov'd an empty Affectation and so much more fatal in the Consequence by how much it was scarce possible to conceal much less recover his Error till the Exil'd Duke of Lancaster took his advantage of it who finding him out of his Circle return'd into England with that speed as if he had been afraid lest Fortune should change her mind before he could change his condition Great was the concourse of People that congratulated his Arrival neither was their confluence less considerable for Quality then Number the Archbishop of Canterbury banish'd for being one of the Confederates with the Duke of Gloucester the Earls of Northumberland Westmoreland Darby and Warwick the Lords Willoughby Ross Darcy Beaumont and divers others besides Knights and Esquires of great Repute in their Countries who offer'd to serve him with their Lives and Fortunes and as they mov'd they increas'd so fast that the Duke of York left Regent during the Kings absence thought it convenient to attend him at Berclay Castle and from thence to Bristow where the first Tragedy began for there finding the Earl of Wiltshire the Lord High Treasurer with Sir Henry Ewin Sir Henry Bussy both men of great note of the Kings party they arraign'd them there for misgoverning of the King and having smote off their Heads proceeded to imprison the Bishop of Norwich Sir William Elmeham Sir Walter Burleigh and divers others upon the same account setting up a direct Tyranny which continued six Weeks before the King by reason of contrary winds heard any thing of it Upon the first notice given him he made a shew of being so little concern'd at it that he declar'd he would not stir out of Dublin till all things fitting for his Royal Equipage were made ready but understanding afterward that they had seiz'd several of his Castles he sent over the Earl of Salisbury to make ready an Army against his landing promising to follow him in six dayes after but the Wind or rather his Mind changing the Earls Forces believing he might be dead disbanded again and left their unfortunate General to himself Eighteen dayes after this the King arriv'd who finding how things stood for they had taken off the Heads of several of his chief Councellors imprison'd the principallest of his Friends and gotten the possession of many of his strong Forts and Castles his Heart so fail'd him on the sudden that he immediately gave Command to the Army that was with him to Disband and so degenerate were his Fears that when he could not prevail with them to quit him for they all resolv'd to dye in his Defence and being mov'd with no less Pity then Duty to see him so dejected solemnly vow'd never to leave him he most wretchedly gave them the Temptation to break their Faith by leaving them first withdrawing himself by night unknown to Conway Castle where he understood the Earl of Salisbury was But as a King can no more hide himself then the Sun which however eclipsed cannot be lost so it was not long ere the Duke of Hereford found him out and drawing his Forces to Chester sent from thence the Earl of Northumberland to assure him of his Faith and Homage upon Condition he would call a free Parliament and there permit Justice to be done to him Here Fortune seems to have made one stand more to give him time if possible to recover himself but he instead of giving an Answer worthy the Dignity of a King did what was indeed unworthy a Private man begging of the Earl to interpose with the Duke for him that he might only have an honorable Allowance to lead a private life deposing himself unexpectedly before t'other could have the time and opportunity however he might have the thought to do it solemnly The notice hereof did not a little surprize the Duke when he heard of it who doubting least there was something more in it then he perceiv'd wisely kept himself within the bounds of seeming Obedience and treated his Majesty with all imaginable respect till they arrived at London then under pretence of securing him he lodg'd him in the Tower where he made him the Instrument of his own destruction by calling a Parliament that had no other business but to arraign his Government and impeach him and accordingly Articles were drawn up against him which shew how small a matter turns the Scale when Power is put into the Ballance against Justice The chief of them were as followeth 1. That he had been very profuse a very grievous Crime in a King so young 2. That he had put some to death that conspired to depose him 3. That he had borrowed more money then he was well able to pay the first King that ever lost his Crown for being in Debt and yet was not to be said he was altogether a Bankrupt that had in his Coffers when he dyed the value of Seven hundred thousand pounds 4. That he said the Law was in his Breast and Head and perhaps the Lawyers would have made it good if they durst who have given it for an Axiome of the Law that the King is Caput Principium Finis Justitiae 5. That he chang'd Knights and Burgesses of Parliament at his pleasure by making those Peers of the Realm whom he thought worthy the honour 6. That he said the Lives and Goods of his Subjects were under his power which shews what confidence he had in their
Loyalty and good Affections 7. That he order'd an Impeachment against those Lords that took upon them the Government by Authority of Parliament Indeavouring to reduce those under the Law that had so apparently broken through all Law 8. That in the management of that Affair he consulted with all the Judges Whereas it had been fitter perhaps to have consulted with all the Sword-men of his Kingdom 9. That he caus'd his Uncle Gloucester to be made away privately at Calais When he found he had not power to take him off publickly at home 10. That he took off the Earl of Arundel 's Head notwithstanding a Charter of Pardon given him but a little before Finding that he continued to abuse his Favour by carrying on the old Conspiracy 11. That he defended himself with Force When the Lords assail'd him with Force 12. That though he had made Proclamation that the Lords whom he Arrested were not Arrested for any Crime of Treason yet when he was better inform'd by his Councel he laid Treason to their Charge and prov'd it 13. That he grievously Fined those that took part with the Lords against him Which being paid out of the Estates forfeited to him was a great Discouragement to all honest men that should ever have a mind to turn Rebels afterwards 14. That when he went over into Ireland he carried with him the Plate and Jewels of the Kingdom Without asking any body leave that he might appear as like a King there as he did here which could not but be very displeasing to them that would have him like one no where Upon these scarce grievous Articles he was depos'd or rather he depos'd himself for the Duke who had laid the Foundation of his Hypocrisie lower then to fear any under-mining refusing by the Example of his Grandfather to accept the Crown unless he would tender it to him he became so humble not only to do so but which was yet viler made it his Suit to the Usurper to accept of it from his hand and as it were brib'd him with the Signet on his own Finger which he deliver'd as a Seal to ratifie his voluntary Resignation Strange Metamorphosis When the Lion instead of indeavouring to take that noble Revenge which makes all the Herd to tremble as often as they see him offended crouches and fawns like a Dog on him that beat him Who was not tempted to quit his Allegiance that saw their King thus turn Traytor to himself making good the dismal Presage of that River which but a little before to the amazement of all men turn'd its natural Course and left the Channel dry forgetting the miserable Example of his Great-grand-father who hoping to save his Life by not strugling for it lost it with more horror and less pity Who knows not that the Prisons of Princes are their Graves from whence they ne're return till the general Resurrection The Usurper could not sleep at all after the Resignation till the depos'd King slept his last the Wrong that he had done him beating a continual Alarm upon his Conscience neither could he eat his meat with alacrity but sighing as he sate at Table bemoan'd his having no Friend so faithful or rather so faithless as to deliver him from his Fears leaving those about him to guess what he meant And no sooner did these Thoughts of his take vent but a ready Paracide taking his Cue to be the Executioner of his black purpose hasted unbidden to the place where the Captive King was and tim'd his Treason so near to that of his Order as to take him off just as he was at meat assailing him with eight Ruffians arm'd with Holberts four of which this wretched King kill'd before he sunk and possibly had deliver'd himself from the rest had not their Captain Paracide Sir Pierce Exon whose Name for Infamy sake must never be forgotten come behind him and beat out his Brains with a Pole-Axe Thus fell Richard the Second as his Great-grand-father Edward the Second and both as unhappily as their Ancestors William and Henry the Second long before neither of whom dyed a dry death the first being kill'd by his own Servant t'other by his own Sons And whether there was any thing fatal in that Number I know not but so it was that the Seconds of those Kings amongst the Danes were not much more fortunate Eric the Second Anlaff the Second and Canute the Second all came as well as those amongst the Normans to untimely Ends the first being butcher'd by the hands of his own Sons the second kill'd upon a mistake by one of his own Domesticks and the last made as it were Felo de se having drunk himself so dead that he fell down with the Cup at his Nose And as amongst the Normans and Danes so 't is observable amongst the English Monarchs that Edward the Second thereupon surnam'd th◠Martyr was murther'd by his Mother in Law and Ethelred the Second though he dyed not a violent scarce dyed a timely death being perfectly worn out with continual Troubles whilst he found himself unable to recover the Consumption either of his Body or his Estate However none of these were yet so unfortunate as this King who being so unwilling and unfit to dye yet contributed most to his own Death HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE And 't is observable that he claim'd in the name of the Father not of his Father for thereby hung a Tale his own Father being but the fourth Son whereas King Richard's Father was the first Son of Edward the Third Secondly he claim'd in the name of the Son forgetting whose Son he put by for King Richard deriv'd himself from Edward the First the eldest Son of Henry the Third he but from Edmond Earl of Lancaster the second Son of that Henry the Third Lastly he claim'd in the Name of the Holy Ghost smothering that check of Conscience which he was afterwards forc'd to reveal when he came to give up the Ghost But this we may the less wonder at if we consider that 't was in a time when the Devil was seen in the likeness of a Frier as our Histories tells us and therefore an Usurper might as well appear in the likeness of a Saint although he had no more Morality then what * Lib. 1. Tacitus observ'd in the Emperor Galba whom he describes to be Magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus Such was his power that no man contradicted him Heaven having decreed that he should contradict himself for at the same time he made out his Title by Descent he acknowledged that he came in by Conquest assuring the People that every one should enjoy his own as freely as in times of Lawful Succession they are his own words but when he came to treat with Forreign Princes that were as well vers'd in the nature of Politick Treacheries as himself he pretended then to be chosen by the unanimous Consent and
