SCRINIA RESERATA A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF John Williams D.D. Who some time held the Places of L d Keeper of the Great Seal of England L d Bishop of Lincoln and L d Archbishop of York CONTAINING A SERIES OF THE Most Remarkable Occurrences and Transactions of his LIFE in Relation both to CHURCH and STATE Written by JOHN HACKET Late Lord Bishop of LITCHFIELD and COVENTRY 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nazianz. de laudibus Athanasii Vita mortuorum in memoriâ vivorum est posita Cicero Philip. nonâ IMPRIMATUR Nov. 27. 1692. JO. Cant. In the SAVOY Printed by Edw. Jones for Samuel Lowndes over against Exeter-Exchange in the Strand M. DC XC III. THE PROEM READER Paragr 1. BOOKS are sown so thick in all Countries of Europe that a new one which one adds more to the former Gross had need of an Apology The easie Dispatch of so many Sheets in a day by the readiness of Printing hath found the World a great deal more Work then needs Many that love Knowledge both Industrious and of sound Judgment are not nice to say that Repletion of Authors hath begat Loathing Which is a Reason likewise or a Pretence that divers who are Learned and full Men contain their Liquor in their Vessels and never broach it in the Press to make it Publick because they think it is Folly to contribute to Waste and Excess I am one of those I confess that wish it were possible that a Moses could be raised up to restrain us from bringing more either of our Pamphlets or Volumes to the Work of the Tabernacle For the Stuff already is sufficient for all the Work to make it and too much Exod. 36.7 2. How shall I answer it therefore Or how shall I defend that I am constant to mine own Judgment in this Design that I thrust my Labours into the World What Warrant can I plead that I build a new Cottage upon the Waste I conceive that it will stand for satisfaction that I set forth an History of Things not travers'd before but of memorable Passages running through the Channel of one Man's Life in our present Age. It is a Debt owed to Posterity to furnish them with the true Knowledge of sore-gone Occurrences worthy to be Registred as I believe these ensuing are A Tradition must be kept of famous Exploits especially moving upon the Stage of turbulent Times For when it is skilfully drawn through the Acts of famous Men it will rouze up our Children by Emulation as much as by Precept and give them double advantage to seek Virtue and Glory But better it will be to have it coarse spun then quite omitted For such will serve for Cork to keep a Net from sinking 3. This Century of our Account from Christ's Birth wherein we live now wasting beyond the middle hath been happy in this That it hath brought forth in our Kingdom of England many of great Renown Wise and Eloquent deep in Learning and sage in Counsels in a word to be praised as much as the best of their Forefathers yet granting to all both former and latter an Allowance for some Grains of Frailties It were pity their Memorial should perish with them Caesar was a large seeker of Glory yet grudge no Man a share in Glory as testifies that little which remains of his Oration for the Bithynians saying It is a Duty required from the surviving Generation to keep them alive in their good Name who deserv'd it and can endure the Censure of the World for ever I listen to his Encouragement yet measuring my Strength by mine own Meet-wand I task my self to set up a Pillar but for one Man's Memory The Event will clear me that I stint not my self to this one Theme to do but little But First Because there is so much Kernel in one Shell I must set forth a great Bishop a great Judge a great Counsellor in all these Capacities most active in most active Times Such a Mill will not go with a little Water Beside the Turnings and Returnings of his Fortune multiformous Changeableness rather Prodigious then Strange by Honour and Dishonour by Evil Report and good Report 2 Cor. 6.8 Which will draw considerate Thoughts for no little time to this one Center As Pliny writes of the Emperor Augustus his Life interwoven with much Glory Lib. 7. Nat. Hist c. 45. and much Misfortune Si diligenter aestimentur sancta magna sortis humanae reperiantur volumina So it is highly remarkable that in this one Piece a diligent Eye may discern all the Colours of human Inconstancy and Instability 4. Secondly I spend all my little Skill upon this Subject for I can draw no Picture so like because I knew none so well I noted his Ways and Worth in the University when I was but young I observ'd him in his earliest Preferments when he came first sledge out of the Nest I was taken into his Houshold Service as soon as he ascended to his highest Office And commencing from that time till thirty Years expired with his Life I trespass not against Modesly if I say I knew his Courses as much and saw them at as near a distance as any Man beside I have as much Intelligence from an Eye-witness Information and from his familiar Conference with me as can be expected from any Writer of the Memorials of a great Statist Qui audiunt audita dicunt qui vident planè sciunt says Plautusvery well He that reports but what he hears must confess he is at uncertainty he that sees a Thing done can relate it perfectly Pliny hath cast down a great deal of that which he built up in the seventh Book of his Natural History with this Passage in his Proem Nec in plerÃsque corum obstringam sidem meam potiúsque ad autores relegabo He would make Faith for little of that which he wrote but turns his Reader over to such Authors as himself did not trust in I am far from such Prevarication I drew the knowledge of those things of most moment which I shall deliver from the Spring-Head And I trust in God that I have incorporated them into this Frame with Integrity This then is my confidence to make this Compilement that my Tools were whetted at home I need not repair to the Allophyli or Philistins to sharpen my Axe at their Grind-stone 5. Thirdly I am full of willingness to be the Father of this Child And nothing is apter for a Man to undergo then that which is agreeable to his Delight I profess it is not the least of my drifts to sweeten my Master's Memory with a strong composed Perfume and to carve him out in a commendable but a true Figure Suffer me to put one Day to his Life after his Decease When a worthy Man's Fame survives him through their help that light a Candle for that use that others in succession of Ages may perfectly behold him it is
diligence it was registred among other Complaints when he could get no more The Instructions follow 1. Upon the Ninth of May 1645. Sir J. Owen Governour of Conway about Seven of the Clock in the Evening before the Night-guard was sent unto the Castle the possession whereof was placed by the King in the Archbishop of York and his Assigns upon great and valuable considerations by his gracious Letters and under his Majesty's Hand and Signet bearing date at Oxford August 1. 1643. did with bars of iron and armed men break the Locks and Doors and enter into the said Castle and seize upon the Place the Victuals Powder Arms and Ammunition laid in by the said Archbishop at his own charge without the least contribution from the King or the Country for the defence of the place and the Service of the King and the said Country 2. That being demanded by the said Archbishop to suffer two of the said Archbishop's men to be there with his rabble of Grooms and beggerly People to see the Goods of the Country preserv'd from filching and the Victuals and Ammunition from wasting and purloyning Sir John in a furious manner utterly refused it though all the Company cried upon him to do so for his own discharge yet would he not listen to any reason but promised the next day to suffer all things to be inventoried and the Lord Archbishop to take away what the would Sir John acknowledging all the Goods and Ammunition to be his 3. The next day he receded again from all this would not permit at the entreaty of the Bishop of St. Asaph his own Cousin-German any of the Archbishop's men to go and look to the Goods nor suffer his servants to fetch forth for his Grace's use who hath linger'd long under a great sickness and weakness either a little Wine to make him some Cawdles or so much as a little of his own stale Beer to make him Possets which all the Country conceive to be very barbarous 4. The said Sir John continueth rambling from place to place and detaineth still all the Goods of the Country laid up in this Castle as conceived to be owned by the Archbishop who was like to be responsal for them and had duly returned them in other years and threatens to seize upon the Plate and all things else of Value to his own use Than which no Rebel or Enemy could deal more outragiously 5. The Archbishop desires his Majesty would repossess him of the right of this Castle according to his Majesty's Grant made upon valuable consideration And that if his Majesty's pleasure be that Sir Jo. Owen or any other Man of more moderation and less precipitancy should be there he come under the Archbishop his Assignment as right requires and as Colonel Ellis and Mr. Chichely were content to do and did To the which the Archbishop as Colonel Ellis and Sir Will. Legg can witness was ever willing to give way 6. That howsoever the Archbishop may have all his Goods and Chattels all his Cannon Arms Ammunition Powder Provision in Beef Beer Wine Cheese Butter Oatmeal and Corn presently restored to him And what is wasted and made away may be answer'd to him by Sir John As also that all the Inhabitants of this and the Neighbour Countries may have their Goods presently out of the Castle before they be pilfered and imbezeled 7. Or otherwise that his Majesty and Prince Rupert his Lieutenant will graciously permit and suffer with their gracious favour the said Archbishop and Inhabitants of the Country to repair with their Complaints to the Assembly at Oxford and the Committee there against these and many other Outrages and Concussions of the said Sir Jo. Owen under colour of being Governour and Sheriff of this Town not warranted by any of his Commissions Every Line of this Remonstrance is just humble pathetical yet came to nothing The time was protracted from week to week and at last an Answer like to a Denial is given to Capt. Martin That it should be consider'd at more leisure One Hector a phrase at that time for a daring Russian had the ear of great ones sooner than five strict men that served the King unblameably before God and all his People But when the Messenger return'd to Wales and brought not the least satisfaction not a complemental Excuse to pacifie the Archbishop he said nothing lest he should have said too much But as Livy notes upon Fabius the Consul when Papirius Cursor was made Dictator over his head Apparuit insignem dolorem ingenti animo comprimi A great Spirit was chased with a great Indignity 204. Fifteen Months were run out after the Archbishop received this baffle to be postponed to Sir J. Owen the time is truly digited and a year of darkness and gloominess came upon this miserable Land Nasby Fight was struck the Lord Jacob Astly defeated the Western strong Holds reduced to Fairfax Chester surrendred Oxford it self begirt as Mindarus wrote to Sparta in his short Country Language 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all that was good was undone Chester being possest by Col. Milton the Door into North-Wales he full of Animosity against the Royal Cause marcheth over Dee through Flint and Denbyshires unto the Town of Conway where the Conawians would as soon fight for a May-poll as for Sir J. Owen The amazed People turn to the Archbishop look upon his strong wisdom and grey hairs to stop the cruelty of the Conquerour and to lighten the yoke of their Misery And an aged Counseller is a Soveraign help at such a pinch 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plut. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Long time of Life which robs us of all things else pays us the Principal again with Use in Knowledge and Wisdom The Archbishop's Grace calls some few to Counsel with him who agree to parly with Milton one that understood his own strength and their weakness The Welsh made some high Demands which were not heard patiently They perceived Milton's mind was at the Castle where the Archbishop's Wealth and of divers far and near was deposited which was ready to come every jot into the Colonels power whom they perceived to be rather haughty than covetous and they closed by insinuations with him relating how Sir J. Owen had surprized the Castle detained their Goods and insulted over them who had born Arms in the same Cause therefore they offer'd to joyn with him to put him into the Castle with condition that every Proprietary might obtain what he could prove by the Archbishops Inventory to belong to him and for the Overplus let it fall to the Colonels Mercy whose Consent the Archbishop's Art and fair Language drew on And not the least time being spent in delay the Soldiers entred the Castle both by Scalada and by forcing the Gates assisted by the Archbishop's Kindred and other Welch and Milton kept the Castle and kept his Word to let the Owners divide the Goods among themselves to which they laid
he was taught his first Rudiments of the Latin and Greek Tongues I have heard some of his Contemporaries say that his Master knew not for a while how to manage him he was of so strange a mixture for at sometimes he was addicted to loiter and play and to much exercise of Body Again by fits he would ply his Book so industriously that his Praeceptor thought it a great deal too much for a Child to undergo it But like a prudent Man he quickly consented to leave his Scholar to his own pace wherein he got ground so fast of all his Fellows He that raised himself up to that height of Knowledge in his adult Age had need to lay some part of the Foundation so early For as Comines observes it Lib. 1. Hist Indubitatum est ees qui in ullâ re unquam excelluerunt maturi puerilibus annis ad cam accessisse 6. All things fell out happily by Divine Disposition to bring him up from a towardly Youth to a worthy Man For by that time this Bud began to blow it fortun'd that Dr. Vaughan afterward the Reverend Lord Bishop of London came into Wales and took the School of Reuthen in his way where he found his young Kinsman John Williams to be the Bell-weather of the little Flock Dr. Vaughan was exceeding glad to find him in that forwardness and being not only as Learned as most Men to try a Scholar but Judicious above most Men to conjecture at a rich Harvest by the green Blade in the Spring took speedy care to remove his Kinsman to Cambridge and commended him to the Tuition of Mr. Owen Gum of St. John's College well qualified by his Country and Alliance for a Friend and no indiligent Tutor The young Youth was now entring into the 16th Year of his Age an 1598. much welcom'd to Cambridge by the Old Britains of North-Wales who praised him mightily in all places of the University â—for they are good at that to them of their own Lineage and made more Eyes be cast upon him than are usual upon such a Punie Which took the rather because of his great Comeliness I might say Beauty And it is a great Attractive of common Favour when virtue takes up a fair Lodging One thing put him to the blush and a little Shame that such as had gigling Spleens would laugh at him for his Welsh Tone For those who knew him at his Admission into St. John's Society would often say that he brought more Latin and Greek than good English with him This also pluck'd Advantage after it for it made him a very retired Student by shunning Company and Conference as far as he could till he had lost the Rudeness of his Native Dialect Which he labour'd and affected because he gave his Mind to be an Orator which requires Decus linguae regnumque loquendi as Manlius lays it out Lib. 4. And all that heard him will subscribe that when he was put to it to speak publickly his Gesture and Pronunciation did add much Grace to his Matter and Invention 7. He was the Pattern of a most diligent Student to all that did emulate him then or would imitate him hereafter He had read over so many Authors in several Sciences so many Volumes so many Historians and Poets Greek and Latin in four Years the Evidence of it was in his Note-Books that I may say Aetatem ultra putes who would have thought it had been the dispatch of an Under-Graduate He had ransack'd not only the bare Courts and spacious Lodgings but the very Closets and Corners of the best Arts and Authors Nothing so great that exceeded him nothing so little that escap'd him I will make this Credible to all that are not utter Drones He plied his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As much in the Night as in the Day Nature contributed to this a strange Assistance that from his Youth to his old Age he ask'd but 3 hours Sleep in 24 to keep him in good plight of Health This we all knew who lived in his Family It would not quickly be believed but that a cloud of Witnesses will avouch it that it was ordinary with him to begin his Studies at six of the clock and continue them till three in the morning and be ready again by seven to walk in the Circle of his indefatigable Labours Aristo complains thus in Pliny l. 7. c. 50. Vivendi breve tempus homini datum quoniam somnus veluti publicanus dimidium aufert That which makes the Life of Man short is That Sleep like an exacting Publican takes half of it away for Toll and Tribute But here was one that paid very little Custom to that common Publican of Nature and kept so much Time continually going in his Stock that he lived almost twice as much as any Man that lived no longer Who will not say now but so much Toil was plain Drudgery And I marvel it the more that so great a Wit could endure to task him to such constant and vexatious Pains No doubt he look'd far afore him upon the hope of a great Recompence in Church or Commonwealth that contented him and confirmed him Marius speaks gailantly in Salust Nae illi falsi sunt qui res diversissimas pariter expectant ignaviae voluptatem praemia virtutis They are much mistaken that think to piece together two Things so different the Pleasure of Ease and the Guerdon of Virtue Therefore all these concurr'd together in him to make up the Master-piece of a Scholar a rare Wit a most tenacious and even stupendious Memory a clear Judgment a most distinguishing common Sense called Natural Logick which is the best and most vital part of Judgment and that which hatch'd all these that they might not addle uncessant Industry Truly he that will build many Stories high had need of all these Materials And let those that are happy in great Natural Endowments take Example by him to joyn the Felicity of Nature with such a Mate as Diligence Gardners give the most attendance to the best Stocks in their Nursery and the Fruit will quit the Cost after due time hath matur'd it It was God above therefore that gave his young Servant so wise a Mind to fill up the choice Vessels of Nature with Liquors distill'd from his own Studies And herein I may compare him to Messala Corvinus in Tully as he writes of him to Brutus Ep. 15. Tanta industria est tantúmque evigilat in studio ut non maximo ingenio quod in eâ— summum est gratia habenda videatur He was so laborious and vigilant about his Studies that though his Wit were of the best kind yet he was not most beholding to it 8. I have not added a Grain to the just weight of Truth that his Sails were filled with prosperous Winds which blew from the Cape of Nature yet that he plied the Oar with main might to make a gaining Voyage Especially the good God was pleased to give