Providence The Duke of Albemarle in his way to Oxford gave a needless visit to his Father the Duke of York who sitting at the Table chanced to spy something like a Scrole or Parchment in his Sons Breast whereupon he demanded what it was and being not satisfied suddenly he snatched it out with some passion and upon view finding it to be a Counterpart of the Indenture of Confederacy he ordered his Horses to be immediately made ready with intention to go to the King then at Windsor to discover the Plot to him but Youth being more active then Age the Son got before him and being himself the first Accuser of himself obtain'd his Pardon before his Father could come to prove him Guilty The rest of the Lords suspecting by his not keeping time with them that all was discover'd fly to Arms and setting up a Counterfeit Richard who they pretended was escaped out of Prison they advanced to Windsor where not finding the King for he distrusting his Cause no less then his Power had posted before to London they sell upon desperate Counsels Some were of Opinion to march to Leeds in Kent where King Richard till then was and rescue him out of Prison before their Property was found out Others thought it best to march directly up to London and set upon the Usurper before he were ready for his Defence Some again advised to make a defensive War till they might have Aid from the King of France which last Proposal took place as being most agreeable to that Irresolution which their Guilt had brought upon them and accordingly they retreated to Reading and from thence marched down to Leicester led by the hand of Destiny to receive there their fatal Doom accelerated by an Accident not less unexpected then the former For it so happen'd that the Grand Conspirators coming out of their Camp to repose themselves in the Town the Duke of Surrey and Earl of Salisbury lying in one Inne the Duke of Exeter and the Earl of Gloucester in another the Bayliff of the Town by what occasion provoked or by what Spirit directed is not known with a Party of his Fellow Townes-men set upon the two first and stormed them in their Quarters and without consideration that their Army was so near press'd so hard upon them as to kill divers of their Retinue that defended the place and indanger'd their Persons so far that the other two Lords to divert their Fury fired the Town in several places but this not prevailing to give any Relief they retired to bring their Army to rescue them but when they came there they found the same means by which they design'd to save them was the occasion of their loss for those in the Camp hearing the Noise of the Onset and seeing the Town in Flames believing it could be nothing less then the Kings Forces that had done it fled every one their several wayes and so left the distressed Duke and Earl to mercy who like two Lions in a Toil baited with Dogs dyed fighting being rather wearied then vanquished And so King Henry that never could get their Hearts living had the good Fortune to recover their Heads being dead and not long after found a way to reduce the other two under the same Fate the Abbot suddenly dying upon the apprehension of their being dissipated This last Insurrection cost so much of the best English Blood that those of the Welch Blood thought the State so much weakned by it that they might venture to wrastle a Fall with them and accordingly they put in for the recovery of their antient Liberties being incouraged by one Owen Glendour a private Gentleman of more then ordinary Reputation amongst them who mov'd with the sense of a particular Grudge of his own incited them to a general Defiance of the English And first setting upon the Lord Gray of Ruthin who had recover'd certain Lands from him at Law took him Prisoner and repossess'd himself of them after this storming the Castle of Wigmore he took the great Earl of Maâ—ch Prisoner the true Heir of the Crown after the death of King Richard and prevail'd so far that had he been as skilful in keeping as he was in getting of Victories he might have made himself Master of that Greatness as would have been as much above his Enemies Prevention as his own Ambition King Henry hearing that Mortimer was taken caus'd it to be bruted abroad that it was done with his own Consent and thereupon refus'd to redeem him which so incens'd Henry sirnamed Hotspur Son of the first Earl of Northumberland of the Family of the Peircy's who had married his Daughter that he together with his Uncle the Earl of Worcester went over to Glendour and entring into a Tripartite League with him agreed to Depose the Deposer and divide the whole Kingdom betwixt them Wales that is all the Land beyond Severn Westward was to be the Principality of Glendour The Countries from Trent Northward was the Lot of the Peircy's in memory whereof the same being in the Geographical Form of a half Moon they have since given the Crescent for the Cognizance All the rest betwixt Severn and Trent Eastward and Southward was consign'd to Mortimer as his Portion Thus the Dragon the Lion and the Wolf conspired against the Antelope as he before against the Hart his Soveraign and taught by himself they assaulted him with Arms and Articles the last perhaps more dangerous then the first by how much they fought him at his own Weapons The first Article was That he had by his Letters procured Burgesses and Knights of Parliament to be chosen unduly which being one of the Arrows out of his own Quiver with which he had wounded King Richard before troubled him not a little to see it return'd back upon himself The second Article was That he had falsified the Oath made at his first landing when he swore he came over for no other end but to recover his Inheritance The third was That he had not only taken Arms against his Soveraign but having imprison'd him took first his Crown away and after his Life And lastly That ever since his death he had detain'd the Crown from the true Heir Edmund Earl of March their Allie for which Causes they defied him and vowed his Destruction This was the second Earth-quake in this Kings Reign and so much more terrible then the former in that it shuck the very Foundation of all his Greatness by the noise of their Calumniations wherewith as they batter'd him several wayes so they left him the prospect of nothing but dismal Confusion to ensue The Welch goaded him on the one side the Scots on the other those English of Mortimer's party allarm'd him every way But he that wanted not Confidence whilst he wanted a Title to aspire to the Crown when it was uncertain whether he should ever get it or no having got it could not want Courage to keep it and if he were able being
France set forth his own Eloquence and the Kings Title so well deducing his Descent in a direct Line from the Lady Isabel Daughter to Philip the Fourth and Wife to his Grandfather Edward the Second and refuting all the old beaten Arguments brought from the Salique Law to oppose it as being neither consistent with Divinity Reason or Example he at once pleas'd and convinced all his Hearers but most especially the King himself who seem'd to be inspired with a Prophetick confidence of that success which after he had but scorning to steal any Advantage or wrong the Justice of his Title somuch as to seem to doubt 't would be denied before he would make any kind of preparation for the Conquest he sent Ambassadors to Charles the Sixth to demand a peaceable surrender of the Crown to him offering to accept his Daughter with the Kingdom and to expect no other pawn for his Possession till after his death This Message as it was the highest that ever was sent to any free Prince so he intrusted it to those of highest Credit and Trust about him these were his Uncle the Duke of Exeter a man of great esteem as well as of great Name the Arch-bishop of Dublin a very politick Prelate the Lord Gray a man at Arms the Lord High Admiral and the Bishop of Norwich the first as much renown'd for his Courage as the last for his Contrivances to whom for the greater state there was appointed a Guard of five hundred Horse to attend them The Report of this great Embassy as it arriv'd before them so it made such a Report throughout all this side of the World that all the Neighbour Princes like lissening Deer when they hear the noyse of Huntsmen in the Woods began to take the Alarm and consider which side to sly to it being so that England and France never made any long War upon one another but they ingaged all Christendom with them However the Court of France pretending themselves ignorant of the Occasion of their coming dissembled their disdain and treated them with that magnificence as if they had design'd to Complement them out of their business but after the Message was delivered with that faithful boldness that became so great an Affair they were all in that confusion that it was hard to judge whether they were more ashamed incensed or afraid giving such a return as seem'd neither compatible with the honour wisdom or courage of so renown'd a People as they are For first as they did neither deny nor allow the Kings Title but said they would make Answer by Ambassadours of their own So in the next place they were so hasty in their Counsels and the dispatch of their Ambassadors hither that they arriv'd in England almost as soon as those sent hence And lastly at the same time they desired Peace and offer'd to buy it with the tender of some Towns they gave the King an Affront which was a greater Provocation then the denyal of ten such Kingdoms for the Daulphin who in respect of the King his Fathers sickness I might rather say weakness managed the State affecting the honour to give the first Box or perhaps desiring to make any other Quarrel the ground of the approaching War which he foresaw was not to be prevented rather then that of the Title which had been already so fatally bandi'd scornfully sent the King a Present of Tenis-balls which being of no value nor reckoning worthy so great a Princes acceptance or his recommendation could have no other meaning or interpretation but as one should say he knew better how to use them then Bullets The King whose Wit was as keen as t'others Sword return'd him this Answer That in requital of his fine Present of Tenis-balls he would send him such Balls as he should not dare to hold up his Racket against them Neither was he worse then his word however his preparations seem'd very disproportionable for so great a Work For the Army he landed was no more but six thousand Horse and twenty four thousand Foot a Train so inconsiderable and by the Daulphin judg'd to be so despicable that he thought not fit to come down himself in Person to take any view of them for fear he should fright them out of the Country too soon but sent some rude Peasants to attend their Motion who incouraged by some of the Troops of the nearest Garrisons as little understanding the danger they were ingaged in as they did the language of the Enemy they were ingaged with fell in upon the Rear of his Camp but as Village Curs which fiercely set upon all Strangers having the least Rebuke with a Stone or a Cudgel retreat home whining with their Tails betwixt their Legs so they having a Repulse given them ran away and made such Out-cries as dishearten'd the Souldiers that were to second them so much that after that he marched without any Resistance as far as Callice Neither indeed saw he any Enemy till he came to give Battel to the united Forces of France at that famous Field of Agencourt where notwithstanding he was out-numbred by the French above five for one he fought them with that Resolution as made himself Master of more Prisoners then he had men in his Camp to keep them an Occasion Fortune gave him to shew at once her Cruelty and his Mercy who whilst he might have kill'd did not but when he should not was forc'd to be cruel beyond almost all Example for as he gave Quarter in the beginning of the Battel to all that ask'd it his Clemency and Gentleness being such that as he was then pleas'd to declare he consider'd them as his Subjects not as his Captives So being over-charged with their Prisoners Numbers upon a sudden and unexpected accident however of no great Consequence if it had been rightfully understood he was forc'd to write the dismal Fate of France in cold Blood and in order to the saving life destroy it For as he was seeing his wounded men drest having gotten an intire Victory as he thought and as afterward it proved a sudden out-cry alarm'd his Camp occasion'd by a new Assault of some French Troops who being the first had quit the Field were the first return'd into it again in hopes by fighting with Boyes to regain the honour they lost in refusing to fight with men these under the Leading of the Captain of Agencourt set upon the Pages Sutlers and Laundresses following the pursuit with that wonted noyse as if they would have the English think the whole Army was rally'd again and chasing them Upon this the King caus'd all the scatter'd Arms and Arrows to be recollected and his stakes to be new pitch'd and put himself into a posture of Defence neither were the English only deceived by the Shreiks and Cries of those miserable People that fell into these mens hands but all those of the French likewise that were within hearing insomuch that the Earls of Marle and
consequences of which being justly to be suspected he made use of their present apprehensions to renew the Treaty and by his contrivance there came a Letter to the King from Melancthon to whom the King seem'd alwayes to have great regard exhorting him to perfect the Reformation begun as well in the Doctrinal as the Ceremonial part of Worship To which the King by advice of Gardiner gave this Answer That he would make a League with them in honest Causes as he had done with the Duke of Juliers and after that he would treat of an Accord in Religion This being no way satisfactory to them much less to Cromwell who had slatter'd them with hopes of a better Accommodation he cast about another way to compass his end and knowing very well that the King did alwayes prefer his Pleasure before his Revenge as those that mean to take great Fishes bait their Hooks with flesh so he held up the Treaty with the Proposal of a new Match that he believ'd could not but be very acceptable not only in respect of the Kings having been near three Years a Widower but for that it was such as he said would at once anger and curb the Emperor the Popes only Executioner to make good his late Fulmination This was a Daughter to the Duke of Cleve who being a Protestant and Father in Law to the Duke of Saxony and next Neighbour to the Emperors Dominions in the Low Countries there seem'd to be in the Proposal great considerations of State besides that of Riches and Beauty the last being the first thing in the Kings Thoughts wherein Hans Holbin the famous Painter contributed much to the deceiving him which whether it prov'd more unfortunate to her or Cromwell I cannot say but it so fell out that the King disgusting her after he saw her was easily prevail'd with to repudiate her and consequently to reject the Match-maker who having it in his Fate to be undone as he was at first set up by the Smock was sacrificed to the Envy of the People rather then his Masters Displeasure who let them lay the load of his Faults upon him and being a Prince that drew upon all his great Ministers more blame then either they could bear or durst answer he left him to perish under the weight of it And which made his Case more deplorable perhaps then that of most others that felt the weight of his Iron Rod and therefore look'd more like a Judgment from Heaven then Earth was First that he suffer'd him to be condemn'd at the same time all other men by a general and free pardon were indempnified from the same Crimes of which he stood accus'd Secondly in that he died like Phalaris by an Instrument as some say of his own inventing Thirdly and lastly that after having been Vicegerent to the Defender of the Faith he should dye as an Heretick for opposing the Faith after having had the repute of a faithful Servant indeed so faithful that as Cranmer's Letter to the King yet to be seen testifies he cared not whom he displeas'd to serve his Majesty he should dye like one that had merited no favour from him That he who was so vigilant to detect all Treasons in their Embrio should dye like a Traytor himself That he that had no bounds set to his Authority should dye for exceeding his Commission Lastly That he who was the only Master of Requests and gave an answer to all men that made any Addresses to the King should himself dye unheard as well as unpitied But when we consider all this we must conclude the end of some mens Rise is to keep others from Falling Providence oftentimes upholding Justice even by Injustice that so by correcting some men causlesly she may certainly teach all men Caution The King having thus rid himself of his new Wife and his old Servant both submitting to his Will the first with the loss of her Estate and Dignity for instead of being his Queen she was adopted his Sister the last with the loss of both his Estate and Life he found the means to repair the want of the one though he could not of the other by taking to his Bed perhaps with no disparity to his Greatness if there had been none betwixt her own Vertue and Beauty the fair Lady Katherine Howard Neece to the Duke of Norfolk who seems to be born to be a Scourge of the Injustice shew'd to his former Wives whilst her Incontinence under the veil of a clear and most modest behaviour appear'd so notorious that being confessed by her self he himself was forc'd to suffer in the shame with her which he was so sensible of that we find by a Law ex post facto he labour'd to prevent the like for the future And now being as it were weary of Pleasures of that kind this being his fifth Wife that was executed or suffer'd worse his Love gave place once more to his Ambition which he gratified with a new Title or rather the Superfoetation of an old one causing himself to be stiled King of Ireland whereas none of his Predecessors were otherwise stiled then Lords thereof which as it was in the first place intended by him as an additional honour to that Nation rather then to himself so in the last place he did it to prevent James the Fifth of Scotland who had an Invitation from some of the discontented Nobility there to have taken it on him having before affronted him by assuming the Title of Defender of the Faith with the addition only of the word Christian as if there were any other Faith but what was in truth so and because he was resolv'd to quarrel him upon it he sent to require Homage to be paid him for that Kingdom urging that the Kings of that Nation had for many Ages submitted themselves in a qualified Condition of Vassalage under the Kings his Ancestors both before and since the Conquest This begat a War which ended not with the Life of that King being struck to the heart with the melancholy apprehensions of being over-match'd who dying left a young Daughter to succeed whom King Henry thought a fitting Wife for his Son Prince Edward and accordingly afterward in despight of all the tricks of the French Party that then rul'd there he brought it to such a Treaty as amounted to a Contract being under Hands and Seals of both sides But the Scots shewing themselves by their wonted breach of Faith to be true Scots all ended in War wherein though he were victorious yet the main business was nothing advanc'd by the Success there being more done then became a Suiter for Alliance and too little for one pretending to Conquest Hereupon he was forc'd to try the Fortune of another Treaty with the discontented Earl of Lenox who having formerly been set up by the French to be Governour of the young Queen and the Kingdom but deserted by them when he had most need of their aid he was
thought the fittest Person to be tampered with for regaining the Point or at least to keep all quiet there whilst the King assisted by the Emperour with whom he had newly entred into a strict League sought more considerable Glory in the Invasion of France whither he resolved to go again in Person where notwithstanding that King out of dread of his power had summon'd all his Feises and brought together his Arrereban as they call them to oppose him he took the Town of Bulloigne and had undoubtedly inlarged his Conquests to the very Walls of Paris had not the Emperour privately patch'd up a Peace without him Upon notice whereof he thought fit to return home to reinforce the War in Scotland where though he did not much yet 't was more perhaps then was expected at that time For notwithstanding their conjunction with the French who entred upon one side whiles they prest in on the other both setting upon him like two Mastiffs upon a Lion yet he only rowsing himself shook them off again and pursuing them home to their own doors did them so much more mischief then they were able to do to him that they call'd for quarter choosing rather to treat then fight upon which there ensued a Peace the Conditions whereof whoe're examines will find that he knew how to yield as well as how to conquer giving them the reputation of having back their good Town of Bulloigne but they were to pay him for it Eight hundred thousand Crowns and the possession was to be his till the last payment were made And now having as it were tired himself with Victory it was time to retire into the consideration of taking his eternal rest having seen many of his brave men go before him as the valiant Lord Poynings the Hardy Duke of Suffolk his constant Favorite the Noble Lord Ferrers of Chartley the brave Lord Grey c. And it being now the Eight and thirtieth year of his Reign and the Six and fiftieth of his Age labouring under an unusual heaviness of Body and perhaps a greater of Mind having made Peace with all Enemies but the Scots and Pope having dis-joynted the Frame of Religion and drove away most of those that should put it in frame again having by the Severity of his Justice taken off two Queens two Cardinals for Pool stood condemn'd though not apprehended three Dukes Marquisses Earls and Earls Sons twelve Barons and Knights eighteen which could not but irritate much the Temporal Nobility and of Bishops Abbots Priors Monks Priests which as much incenst the Clergy no less then Seventy seven having offended his Roman Catholick Subjects by disowning the See of Rome and his Protestant Subjects by