Clergy of England as being neither Parsons Vicars nor Curates be Licenced henceforward in the Court of Faculties only with a Fiat from the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and a Confirmation under the Great Seal of England And that such as transgress any one of these Directions be suspended by the Lord Bishop of the Diocess or in his Default by the Lord Arch-Bishop of the Province Ab officio beneficio for a Year and a Day untill his Majesty by the Advice of the next Convocation shall prescribe some further Punishment 102. These Orders were well brought fourth but Success was the Step-Mother Destinata salubriter omni ratione potentior fortuna discussit Curtius lib. 5o. Crossness and Sturdiness took best with the Vulgar and he was counted but a Cockney that stood in awe of his Rulers No marvel if some were brought to no State of Health or toward any Temper of Convalesence with these Mandates Nothing is so hardly bridled as the Tongue saith St. James especially of a mis-guided Conscience when their Bladder if full of Wind the least Prick of a Thorn will give it eruption A Fool traveleth with a Word as a Woman in Labour of a Child Ecclus. 19.11 Restraint is not a Medicine to cure epidemical Diseases for Sin becomes more sinful by the Occasion of the Law Diliguntur immodice sola quae non licent says one of the Exteriors Quintil. decl 1a. The less we should the more we would Curb Cholerical Humours and you press out Bitterness as it is incident to those that are strait-lac'd to have sower Breaths The Scottish Brethren were acquainted by common Intercourse with these Directions that had netled the aggrieved Pulpitarians And they says Reverend Spotswood P. 543. accuse them to be a Discharge of Preaching at least a Confining of Preachers to certain Points of Doctrine which they call Limiting of the Spirit of God But the Wiser Sort judged them both necessary and profitable considering the Indiscretion of divers of that sort who to make Ostentation of their Learning or to gain the Applause of the Popular would be medling with Controversies they scarce understood and with Matters exceeding the Capacity of the People But what a Pudder does some make for not stinting the Spirit or Liberty of Prophecying as others call it They know not what they ask Such an indefinite Licence is like the Philosopher's Materia Prima a monstrous Passive Subject without Form A Quid libet which is next to nothing Indeed it is a large Charter to pluck down and never to build up Every Man may sling a Stone where he will and let it light as Luck carries it But how can the House of God be built unless the Builders be appointed to set up the Frame with Order and Agreement among themselves according to the Pattern which was shewn in the Mount Try it first in Humane Affairs and see how it will sadge with them before we proceed to Heavenly Dissolve the publick Mint let every Man Coin what Money he will and observe if ever we can make a Marchandable Payment Their Confusion is as like to this as a Cherry to a Cherry Give their Spirit as much Scope as they ask Let them Coin what Doctrine they will with the Minting-Irons of their own Brain They may pay themselves with their own Money but will it pass with others for Starling Will it go for current Divinity To meet them home Suppose this Priviledge were allow'd yet every good Spirit will limit it self to lawful Subjection Yet these would not Then what Remedy in earnest none was try'd It is the height of Infelicity to be incurable As Pliny in his Natural History said of Laws made against Luxury in Rome which would not be kept down therefore the Senators left to make Laws against it Frustra interdicta quae vetucrant cernentes nullas potiùs quam irritas esse Leges maluerunt 103. Neither were uncharitable Suspicions like to mend For the Unsatisfied that sung so far out of Tune had another Ditty for their Prick-Song The King's Letters were directed to the Lord Keeper to be Copy'd out and sent forth to the Judges and Justices to afford some Relaxation of our Penal Laws to some but not all Popish Recusants Which made sundry Ministers interpose very harshly and in the Prophet Malachy's Stile Chap. 2. Ver. 13. To cover the Altar of God with Tears and Weeping and Crying but the Lord regarded not the Offering neither received it with Good-will at their Hands What could this mean as they conjectured but the highest Umbrage to the Reformed Religion and â—at Toerâ—ion of Popery Leave it at that cross way that they knew not whither this Project will turn Nay Should they not hope for the best Event of the Meaning A King is like to have an ill Audit when every one that walks in the Streets will reckon upon his Councels with their own casting Counters It is fit in sundry Occurrences for a Prince to disguise his Actions and not to discover the way in which he treads But many times the Wisdom of our Rulers betrays them to more Hatred than their Follies because Idiots presume that their own Follies are Wisdom Plaurus displays these impertinent Inquisitors very well in Trinummo Quod quisque habet in animo aut habiturus est sciunt Quod in aurem Rex Reginae dixerit sciunt Quae neque futura neque facta sunt illi sciunt Yet these Fault-sinders were not jear'd out of their Melancholly though they deserv'd no better but were gravely admonished by his Majesty Vivâ voce in these Words I understand that I am blamed for not executing the Laws made against the Papists But ye should know that a King and his Laws are not unfuly compared to a Rider and his Horse The Spur is sometime to be used but not always The Bridle is sometime to be held in at other times to be let loose as the Rider finds Cause Just so a King is not at all times to put in Execution the Rigor of his Laws but he must for a time and upon just Grounds dispense with the same As I protest to have done in the present Case and to have conniv'd only for a time upon just Cause howbeit not known to 〈◊〉 If a Man for the Favour shew'd to a Priest or Papist will judge me to be inclining that way he wrongs me exceedingly My Words and Writings and Actions have sufficiently 〈◊〉 what my Resolution is in all Matters of Religion That Cause not known to 〈…〉 in part unfolded by that grave Father Spotswood where I quoted him 〈◊〉 Says he The Better and Wiser Sort of his Country-men who considered 〈…〉 Estate of things gave a far other Judgment thereof than the Discontented 〈…〉 then our King was treating with the French King for Peace to the Protestants of France and with the King of Spain for withdrawing his Forces from the Palatinate At which time it was no way fitting that
more fully in the point of Conscience His Majesty turning to me whom he said he had made for this time his Counsellor and Confessor affirmed his Conscience to stand as he had said before but that he was willing to hear any thing that might move him to alter the same To the which as far as I can remember I spake in this manner SIR 151. IT is not for me upon a sudden to offer my Reasons unto your Majesty to alter a Conclusion of Conscience once Resolved on by your Majesty considering how Guilty I am both of mine own Greenness and Interruptions in these Studies and of your Majesties deep Learning in that part of Divinity especially But because I do conceive that your Majesties doubting in this kind is an absolute Condemnation of the Prince who hath already Subscribed and Presented these Oaths in their Perfection and Formalities to be taken by your Majesty and yet continueth my Soul for his as Zealous a Protestant as any Lives in the World which his Majesty by a short Interruption did with Tears acknowledge I would presume to say somewhat in defence of his Highness in this Case tho I dare not be so bold as to apply or refer it to your Majesty Two things appear unto me considerable in this Case the advancing of the True Religion and the suppressing of the Adverse within this Kingdom The former is a matter directly of Conscience and your Majesty is bound in Conscience to take care of the same to the uttermost of your Power And if your Son had suffered as he hath not one Syllable to be inserted into the Oaths or Articles derogating from the Religion Established he was worthily therein to be deserted and God to be by your Majesty preferred before him The suppressing of the Adverse within this Kingdom is to be consider'd in two degrees First Ita ut non praesit Secondly Ita ut non sit For the first I think his Highness doth make it a matter of Religion and Conscience that Popery do not praeesse prove so predominant in your Kingdoms as that the Religion Establish'd be thereby disgraced or dejected For certain he makes it a Conscience not to Erect Altare contra altare For as for the Leave he promiseth for Strangers to be present at Divine Offices with the Family of the Infanta it is per conniventiam and as his Highness shall approve thereof For the second Degree Ita ut non sit that the Popish Religion should be quite extirpated or the Penal Statutes for the suppressing the same be strictly Executed His Highness dares not make this a matter of Conscience and Religion but a matter of State only If the Prince should make this a matter of Conscience he should not only conclude the French King to be a false Catholic for not suppressing the Protestants and the Estates of the Low-Countries to be false Protestants for not suppressing the Papists at Amsterdam Rotterdam and Utricht especially but should conclude your Sacred Majesty to have often offended against your Conscience an horrible thought from such a Son to such a Father because your Papists are not suppressed and your Penal Statutes have been so often intended and remitted These things you may well do this Point continuing but a matter of State but you may not do it without committing a vash Sin if now you should strein it up to a matter of Conscience and Religion against the Opinion of all moderate Divines and the Practice of most States in Christiandom I conclude therefore that his Highness having admitted nothing in these Oaths or Articles either to the prejudice of the true or the Equalizing or Authorizing of the other Religion but contained himself wholly within the Limits of Penal Statutes and connivences wherein the Estate hath ever Challenged and Usurped a directing Power hath Subscribed no one Paper of all these against his own nor I profess it openly against the Dictamen of my Conscience As soon as I had ended the King spake Largely and Chearfully That in Conscience he was satisfied To which the Lords likewise as generally gave their Applause So the rest of the Counsel were Summon'd against the next Sunday the Arch-bishop of Canterbury Marquess Hamilton the Earl of Worcester the Bishop of Winton Viscount Grandison the Lord Cary the Lord Belfast with others whom I may have forgot And all was dispatch'd before the Embassadors as I need not to relate because Sir Fr. Cottington can best do it And if this Service may conduce to bring your Highness with Speed and Safety to all faithful ones that desire it with their earnest Prayers I shall be the Happiest among Your Highness's Most Humble Servants c. 152. So powerful and perspicuous was the Lord Keeper's Theology that all the Worthies of David his Majesties Secret Counsel concurr'd in the Confirmation Among whom was Bishop Andrews the Torturer of the best Roman Champion with his mighty Learning Another was Archbishop Abbots about whom Mr. Sanderson is most negligently mistaken to write thus Pag. 550. That he was then suspended from his Function and from coming to the Council-Table He sat that Day with the Lords and was the first that subscribed in the Catalogue as himself observes It may be Mr. Sanderson could not reconcile nor I neither how he should sign to the Ratification and undertake a long Letter to King James to disprove it with many Flourishes Cab. p. 13. The same Fountain cannot send forth salt Water and fresh Jam. 3.12 Therefore I deny the Letter I believe justly to have been written by him Such Frauds are committed daily to set Credit to spurious Writings under a borrowed Name A. Gell. picks out a fit Merchant for such Ware Sertorius a brave Commander but a great Impostor Literas Compositas pro veris legebat Lib. 15. Cap. 22. But I will prove my Conjecture strongly First So wise a Man would not shame himself with Inconstancy Act one thing to Day with his Sovereign Lord and pluck it down to Morrow Secondly The Letter crept out of Darkness Thirty Years after the Prince came out of Spain and Twenty Years after the supposed Authors Death A large time to hatch a Fable Thirdly The Lord Keeper vide supra certified the Prince that before the Lords came together to consult about the ease of the Oaths two Speeches were in many Hands rise in London The one for the Negative under the Archbishop's Name The other for the Affirmative under the Lord Keepers Name when no Colloquy had been begun about it Was it not as easie for the same Author or such another to forge a Letter as well as a Speech Fourthly The Archbishop was so stout in the Pulpit at Whitehal as to deplore the Prince's absence and his departure out of the Kingdom The ill relish of that passage I know it by the Papers under my Hand was sent abroad as far as Spain by Sir Edw. Villiers And I dare say the Tydings of that
the most Guilty of their own Ruine that ever was heard of in any History And now let a Man of more Authority Judgment and Experience than the Observator speak upon the Wisdom of my Lord the King It is the most Reverend Spotswood in his last Page He was the Solomon of his Age admired for his wise Government and for his Knowledge of all manner of Learning for his Wisdom Moderation Love of Justice for his Patience and Piety which shined above all his other Vertues and is witnessed in his Learned Works he left to Posterity his Name shall never be forgotten but remain in Honour so long as the World indureth We that have had the Honour and Happiness many times to hear him discourse of the most weighty Matters as well of Policy as of Divinity now that he is gone must comfort our selves with the Remembrance of those Excellencies and reckon it not the least Part of our Happiness to have lived in his Days It is well that King James passeth for a Solomon with that Holy Bishop and wise Counsellor Now that I may decline an over-weening Opinion of any mortal Man Nazianzen minds me very well Orat. in laud. Athenas that among God's Worthies he commends 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Solomon in some things not in all No Man ruled the least Principality so well much less three Kingdoms with Isles adjacent and remote but the Modest and Impartial might have required somewhat to be amended in the Administration for it is true what Pliny says in his Paneg. Nemo extitit cujus virtutes nullo vitiorum confinio laederâ—mur If small Motes be discerned by piercing Eyes yet such Minutes are easily covered over with egregious and heroical Vertues And the hard Heart of Sir An. W. softned into this Confession at last Take him all together and not in pieces such a King I wish this Kingdom have never any worse on the Condition not any better 234. I have borrowed thus much Room to set up a little Obelisk for King James out of that which is only intended to the Memorials of his Lord Keeper which Servant of that King's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he had any Sense of it would be willing to lend that and more to his good Master With whose Death the Day of the Servant's Prosperity shut up and a Night of long and troublesome Adversity followed Which if I can compass in my Old Age and decay'd Health to bring into a Frame for the Reader to behold he may say as Socrates did of Antisthenes in Laertius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that two Athenians would not make up one so Noble as Antisthenes And two Men would never have discharged those two Parts so well as this one Man performed them Which Representation may meet with some perchance that will not be favourable to it whom I wish to take heed of the Character which Theophrastus gives of an impure Man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will lengthen it thus he acts his own Part ill that Hisseth at him that deserves to be applauded FINIS A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF JOHN WILLIAMS D.D. Who sometimes Held the PLACES of LORD-KEEPER of the GREAT-SEAL OF ENGLAND Lord Bishop of LINCOLN AND Lord Arch Bishop of YORK Written by JOHN HACKETT Late Lord Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield PART II. Isocrates ad Evagoram pag. 80. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Salust de Caio Caesari In te praeter caeteras artem unam egregiè mirabilem comperi semper tibi majorem in adversis quà m in secundis rebus auimum esse pag. 171. LONDON Printed for Samuel Lowndes over-against the Exchange in the Strand MDCXCIII A MEMORIAL Offer'd to the Great Deservings OF JOHN WILLIAMS D.D. Who sometimes Held the Places of the LORD-KEEPER of the GREAT-SEAL of England c. PART II. CAmerarius Writing the Life of Melanchthon Paragraph 1. the Darling of the Champions of the Reformed Religion divided his Work into two Parts and gave no reason for it but because he would make his Web of a new piece after the Death of Luther It is the Pattern which I set before me to make a new Exordium as he did upon the Subject which I handle after the Death of King James Especially since I must take his Shadow whom my Pens draws forth no more by a Noon-tide Light but by an Evening declension Manilias His Prosperity or shall I say his Honours and Court-Favours were now in their Tropick Cum lucem vincere noctes incipiunt But Vertue is not Fortune's Servant He rose with great Light and he set with as great Brightness as he rose And as Paterculus writes of Mithridates I may refer it to him Aliâ—uando fortunâ semper animo maximus He was once high in Fortune but always strong in Courage and great in Worth 'T is common to see a Stock ingrafted with two forts of Fruits The Almighty Planter shews greater differences when he pleaseth in Moral than in Natural Plantations As he ordain'd the Noble Williams to become two contrary Parts as well as any Man had perform'd them in five Ages before him keeping the golden Mean in the Tryals of the Right-hand and of the Lest being neither corrupted with the Advancements nor the Persecutions of the Times As Paul and Barnabas were neither transported with the Honours which the Lycaonians did intend nor deterr'd with the Stones which they cast at them Acts 14. But the latter is most to be remarked For if this Lord-keeper had not drest himself with Vertue when he was clad in Honour nor rendred a sweet Air in every Close when the Diapason of Peace Wealth and the King's Love were all in tune he had abus'd Fortune which had given him his pay in hand Nec tam meruit gloriam quà m effugit flagitium as Pliny hath it But to stand upright when he was dismounted to cross his Crosses with Generosity and Patience to pass through a hot Furnace of Afflictions which was heated with all kind of Malice and no smell of Fire to remain upon him Dan. 3. v. 27. this deserves to be Canonized and will keep green in the Memory of more Ages than one From the Forty third Year of his Life to the full term of his Sixty eighth Year trouble upon trouble mischief after mischief had him in chase and yet the Huntsmen those Salvaggi could never blow the Death of this well-breath'd Hart. Fifteen Years the pursuit came from them that made use of the Frown of the King When they were a fault But when were they otherwise One Woe was past but there came two Woes or rather a thousand after it Apoc. 9.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Parliament of Destruction or of absolute Reprobation Sine praeviso peccato which spared none supprest him opprest him and he was under that Sufferance ten Years Was not the Ship well built Were not the Ribs of it heart of Oak which endured a Storm of twenty five Years and in that