rejecting the Reformation he was brought at last to that unhappy period to leave the Crown to a Child whose condition was like to prove as uncertain under the Government of a Protector as the Kingdom under his which in case of want of Issue of his Body was to descend to his two Sisters successively of whose Legitimacy Religion and Title there were as many scruples before they parted from the Soveraignty as ever their Father conceiv'd in point of State Conscience or Honour before he parted from their Mothers So from the Catastrophe of his whole Story we may bring this remark That as no man could measure his Happiness by his Greatness so neither can they take any scantling of his Greatness by any thing that the World calls Happiness it being very true which the Marquiss of Dorset told him very plainly and not unpleasantly at a time when he was ill dispos'd to hear a Jest and not well prepared to be serious to wit That no man could be truly merry that had above one Wife in his Bed one Friend in his Bosom and one Faith in his Heart HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Now whether his Lady that had been the Wife of a King before did while she was alive put him upon any hopes of being so now for ambitious Men like seal'd Doves mount the higher for being blinded is not certain but certain it is that as soon as she died which was not long after he resum'd the confidence to approach so near the Throne as to Court the Lady Elizabeth the second time now grown a little riper for consent then when he first mov'd the Question to her Neither was it carried so secretly but that his Brother had an insight into the whole practice and at last discover'd the whole Plot but conceal'd his knowledge of it either out of pity or prudence as loath to ruin him with the hazard of losing himself or as doubting perhaps that the Sword of Justice was not long enough to reach him at least not sharp enough to cut thorough the knot of the whole Conspiracy But as Fate never fails undoing the man she has determin'd to destroy and when she falls upon him makes the first stroke at his head so happen'd it in this unhappy Lords case who being unexpectedly undermin'd was blown up by a Train that seems to have taken fire as it were by Lightning from Heaven his Treason being first detected out of the Pulpit and the Protector his Brother so prest by an eloquent Sermon of Bishop Latimer to Impeach him that he being not able to clear him was in some sence obliged to clear himself by a Speech which prov'd as ominous as it was obvious saying at the same time he caus'd him to be apprehended That he would do and suffer Justice And so he did when he sign'd the Warrant for his Execution after the Parliament found him Guilty with his own Hand A singular piece of Self-denial and such as is rarely found in Story there being very few that so much prefer the publick before their own private Interest as not to spare their own flesh and blood However looking so like Revenge it was by most men judg'd unnatural and taking no less from the honour of his Justice then t'other intended to have taken from the Prerogative of his Honour so shuck the frame of his Authority that it broke in pieces presently after and both Factions of Papists and Protestants falling off from him he was expos'd to the cunning of Warwick and the scorn of the Marquiss of Dorset his most unreconcileable Enemies The Papists quit him as believing the Obligation ceas'd by which when he ceas'd by whom they were held in having been true to him no otherwise but for his Brothers sake only The Protestants fail'd him because they doubted he might fail them for how could they think he would give them any Assistance that had given to his own Brother so little Thus when two great Trees grow up together out of one and the same Stock we see that the cutting down of the one commonly indangers the blowing down of the other which remaining single and expos'd to every storm cannot stand unless it have a firm ground as well as a spreading Root Neither
was it long that the Protector bore up after his Brothers Fall the great care he took to build his * From his Tittle call'd Somerset-house House being no less fatal to him then the little care he had to support his Family whiles the Stones of those Churches Chappels and other Religious Houses that he demolish'd for it made the cry out of the Walls so loud that himself was not able to indure the noise the People ecchoing to the defamation and charging him with the guilt of Sacriledge so furiously that he was forced to quit the place and retire with the King to Windsor leaving his Enemies in possession of the strength of the City as well as the affections of the Citizens who by the reputation of their power rather then the power of their repute prevail'd with the King as easily to give him up to publick Justice as he was before prevail'd with to give up his Brother it being no small temptation to the young King to forsake him when he forsook himself so far as to submit to the acknowledgement of that Guilt he was not conscious of The Lawyers charged him with removing Westminster-hall to Somerset-house The Souldiers with detaining their Pay and betraying their Garrisons The States-men with ingrossing all Power and indeavouring to alter the Fundamental Laws and the ancient Religion But he himself charg'd himself with all these Crimes when he humbled himself so far as to ask the Kings pardon publickly which his Adversaries were content he should have having first strip'd him of his Protectorship Treasurership Marshalship and Two thousand pound a year Land of Inheritance But that which made his Fate yet harder was that after having acquitted himself from all Treason against his Prince he should come at last to be condemn'd as a Traytor against his Fellow-Subject whilst the Innocent King labouring to preserve him became the principal Instrument of his Destruction who by reconciling him to his great Adversaries made the Enmity so much the more incompatible who at the same time he gave the Duke his Liberty gave the Earl of Warwick and his Friends the Complement of some new Titles which adding to their Greatness he reasonably judg'd might take from their Envy The Earl himself he created Duke of Northumberland and Lord High Admiral of England and to oblige him yet more married up his eldest Son the Lord Dudley to his own Cosin the second Daughter of the Duke of Somerset whom he gave to him for the more honour with his own hand and made Sir Robert Dudley his fourth and his beloved Son the same that was after made by Queen Elizabeth Earl of Leicester one of the Gentlemen of his Bedchamber And to gratifie the whole Faction he made the Marquiss of Dorset Duke of Suffolk the Lord St. John Earl of Wilts and afterwards Marquiss of Winchester Sir John Russel who was Northamberland's Confident he created Earl of Bedford Sir William Paget another of his Tools he made Lord Paget This the good natur'd King did out of sincere Affection to his Uncle in hopes to reconcile him so thoroughly to Northumberland so that there might be no more room left for Envy or Suspect betwixt them But as there is an invisible Erinnis that attends all Great men to do the drudgery of their Ambition in serving their Revenge and observing the Dictates of their power and pride so it was demonstrable by the most unfortunate issue of this so well intended purpose that by the same way the King hoped to please both he pleas'd neither Somerset thinking he had done too much Northumberland thinking that he had done too little who having drunk so deep a Draught of Honour grew hot and dry and like one fall'n into a State-Dropsie swell'd so fast that Somerset perceiving the Feaver that was upon him resolv'd to let him blood with his own hand And coming one day to his Chamber under the colour of a Visit privately arm'd and well attended with Seconds that waited him in an outward Chamber found him naked in his Bed and supposing he had him wholly in his power began to expostulate his wrongs with him before he would give him the fatal stroke whereby t'other perceiving his intent and being arm'd with a Weapon that Somerset had not a ready fence for an Eloquent Tongue he acquitted himself so well and string'd upon him with so many indearing protestations as kept the point of his Revenge down till it was too late to make any Thrust at him Whereby Northumberland got an advantage he never hop'd for to frame a second Accusation against him so much more effectual then the former by how much he brought him under the forfeiture of Felony as being guilty of imagining to kill a Privy Counsellor for which he was the more worthily condemn'd to lose his Head in that he so unworthily lost his Resolution at the very instant of time when he was to vindicate his too much abus'd Patience thereby betraying those of his Friends that came to second him into the scandal of a Crime which had it succeeded would have pass'd for a magnanimous piece of Justice in cutting off one whom however he was content to spare Providence it seems was not reserving him to die a more ignoble death and by a worse hand The sorrow for his ignominious fall as it much affected the Consumptive King his Nephew who was now left as a Lamb in the keeping of the Wolf the Duke of Northumberland having got as high in Power as Title by ruining the Family of the Seymours so his end which was not long after put an end to the Reformation and made way for the Dudley's to aspire with incredible Ambition and not without hope of setling the Succession of the Crown in themselves For the Duke finding that the King languish'd under a Hectical Distemper and having better assurance then perhaps any one else could from his Son that alwayes attended in his Bedchamber that it was impossible for him to hold out long for Reasons best known to him he cast about how to introduce the far fetch'd Title of his other Son who had married the Lady Jane Gray eldest Daughter to the Duke of Suffolk by the Lady Frances one of the Daughters and Heirs of Charles Brandon by his Wife Mary Queen of France the second Daughter of Henry the Seventh And however this seem'd to be a very remote pretention yet making way to other great Families to come in by the same Line in case her Issue fail'd as to the Earl of Cumberland who had married the other Daughter of Charles Brandon and to the Earl of Darby that had married a Daughter of that Daughter and to the Earl of Pembroke that had married the Lady Jane's second Sister it was back'd with so many well-wishers that it was become not only terrible to the Kingdom but to the King himself However there were two Objections lay in the way the one the preference that ought to be
to the Dutchess Dowager of Suffolk before the Lady Jane her Daughter in case the right of Inheritance was set up The other was that of the two next Heirs Females in case the right of Immediate Succession should take place There was a third also but he thought it not worth the consideration being so far off to wit the Title of the Queen of Scots from the Lady Margaret eldest Daughter of Henry the Seventh which being in the French seem'd to be of less weight then if it had been in the Scots to neither of whom he believ'd the English would ever be brought to submit but all these Difficulties were quickly digested in his ambitious Thoughts The first which was the pretention of the Lady Jane's Mother he hop'd to set aside by introducing her as the next Successor and not as the next Heir by right of Descent and because the Kings Sisters were before her in the Succession so that nothing could be available to set aside their Right but a plain Disseisure he made use of the Interest of the one as a Wedge to drive out the other And finding that the King their Brother by the Equity of a Law made in his Fathers time had the power to nominate who he thought fit to come after him he made it his great business to work upon his weakness and to perswade him to set both aside and admit the Lady Jane taking his first Argument from his Piety and Care of the Church under the present establishment made by himself shewing him what danger 't was like to be in if so obstinate a Papist as his Sister Mary succeeded who having been convict before all the Lords of the Councel had most passionately justified her Popish Principles saying She would never change her Faith much less dissemble it Urging thereupon that Gods Glory ought to be dearer to him then his own Flesh and Blood that this was his last and greatest Act of which he knew not how soon he might be call'd to give an Accompt to the King of Kings and therefore desired him for Gods sake as well as for the Kingdoms and his own sake not to let her take place Then for the Lady Elizabeth whom he could not deny to be a Protestant he said if she should be prefer'd before her elder Sister it might possibly give an occasion to unconceivable Troubles and revive the Disputes about their Legitimacy which had cost too much blood already besides the hazard that would be of the Churches no less then their own Peace and the possibility of bringing the whole Nation under the Yoke of some stranger Prince to whose Tyranny the People would never submit concluding that as the three Daughters of the Duke of Suffolk were nearest in Blood and being married took off all fears of introducing Forreigners so having with their Natural suck'd in the Sincere Milk of the Word they could not but maintain the Truth of the Reformed Religion as well as the Dignity of the Succession with universal good liking And whereas the eldest of them to wit the Lady Jane before mention'd was his own Sons Wife he could be content they should both be bound by Oath to perform whatever his Majesty should Decree for that he had no such regard to his own as to the general good Which plausible pretences so prevaiâ—'d over the weak King whose Zeal had eaten up his Understanding that he made his Will and accordingly excluded both his own Sisters to let in the other After doing of which weak act having nothing more to do but to dye 't is thought the Duke was so grateful as to contribute much to the delivering him out of his pains as soon as might be and with as much ease for he slept away with that meekness that those that could not find in their hearts to pray for him living perform'd that Charity to him when he was dead However some there were who sower'd with a Religious Leaven took occasion to raise as great a scandal on the untimeliness of his death as others had before upon that of his Birth putting this remark upon it to make it look like a Judgment that it was in the same Moneth and in the very same day of the same Moneth that Sir Tho Moor was put to death by his Father Wherein whilst they maliciously reflected upon the Evil that was past they consider'd not how like another Josiah he was taken from the Evil to come departing with this Justification before Men and Angels That he had done as much as could be reasonably expected from the tenderness of his Years or his Power HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE And now it appear'd how ominous it was for the Innocent Lady Jane to have been brought as she was in state to the Tower But as she offer'd Violence to her own Inclinations out of Obedience to those of her Father and Mother so the assumption of that temporary was in order to the intituling her to a more lasting Glory being taught the vanity of all humane Greatness by the brevity of that of her own which lasted not so long as 't is reported a Dream of one did but a little before for there is a Story of one Foxley a Pot-maker to the Mint in Henry the Eight's time that slept fourteen dayes together and no body could wake him no not with pinching or burning whereas she came to her self in less then ten dayes and then poor Lady found herself where he was too in the Tower ready to be translated as after she was from a Kingdom to a Scaffold and from the Scaffold to a Kingdom again Happy had it been for her if it had prov'd a Dream only suffering not so much for any Crime of her own Ambition as for not resisting that of others having this aggravation of her affliction to see her Husband and the Duke his Father executed before her who both died for the same Fault but not with the same Faith that she did The Duke that had therefore importun'd King Edward to give her this fatal honour to the intent Popery might be utterly abolish'd declaring when he came to suffer that he himself was a Roman Catholick which most think he had not done had not some Promises of Life upon condition of turning deceiv'd him at the very instant time of his Death whereby Queen Mary was quit with him at the last though she could not deal with him in the first place For as he was reputed to have had no Faith whilst he lived so by this abrupt Apostacy he was judg'd to have no Religion when he dyed There is this further Remark upon him That as he suffer'd under the same Fate and upon the very same Block the late Duke of Somerset did so 't was his hap to be laid under the same Stone in the same Grave where they now lye side by side as good Friends that living were unreconcilable Enemies Two headless Dukes betwixt two
Countries having given him the Kingdoms of Naples and Jerusalem before of the first of which the Pope either envying or fearing the Emperour's Greatness had made the French King some Assurance purposely to ingage him thereby in a War that might weaken them both Great Preparations were made by either Party to secure themselves both with Arms and Alliances the Emperor leaving all his Dominions on this side to his Son whilst himself retires into Spain to alarm the French on the other side and by his Vicinity to Italy whose petty Princes he suspected not to be firm to his Interest makes himself as terrible to his Neighbours as his Enemies But whilst this great design was in Prospect only King Philip was suddenly called home by a Brute that his Queen was with Child the Joy whereof was so universal that it is strange to tell how much it transported the whole Kingdom raising them by the hopes of a young Prince to a degree of seeming Infatuation for they not only mock'd God Almighty in the Church with causeless Thanksgivings but troubled the King and Queen every hour in Court withâ—s groundless Petitions for Places of Attendance on the unborn Child and so far did the Delirium prevail to delude even the Parliament themselves with extravagant apprehensions of their future happiness by the enjoyment of such a Prince who however he were like to be Lord of the greatest part of Christendom would yet in all probability make England the Seat of his Empire that they humbly besought the King in case the Queen should dye in Travel that he would be pleas'd to take upon him the rule and government of the Child and Kingdome such ado have great Princes to be born as well as to dye in quiet But this mistaken Embryo proving at length to be nothing else but a Mis-conception whereof she could not be delivered so as to make way for any better Conception turning to such a fleshy inform Substance as Physitians call a Mole and we vulgarly English a Moon-Calf it put King Philip so ouâ— of Countenance that he tarried not a Month here after her time of Reckoning was our but passing into Flanders put it out of his head since he could not put it out of her belly by beginning a War with France whereto he had a good ground upon the account of the Five years Truce being broken that had been made but a little before The Queen to requite him for her late Miscarriage broke with her People and resolving not to stand Neuter whilst her Husband was ingaged found occasion to make the French Aggressors upon the Crown of England Whereupon the Earl of Pembroke was sent over with Ten thousand Horse and Four thousand Foot who joyning with the Kings Forces which were Thirty five thousand Foot and Twelve thousand Horse before they came they all of them sate down before St Quintins a Town of great importance which the French in vain indeavouring to succour lost Twenty five thousand upon the place Amongst whom were divers of the greatest Quality as John of Bourbon Duke of Anguin the Dukes of Monpensier and Longevile the Viscount Turein c. the Lord Chadenier the Mareschal St. Andrew the Rhinegrave the Constable Mount Morency and his Son Brother to Count Lodowick Gonzaga Brother to the Duke of Mantova the Admiral Coligny and his Brother with divers other Lords of no less eminence who being all taken with the Town made it look like the beginning of a War which every Body judged could not end till the Rupture reach'd to the middle of France The report of this Victory gave great matter of rejoycing to every Body but most especially to the Queen her self yet could it not divert that Melancholy occasioned by the conceit of her Misconception which brought her into a Distemper that not long after kill'd her by her Physicians mistaking her Malady who giving her improper Medicines without regard to the over-cooling of her Liver which it seems is the mischief attends those Moles found not their error till she was so far gone into that desperate kind of Dropsie which they call Ascites that there was no help for her now That which added to her Distemper was an over-nice resentment of the Popes displeasure who offended at her breach with the French punish'd her as Princes use to be by whipping their Favourites with taking away the Legatine Power from her beloved Minister Cardinal Pool to whom as she had ever a great regard so she opin'd that the disgrace put upon a Man of so great Authority and Credit who had been so active in the Conversion of the Nation would as indeed it did not only reflect something on her honour but hazard much the reputation of the Catholick Cause whiles the Roman Religion was not so fully establish'd as she design'd it should and the Enemies of the Church no less dangerous to that of her State This gave her great trouble of Mind and that trouble being heightened by the absence of her beloved Husband brought her into a burning Feaver that foretold a death that might have proved a living one had it not been hastned by the news of the revolt of Calais which being lost in less then six dayes time after it had continued English above Two hundred years came so near her heart that drying up all her Blood brought her under such a fix'd sadness as left her not till she left the World Now to say truth she had great reason to resent the loss for as it was the only Key left to let her into France so it was no small over-sight to hang it by her side with so slender a String as she did there being not above Five hundred Souldiers in it when it was attach'd which were much too few to defend a place of that Importance where there was a kind of necessity to keep the Gates alwayes open HONI · SOIT · QVI · MAL · Y · PENSE Christ was the Word that spake it He took the Bread and brake it And what the Word did make it That I believe and take it Which however it seem'd an obscure and uncertain Solution so baffled all her Adversaries that the Priests themselves who hop'd with like Success to have soil'd her as the First Temptor did the First Woman upon the First great Question of Take and Eat found themselves left in the dark to grope after her meaning as well as they could whilst she shut her self up from further Pressures within the Closet of her own private Sense But as Wisdom is perhaps the only Vertue that is distrustful of it self so to shew how little Confidence she had in the strength of her own Abilities she made it her first business to fortifie her self with able Counsellors In the choice of whom her Affections gave place to her Judgment as her Fears to her Foresight admitting divers of her Sisters great Ministers who having been privy to all the Secrets of State were like sharp