to decline that Extremity the most of the Lords who endeavour'd to do all the Favour that they durst shew concluded upon a Fine of 10000 l. Imprisonment in the Tower during Pleasure which had been but short as they were assured before if the King had been but left to his own gracious Gentleness and to be suspended during Pleasure in the High-Commission-Court from all his Jurisdiction Which Suspension pass'd in that Commission July 23. And it would not be pass'd over that Sir Ed. Littleton then L. Chief-Justice of the Common-Pleas Anno 1640. in the Month of July brought Lincoln to Lambeth face to face with the L. of Canterbury when Lincoln told his Grace That the Commission under the Great Seal had not a word in it to enable him to suspend either Bishop or Priest by direction from a Sentence of Star-chamber but only for Offences specified in the Commission and that the Fact which His Grace had done had brought him and the Commissioners into a Praemunire To which the Archbishop answered That he had never read the Commission A learned Satisfaction Was it not when he had censur'd so many by the Power of that Commission which he confest he had never read But consider now as Isocrates pleaded it well ad Plat. p. 456. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whether it be right to inflict such unjust and grievous Penalties upon such petty pretended Misdemeanors Or did not the Latin Orator provide better against it Cic. 1. de Off. Cavendum ne major poena quà m culpa sit ne iisdem de causis alii plectantur alii ne appellentur quidem And let those who meet with this Narration be acquainted that albeit the Compact was in the Inner Chamber that the Lords should speak all the same in their Judgment yet a little Vanity slipt from some few to ease their Stomach The L. Finch said That if it had liked others he would have laid some Ignominy on the Bishop's person Promptum ad asperura ingenium Tac. An. lib. 1. So this Lord look'd on the Bishop's Cause not only with a blear'd but with a blood-shotten Eye for it was conceived he meant the cutting off his Ears who had never sate a Judge in all likelihood if this Bishop being then L. Keeper had not prevented him from leaving his Calling and travelling beyond Seas from which courses he kept him by fair Promises to provide for him and he made them good I will name the time and place Aug. 1621 and the Earl of Exeter's House in St. John's Close Mr. Secretary Winnebanke said It was his desire if it might have seemed good to others to have the Bishop degraded Hold Sir Francis and learn the Canons of the Church it is not in the Power of Laymen to degrade Bishops at their discretion and as little can a Knight depose a Peer of the upper House of Parliament for he that can thrust a Bishop out of that House why not as well an Earl or a Duke But Sir Francis shewed his Good will as the Athenians did to Philip the Son of Demetrius in Livy Additum est decreto ut si quid postea quod ad noxam ignominiamque Philippi pertineret adderetur id omne populum Atheniensium jussurum Dec. 4. lib. 1. Then comes in the Archbishop with a Trick to hoise up the Bishop with some Praise that it might push him in pieces with a greater Censure That when he thought upon this Delinquent's Learning Wisdom Agility in Dispatch Memory and Experience that accompanied him with all these Endowments he wondred at his Follies and Sins in this Cause O Sins by all means for by dioptrical Glasses some find Blemishes in the Sun Telescopia fabri facimus ut in sole maculas quaeramus says Alex. More in his Preface to Strangius's learned Book So upon this matter his Grace took up no less than a full Hour to declaim against the horrid Sin of Perjury and in this Cause he might as well have spoken against the horrid Sin of Piracy So he lays all his Censure upon that Charge Spirat inexhaustum flagranti pectore sulphur as Claudian of Enceladus The Auditors thought he would never have made an end till at last he pleaded for more Right to be done Sir J. Mounson The Lords let me say it freely and truly had overshot themselves to fine the Bishop to pay Sir John a Thousand Marks for saying that his Charge against Pregion was a Pocket-Order It is confess'd the Bishop said so and said the Truth But beside the Bishop pleaded that he heard it of T. Lund Lund stands to it that he told it the Bishop yet the Bishop is censur'd and Lund that took it upon himself is not question'd But the L. of Canterbury who did ever mount highest in all Censures said He was sorry the Fine was not a Thousand pounds 120. This is the shutting up of the Censure grievous to the Bishop's Purse and Liberty but not a whit to his Honour and Good Name which was so esteem'd by almost all that heard the actings of that day and shook their Heads at them As Cicero says in pro Plancio Opimii calamitas turpitudo Po. Ro. non judicium putandum est I that write this was chosen to bring the relation of this Censure to the Bishop then hard at his Study which he received with no change at all of his Countenance or Voice but only said Now the Work is over my Heart is at rest so is not many of theirs that have censured me And here began the way to Episcopal Disgrace and Declension It was his turn now it was Canterbury's not long after Howl Fir-tree for the Cedar is fallen Zech. 11.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Salmasius of the Elephant and Dragon in Solinum p. 307. The Vanquish'd was cast down and the Conqueror fell likewise When such a Pillar of the Church was demolish'd with Prosecutions so uncover'd to every Eye so transparent that you might see the Blush of Injustice quite through them how ominous was it to the higher and lower Dignities of the Clergy As Mr. Morice says in his Coena 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 354. Perhaps it may be with them as with Staddels in a Wood which scarce ever prosper when their fellows are cut down and themselves left naked And what became in three years or little more of that Honourable Court of Star-chamber of which the L. Coke says That in the right institution and the ancient Orders of it being observ'd it keeps all England in quiet But in some late Causes it grew distasteful even to wonder as in that of the Soap-boilers and that of London Derry that of Mr. Osbolston nay in that of Prynn Bastwick and Burton men not to be favour'd in the matter of their seditious Writings but for their Qualities and Places sake to be pitied for the Indignity done to their Persons which I receive from a wise Hand Bodin de Rep. l. 6. c. 6. Legibus
would witness against me for my Council-Table Opinion I would say to him as Gallus did to Tyberius Caesar Good Sir speak you first for I may mistake and you may witness against me for it in the next Parliament Some did make Laws with Ropes about their Necks What Must men give their Counsel as it were with Ropes about their Necks Solomon says When thou comest to a rich man's table put a knife to thy Throat But what 's here When we give Judgment as we are able among the Lords of the Council must we put an Ax to our Necks Beware of such Traps pittying the case of human Weakness 145. The fourth Question is thus comprized Whether some Members of the House of Commons may be present at the Examination Judicially they cannot the Judicature is in your Lordships but whether organically and ministerially is the Scruple to be satisfied I will be brief in my Conceptions what is against the claim of the House of Commons and what is for them This is not for them That 50 Edw. 3. one Love was a Witness in Lord John Nevile's Case Love denied what he had confest before two Knights Members of the Lower House The House of Commons send them to the Lords to confront Love which they did and Love was thereupon committed Now their being here was only to confront not to assist the Lords either judicially or ministerially Many things make for them why they may be there ministerially at least First Originally both Houses were together and so the Commons heard all Examinations Considerent inter se Modus ten Pl. and sate so till Anno 6 Edw. 3. by Mr. Elsing's Collections which are not over-authentick Secondly After that time they have all the House of Commons been present when Witnesses were sworn here Anno 5 Hen. IV. Rot. 11. swears his Fealty before the Lords and Commons and two or three days after by the same Oath and before the same persons clears the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duke of York from a Suspicion of Treason laid to their charge The Commons were by and heard all this The third Reason is Mr. Attorny-General if this Lord were arraigned of Treason as I pray God bless him from deserving it would be by and observe his Defence and such Witnesses as he should produce for himself and would no doubt bring Counter proofs Sur le Champ and upon the sudden against the same if he were able The House of Commons is in this case the King's Attorny who make and maintain the charge So far out of brief Notes for take them to be no other you have a strong Judgment pass'd upon four Questions Says Tully in his Brutus of Caesar's Eloquence Tabulam benè pictam collocat in bono lumine He draws his Picture well and hangs it out to be well seen So here 's a Piece well drawn and placed in the light of Perspicuity His next Argument is very long but of that use to the Reader that he shall not sind so much Learning in any Author on that Theme that I know a Scholar would not want it They that fostered deadly Enmities against E. Strafford laboured to remove the Bishops from the hearing of his Cause This Bishop and his Brethren minding to him all the Pity and Help they could shew him the Opposites began to vote them out of Doors and would not admit them in the Right of Peers in this Cause because it was upon Life and Blood Lincoln maintains that the Lords did them Injury and that Bishops in England may and ought to vote in causâ sanguinis That they were never inhibited by the Law of this Land never by the Peers of the Land before this time That their voluntary forbearance in some Centuries of the Ages before proceeded from their Fears of the Canons of the Court of Rome and by the special Leave of the King and both Houses who were graciously pleased to allow of their Protestations for their Indemnity as Church-men when the King and Parliament might have rejected their Protestations if they had pleas'd And much he insisted upon it that the opponent Lords grounded their Judgment upon the corrupt Canons of the Church of Rome Indeed I find in my own Papers that the Monks of Canterbury complain'd against Hubert their Archbishop to the Pope for sitting upon Tryals of Life and Blood They could not complain that he went against the Laws and Customs of England but their Appeal was to the Pope's Justice and it was more tolerable for Monks to rake in the Rubbish of the Roman Courts than for English Barons And say in sooth must not Divines of the Reformed Church meddle in Cause of Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Amph. Would they be laugh'd at for this Hypocrisie or abhorr'd For who more forward to thrust into the Troops of the late War than the Ministers whom they countenanc'd Have I not seen them prance about the Streets in London with Pistols in their Holsters and Swords by their sides And so for Edg-hill and Newberry c. Could they rush into so many Fights and be clear from cause of Blood Nay the Pontisical part make but a Mockery of this Canon for anno 1633 a Book was printed in Paris sill'd with a Catalogue of Cardinals Bishops and Priests who had been brave Warriours most of them Leaders in the Field the Author a Sycophant aimed to please Cardinal Richlieu and a Fig for the Canons Reason Canons Parliamentary Privileges nay Religion are to corrupt men as they like them for their own ends Now hear how this Bishop did wage his Arguments for the affirmative 146. It is to be held for a good Cause against which nothing of moment can be alledg'd such is this concerning the Right of Bishops to vote in causâ sanguinis First It is not prohibitum quia malum not any way evil in it self no more than it is an evil thing in it self to do Justice Secondly It was in use from the Law of Nature when the eldest of the Family was King Priest and Prophet Thirdly It was in use under Moses's Law and so continued in the Priests and Levites down to Annas and Caiaphas and after Christ's death till the Temple was destroyed as appears by the scourging of the Apostles by the stoning of Stephen and commanding St. Paul to be smitten on the Mouth Fourthly It was in use in the persons of the Apostles themselves as in that Judgment given upon Ananias and Saphira in the delivery up to Satan as most of the ancient Fathers expound that Censure to be a corporal Vexation And generally in all the Word of God there is no one Text that literally inhibits Church-men more than Lay-men to use this kind of Judicature For that Precept to be no striker 1 Tim. 3.3 is no more to be appropriated to a Bishop distinct from the rest of Christian men than that which is added not to be given to Wine that is immoderately taken Proceed we
to Practice and Use in our own Country Why it was in use in this Island before the Romans entred the same when the Druids gave all the Sentences in Causes of Blood Si coedes facâ—e pâ—as constituunt Caesar Bel. Gai. li. 6. And see Mr. Selden's Epinomis c. 2. Nor is it like that the Romans when they were our Masters should forbid it in Priests whose Pontifical College after they had entertain'd the twelve Tables meddled in all matters of this kind Strabo Geogr. lib. 4. And it is as unlike that the Christian Religion excluded Bishops in this Island from Secular Judicatures since King Lucius is directed to take out his Laws for the regulating of his Kingdom by the Advice of his Council ex utráque pagina the Old and New Testament which could not be done in that Age without the help of his Bishops See Sir H. Spelman's Councils p. 34. Ann. Dom. 185. And how the great Prelates among the ancient Britains were wholly employ'd in these kind of secular agitations you may see in the Ecclesiastical Laws of Howel Dha set forth by Sir H. Spelman pag. 408. anno 940. And a little before this Howel Dha lived K. Aetheljtan in the second Chapter of whose Ecclesiastical Laws we have it peremptorily set down Hinc debent Episcopi cum Saeculi Judicibus interesse judiciis and particularly in all Judgments of the Ordeals which no man that understands the word can make any doubt to have been extended to Mutilation and Death Sir H. S. Counc p. 405. ann 928. And that the Bishops joyned alwaies with the secular Lords in all Judicatory Laws and Acts under the whole reign of the Saxons and Danes in this Island we may see by those Saxon-Danish Laws or rather Capitularies which among the French and Germans do signifie a mixture of Laws made by the Prince the Bishops and the Barons to rule both Church and Common-wealth set forth by Mr. Lambert anno 1568. See particularly the ninth Chapter of St. Edward's Laws De his qui ad judicium sorri vel aquae judicati sunt fol. 128. And thus it continued in this Kingdom long after the Conquest to wit in Henry Beu-clerk's time after whose Reign it began to be a little limited and restrained for at Clarendon anno 1164 8 Calend. Febr. 11 Henr. 21 a general Record is agreed upon by that King 's Special Command of all the Customs and Liberties of this Kingdom ever since Hen. the First the King's Grandfather as you may see in Matth. Paris p. 96 of the first Edition where among other Customs agreed upon this is one Archbishops and Bishops and all other persons of this Kingdom which hold of the King in capite are to enjoy their Possessions of the King as a Barony and by reason thereof are to answer before the Judges and Officers of the King and to observe and perform all the King's Customs And just as the rest of the Barons ought for it was a Duty required of them as the King now by his Summons doth from us to be present in the Judgments of the King's Courts together with the rest of the Barons until such time as they shall there proceed to the mangling of Members or Sentence of Death 147. Observe that there is a diversity of reading in the last words for Matth. Paris a young Monk that lived long after reads this Custom thus Quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum vel ad mortem Which may be wrested to the first agitation of any Charge tending that way but Quadrilogus a