Land was divided into two Armies the one consisting of Two and twenty thousand Foot and One thousand Horse commanded by the Earl of Leicester whose Post was at Tilbury The other consisting of Four and twenty thousand Foot and Two thousand Horse which were the Guard of her Person were Commanded by the Lord Hunsden the Sea-ports being Garrison'd with Twenty thousand old Souldiers who were seconded by the Train'd Bands in the respective Counties where they lay The Guard by Sea consisted of One hundred and forty Ships divided into three Squadrons The two first consisting of Fifty each under the Lord Howard the Admiral and Sir Francis Drake the Vice-Admiral waited the coming of the Enemy in Plymouth Road The last Squadron of Forty Commanded by the Rere-Admiral the Lord Henry Seymour second Son to the Duke of Somerset rode between Dunkirk and Callais to prevent any Conjunction with the Prince of Parma With this great Body she design'd to shew the World her Grandeur but when she meant to shew her Power she made use but of Fifteen of them Now as it happens oftentimes that great Calmes precede great Storms so the Catholick King hoping to out-wit the Heretick Queen a little before his great Fleet was ready to come forth dissembling a passionate desire of Peace press'd hard for a Treaty but whilst he thought to deceive her he was deceiv'd by her For she to return the trick upon him consented to the Proposal and by the sending her Commissioners to Ostend so possess'd him of the suppos'd Advantage he had gotten by it that it's thought it made him appear a little sooner then he would for before they could enter into the business he was entred into the British Seas and was no less shock'd when he found her in readiness then he expected she should have been if he had taken her unawares This made them resolve rather to make a Chase fight then lye by 't though they had the advantage of the Wind their honour being preserv'd till they came to Callais for that it was suppos'd all the haste they made away tended only to the Conjunction with the Prince of Parma but after they cut their Cables having not the Courage to stay to weigh Anchor and made all the Sail they could to fly from only eight Fire-ships it then plainly appear'd they neither understood their own Strength nor hers But these Ships being the first of that kind that ever were seen we may allow them to be The Wonder that gave Name to that wonderful Year In this great Conflict were lost more then half of the Spanish Fleet of the English only one Ship and that of no great Consideration so that 't was believ'd having sounded the danger of our Dark Seas passing round by the North they had taken their final Leave of England However the Queen was resolv'd not to leave them so but after much mischief done them by several Privateers whom she permitted to go forth upon their own Charge she resolv'd to become her self the Aggressor and repay to him the great dishonour of his Invasion it being an Indignity not to be forgiven by Princes because it cannot be forgotten by their People who can never be discharg'd from the Fears they have of him who has once set upon them till there be some Confront given that may assure them their own Prince is not so weak as the Enemy by seeking him out would have the World believe The Fleet she set forth consisted of One hundred and fifty Sail yet was not call'd the Invincible though it prov'd so being commanded by the Earl of Essex as General at Land and the Lord Howard as General at Sea who setting upon Cales the second time took it and in it all the Wealth that may be imagin'd to be lodg'd in such a Store-house as that is and after having burn'd all the Ships they found there for which they were offer'd Two Millions of Ducats if they would spare them they spoil'd the whole Island and demolish'd all the Forts and did as 't is thought as much Damage as amounted to Twenty Millions of Ducats more To requite which the King of Spain rigg'd up another Navy and mann'd it with Irish Runnagado's but either their Skill or their Courage failed them at least the Winds did not so favour them but that the Expedition came to nought And now when all the Storms at Sea seem'd to have been blown over and past there rose a Cloud at Land which gave the Queen greater apprehensions of danger then ever she had before The French King who was joyn'd with her in a League Offensive and Defensive against Spain and had reap'd this good Effect by it to recover Amiens which the Spaniard had surpriz'd by the help of the English only yeilding to the Importunities of the Pope and his own People made his Peace without her who quitting his Religion at the same time he quit her Friendship 't was believ'd they would all joyn to set upon her at once Hereupon there were great Debates in Councel upon the point of her closing with the Spaniard who seem'd much to desire a Peace Essex the great Idol of the Sword-men was for continuing the War Burleigh who was the great Patron of the Pen-men was for the Peace And it seems they argued the matter so warmly that being scarce able to keep Peace amongst themselves 't was not likely they should obtain it abroad For Essex could not forbear unseemly Reflections upon the old man nor he from retorting them back as sharply who 't is said being more witty in his Anger call'd for a Bible at the Table and shewing him that Verse in the Psalms where 't is said The bloody minded man shall not live out half his dayes gave him grave warning by an ominous Presage of that which follow'd for we know how shortly after he swell'd and burst However the Queen mov'd with like Zeal to Religion as Essex was with hatred to the Spaniard inclin'd to his Opinion whereupon Cecil submitted to her Judgment but pray'd to have the Question put first to the States of Holland her Confederates Whether they would agree to her making Peace and knowing it to be against their Interest so to do he took the Advantage of their Refusal to demand an aid towards the carrying on of the War out of whom by that trick of State he did her this good Service against her will to screw Eight hundred thousand pounds which being to be paid by Thirty thousand pounds yearly for which the Queen had Cautionary Towns given as a Security it look'd so like a Tribute that after their having offer'd her the Soveraignty as they did 't is hard to prove it was not so And now casting up the Accompt betwixt her and the Spaniard who was her greatest and not to say her only Enemy for the Pope however he bore no less hatred to her yet being at that distance as he was he could not come to close
which were likewise confirm'd by Act of Parliament the great Lords having as yet heard nothing of any Commission of Surrendries which was that great Rock of Offence against which his Successor King Charles the First did so unluckily dash himself to pieces Due care being thus taken for Establishment of Truth and Order in the Church the next great Work was to establish quiet in the State that Righteousness and Peace might kiss each other which he judged to be a consideration not less necessary then prudent the active Government of his Predecessor Queen Elizabeth who led all the brave men in her time to hard duty having tired out almost a l the stirring Spirits of the Nation However though it did ease it did not generally please the People the humor of Fighting being not so wholly spent but that it broke out afterward to worse purpose it being in our Fate as has been observ'd by some Melancholy States-men that whenever we are long kept from quarrelling with others we are apt to quarrel with one another But that which discontented the Men of Mars most was to see the Faction of the Gown-men pricking up and wholly predominant Upon this lower Orb as in the Skie Aleyn Vit. H. 7. Sol constantly is nearest Mercury Neither did he take part with them so much out of the pleasure he had in Books as out of an aversness to Arms whereunto he seem'd to have such an Antipathy that by his good will he did not care to see any Sword-man within his Palace whereby the Court came by degrees to loose two points of its ancient Lustre one in the Exercise of Tilting which was an Entertainment that added much to the Grandeur and Magnificence of the late Queen and King Henry her Father the other in the choice of the Gentlemen Pentioners an Order which being set up by the Wisdom of her Grand-father Henry the Seventh a Prince of severe Gravity she was so fond of and so curious in ordering the state of their attendance that none could attain to that honour all her time but who were men of very good Quality and yet more goodly Stature who by their graceful Personage might set forth the place as she design'd the place should set forth them so that in time it became a kind of Nursery for Officers and Men of Command who were sent abroad into France and the Low-Countries to learn the Art of cutting Throats if need were and so return'd again But this King it seems being taken with no such armed Pomp neglected it so far that some of the ruffling Gallants about the Town began to speak of it with more freedom then became their Duty or Discretion taxing him downright with Pusillanimity and causless fears saying that he trifled away more money in insignificant Embassies and Negotiations for a dishonorable Peace then would have maintain'd an honorable War But he having before shut up the Gates of Janus all his talk was as we commonly say without Doors for he esteem'd it honour enough that he had conquer'd himself according to that of the Poet Fortior est qui se quam qui fortissima vincit Moenia Peace he had at home without his seeking for it O Neil the great Disturber of his Predecessors quiet being presented to him as a Prisoner by the Lord Mountjoy as soon almost as he came in which gave him the occasion to begin with the settlement of Ireland first by giving the possession of the whole Province of Ulster O Neil's Country and the sink of Rebellion to the Citizens of London who thereupon setled two Colonies there the one at Derry every since call'd London-derry t'other at Colraine which they stor'd with Four hundred Artizans whilst the King for the better supplying them with Souldiers erected a new Order of Knighthood call'd Baronets from their taking place next the Sons of Barons each of which was ingaged to lay down as much money at the Sealing of his Patent as would maintain thirty Foot Souldiers one whole year at the rate of Eight pence a day a piece which came to twenty shillings a day And the Complement of these Knights being Two hundred there was a compleat Establishment of Three thousand Souldiers without any further noise to be ready for his Service whenever he had occasion to make use of them Now in order to the having Peace abroad there needed no more but to renew the Leagues he had made before with the Princes his Neighbours under another stile The great Question was Whether he should accept of the Olive-branch from the King of Spain with whom his Predecessor had so long contended for the Laurel and upon debating the whole matter besides the motives of the Half-peace already made with him whilst he was King of Scotland and the whole benefit of Trade that he was like to have as he was King of England the certainty of setting the Catholick and the most Christian Kings together by the Ears the uncertainty of being able to raise monies to maintain a War so easily as Queen Elizabeth did who had the knack of borrowing money which serv'd her to as good purpose as if it had been given the Parliament being for the most part the Pay-masters there were many Reasons of State some whereof were not fit to be publish'd perhaps not to be understood which induced him to call in the Letters of Mart and conclude that League which how acceptable it was to both Kings may be guess'd by the mutual Caressings of each other with extraordinary Embassies and Presents and the more then ordinary Ratification of the Articles of Peace but how far the People were content to have any Friendship with the Catholick King it is easie to guess especially after the discovery of that Catholick Plot commonly call'd the Gun-powder Treason which as it was contriv'd in a hotter place then Spain so it was hatch'd up in Darkness never to partake of the Light but when it was to be all Light and to give such a terrible blow as was at once to Extinguish the Light the Hope and the Glory of this Nation This the All-seeing Eye of Providence which pierces thorow the dark Womb of Conspiracy and blasts the Embrio of Treason before it can be form'd miraculously detected to the amazement of all Mankind no body imagining there could be such danger by Fire so near unto the Water the meaning of it being so little understood even after it was discovered that neither could the Lord Monteagle who receiv'd the first notice in a Letter writ in an unknown hand tell to what Friend he owed his Preservation nor any one else guess from what Enemy they were to expect their destruction till the King himself by inspiration rather then instinct yet admonish'd perhaps by the subversion of that House wherein his Father was murther'd apprehended by the word Blow what the Element must be that was to be so subtil in its Execution as that they who were hurt for
so were the words of the Letter should not see who hurt them Which Discovery of his being a kind of Revelation as elevated the Opiniâ—n conceiv'd of his Wisdom to that degree that the Vulgar began to idolâ—ze his Understanding and reverence him as the Jews did Moses for the shining of his Face as believing it almost impossible for any humare Judgment to have sounded the depth of so profound a Plot. And as this begat a great regard to his Person a greater to his Parts so looking on him as a kind of Illuminated Man they gave him the Reverence of a Prophet which did not a little please him who having it in his humour to pretend to a Faculty in Divination easily prevail'd with them to receive his Conjectures as Oracles which serv'd him to so good purpose for that which is pleasant to tell whatever almost he desired to have done he needed no more to effect it but to foretell it would so fall out which give him his due he improv'd by his King-craft as himself was wont to call it to many good uses both for the Publique benefit and his own private Security and not seldom for his Mirth and Pleasure as often he was disposed to let down his Majesty and play the Good-fellow at which times he let down no Drink which was not a kind of Inspiring Liquor being for the most part strong sweet Wines as Canary Frontiniack White Muskadels High-Country-wines or Hypocras which though he would make it seem otherwise had contrary Effects upon him then usually upon other men for instead of opening his Heart they opened his Powels and not filling his Head never provok'd him to empty his Mind but rather to digest many serious Affairs by seeming all the while in Jest And as he lov'd to Droll so he would sometimes please himself by singling out some wise Fool of the Company and be very grave with him in asking his Opinion of something that never was nor nere was like to be and otherwhile giving him some little State hints as who should say A word to the Wise whereby he not only obliged them to keep secret the nothing he had intrusted them with but by that Secrecy created in him a self-conceipt that made him matter of much Mirth another time In fine he had so excellent a Faculty in seeming to be what he was not and in being what he pleas'd that if it be true that Dissimulation is a Vertue in Kings though it be not so in private men he was so great a Master of Art in that Liberal Science that he could dissemble without seeming to be a Dissembler and vary his shape so naturally and so easily that he could cozen whom he pleas'd and when he pleas'd though in truth he never cozened any Body unless it were himself and that he did very often being not seldom prevail'd with by those of his brib'd Country-men about him to make underhand Agreements with the Farmers of his Revenue whilst his Councel were contriving how to raise their Rents to ten times the value Which easiness of his had been an oversight not agreeable to the rest of his Understanding had he not had the knack of breaking those blind Bargains again as easily as he made them hastily upon the account of being as 't was apparent he was mistaken in his Grant whereby he left that Imputation of Folly at their Doors which otherwise would have rested at his own whilst he made them his Creditors with more advantage then they could have made themselves his Tenants filling his privy Purse with a Superfluity of what they had only got out of the Publick But when he came to have any thing to do with his Parliament who were to treat with him upon the Publick Faith in the behalf of the People he alwayes gave them a penny-worth for their Penny and as oft as they presented hâ—m any Aids Benevolences or Subsidies made them a Return of good and wholsom Laws which has been alwayes accompted good payment and if they were not the best that ever this Nation had yet as Plutarch sayes by those of Solon they might have been so had not the fault been more theirs then his It were too tedious to give further Instances of his Prudence the wise choice of his Servants and Favorites the equal distribution of his Rewards and Punishments the solid managery of all the Actions of that time as well English as Scotch and Irish Ecclesiastick or Civil not suffering any of the Factions to rise higher then he could reach them nor to grow stronger then he could either alter or divert them keeping a due Temperament sometimes by Preventions sometimes by Lenitives other while by strict Justice but oftenest by unexpected Mercy testifies his great Abilities and Knowledge in Men and Manners in Books and Sciences and if the Sum of the Accompts betwixt him and the Subject be rightly plac'd with Relation to his Justice and Judgment we shall find they were more indebted to him for a long Peace and Prosperity then he to them for any extraordinary Payments The Londoners we know prevail'd with him to pay the Debts of his Predecessor which he was in no manner obliged to do yet we find not that they discharg'd their Gratitude in any suitable Returns to him giving down their Milk no longer then they were stroak'd insomuch that he was forc'd to send his Privy Seal often abroad to particular Friends in the Country to discharge his immediate Expence of State whereof he was so frugal and provident a Manigeer that notwithstanding the many Occasions he had for Money perhaps beyond any of his Predecessors by keeping a double Court by receiving at home and imploying abroad so many Ordinary and Extraordinary Ambassadors as he did some to Complement others to Expostulate with but all to have an Eye upon his Neighbours by being obliged to stop the mouths of his querulous Country-men who presuming on his Goodness for as one observes he was no more troubled at their robbing him then a Bridegroom at the loosing his Points or Garters thought it so much their Right to share with him in his new Acquests that they drew many strange Boons from him One of them not to mention any more having the confidence to beg no less then Twenty thousand pounds in ready Money at one time and had obtained his desire had not the wise Lord Treasurer by shewing the King the whole Sum in Silver upon a Table altogether brought it down to a Composition of Five hundred pounds only I say notwithstanding all these great and pressing Occasions for Money for certainly there is no one Virtue in a Prince so advantageous to himself as Bounty whiles like the Sun he nourishes the whole Creation under him by letting down the Dew which he shall certainly draw up again with increase he found like means though not by a like way to enlarge his Empire as the great Augustus did his super Garamantus
when he was so seemingly lost by the help of the same Invisible Hand that after led his Son thorow many greater dangers and brought him home safe beyond all hope but stooping to this low Pitch to subject himself to those who had so much despis'd all Subjection they thought it a Complement to him to estimate him at so high a rate as that of their Arrears Had he cast himself upon the Parliament in the first place 't is possible by letting go his hold so unexpectedly as he did he might have given them the Fall when they were so hard tugging with him it being more then probable that the long abus'd People finding how he not only sought Peace but pursu'd it might have been mov'd to have indeavour'd his Restoration as tumultuously as they did his Dethronation restoring his Dignity as disorderly as they took it from him which how much the Hogen Mogens of Westminster dreaded appears by the surprize upon them when a little before his giving himself up to the Scots it was bruted that he was conceal'd in London But as in great Storms great Pilots are forc'd when they can no longer bear Sail to let the Vessel drive and take its chance so he being no longer able to Stem the Tide after having done all that could be hop'd for from Prudence was fain to commit himself to Providence and follow it without Light or Compass thorow many dark Dispensations and fantastick Changes the result of their Inconstancy Inhumanity and Impiety from whom he was afterward to expect his doom Trust makes us our own Traytors nor could he Alâ—yn Vit. H. 7. Be sav'd by Faith but Infidelity Having now lost his Authority from the time he lost his Liberty as the last was the occasion of ending the first Civil War so the first was the cause of beginning a second For now all the Doggs fell together by the Ears over the Marybone The Army quarrelled with the Parliament they with one another the Commons differed from the Lords the Scots divided as much from the English the Presbyterians from