Book written in that very Age and the original Copy of the Articles of Clarendon which Becket sent to Rome extant at this day in the Vatican Library and out of which Baronius in his Annals anno 1164 transcribes it reads the Custom thus Usque perveniatur in judicio ad diminutionem membrorum c. which leaves the Bishops to sit there until the Judgment come to be pronounced amounting to Death or Mutilation of Members And as this was agreed to be the Custom so was it the Practice also after that 11th year to wit in the 15th year of Henry the Second at what time the Lay-Peers are so far from requiring the Bishops to withdraw that they endeavour to force them alone to hear and determine a matter of Treason in the person of Becket Stephanides is my Author for this who was a Chaplain and Follower of that Archbishop The Barons say saith that Author You Bishops ought to pronounce Sentence upon your selves we are Laicks you are Church-men as Becket is you are his fellow-Priests and fellow-fellow-Bishops To whom some one of the Bishops replied This belongs to you my Lords rather than to us for this is no ecclesiastical but a secular Judicature We sit not here as Bishops but as Barons Nos Barones vos Barones hic Pares sumus And in vain it is that you should labour to find any difference at all in our Order or Calling See this Manuscript cited by Mr. Selden Titles of Honour 2 Edit p. 705. And thus the Custom continued till the 21st year of the same King Henry II. at what time that Provincial Synod was kept at Westminster by the Archbishop of Canterbury and some few of his Suffragans which Roger Hoveden mentions in his History p. 543. And it seems Gervasius Dorobernensis which is a Manuscript I have not seen The quoting of this Monk in the Margin of that Collection of Privileges which Mr. Selden by command had made for the Upper House of Parliament is the only ground of stirring up this Question against the Bishops at this present intended by Mr. Selden for a Privilege to the Bishops not for a Privilege to the Lay Peers to be pressed against the Bishops The Canon runs thus It is not lawful for such as are constituted in Holy Orders Judicium sanguinis agitare to put in execution Judgment of Blood and therefore we forbid that they shall either in their own persons execute any such mutilation of Members or sentence them to be so acted by others And if any such person shall do any such thing he shall be deprived of the Office and Place of his Order and Function We do likewise sorbid under the peril of Excommunication that no Priest be a secular Sheriff or Provost Now this is no Canon made in England much less confirmed by Common Law or assented to by all the Bishops of the Province of Canterbury or by any one of the Province of York but transcribed as appears by Hovenden's Margin out of a Council of Toledo which in the time that Council is supposed to be held was the least Kingdom in Spain and not so big as York-shire and consequently improper to regulate all the World and especially this remote Kingdom of England Beside as this poor Monk sets it down it doth inhibit Church-men from being Hang-men rather than from being Judges to condemn men to be thus mutilated and mangled in their
Bishops Dispensations only but Mandates also And those Bishops have been fined at the Kings Bench and elsewhere that absented themselves from Councils in Parliament without the King 's special leave and licence first obtained Thirdly When they are forbidden interesse to be present the meaning is not in the very Canons themselves that they should go out of the room but only that they should not be present to add Authority Help and Advice to any Sentence pronounced against a particular or individual Person in cause of Blood or mutilation If he be present auctorizando consilium opem vel operam dando then he contracts an irregularity and no otherwise saith our Linwood out of Innocentius And the Canon reacheth no further than to him that shall pronounce Sentence of Death or Mutilation upon a particular Person For Prelates that are of Counsel with the King in Parliament or otherwise being demanded the Law in such and such a Case without naming any individuum may answer generaliter loquendo That Treason is to be punisht with Death and a Counterseiter of the King's Coin Hostien lib. 2. eap de fals monet allowed by John Montague de Collatione Parliamentorum In Tracta Doctor Vol. 10. p. 121. Fourthly These Canons are not in force in England to bind the King's Subjects for several Reasons First Because they are against his Majesty's Prerogative as you may see it clearly in the Articles of Clarendon and the Writ of Summons and therefore abolished 25 H. 8. c. 8. It is his Majesty's Prerogative declar'd at Clarendon that all such Ecclesiastical Peers as hold of him by Barony should assist in the King's Judicatures until the very actual pronouncing of a Sentence of Blood And this holds from Henry the First down to the latter end of Queen Elizabeth who imployed Archbishop Whitgist as a Commissioner upon the Life of the Earl of Essex to keep him in Custody and to examine him after that Commotion in London And to say that this Canon is confirm'd by Common Law is a merry Tale there being nothing in the Common Law that tends that way Secondly It hath been voted in the House of Commons in this very Session of Parliament That no Canons since the Conquest either introduced from Rome by Legatine Power or made in our Synods had in any Age nor yet have at this present any power to bind the Subjects of this Realm unless they be confirmed by Act of Parliament Now these Canons which inhibit the Presence of Church-men in Cause that concerns Life and Member were never confirm'd by any but seem to be impeach't by divers and sundry Acts of Parliament Thirdly The whole House of Peers have this very Session despised and set aside this Canon Law which some of the young Lords cry up again in the same Session and in the very same Cause to take away the Votes of the Bishops in the Case of the Earl of Strafford For by the same Canon Law that forbids Clergy-men to Sentence they of that Coat are more strictly inhibited to give no Testimony in Causes of Blood Nee ettam potest esse test is vel tabellio in causâ Sanguinis Linw. part 2. sol 146. For no Man co-operates more in a Sentence of Death than the Witnesses upon whose Attestation the Sentence is chiefly past Lopez pract crim c. 98. distl 21. and yet have the Lords admitted as Witnesses produced by the House of Commons against the Earl of Strafford the Archbishops of Canterbury and Armagh with the Bishop of London which Lords command now all Bishops to withdraw in the agitation of the self same Case Bishops it seems may be Witnesses to kill ont-right but may not sit in the Discussion of the Cause to help in case of Innocency a distressed Nobleman Whereas the very Gothish Bishops who first invented this Exclusion of Prelates from such Judicatures allow them to Vote as long as there is any hope left of clearing the Party or gaining of Pardon 4. Conc. Tol. Can. 31. And by the beginning of that Canon observe the use in Spain in that Age Anno 633. as touching this Doctrine Saepe principes contra quoslibet majestatis obnoxios Sacerdotibus negotia sua committunt Binnius 4. Tom. Can. Edit ult p. 592. Lastly In the Case of Archbishop Abbot all the great Civilians and Judges of the Land as Dr. Steward Sir H. Martin the Lord Chief Justice Hobart and Judge Doderidge which two last were very well versed in the Canon Law delivered positively when my self at first opposed them That all Irregularities introduced by Canons upon Ecclesiastical Persons concerning matters of Blood were taken away by the Reformation of the Church of England and were repugnant to the Statute 25 II. 8. as restraining the King 's most just Prerogative to imploy his own Subjects in such Functions and Offices as his Predecessors had done and to allow them those Priviledges and Recreations as by the Laws and Customs of this Realm they had formerly enjoy'd notwithstanding the Decree de Clerico venatore or the Constitution nae Clerici Saeculare c. or any other in that kind 150. The only Objection which appears upon any Learning or Record against the Clergies Voting in this Kingdom in Causes of Blood are two or three Protestations entred by the Bishops among the Records of the upper House of Parliament and some few Passages in the Law-Books relating thereunto The Protestation the Lords now principally stand upon is that of William Courtney Archbishop of Canterbury 11 Rich. 2. inserted in the Book of Priviledges which Mr. Selden collected for the Lords of the upper House In the Margin whereof that passage out of R. Hovenden about which we spake before about Clergy-mens agitation of Judgments of Blood is unluckily inserted and for want of due consideration and some suspicion of partial carriage in the Bishops in the case of the Earl of Strafford hath been eagerly pressed upon the Bishops by some of the Lords in such an unusual and unaccustomed manner that if I my self offering to speak to this Objection had not voluntarily withdrawn the rest of the Bishops and I had been without hearing voted out of the House in the agitation of a Splinter of that Cause of the Earl of Strafford's which came not near any matter of Blood An act never done before in that honourable House and ready to be executed suddenly without the least consideration of the merit of the Cause The only words insisted upon in the Protestation of Courtney's are these Because in this present Parliament certain matters are agitated whereat it is not lawsul for us according to the Prescript of holy Canons to be present And by and by after they say These matters are such in the which Nec possumus nec debemus interesse This is the Protestation most stood upon That of Archbishop Arundel 21 Rich. 2. is not so full and ample as this of Courtney's For the Bishops going forth left their Proxies with the
Garbage That is in plain English the Priest must no longer receive Obligations from either King or Lords but wholly depend upon his Holy Fathers the Pope of Rome and the Pope of Lambeth or at least wise pay him soundly for their Dispensations and Absolutions when they presume to do the contrary In the mean time here is not one word or shew of Reason to inform an understanding man that persons in Holy Orders ought not to terrisie the Bad and comfort the Good to repress Sin and chastise Sinners which is the summa totalis of the Civil Magistracy and consequently so far forth at the least to intermeddle with Secular Affairs And this is all that I shall say touching the Motive and Ground of this Bill and that persons in Holy Orders ought not to be inhibited from intermeddling in Secular Astairs either in point of Divinity or in point of Conveniency and Policy 163. The second Point consists of the Persons reflected upon in this Bill which are Archbishops Bishops Parsons Vicars and all others in Holy Orders of which point I shall say little only finding these Names huddled up in an Heap made me conceive at first that it might have some relation to Mr. 〈◊〉 Reading in the Middle Temple which I ever esteem'd to have been very inoffentively deliver'd by that learned Gentleman and with little discretion question'd by a great Ecclesiastick then in Place for all that he said was this That when the Temporal â—ords are more in Voices than the Spiritual they may pass a Bill without consent of the Bishops Which is an Assertion so clear in Reason and so often practis'd upon the Records and Rolls of Parliament that no man any way vers'd in either of these can make any doubt of it nor do I though I humbly conceive no Preâ—ident will be ever sound that the Prelates were ever excluded otherwise than by their own Folly Fear or Headiness For the point of being Justices of Peace the Gentleman confesseth he never meddled with Archbishops nor Bishops nor with any Clergyman made a Justice by His Majesty's Commission In the Statute made 34 Edw. 3. c. 1. he finds Assignees for the keeping of the Peace one Lord three or four of the most valiant men of the County the troublesome times did then so require it And if God do not bless us with the riddance of these two Armies the like Provision will be now as necessary He finds these men included but he doth not find Churchmen excluded no not in the Statute 13 Rich. II. c. 7. that requires Justices of Peace to be made of Knights Esquires and Gentlemen of the Law of the most sufficient of each County In which words the Gentleman thinks Clerks were not included and I clearly say by his favour they are not excluded nor do the learned Sages of the Law conceive them to be excluded by that Statute If the King shall command the Lord Keeper to fill up the Commissions of each County with the most sufficient Knights Esquires and Gentlemen of the Law shall the Lord Keeper thereupon exclude the Noblemen and the Prelates I have often in my days received this Command but never heard of this Interpretation before this time So that I cannot conceive from what ground this general Sweepstake of Archbishops Bithops Parsons Vicars and all others in Holy Orders should proceed I have heard since the beginning of my Sickness that it hath been alledg'd in this House that the Clergy in the Sixth of Edw. 3. did disavow that the Custody of the Peace did belong to them at all and I believe that such a thing is to be sound among the Notes of the Privileges of this House but first you must remember that it was in a great Storm and when the Waters were much troubled and the wild People unapt to be kept in order by Miters and Crosier-staves But yet if that noble Lord shall be pleased to cast his Eye upon the Roll it self he shall find that this poor Excuse did not serve the Prelates turns for they were compelled with a witness to defend the preservation of the Peace of the Kingdom for their parts as well as the Noblemen and Gentry And you shall find the Ordinance to this effect set down upon that Roll. I conclude therefore with that noble Lord's favour that the sweeping of all the Clergy out of temporal Offices is a motion of the first impression and was never heard in the English Common-wealth before this Bill 164. I come in the third place to the main part of this Cause the things to be severed from all men in Holy Orders which are as I told you of three kinds 1. Matters of Free-hold as the Bishops Votes in Parliament and Legislative Power 2. Matters of Favour to be a Judge in Star-chamber to be a a Privy-Councillor to be a Justice of Peace or a Commissioner in any Temporal Affairs 3. Mixt Matters of Free-hold and Favour too as the Charters of some Bishops and many of the ancient Cathedrals of this Kingdom who allow them a Justice or two within themselves or their Close as they call it and exempt those grave and learned men from the Rudeness and Insolency of Tapsters Brewers Inn-keepers Taylors and Shoe-makers which do integrate and make up the Bodies of our Country-Cities and Incorporations And now is the Ax laid to the very Root of the Ecclesiastical Tree and without your Lordships Justice and Favour all the Branches are to be lopt off quite with those latter Clauses and the Stock and Root it self to be quite grubb'd and digged up by that first point of abolishing all Vote and Legislative Power in all Clergymen leaving them to be no longer any part of the People of Rome but meer Slaves and Bond-men to all intents and purposes and the Priests of England one degree interiour to the Priests of Jerâ—boam being to be accounted worse than the Tail of the People Now I hope no English-man will doubt but this Vote and Representation in Parliament is not only a Freehold but the greatest Freehold that any Subject in England or in all the Christian World can brag of at this day that we live under a King and are to be govern'd by his Laws that is not by his arbitrary Edicts or Rescripts but by such Laws confirmed by him and assented to by us either in our proper Persons or in our Assignees and Representations This is the very Soul and Genius of our Magna Charta and without this one Spirit that great Statute is little less than litera occidens a dead and useless piece of Paper You heard it most truly opened unto you by a wise and judicious Peer of this House that Legem patere quam ipse tuleris was a Motto wherein Alexander Severus had not more interest than every true-born Englishman No Forty-shillings-man in England but doth in person or representation enjoy his Freedom and Liberty The Prelates of this Kingdom as a Looking-glass
the World is more civil than in Ages past but the longer it lasts our Wars are more licentious and barbarous Livy says Fabritius was as innocent in War as in Peace Just in boasts of greater things lib. 25. Multa tune honest iùs bella gerebantur quà m nunc amicitiae coluntur Formerly they found honester Foes in the Field than we find Friends in the City When the rudeness of the common Soldier abated by courteous treatment the greater disliculty was to thrust back the Ambition of divers more than enough that would be Commanders Words of high Language past between him and some Gallants before they would sit down Ambrosius vir optimae ment is sed elatae says Lud. Molin Paren p. 539. So this Ambrose was not to be out-braved with a Buff-Jerkin and a Feather And though some of the Cavaâ—iers love not his memory for it to this time yet I shall give no scratch to Truth or Reputation to declare my self in his Defence that it was to be praised in him that he repuised the English from being chief Oâ—icers oâ—er the old Britains in their own Soil And it was prudence to preserve the Bulkly's that great Family of Anglesey in the Vice-Admiralty of those Seas rather than a valiant Gentleman born in Cambridgeshire for they will venture further with their own Deputy-Lieutenants Gentry and Landlord than with a Stranger The Western-men were never so well in heart as with their own Bevile Greenvile Ralph Hopton Killigrew Godolphin c. when they chang'd these for other Generals and Colonels their Purses were shut their Courage fell and their Duties were slackned In all these Contrasts the Archbishop prevailed and broke through Mutinies and high Threats which had been impossible but that he was ever most obliging and merciful in his greatest Fortune Bona sibi comparat praesidia misericordia He that would never hurt any when he might was most like if any to be shot free 196. Let it stick upon his good Name as a mark of Heroick Loyalty that he fell to these works upon his own cost and peril before the King was aware nor had yet requir'd it of him which will bring in that of Xenophon l. 3. Hist Hystaspas and Chrysantus were Cyrus his most faithful Ministers Hystaspas would do all that Cyrus bad him Chrysantus would do that which he thought was pleasing to Cyrus's Service before he bad him But when his Majesty heard of this Prelates Actions he posted Letters often to him and those so sweet and affecting that they did recoct his drooping Age into Youth and cozened him that he saw no danger in the Camp and selt no envy from the Parliament Of those Letters there are many reserv'd yet no more shall be produced than concerns the keeping of Conway-Castle because it turn'd to a sharp quarrel and procur'd him obloquy From Oxford Aug. 1. 1643. CHARLES R. MOst Reverend Father in God c. We are informed by our Servant Orlando Bridgman not only of the good Encouragement and Assistance you have given him in our Service but also of your own personal and earnest endeavours to promote it And though we have had long experience of your fidelity readiness and zeal in what concerns us yet it cannot but be most acceptable unto us that you still give unto us fresh occasions to remember it And we pray you to continue to give all possible assistance to our said Servant And whereas you are new resident at our Town of Aber-Conway where there is a Castle heretofore belonging to our Crown and now to the Lord Conway which with some charge is easily made defensible but the Lord Conwaybeing imprison'd by some of our rebellious Subjects and not able to furnish it as is requisite for our Service and the defence of those parts You having begun at your own charge to put the same into repair We do heartâ—y desire you to go on in that Work assuring you that whatsoever Moneys you shall lay out upon the Fortification of the said Castle shall be repayed unto you before the Cusiody thereof shall be put into any other hand than your own as such as you shall recommend Upon the backside of this gracious Letter this the Archbishop hath written with his own Hand I Jo. Archbishop of York have assigned my Nephew Mr. Will. Hookes Esq Alderman of Conway to have the Custody of this Castle mention'd in his Majesty's Letter under his Signet until I shall be repay'd the Moneys and Money-worth disbursed by me in the repair thereof by virtue of this Warrant And in case of Mortality I do assign my Nephew Gryffith Williams to the same effect Jan. 2. 1643. 197. New Motions and sudden started Counsels were no new thing at the Court in Oxford Now the illustrious Prince Rupert is made the Generalissimo and the Powers of the War are given to him The Lord John Byron is entrusted and furnish't with a part to secure North-Wales Neither of them had success according to his Cause or according to his Courage What Charge his Majesty gave to them both to listen to the Archbishops Counsels appears in the following Letters From the King to Prince Rupert Apr. 17. 1646 Right dear and right entirely beloved Nephew c. WHereas our most Reverend Father in God our right trusty and entirely beloved John Archbishop of York makes his abode in the remotest parts of North-Wales and hath been heretofore by reason of his great and long experience very useful to us in the advising and directing of the Commissioners of the Peace and Array in the several Counties of Carnarvan Anglesey and Merioneth in all things nearly concerning our Service Supplies and Assistance and that we have required the said Commissioners from time to time to listen to all his reasonable Counsels and Advice to that effect We thought it sit to let you understand that we have laid our Commands upon the said most Reverend Father in God to do you upon whom we have placed the care and government of those parts the like Service in this kind if you shall hold it fit to require it the said Archbishop humbly desiring us it might be no otherwise imposed upon him which we thought fit to signifie unto you As also that esteem we have of his Abilities and entire Affections in our Service which we desire you to encourage by all fair respects So we bid you heartily farewel Another of his Majesty's follows to the Archbishop Febr. 25. 1645. WHereas we have appointed the Lord Byron to Command in chief over all our Garrisons and Forces in North-Wales and hope that by his good Conduct in those parts our Service and the Countreys Security will be furthered with all diligence Nevertheless for his better and more effectual proceeding therein we have thought to fit desire the ready concurrence with him of your self and all our Friends knowing well how considerable advantage yours and their hearty and unanimous endeavours with him there will bring to our
thither at that Season from Lord Chancellor Elsmore's House and the very brave Attendance of the Lord Privy-Seal the lately confirm'd Chancellor of the University divers others attended the Elder Brother of the Act. Sir Charles Stanhop Knight of the Bath only Son and Heir to John Lord Stanhop of Harington a comely Gentleman that took his Degree of Master and well deserv'd it as much by the Proficiency of his Learning as by the Title of his Blood These Gallants must be Feasted by the Proctor and there was no Want I would there had been no Superfluity These Costly and Luxurious Meals are the Lard of our Commencements thrust in among the better Banquets of Scholastical Exercises The Proctors Table was more Sumptuous I understand my Comparison for the time then useth to be at a Mayoralty in London I do not reckon it among his clean and unblemish'd Praises But if I may presume to sit Judge over his Thoughts I believe He took Parsimony to be most uncivil Behaviour The Prevaricator made me smile when he gave him this Character to his Face Titus Largius primus Dictator Romanorum To express my self a little further These Messes of good Chear ought to be frankly set out at the times of such Genial and Gaudy Days It were a wise World if they could be kept within Moderation The wise and well-governing Heathen Romans had Leges Cibarias as old thrifty Cato term'd them Leges sumptum comprimentes in the Style of Tertullian in his Apology I take it from A. Gellius lib. 2. c. 24. that the Sum of 300 Sestertii and no more were permitted to be spent in feriis Solennibus which comes to about 40 Shillings or a little under as I cast it up with my Counters Yet Liberal Julius Caesar indulg'd on such Occasions the Expence of 1000 his Nephew Augustus bounded it up to 2000 which comes not altogether to 15 Pounds of our Money Ut his saltem finibus Luxuriae effervescentis aestus coercerctur And this was granted only to Senators the Princes of the World and not to Scholars and that neither but in Nuptiis Repotiis at the Feast of the Bride and the Repotations of the Bridegroom I want not Commission to spend this little Ink and it is but very little upon this Subject For the Holy Scriptures speak of Salomon's Feasts as well as of Salomon's Wisdom Howsoever these Junquets and the mention are quickly taken away with a Voider The Feasts of his Learning and Eloquence demonstrated in the Theatre of the Commencement that was the open House-keeping were far more delicious and sweet to the Ear then Meats could be to the Belly All his Speeches were damask'd quite over with most pleasant Allusions out of Greek and Latin Authors This was the last Scene acted on the Stage of that one Year's Office and it had the loudest Plaudite Indeed this was the Vintage when more then ever before he press'd out the ripe Grapes of his Elegancies Virgil. Georg. Tumidisbumasta racemis These were his Olympic Wrestlings wherein he got the Mastery in all sorts of Exercises As Laertius says of Democritus lib. 9. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So this Champion got the best at all the Weapons of Philosophy Selected Questions were disputed and fit for the greatest Celebrity of the Year extracted out of the Politics Natural Theorems and the Metaphysics he became Victor in every Duel And so he shut up his Proctorship as to the Learned Trial of it here it ended with that General Testimony of his Praise Ut puderet virum altius extollere as Pollio says of Valerianus that neither we could give nor he with modesty receive a greater Commendation 31. These Performances being so well over he left Cambridge and made a happy Remove as a Consul well approved in the Year of his Magistracy was transposed into a Proconsulat or Charge of a Province to testifie the good liking of the People to his precedent Office By this Province I mean his Chaplain-Attendance in the House of Lord Chancellor Egerton a Nest for an Eagle From that Step in the House of Lord Chancellor Hatton Dr. Bancroft began to rise higher till he came to be Metropolitan of all England By the like Service in the House of Lord Keeper Puckering Dr. Vaughan first made his Abilities known and afterward got his Prince's Favour to sit in the See of London Now the Disciple whom these two great Prelates loved so well performing that Trust with Lord Egerton which they had done with his Lordship's Predecessors was their Match at least in Dispatch and Judgment and by God's Providence their Equal in Prosperity Yet before I settle him for good and all in this Honourable Family which will best be done in an whole Piece without disjoyning it I must bring him to Cambridge again by an Act of Revocation A fond Mother that dotes upon her dear Son whom she hath sent abroad to be Manner'd and Disciplin'd will pick many Occasions after a little absence to recal him But the Expedient and not the Fondness which made the University borrow him of the Lord Chancellor his Master after he had been 7 months away was this The King 's only Daughter the Glorious Princess Elizabeth was married at Whitehall to Frederick Prince Palatine and Chief Elector of the Empire at Shrovetide Nothing could be devised to Honour a Royal Solemnity with Bravery Tiltings Barriers Masques and all sorts of Triumphs which was not used and presented The Gallantry of the Court having had deservedly the first Place in Celebrating these Nuptials it was Resolved by the King's Majesty That His Son-in-Law the Elector with the Strangers of the Platz should be received for a Conclusion with an Academical Entertainment at Cambridge The Warning coming to Dr. Carew the Vice-Chancellor a Prudent Courtly Man and very fit for the Service Matters were put in a short time into Order and Readiness The Earl of Northampton our Chancellor was expected for Tradition Immemorial required him at such a season but the frugal old Man appeared not The Charge of great Fare and Feasting was not more Costly then Welcom to the brave Mind of Dr. Nevile Master of Trinity College who never had his like in that Orb I believe for a splendid courteous and bountiful Gentleman His Table was Graced with the Company of Prince Charles Prince Elector Frederick the Bridegroom Count Henry of Nassaw Lodwick Duke of Lenox with a most comely Concourse of Nobles and Gentlemen both of the German and English Nations In two distinct Nights a Comick and a Pastoral Fable both in Latin were Acted before their Highnesses and other Spectators by the Students of the same College This was Play the rest was Work The Scholastical Dissertations were the Work of the Day the Church of St. Mary being Scaffolded for that use 32. The Vice-Chancellor with the Sages of the Consistory concluded there should be a kind of Commencement extraordinary to Congratulate these Potentates and
For read him what he was indeed out of the Description which Tacitus gives lib. 16. Annal. circa finem to P. Egnatius Client to Soranus the famous Senator Cliens hic Sorani autoritatem Stoicae sectae praeferebat habitu ore ad exprimendam imaginem honesti exercitus caeterùm animo perfidiosus subdolus Yet this Stoical Gravity did not long conceal him but that his needless Vexations of harmless People his cutting Fees his Briberies and other Muck of the same Dunghil made an out-cry and put the King 's good People to seek a Remedy by preferring Articles against him at the Assizes where he was charg'd home with an Alphabet of Misdemeanors He pleaded to the general that he was so much despited because he had look'd more narrowly into the Disobedience of the Paritans then formerly had been used My Opinion is that such Physicians of no value Job 13.4 may cast the Water of such sick Distempers but will never heal them Infamous Judges may correct them they will never rectifie them For he that is fallen into a Moral Turpitude is soon convinc'd in his own Mind but he that is misguided by darkness of Understanding thinks that he doth right to his own Conscience by going wrong and is never so well reclaim'd as when he is mildly rebuk'd by them whose open Integrity and Pity justifie them that they walk as Children of the Light But for the Particulars which laid down so many Oppressions at the Official's door they were not Dust which would be brush'd away with the Fox Tail but Dirt that stuck to him till the Dean his Mediator obtain'd from the Judges a Reference to himself and some others for further Examination By which sly Diversion some of his Charges were laid aside by Composition all of them by delay and delusion After this what should be the End of it I know not without it were to make him look big and superciliously upon his Prosecutors the Dean engaged his Friends at Cambridge my self was one that was solicited from him to sublimate the Official with the Degree of a Doctor wherein he had one Repulse in the Regent-House such an ill relish his Name had but he was carried out in a second day's Scrutiny But for all his Doctorship he was not out of the Brakes he was but Tapisht as Hunters call it The stirring Spirits of the the subtle Air of Northamptonshire prefer'd their Articles afresh against him to the House of Commons assembled in Parliament an 1620. Wedges enough to cleave a bigger Log then Dr. Lamb and yet he was no little one but Saginati corporis bellua as Curtius says of Dioxippus the Pugil Well nay indeed ill his Friend that was too sure to such a branded Man now become the Dean of a College near to the Parliament finds the Articles in the hand of the Chair-man of the Committee appointed to sift the Complaints it was Sir Edward Sackvil afterward the brave-spoken Earl of Dorset with whom he wrought to abortive the Bill before it came to the Birth and so he set Dagon upon his Feet again who was fallen with his face upon the ground 1 Sam. 5.4 but the palms of his Hands were never cut off for so long as he lived he could take a Bribe I blush to remember that the Dean did not only set him up again as well as ever he stood before but raised him higher For he wrote to a great Lord in Court the Letter is among my Papers to procure him the Honour of Knighthood which was obtained And when his Enemies laboured to cut his Comb he got the Spurs 'T was pleasantly spoken by Sir Ed. Montagu since that Pious and Loyal Lord Montagu of Boughton when a cluster came about him to ask Counsel and Assistance for a third Petition against Sir John Lamb says Sir Edward If we tamper the third time his great Friend that hath already made him a Doctor and a Knight I fear will make him a Baron I have thus much to say for the Dean his friend whose very Entrails I knew that he was strongly espoused to love where he had loved and 't was hard to remove his Affections when good Pretences had gained them Chiefly he was of a most compassionate Tenderness and could not endure to see any Man's Ruine if he could help it And though Offences were as legible as a Dominical Letter he would excuse any thing that was capable of an Excuse as far as Wit and Mercy could contrive it But if a little Confession were wrung out it cut down many Faults to make him see as it were a Glade of Repentance in a Grove of Sins and did ever hope for better Fruits upon easie and formal Promises Let Quintilian help me out a little more in his sixth Declam Si angustus saltem detur accessus per quem intrare humanit as possit vera clementia occasione contenta est Yet David's Rule is better then all this Be not merciful to them that offend of malicious wickedness Psal 59.5 And our God is so merciful that whosoever adds a dram beyond his Pattern it must be reckoned for foolish and hurtful Lenity Certainly God was not pleased that the Dean would save a Man whom He meant to destroy 1 King 20.42 And though it slept Unpunished about 12 Years yet in the end the Lord awaken'd it with a Mischief through the treachery of that Man whom himself had protected 45. That which I have hitherto pass'd over was but his low and shrubbish Fortune compared with that Access which the Providence of God in short time after did cast upon him Which Providence is Religiously appeal'd to in all things yet without any check to Reason and Experience to trace it in its Manifestations The Omni-regency of Divine Providence is the Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden of the World the Strings of whose Root are secretly interwoven with all Works and Motions But the Sons of Adam are not content unless they taste of the Tree of Knowledge and have a Lust as far as Curiosity can pry to learn how God doth put the Issue of his Wisdom into outward and Instrumental Causes I am ready therefore to shew what Men will seek the Occasions which were in the way and who was Lord of the Ascendant when God did raise up this his Servant that he might set him with Princes even with the Princes of his People Psal 113.8 His Abilities were worthy of a great Place none so Emulous or so Envious that denied it Neither was there any Church-man in his time so likely to purchase a great Place with those Abilities He that will will read Budaeus his Epistle to his Notations upon the Pandects shall find this Character of Mons Peganay Chancellor of France Cujus ea vis fuisse ingenii at que animi cernitur ut quocunque loco natus esset in quodcunque tempus incidisset fortunam ipse sibi facturus videretur A Word as fit