the Independants Great was the Dissention amongst the Brethren and all for Place Power or Profit for either of which the King appearing to be the best Pawn the Army took him from the Parliament Commissioners to secure him in their own Custody which was so ill resented by the ruling Members that all their Consultations were about disbanding them Upon which the Army drew up a Charge and disbanded Eleven of them the first * The now Lord Hollis whereof was the first of those Five Members impeached by the King who were so little able to trifle with them as they did with him that they were fain not only to quit the House but the Kingdom After this the Army sent up a †The A mies Representation An. 1647. Representation as they call'd it to the two Houses propâ—sing 1. To purge out all those that ought not to sit there meaning all the Presbyterian Party 2. To disable those who had shew'd themselves disaffected to the Army that they might do no mischief meaning those who had voted with the Eleven Secluded Members 3. To settle a determinate Period for their Sitting intending to have all rul'd by the Sword 4. To give Accompt of the vast Sums they had received during the War intending the Overplus to be divided amongst themselves This so incouraged the Independent Party that they voted in favour of the Army to take the Militia of the City of London out of the Citizens hands who were for the most part of the Presbyterian Faction Upon which a Party of Apprentices came down and making the grand Representatives Prisoners in their own House did as I may say ram their Vote down their Throats making them not only retract it but Vote the Militia back again to the City Hereupon they call'd for Aid to the Army and the apprehensions of what Effects their coming up might have divided the Common-Councel of London as much as the last Riot had those of Westminster so that the General easily entred at the breach and possess'd himself of the Strength of the City Now as Maggots are ingendred by warmth out of Corruption so by the heat of these corrupted Factions there was kindled a Generation of Vermin call'd Agitators which were like the Locusts that rose out of the smoak of the bottomless Pit mentioned in the Revelations c. 9. v. 3. to whom sayes the Text was given power like as the Scorpions of the Earth have power who not liking that the King should continue so near as Hampton-Court found an expedient to fright him from thence by muttering something like an intended Assassination the discovery whereof they knew would quickly be brought to him and tempt him to make a private Escape knowing well that they had him as a Bird in a string and could take him again when they pleas'd which Counsel if it had been rejected by him 't is probable he had been murther'd in good earnest but he flying thereupon to the Isle of Wight where he was secur'd by their fast Friend the * Hamen Governour there they thought they might adventure to treat with him at that distance Accordingly they consented that the Parliament should tender him these four modest Propositions following to be reduced into Acts. 1. That it should be lawful for the Parliament to order and dispose the Militia as they pleas'd for the future without his consent and Treason for any to assemble in Arms above the number of Thirty without Commission from them 2. That the Houses should sit at what time they pleas'd and adjourn their sitting to what place they pleas'd and meet at their own pleasure and discretion for ever after 3. That all Oaths Interdictions and Declarations set forth in Publick by the King against either House should be accompted and declared void 4. That all whom the King had dignified with any Titles from the time himself departed with the Great Seal should be degraded of their Honour Which the Scotch Commissioners we must remember it to their Honour thought so derogatory to that of the Kings and contrary to former Ingagements that they follow'd after the Parliament Commissioners with a kind of State Hue and Cry and protested against them I hope it was not all a Juggle for they had been undone doubtless if the King had sign'd them but it took effect as they desired The King refused them and thereby gave them as they would have it thought just cause to refuse him Whereupon they pass'd that never to be forgotten Vote of Non-Addresses After which the Agitators vanish'd and the Committee of Darby-house took place which consisting most of Officers were now the Plenipotentiaries of the Kingdom And near the same time the Power of England was thus given up to them they had the Resignation made of that of Ireland too The King being now civilly dead and one would think buried the Prisons of Princes proving
as himself observ'd for the most part their Graves the Vote of Non-Addresses being as Earth flung upon him Fortune cruelly brings him to Life again by the Cordial of unexpected hopes heightned by the Zeal of several Counties declaring for him Divers Lords in Arms again at Land and his own Son with others at Sea these incouraged by the Revolt of several Towns those by the coming in of several Ships so that there were no less then Two thousand in Arms for him at Sea with Twenty good Ships and not so litt e as Ten thousand at Land with Horses Arms and Ammunition suitable And which was yet more considerable the Grand * Call'd The Committee of Danger Committee of State in Scotland whose very name carried Danger in it allarm'd them by sending the Propositions following 1. To bring the King to London or some of his Houses near with Freedom and Safety 2. To disband the Army 3. To punish those that had deteined him in Obscurity 4. To restore the Secluded Members 5. To establish the Presbyterian Government and suppress Sectaries And that they might yet appear more like a Committee of Danger they sent a formidable Army under the Conduct of Duke Hamilton to make good their Demands and to give their Nation the Honour of being the last as they were the first in Arms in this unhappy War The terror of these formidable Preparations incourag'd by several Petitions out of the City and Country moved the affrighted Parliament to consent to a Personal Treaty whilst the Army was busie in disputing the Points with the Sword and accordingly they recalâ—'d the Vote of Non-Addresses and sent their Commissioners to wait on the King at the Isle of Wight where he argued so like a Divine with the Divines so like a Lawyer with the Lawyers so like a States-man with their Matchiavillians that they went all away fully satisfied in their belief of his Wisdom Piety and Justice and upon the publishing his Conditions the Houses voted him to be in Honour Freedom and Safety according to the Laws Here seem'd to be nothing wanting now but a Sword in his hand to have once more disputed it with the Sword-men too and then possibly he might have saved himself and the despairing Nation But just as every man was making ready to bring in his Peace-Offering in Confidence that the King and Parliament were fully agreed the inraged Army returning home from the Conquest of all those that had oppos'd them doubly dyed with Blood and Treason alike Enemies to Peace and Reason broke down the great Chain of Order which binds even the Divels themselves and first seizing on him next on them sent no less then Forty of their principal Members to Hell a Place purposely made their Prison not so much for any conveniency of Reception or nearness of Scituation as the Uncoughness of the Name that by the conceipt of being typically damn'd they might bring them into despair and tempt some of them as after they did to become their own Executioners Ninety more they turn'd quite out of the House and appointed a day for turning out all the rest In the mean time they publish'd a Modification which to make the more acceptable they term'd The Agreement of the People by which the number of the Representatives of the Nation was reduc'd to Three hundred half which were to have power to make a Law and during the Intervals of Sessions a Councel of State was to govern This Model was put into the hands of those Members of their own Faction who besides the Confirmation thereof had Instructions given them for passing six other Votes 1. For renewing that of Non-Addresses 2. For annulling the Treaty and Concessions at the Isle of Wight 3. For bringing the King to publick Justice to answer with his own all the Blood shed in the War 4. For summoning in his two Sons the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York to render themselves by a day certain to give satisfaction on their parts otherwise to stand exil'd as Traytors to their Country 5. For doing publick Justice upon all the Kings Partakers 6. For paying off all their own Arrears forthwith How obedient Slaves this Rump of a House were to these their own Servants who could not find in their Heart to pay the least respect to their natural Prince appears by the Sequel For immediately they gave them or rather permitted them to give themselves above Sixty thousand pounds and voted that the General should take care to secure the King and the Councel of war to draw up a Charge of High Treason against him Lord Faulâ—land Behold the frailty of all humane things How soon great Kingdoms fall much sooner Kings This as it was an Insolence beyond all hope of pardon so nothing could justifie it but such a Violation of all sacred and humane Rights as must not only out-do all Example but out-face all Divinity and Majesty at once by erecting that High Court of Justice as they call'd it to try him as a Rebel against himself Preparatory whereunto they made Proclamation at Westminster-hall Cheapside and the Old Exchange that all that had any thing to say against him should come in at the prefix'd time and be heard And for the greater solemnity of their intended Paricide the Law was silenced that is the Tearm put off for fourteen dayes in order to the better formalizing the disorder that was to follow And now having brought the Royal Prisoner to their Judgment Seat they proceed to arraign him with not unlike Impudence and Impiety to that of the Rascal Jews when they brought the King of Kings to Tryal whom as they charg'd to be a Perverter so these charg'd him with being a Subverter of his People both Prisoners being in this alike Guilty that eithers Crime was the owning himself to be a King which as the Jews could not indure then so neither could these now Their King thought not fit to give any Answer to his Accusers this King preparing to give sitting Answers could not be heard But he had this satisfaction to hear Pontius Bradshaw the President by whom he was to be condemn'd condemn himself first and all his Fellow Paricides by a Reply to him not less absurd then observable For his Majesty reasoning upon the unreasonableness of not being suffer'd to speak for himself said Where is there in all the World that Court in which no Place is left for Reason to which t'other unwittingly reply'd Sir you shall find that this very Court is such an one Nay then retorted the King in vain will my Subjects expect Justice from you who stop your Ears to your King ready to plead his Cause Thus they strangled him before they beheaded him and designing to murther his Soul if possible as well as his Body added to their Denial of Justice so many Contumelies Indignities and Affronts as were enough to have tempted him to despair had not his Faith been as strong