is put up to that Effect to settle the Custodes Rotulorum and the Clerks of the Peace for Term of Life upon the Persons who now possess them which as it is inconvenient so it is very prejudicial and derogating from the next Lord Chancellor Finally the Under-Officers do also Petition unto the Lords not without Encouragement to have some Collops out of the Lord Chancellors Fees and New Devices will daily spring up if the disposing be delayed any longer Now I hope when your Lordship shall use this Information to let the King see it that you will excuse me for the boldness that I am put upon by your great Commands The Lord Marquess being not a little Ambitious to present the King with Works of the Brain strongly wrought and well carded offered this Paper to his Majesty from the Dean of Westminster when the Ink was scarce dry which caused this unlook'd for saying from the King You Name divers to me to be my Chancellor Queen Elizabeth after the Death of Sir Christopher Hatton was inclined in her own Judgment that the good man Arch-Bishop Whitgift should take the place who modestly refus'd it because of his great Age and the whole multitude of Ecclesiastical Affairs lying upon his Shoulders Yet Whitgift knew not the half that this Man doth in Reference to this Office The Lord Marquess the less he look'd for those Words the more he lik'd them and Replied extempore Sir I am a Suitor for none but for him that is so capable of the Place in your great judgment Be you satisfied then says the King I think I shall seek no further The Lord Marquess impotent to contain his Gladness sent a blind Message to the Dean immediately That the King had a Preferment in the Deck for him He nothing aware of what the King had spoken in design to the Dignity of keeping the Great-Seal mistook the Message to be meant of the Bishopric of London now wanting a sit Prelate by the Death of him that was most fit while he lived Dr. King whose Soul Heaven received Mar. 30. In prospect whereof the Dean was a Suitor before But it hapned to him as Velleius said of Scipio AEmilianus AEdilitatem petens Consul creatus est He sued for the Edileship and because that was too little he was made a Consul This is the very manner as faithfully digested as any History can be contexed how this Preeminency dropt upon him that never dreamt of it It is not like to some mistaken Report that then went about and may yet be believed by some But thus much is copiously disclosed for their sakes that had rather be Disciples of Truth then Masters of Error 63. Such a Reader is invited to a further Collation engaging upon peril of offending God not to clam his Taste with the smallest Collection of Flattery The Chancellorship or a Title equivalent to that Office is a Supreme Dignity in the Empire of Germany and in all Christian Kingdoms and States and further then Christendom executed by the Grand Visier of the Port at Constantinople Only the Chief Pontiff of the See of Rome styles the Prelate of his Palace who presides in that Employment his Vice-Chancellor and no more And why Because says Gomesius in his Proem to the Rules of that Court Vices agit Cancellarii Dei quia Papa est Dei Cancellarius He can be but a Vice for the Pope himself is God's Chancellor Let him be as Liberal as he will to himself by his own Assumption I am certain he is not such by God's Nomination Leaving the Pontifical Court to its own Platform elsewhere the Chancellor is the Chief Magistrate under the Supreme Power of the King that sets him up To which purpose Budaeus in his Notes upon the Pandects p. 325. Cancellariatus summum est hodie honorum fastigium quasi quoddam summa quaeque ambientis animi solstitium This was it then which was marvel'd and look'd upon as a Rarity that the King should prefer the Dean of Westminster though very richly qualified in a Churchman's condition to the Estival Solstice of Honour as Budaeus calls it at one step who had never pass'd through the lower Ascendant Signs of the Zodiac of the Law But that great Master of Wisdom did never repent him that He had trusted such a Servant so far never gave the least sign of Displeasure to the day of his Death that He would Remove him never tax'd him that he had gone awry in any thing either as a public or private Person Which good Opinion he kept so constantly that after two years Probation in his Office I find these Lines in a Letter which he send to the Lord of Buckingham to Madrid May 11. 1623. The King's Grace to me is such that I profess before God I never received ill Word or clouded Aspect from him since the first day I served him in this great Place His Majesty would many times speak of him that He never met with a better States-man for a clear and far-reaching Judgment His Knowledge was a Political Circle that comprehended all things in it Bring any Matter unto him his Reason was never shallow nor at Low-Water He studied Foreign Courts as much as this at home and cared not what he paid to expert Ministers Strangers or Native to be acquainted with the Secrets of their Masters The best to whom he may be similized herein is Frier Paul the Servite of whom it is written When any News were bruited he seldom was mistaken in his Opinion whether they were true or false and nothing could be propounded to him to which he did not suddenly give an Answer and with that Solidity as if he had meditated much upon those Answers which were conceived presently under the Question Such an Eminency of Intellectual Parts opened the broad Gate for this Dean to enter into the Royal Favour As among Plants it is the property of the Palm-Tree says Philo lib. 1. de Vit. Mos that the Vital Virtue thereof is not in the Root which is under the Earth but in the top of the Trunk as in the Head which is next to Heaven And Pliny lib. 13. c. 4. accords well unto it Dulci medulla earum in cacumine quod cerebrum vocant The sweet and succulent Marrow in the top is the Brain and Life of the Palm So to them that enquire how Dean Williams shot up so soon to this Palm of Honour I will point to the top of the Tree even to the Marrow of his Brain Dulcis medulla in cacumine quod cerebrum vocant 64. Withal he was most Industrious and that not by fits but every day did conclude its Work as if he were not to live till to morrow No Cammel did bear more burden then he did when he first entred to sit in the Seat of Lord-Keeper or travel'd further with so little Food and less rest which he suffer'd the better because he was weary of Ease and loved Labour
which he had in a Monastery called Becc in Normandy and that Hospitality kept him when he fled out of England and all the Revenues of his Mitre failed him Stephen Gardner Bishop of Winton and Lord-Chancellor held the Mastership of Trinity-hall to his Dying-day and though he gave forty better Preferments to others he would never leave his Interest in it and did not conceal the Cause but said often If all his Palaces were blown down by Iniquity he would creep honestly into that Shell They that will not be wise by these Examples Ia Teâ— I will send them to School to a Fable in Plautus Cogitato mus pusillus quà m sit sapiens bestia AEtatem qui uni cubili nunquam committit suam Qui si unum ostium obsideatur aliud perfagium quaerit So in the upshot he said Walgrave was but a Mouse-hole yet it would be a pretty Fortification to Entertain him if he had no other Home to resort to He was not the only Prophet of that which is fallen out in these dismal Days many such Divinations flash'd from others who saw the Hills of the Robbers afar off who have now devoured the Heritage of Jacob and say they are not Guilty and they that have sold us and bought us say Blessed be the Lord for we are rich Zech. 11.5 74. Whom I leave to a Day of Account having an Account to give my self how Prosperous the Lord-Keeper was in the King's Affections at this time to whom His Majesty measured out his accumulated Gifts not by the Bushel or by the Coome but by the Barn-full It was much he had compacted his own Portion to such advantage but it was not all for being warm in Favour he got the Royal Grant for the Advancement of four more who are worthy to be named He spake and sped for Dr. Davenant to be made Bishop of Salisbury who had plowed that I may allude to Elisha 1 King 19.19 with twelve yoke of Oxen and was now with the twelfth when this Mantle was cast upon him Twelve years he had been Public Reader in Divinity in Cambridge and had adorn'd the Place with much Learning as no Professor in Europe did better deserve to receive the Labourer's Peny at the twelfth Hour of the Day Beside what a Pillar he was in the Synod of Dort is to be read in the Judgment of the Britain Divines inserted among the public Acts his Part being the best in that Work and that Work being far the best in the Compilements of that Synod The Bishopric of Exon being also then void it came into the Lord-Keeper's head to gratifie a brace of worthy Divines if he could attain it his old Friends who had been both bred in the House of Wisdom with the Lord-Chancellor Egerton Dr. Carew who had been his Chaplain a man of great Reason and polish'd Eloquence and Dr. Dunn who had been his Secretary a Laureat Wit neither was it possible that a vulgar Soul should dwell in such promising Features The Success was quickly decided for these two prevailed by the Lord-Keeper's Commendation against all Pretenders the Bishopric of Exeter was conferred upon Dr. Carew and Dr. Dunn succeeded him in his Deanery of St. Paul's The See of St. David's did then want a Bishop but not Competitors The Principal was Dr. Laud a Learned Man and a Lover of Learning He had fasten'd on the Lord Marquess to be his Mediator whom he had made sure by great Observances But the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury had so opposed him and represented him with suspicion in my judgment improbably grounded of Unsoundness in Religion that the Lord Marquess was at a stand and could not get the Royal Assent to that Promotion His Lordship as his Intimates know was not wont to let a Suit fall which he had undertaken in this he was the stiffer because the Arch-Bishop's Contest in the King's Presence was sour and supercilious Therefore he resolved to play his Game in another hand and conjures the Lord-Keeper to commend Dr. Laud strenuously and importunately to the King 's good Opinion to fear no Offence neither to desist for a little Storm Accordingly he watch'd when the King's Assections were most still and pacisicous and besought His Majesty to think considerately of his Chaplain the Doctor who had deserved well when he was a young Man in his Zeal against the Millenary Petition And for his incorruption in Religion let his Sermons plead for him in the Royal Hearing of which no Man could judge better then so great a Scholar as His Majesty 75. Well says the King I perceive whose Attorney you are Stenny hath set you on You have pleaded the Man a good Protestant and I believe it Neither did that stick in my Breast when I stopt his Promotion But was there not a certain Lady that forsook her Husband and married a Lord that was her Paramour Who knit that Knot Shall I make a man a Prelate one of the Angels of my Church who hath a flagrant Crime upon him Sir says the Lord-Keeper very boldly you are a good Master but who dare serve you if you will not pardon one Fault though of a scandalous Size to him that is heartily Penitent for it I pawn my Faith to you that he is heartily Penitent and there is no other Blot that hath fullied his good Name Vellcius said enough to justifie Murena that had committed but one Fault Sine hòc facinore potuit videri probus You press well says the King and I hear you with patience neither will I revive a Trespass any more which Repentance hath mortified and buried And because I see I shall not be rid of you unless I tell you my unpublish'd Cogitations the plain Truth is that I keep Laud back from all Place of Rule and Authority because I find he hath a restless Spirit and cannot see when Matters are well but loves to toss and change and to bring Things to a pitch of Reformation stoating in his own Brain which may endanger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass God be praised I speak not at random he hath made himself known to me to be such a one For when three years since I had obtained of the Assembly of Perth to consent to Five Articles of Order and Decency in correspondence with this Church of England I gave them Promise by Attestation of Faith made that I would try their Obedience no further anent Ecclesiastic Affairs nor put them cut of their own way which Custom had made pleasing unto them with any new Encroachments Spotswood p. 543. Marquess Hamilton the King's Commissioner in the last Parliament that ever he kept in Scotland having Ratified the Five Articles of Perth by Aâ—â— of Parliament assured the People that His Majesty in his days should not press any more Change on Alterations in matters of that kind without their Consent Yet this man hâ—th pressed me to invite them to a nearer conjunction with the
Liturgy and Canons of this â—â—tion but I sent him back again with the frivâ—lous Draught he had drawn It seems I remembred St. Austin ' s Rule better then he Ipsa mutatio consuetudinis ctiam quae adjuvat utilitate novitate perturbat Ep. 118. For all this he feared not mine Anger but assaulted me again with another illfangled Platform to make that slubborn Kirk stoop more to the English Pattern But I durst not play fast and loose with my Word He knows not the Stomach of that People but I ken the Story of my Grandmother the Queen Regent That after she was inveigled to break her Promise made to some Mutineers at a Perth Meeting she never saw good day but 〈◊〉 thence being much beloved before was despised of all the People And now your 〈◊〉 hath compel'd me to shrive my self thus unto you I think you are at your furthest and have no more to say for your Client May it please you Sir says the Lord-Keeper I will speak but this once You have indeed convicted your Chaplain of an Attempt very Audacious and very Unbeseeming my Judgment goes quite against his C. Gracâ—â—hus mended nothing but lost himself in his Tribuneship Qui nihil 〈◊〉 nihil tranquillum nihil quietum nihil denique in côdom staturelinquebat I am assured he that makes new work in a Church begets new Quarrels for Scriblers and new Jealousies in tender Consciences Yet I submit this to Your Sacred Judgment That Dr Laud is of a great and a tractable Wit He did not well see how he came into this Error but he will presently see the way how to come out of it Some Diseases which are very acute are quickly cured And is there no whee but you musl carry it says the King Then take him to you but on my Soul you will repent it And so went away in Anger using other fierce and ominous Words which were divulged in the Court and are too tart to be repeated So the Lord-Keeper procured to Dr. Laud his first Rochet and retained him in his Prebend of 〈◊〉 a Kindness which then he mightily valued and gave him about a year after a Living of about 120 l. per annum in the Diocese of St. David's to help his Revenue Which being unsought and brought to him at Durham-House by Mr. William Winn his Expression was Mr. Winn my Life will be too short to require your Lord's Goodness But how those Scores were paid is known at home and abroad Which he that will excuse hath no way but to shift it upon an Adagie Unum arbustum nen capit erithecos duos He that would be Great alone cares not whom he depresseth that would be as Great as himself 76. More cannot be required to shew how great the Lord-Keeper's Credit was with the King then that four Bishopricks were bestowed at once to three others with himself for which he interposed All three did then observe him with Congratulation as their Raiser Salisbury and Exeter were Men of faithful Acknowledgment in all their Life Est tanti ut gratum invenias experiri vel ingratos says Seneca He that finds two faithful Men among three is well requited Our Saviour found but one among Ten Luke 17.15 This Quaternion making ready for their Consecration a Calamity fell out which put them all to their Studies that they knew not which way to turn The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury making a Summer Journey into Hampshire was welcom'd by the Lord Zeâ—nch and invited to some Hunting-Sports in Bramshill-Park about St. James-tide The Arch-Bishop pretending to be a Wood-man took a Cross-bow to make a shot at a Buck. One of the Keepers did his Office to wind-less up the Deer to his stand who too suddenly shot at a fair-headed Buck in the Herd But his Arrow meeting with a small Bought in the way was cast a little from the mark and by an unhappy Glance wounded the Keeper in the Arm. It was but a Flesh-wound and a slight one yet being under the Cure of an heedless Surgeon the Fellow died of it the next day The like had never happen'd in our Church nor in any other in the Person of a Bishop and a Metropolitan which made work for Learned Men to turn over their Books Councils and Canon-Laws and Proviso's of Casuists were ransack'd whose Resolutions were unfavourable and greatly to the prejudice of the Fact It was clear in our Common-Law that his Personal Estate was forfeited to the King though it were Homicidium involuntarium But he was quickly comforted that he should not Suffer in that For upon the first Tidings His Majesty who had the Bowels of a Lamb censured the Mischance with these words of melting Clemency That an Angel might have miscarried in that sort The Arch-Bishop was an happy man in this Unhappiness that many Hearts condoled with him and many precious Stones were in the Breast-Plate which he wore that Pleaded for him He was Painful Stout Severe against bad Manners of a Grave and a Voluble Eloquence very Hospital Fervent against the Roman Church and no less against the Arminians which in those days was very Popular he had built and endowed a beautiful Eleemosynary Mansion at Guilford where he was born he sent all the Succors he could spare to the Queen of Bohemia the King 's only Daughter was a most stirring Counsellor for the Defence of the Palatinate was very acceptable to the Nobility and to the People both of this Realm and of Scotland where he had preach'd often 14 years before when he was in the Train of the Earl of Dunbar All those Flowers in his Garland were considered severally and mixtly when this gloomy day of Misfortune bedarken'd him And you may be sure our Sovereign Lord thought it the more Pardonable because it was an Hunting Casualty and was very Humane to those Harms beyond prevention which fell out in that Sport wherein he greatly delighted Therefore His Majesty Resolved and gave it him in a Consolatory Letter under his Hand That He would not add Affliction to his Sorrow nor take one Farthing from his Chattels and Moveables which were Confiscated by our Civil Penalties 77. But it cost more Labour to get out of the Ecclesiastical Brias for many of our best advised Churchmen took it sore to heart and lamented for it not without bitter Tears for the Scandal which was fallen upon our Church in his Person who in the Eye of General Councils and Canon-Laws was wonderfully Tainted and made Uncapable to all Sacred Functions performing Therefore to come home to the case they said God forbid those Hands should Consecrate Biships and Ordain Priests or Administer the Sacraments of Christ which God out of his secret Judgments had thus permitted to be embrued in Human Blood And some of the Prelacy profess'd If they had fallen into the like mischance they would never have despaired of God's Mercy for the other Life but from this World they would have retired and besoughts
of the King Now for your own private I make no question but I may say of you my Lord as one said of Coccius Nerva Foelicior longè quà m cum foelicissimus That you were greater a great deal in your own Contentment than now that you have worthily attained to all this Greatness But as in this World of Things every Element forsakes his Natural Disposition so as we many times see the Earth and Water evaporating upward and the Fire and Air darting downward ad conservationem universi as Philosophy speaks to preserve and maintain the common course So in this World of Men private Must give way to publick Respects Now if it be expected that I should say any thing for your Lordships Direction in this Great Office your Lordships Wisdom and my Ignorance will plead pardon though I omit it I will only say one word and that shall be the same which Pliny said to one Maximus appointed Questor that is Treasurer for Achaia Memenisse oportet Ossicii titulum Remember but your Name and you shall do well enough Your Lordship is appointed Lord Treasurer Take such Order in his Majesties Exchequer that your Lordship do not bear this Denomination and Title in vain and your Lordship shall be worthily honour'd for the happiest Subject in this Kingdom And surely as your Lordship hath the Prayers so you have the Hopes of all good Men that Si Pergama dextrâ defendi poterant If any Man living can improve the Kings Revenue with Skill and Diligence you are that good Husband And so I wish your Lordship as much Joy of your Place as the King and the State do conceive of your Lordship This was the Perfume which was cast upon the new Treasurer in his Robes of Instalment The King was pleased much in his Advancement For his Majesty had proved him with Questions and found that he was well studied in his Lands Customs in all the Profits of the Crown in Stating of Accompts And in the general Opinion the White-Staff was as fit for his Hand as if it been made for it The most that could be objected was that he was true to the King but gripple for himself A good Steward for the Exchequer but sower and unrelishing in Dispatch A better Treasurer than a Courtier There was nothing in appearance but Sun-shine and warm Affections between him and the Lord Keeper The Lord Treasurer I know well had cross'd the other in one or two Suits which had been beneficial to him and not drawn a Denier out of the Kings Purse He dealt so with every Man therefore the Sufferer gave little sign of Grievance It was not his Case alone Another Pick in which they agreed not I cannot say disagreed was about a Brood of Pullein which were never hatcht The last Parliament being dissolv'd it was well thought of by some of the Lords of the Council-Board to sweeten the ill relish which it had in some Palats with a Pardon of Grace that might extend to a fair Latitude for the ease of those that were question'd for old Debts and Duties to the Crown for concealed Wardships and not suing out Liveries and such charges of the like kind which put those that were secure in their Improvidence to a great deal of trouble and disanimated their best Friends for fear of such blind Claps to be their Executors When the Lord Keeper had brought this Pardon so near to his Birth that the Atturney-General was sent for to draw it up the Lord Treasurer mov'd That such as took out this Pardon should pay their Fees which are accustomed in that kind to such Officers as he should appoint that the Advantage might enrich the King and that himself might have that share which the Lord Chancellour us'd to have who put the Seal to those Pardon 's This was heard with a dry laughter and denied him But from thenceforth he struggled to correct the lusty Wine of the Pardon with so much Water that there was no comfort in it and falling short of that Grace which was expected was debated no more The Lord Keeper having obtein'd a good Report for the Conception of the Pardon and the Lord Treasurer a great deal of Envy for the Abortion it curdled in his Stomach into Choler and Mischief And wherefore was he angry with his Brother Abel Look what St. John answers 1 Epist Chap. 3. Vers 12. He endeavoured first to make a Faction in Court against the Lord Keeper and it would not hit because he had no Credit with the Great Ones Then he falls to Pen and Paper and spatters a little Foam draws up Ten What-do-you-call-Um's some of them are neither Charges of Misdemeanour nor Objections which were meant for Accusations but are most pitiful failings entramell'd with Fictions and Ignorance They are extant in the Cabal Pag. 72. which the Lord Keeper puts away as quietly as the Wind blows off the Thistle-Down Pusheth his Adversary down with his little Finger yet insults not upon his Weakness As Pliny writes to Sabin Lib. 9. Ep. Tunc praecipua mansuetudinis laus cum irae causa justissima est It was very laudable to be so mild when there was just cause given to be more angry Yet he complain'd by Letters to the Lord Marquiss as if he were sensible of the despite and unto him was very loud in his own Justification From whom he got no more remedy but that his Adversary was not believ'd And was will'd to consider that he dealt with one whose ill Manners would not pay him Satisfaction for an Injury Unto which the Lord Keeper rejoyn'd to the Lord Marquiss His Majesties Justice and your Lordships Love are Anchors strong enough for a Mind more tost than mine is to ride at Yet pardon me my Noble Lord upon this Consideration if I exceed a little in Passion the Natural Effect of Honesty and Innocency A Church-man and a Woman have no greater Idol under Heav'n than their Good Name And they cannot Fight nor with Credit Scold and least of all Recriminate to Protect and Defend the same The only Revenge left them is to grieve and complain Then he concludes Whom I will either Challenge before his Majesty to make good his Suggestions or else which I hold the greater Valour and which I wanted I confess before this Check of your Lordships go on in my course and scorn all these base and unworthy Scandals as your Lordship shall direct me What need more be said In the space of a Month they wrangled themselves into very good Friends and the Lord Keeper was Gossip to the next Child that was born to the Treasurer As Nazianzen says of Athanasius Encom p. 21. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There was the Condition of two kinds of Stones in his Nature that are much commended He was an Adamant to them that smote him found and firm and would never break But a Loadstone to draw them to him that discorded with him though they were as hard as
of great Tentation Tuta me mediâ vehat vita decurrens viâ Sence in Ad. 118. I have touch'd upon the very Thread where the Lord Marquesâ—s Friendship began to unravel I have shewn how blameless the Lord Keeper was and that the Offence on his Part was undeclinable Yet I will not smother with partiality what I have heard the Countess Mother say upon it That the Lord Keeper had great Cause sometimes to recede from those Courses which her Son propounded that she never heard him different but that his Counsels were wise and well-grounded ever tending to the Marquess's Honour Safety and Prosperity but that he stirr'd her Son to Offence with Reprehensions that were too bold and vehement I heed this the more because it was usual with the Lord Keeper to be very angry with his best Friends when they would not hearken to their own Good Pardon him that Fault and it will be hard to find another in him as Onuphrius says of P. Pius the Fifth for his Cholerick Moods Hoc uno excepto vitio non erat in illo quod quisquam possit reprehendere And if the Testimony of that Lady be true it is but one and a most domestick Witness I do not shuffle it over as if his Meanor to the Lord Marquess were not a little culpable It was not enough to have Justice of his Side without Discretion Good Counsel is Friendly but it must be mannerly St. Châ—ysostom though a Free and a very hot man himself preach'd thus at Antioch Hom. 27. That some Inflammation will not be touch'd no not with a soft Finger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Words as soft as Lint must be us'd to some Ears who disdain to be dealt withal as Equals Let me joyn Ric. Victor to him enforcing the like from David's Playing on the Harp when Saul was moved When stubborn Opposition will vex some great Men into Fury Dignum est ut elocutionis nostrae tranquilitate quasi citharae dulcedine ad salutem revocentur Use them tenderly and play as it were a Lesson upon the Harp to flatter them into Attention and Tranquility This is enough to reprehend a few stout Words but the Lord Keeper for all the Frown of the Lord Marquess staid upon him carry'd as true a Heart toward him and all his Allies as exuberant in Gratitude as ever liv'd in Fâ—esh He never wrote to him no not when he was quite forsaken but he refresh'd the Benefits he had receiv'd from him in his Memory He never commanded him but he obeyed in all which was to be justified No Danger impending over his Lordship but he was ready to run an honest Hazard with him even to the laying down of his Life In his Absence when a Friend is best tried when his Lordship was in Spain far from the King and giving no little Distast there by his Bearing then he smooth'd his Errors to his Majesty and kept him from Precipitation knowing that he had threatned to bring about his own Ruine Yet in strict Justice a Founder loseth his Right of Interest that would destroy or debauch his Foundation As Amber and Pearl are turned to mean Druggs and Dust when the Chymists hath drawn their Elixir out of them At this stop I can resolve one Question which many have ask'd me whence the Occasion sprung which transformed Bishop Laud from a Person so much obliged Eighteen Months before to the Lord Keeper to the sharpest Enemy As soon as ever the Bishop saw his Advancer was under the Anger of the Lord Marquess he would never acknowledge him more but shunn'd him as the old Romans in their Superstition walk'd a loof from that Soil which was blasted with Thunder It was an Opportunity snatch'd to pluck him back that was got so far before him Hold him down that he might not rise and then he promised himself the best Preeminence in the Church for he saw no other Rival As Velleius says of Pompey That he was very quiet till he suspected some Senator that thrust up to be his Equal Civis in tagá nisi ubi ' vereretur ne quem haberet parem modestissimus But will a good Christian say did so much Hatred grow up from no other Seed From no other that ever appear'd and look upon the World and marvel not at it for it is frequently seen that those Enemies which are most causless are most implacable which our Divines draw out of this that no Reason is express'd by Moses why the Devil tempted our first Parents and sought their Fall The like was noted by the gravest Counsellor of our Kingdom the Lord Burleigh who condoled when he heard the Condemnation of Sir John Perrot with these Words Odium quo injustius eò acrius Ill Will is most vehement when it is most unjust Cambden Eliz. An. 1592. But when himself was not harm'd a jot would he be so unkind to his Benefactor Phoed. Act. 1. Se. 3. What says a long Tongu'd Fellow In Plautus mortuus est qui suit qui vivus est He that was was lost He dreamt his Benefactor was defunct there was Life in my Lord of Buckingham and it was good Cunning to jog along with his Motions I am confident to give this Satisfaction to the Question above For the Lord Keeper did often protest upon his Hope in Christ that he knew no other Reason of their Parting Reader say nothing to it but hear what Solomon says Proverbs 18. ver â— according to the Septuagint and the Vulgar Latin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Occasiones querit qui vult recedere ab amico omni tempore erit exprobrabilis 119. These Enmies were blowing at the Forge three years well nigh before the Ingeneers could frame a Bar to lift him off the Hinges of his Dignity for he was fast lock'd and bolted into the Royal Favour He bore up with that Authority that he could not be check'd with Violence and Occasions grew fast upon his Majesty to use his Sufficiency and Fidelity For though he was a King of profound Art yet he was not so fortunate in that Advice which he took to send his dear Son the Prince with the Lord Marquess into Spain Feb. 17 1022. So soon as those Travellers had left the King with his little Court at New-Market the King found himself at more Leisure and Freedom in the Absence of the Lord Marquess to study the Calling of a Comfortable and Concordious Parliament wherein the Subject might reap Justice and the Crown Honour And Occasion concluded for it that since the Prince like a Resolute and Noble Wooer had trusted himself to the King of Spain's Faith in the Court of Madrid whether his Adventure sped or not sped he must be welcomed Home with a Parliament The King prepared for the Conception of that Publick Meeting that it might fall to its proper Work without Diversions He conceiv'd there was no Error more fatal to good Dispatch than that some Members took
up the greatest part of the Time in speaking to the Redress of petty Grievances like Spaniels that rett after Larks and Sparrows in the Field and pass over the best Game Therefore his Majesty to loose no time drew up a Proclamation with his own Pen Feb. 20 to this end that certain of the Lords of the Privy Council should have Power and special Commission to receive the Complaints of all the good People of this Land which should be brought before them concerning any Exorbitances Vexations Oppressions and Illegalities and either by their own Authority if it would reach to it to see them corrected or to give Orders to cut them off by the keenest Edge of the Laws That Complainants should be encouraged to present their Grievances as well by the Invitement of the Proclamation as by the Signification of the Judges to the Country and Grand Juries in their respective Circuits The Draught of this the Features of his Majesty's own Brain came by Post to pass the Great Seal Yet for all that Hast the Lord Keeper took time to scan it and sent it back with Advice that the Project would be sweeter if it were double refined presuming therefore that his Majesty would not be unwilling to stop a little at the Bar of good Counsel he wrote this ensuing Letter to the Court Feb. 22. May it please Your most Excellent Majesty 120. I Do humbly crave Your Majesties Pardon that I forbear for two or three days to seal Your Proclamation for Grievances until I have presented to Your Majesty this little Remonstrance which would come too late after the Sealing and Divulging the Proclamation First As it is now coming forth it is generally misconstrued and a little sadly look'd upon by all men as somewhat restreining rather than enlarging Your Majesties former Care and Providence over Your Subjects For whereas before they had a standing Committee of all the Council-Table to repair unto they are now streitned to four or five only Most of which number are not likely to have any leisure to attend the Service Secondly I did conceive Your Majesty upon Your first Royal Expression of Your Grace in this kind in a Resolution to have mingled with some few Lords of Your Privy-Council some other Barons of Your Kingdom Homines as Pliny said of Virginius Rufus innoxiè Populares Whose Ears had been so opened to the like Grievances in the time of Parliament as their Tongues notwithstanding kept themselves within the compass of Duty and due Respect to Your Majesty as the Earls of Dorset and Warwick the Lord Houghton Dr. Morton the Lord Dennie the Lord Russel the Lord North. And among the Lords Spiritual the Bishops of Lichfield Rochester and Ely and especially unless Tour Majesty in Your deep Wisdom have some Reasons of the Omission Dr. Buckeridge the Lord Arch-Bishop of Canterbury This mixture would produce the these Effects ensuing First An Intimation of Your Majesties Sincerity and Reality in this Proclamation Dr. Felton Secondly A more free and general Intimation to Parties Aggrieved who will repair soonear to these private Peers then to the great Lords of Your Majesties Council Thirdly The making of these Lords and the like Witnesses of Your Majesties Justice and good Government against the next ensuing Parliament and the stopping of their Ears against such supposed Grievances at that time as shall never be heard of in their Sitting upon this Commission Fourthly and Lastly The gaining of these Temporal Lords to side with the State being formerly much wrought upon by the Factious and Discontented If Your Majesty shall approve of these Reasons it is but to Command Your Secretary to interline these or some of these Names in the Commission which in all other respects is already wisely and exceeding well penn'd with two short Clauses only First That these Lords shall attend very carefully and constantly in Term-time when they are occasion'd to be at London Secondly That they be instructed to receive all Complaints with much Civility and Encouragement giving them full Content and Redress according to the merit of their Grievances For nothing will sooner break the Heart of a People or make them lose their Patience than when hopes of Justice are frustrated after the Royal Word is engaged But if Your Majesty in Your high Wisdom will overpass these Particulars which I have dutifully presented upon the return of the Proclamation as it is it shall be sealed and divulged with all expedition But these Reasons were not overpass'd Both the Proclamation and private Orders to the Lords Commissioners were reformed by the Contents of that weighty Letter His Majesty greatly inclining to the Lord-Keeper's Readiness and espying Judgment in all Consultations For as Laertius in Zeno's Life said of a famous Musician 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Ismenias could play well upon all Instruments So this was another Ismenias who had the Felicity to make all Deliberations pleasing and tuneable especially he had that way above all that I knew to make sweet Descant upon any plain Song that was prick'd before him It will be to the Profit of the Reader if I rub his memory with one Passage of the Letter for it is but one though it come in twice which presseth the King to Sincerity and Reality to fix his Word like the Center of Justice that cannot be moved Righteous Lips are the delight of Kings Prov. 16.23 And a King of Righteous Lips is most delightful Since the coercitive part of the Law doth not reach him upon what Nail shall those Millions that stand before his Throne hang their Hopes if his Word do not bind him A People that cannot give Faith to their Sovereign will never pay him Love It seems that the ancient Latin Kings did profess to use Crookedness and Windings of Dissimulation in their Polity therefore their Scepter was called Lituus because it bent in toward the upper end But the Scepter of thy Kingdom says David of GOD is a right Scepter A right one indeed For Contracts and Promises bind God to Man much more must they oblige the King to his People An Author of our own Dr. Duck in his very Learned Treatise De usu Juris Civilis p. 44. hath well delivered this Morality Princeps ad contractum tenetur uti privatus nec potest contractum suum rescindere ex plenitudine potestatis cum maximè in eo requiratur bena sides Falshood is Shop-keepers Language or worse but 't is beneath Majesty 121. A Parliament being not far of either in the King's Purpose or in Prospect of Likelihood Serj Crooke Cvew Finch Damport Bramston Bridgman Crawly Headly Thin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Authurst Blng. Dâ—y the Lord Keeper was provident that the Worthies of the Law should be well entreated Their Learning being most comprehensive of Civil Causes and Affairs they had ever a great Stroke in that Honorable Council Therefore he wrought with his Majesty to sign a Writ for the Advancement of some
same Trust to him for this and he shall not fail After he had parted from the King so deeply Charm'd to bestir his Wits in this Negotiation he was as Active as one could be that had little to work upon The Prince and his Paranymphus the Marquess had wrote some Letters upon the way how far they had proceeded in their Journey But the Buen Message that they were come to the Cape of Good-Hope in the City of Madrid was not yet brought to the City of London where the conflux at this time was very populous their Errand being to hearken after News And the particulars they long'd to hear of were these Whether His Highness were Arrived at the Court in Spain When he would return again their Honest Affections ran too fast to look for that so soon Whether he were not Tamper'd withal to alter his Religion And some were so reasonable and well pleas'd some were not to ask Whether he were Married and would bring his Bride with him for hope of Future Issue As much Satisfaction was given to these Scruples from the Lord Marquess by the First Post that Arrived here as could be expected in so short a time as he had spent abroad Of which more in due time But before his Lordship 's came the Lord Keeper wrote again and again unto him to Assist the main business and to pour in such Counsels into his Lordship's Breast as keeping close unto them he might promise himself more Grace with the King and Commendation with the Subject Philosophers who wrote the Practices of a Good life agree That unfeigned Love doth Justifie it self in three Probations or in either of them when it is Faithful to a dead Friend who shall never know it or to a Friend undone in misery who cannot requite it or to an Absent Friend who doth not perceive it As none that have Faith and Candor will wish to declare their sincerity in the two former Experiments so neither will they fail in the opportunity of the latter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Antient Thales in Laertius Remember your Friends as well far of as near you And in Rome says Lil. Giraldus These two Adverbs were Written under the Image of Friendship Longe Prope Be as Officious nay more to your Friend remote from you as when you are hand in hand together I have drawn out the Lord Keeper's Observance to his Raiser my Lord of Buckingham with this Pensil of Morality It would be tedious to fill up Leaves with those copious and punctual Relations which he wrote to his Lordship of all Agitations in the Court of Suits preferred to the King and how far he went about to stop them all till his Pleasure was signified in the next Return That which comes to the Institute I handle was thus Endicted bearing Date Marth 31. My most Noble Lord I Do humbly thank your Lordship for your Letter and all other your loving Remembrances of me by the last Packet It hath much revived me to hear of your Lordship's good Speed so far I was Yesterday with His Majesty the first time I saw his Face since your Lordship's Departure to know his Opinion of this Letter to the Count Gondamar which I send enclosed to stir him up to consummate the Marriage His Majesty lik'd it exceeding well yet I have sent it opened that if your Lordship and my Lord of Bristow who are upon the Place shall not allow thereof it may be suppressed Truly the Reasons are no Colours but very real that if new and tart Propositions sent from Rome occasioned by the Possession they have of his Highness's Person should protract this Marriage the Prince is in great danger to suffer exceedingly in the Hearts and Affections of the People here at Home and your Lordship sure enough to share in the Obloquies Better Service I cannot do the Prince and your Lordship than to thrust on the Ministers of the King of Spain with the best Enforcements of my Judgment who if they dead this Business with a Calm it is almost as bad as a cross Gale But my Lord I will not fail to continue as faithful to your Lordship as to mine own Soul Which to do at this time is not thanks-worthy his Majesty being so constant or rather so augmented in his Affections towards you as all your Servants are extraordinarily comforted therewith and the rest struck dumb and silenced But if any Storm which God will keep off had appeared your Lordship should have found a Difference between a Church-man and others who hath nothing to regard in this World but to serve God and to be constant to his Friend all the rest being but Trash to him who can confine his utmost Desires to a Book and a little Chamber But God Almighty never imparted unto you a greater Share of his Majesty's Affections that at this Time 131. This went by Sir J. Epsley After whom within three days Sir George Goring followed who was stay'd till April the 3d the next day after the joyful Packet came that his Highness saw Madrid by the 7th of March in our Stile and came thither in Health and good Plight after so much Travel by Day and Night so much hard Lodging such slender Fare in base Village-Osteria's Away went Sir George I said with Alacrity the next Day and carried these Lines to my Lord of Buckingham from the Lord Keeper My most Noble Lord IN Obedience to your Commands which I humbly thank your Lordship for I do write by this Bearer yet no more than what I have have written lately by Sir John Epsley All things stand here very firmly and well which may concern your Lordship only the Great Seal walks somewhat faster than usual which is an Argument that it was not my Lord of Buckingham only that set it a going We hear the Affairs proceed well where your Lordship is And here is conceived generally Great Joy and Acclamation for the brave Entertainment that the Prince hath received which the People did yester-night very chearfully express by Bon-fires and Bells only the Consummation of the Matrimony is wanting to consummate our Joys Yet the People spread it abroad upon sight of the Bonfires that all is perfected As they do also speak of your Lordship's Dukedom a Title which will well become both your Person and Employment The Patent whereof I believe the King will shortly send to you to testifie his Joy and to gratifie your Service But my Lord I am still against the Opinion of many wiser Men averse to your Lordship's Return hither as desirous as I am to enjoy your Lordships Presence untill you either see the Prince ready for his Return or that you may bring him along with you I have sent another Letter to my Lord Gondamar to be delivered or suppressed as your Lordship shall please to let him know by my Expostulations falling so thick upon him what is behoveful to be done If they make us stay their leisure
and ever owing Thanks to your Grace The Dispensation is come and with it good Tidings that your Carriage hitherto hath been so discreet and the Event so fortunate that our Master is wonderfully pleas'd But we were formerly never so desirous to see that Box that carries this Dispensation than we are now to open it and to know by reading the same what God hath sent us We all wonder at his Majesties Reservedness for it came hither on Saturday last this Day sevennight But his Majesty hath enjoyned Mr. Secretary Calvert silence therein And I believe for my part at the least that Mr. Secretary hath perform'd his Commandment We all think and the Town speak and talk of the worst and of very difficult Conditions My dear Lord You have so lock'd up all things in your own Breast and sealed up his Majesties that now our very Conjectures for more they were not are altogether prevented If things succeed well this course is best if otherwise I conceive it very dangerous But it were a great Folly to offer any Advice unto you who only know what you transact in your own Cabinet How then shall I fill up this Letter To certifie this only that all Discontents are well appeased and will so remain without doubt as long as Businesses continue successful But if they should decline I am afraid the former Disgusts of your appropriating this Service will soon be resumed And then how dangerous it is to leave your Friends ignorant of your Affairs and disabled to serve you I refer to your Graces Wisdom and Consideration I do believe none of us all would keep your Counsel without a Charge to do so this keeping Counsel is a thing so out of fashion nor reveal it if it be otherwise required c. The Lord Keeper in this Letter miss'd the true Cause why his Majesty did not yet impart a sight of the Dispensation to any of his Counsellors The reason was because it came to him in a private Packet And he expected it to be deliver'd to him as it ought by Publick Ministers the Ambassadors of the King of Spain who kept it dormant about a Fortnight in their Hands whether it proceeded from their Native Gravida to retein that long in their Stomach which needed no Concoction or to listen what the many-headed Multitude would say in London or out of some other State-juggling As I have laid forth in this what was mistaken by the L. Keeper out of his own Memorials preserv'd So in another Line he hazarded his Love to be ill taken representing to the Duke the Truth That the King did somewhat disgust his appropriating the whole Service to himself that is repulsing the Earl of Bristol or restreining him to silence where their Counsels were held I know not whether the Duke did so soon regret at this for it is the first time and 't is well plaister'd over with mild Counsel So Statuaries says Plutarch do not only hew and peck the Alabaster upon which they work but smooth it likewise which is the neatest part of their Cunning. By another Letter from the same Hand dated near to the former May 11. I perceive that the Duke our Lord Admiral demanded the Navy Royal to be made ready and to be sent to the Coast of Spain to conduct the Prince and his Followers Home Which the King gave order to be done But the Lord Keeper wrote to his Grace if it were not with the soonest the main Matter not grown yet to any colour of ripeness That the Charge would be very heavy to the Exchequer Such a Fleet must be costly to be set forth but far more costly to be kept long abroad As for Cost it was the least thing that was thought upon It was no time for Frugality The Stratagem was to have the Navy lie ready at Anchor in some safe distance from the Spanish Havens That if the Prince could recover no Satisfaction to reasonable Demands from stiff Olivarez and other Grandees Or if they persisted to burden the Match with insupportable Conditions his Highness after a short Complement might take his leave and have all things prepar'd at a Days warning if the Wind serv'd for his Reduction into England With this Fleet some precious Ware never seen no nor heard of in Spain before at least among the Laicks was transported thither the Liturgy of our Church translated into the Spanish Tongue and fairly printed by the Procurement and Cost of the Lord Keeper The Translator was John Taxeda the Author of the Treatise call'd Hispanus Conversus a good Scholar once a Dominican whom his Patron that set him on work secured to our Church with a Benefice and good Prebend He studied this Translation Day and Night till it was ended He that writes this was often at his Elbow to communicate with him when he put Questions how to proceed But the Lord Keeper himself with other Overseers that had perfectly learn'd the Castilian Language perus'd it faithfully and if there were not aptness in any phrase corrected it With his Majesties Privity and great Approbation two Copies of it were carried Religious Tokens the one to his Highness the other to my Lord Duke as the best and most undeniable Certificate that a particular Church can shew to vindicate the right Profession of their Faith from all Scandals and to declare their Piety in all Christ's Ordinances squared and practis'd by a publick Rule after the Beauty of Holiness A Book of Common-Prayer which all call a Liturgie is suitable to the Form of good Churches in all Ages reduceth us to good Notions from wandring Extravagancies preserves Harmonious Conformity between all the Daughter-Churches that are called from one Mother in one Realm or State It is our Witness to assoil us when we are spitefully charg'd with Errours so Chamieras Gerardus Camero Spanhemius Amyraldus and divers more the best of Modern Writers in defence of the Reformed way draw their second Rank of Arguments next to the Sacred Scriptures out of their Liturgies to justifie their Tenents Finally with this Office of Divine Worship he that celebrates Gods Service is ready at all times to offer up to God the Sacrifice of Prayer when some perhaps at some times are affected with Languor of Health and then not so sit to speak suddenly to God in the behalf of the People and when the most have Infirmity of Judgment and are unsit at all times Beshrew the Tettar of Pride that runs over many Wits and makes them care for nothing that 's made ready to their Hand and puts them in love with nothing but their own Conceptions What have we lost Nay What hath God lost in the Honour due unto him How is his Truth How is his Name How is his Glory dis-reverenced over all this Land since our Liturgie hath been Mortgag'd to the Directory 139. It would be remembred that this comes in upon the mention of the Fleet call'd for and hastned to weigh Anchor
that his Lordship should be offered up to Justice as a publick Sacrifice But they that contest for his Innocency observe that he was let loose to depart in Quiet when he should have been brought to the Horns of the Altar And when the Bill drawn up against him was put into Sir Robert Philip's Hand an active and a gracious Member of the House to manage it to his Ruine Sir Robert writes to the Duke Cab. P. 265. If Bristol frame a probable satisfactory Answer to any Charge will it not rather serve to declare his Innocency than to prepare his Condemnation Your Grace may consult with your self whither you may not desist with Honour upon having him further questioned Afterward when his Master King James was dead and when he was at the Stake I may say like to be worried in Parliament by his Accusers he writes thus confidently to the Lord Conway Cab. P. 20. As for the Pardon Jacob. 21. I should renounce it but that I know the justest and most cautious Man living may through Ignorance or Omission offend the Laws So that as a Subject I shall not disclaim any Benefit which cometh in general as it doth usually to all other Subjects in the Kingdom But as for any Crime in particular that may entrench upon my Employments in point of Loyalty and Fidelity I know my Innocency to be such that I am confident I shall not need that Pardon A. Gallius li. 12. c. 7. Take the Earl's Case Pro and Con it is very dubious therefore I will deal with it as the manner of the Areopagites was in such Perplexities adjourn it to be heard an hundred Years hence I say not He but They were the Proprophets of Baal that troubled our Israel Our Corner-miching Priests with the Bloomesberry-Birds their Disciples and other hot spirited Recusants cut out the Way with the Complaints of their no-grievous Sufferings which involved us in Distractions Rome and Madrid were full of them and they conjured Pope Gregory and the Catholick King to wind in their Safety and Immunity in the Articles of the Match as behoved a Father and a Friend If they had sate still and let the Business go adrist with the Tide it had been better for them They that force their Fruits to be Ripe do but hast them to be rotten Qui spretis quae tarda cum securitate prematura vel cum exitio properant Tacit. Annal. lib. 3. The Word of the King and Prince would not serve them that they would be gracious to all of their Sect that lived modestly and inoffensively to deserve their Clemency But they must have publick Instruments for it and Acts of Parliament if they could be gotten to debauch his Majesty in the Love of his People For as the Lord Keeper writes very prudently to the Duke Cab. P. 105. The Bent of the English Catholicks is not to procure Ease and Quietness to themselves but Scandals against their neighbouring Protestants and Discontents against the King and State Rhetorical Campian avows it in an Oration made at Doway Note this Apostrophe of his to our Kingdom As far as it concerns our Society we all dispersed in great Numbers through the World have made a League and Holy Solemn Oath that as long as any of us are alive all our Care and Industry all our Deliberations and Councils shall never cease to trouble your Calm and Safety Yet when our pragmatical Bosom-Enemies had wearied themselves with Solicitations the Earl of Nitsdale a main Prop of their Cause confest It may be Assurance sufficient to all Catholicks who have the Sense to consider that it must be our Master's and the Prince's gracious Disposition that must be our Safety more than either Word or Writ Thus he to the Duke Cab. P. 250. But while the Recusant Petitioners had caused all Affairs with us and Abroad to be obnoxious to Inflammation the Lord Keeper like a right Lapidary cuts a Diamond with a Diamond and useth Sir Tobâ— Mâ— is it not a Paradox the busiest Agent in that Cause to Manifest both in the Palace at Rome and in the Court at Madrid that the Petitioners grasp at more Favours than they could hold either with the Peace of this Kingdom or with the Laws of it which would endanger them to forfeit all that Connivance which they had gained before Give him his Due he rode with great Celerity to those remote Places and did his Work to the Proof and to his great Praise Sâ—stus est at mihi infidelis non est As Plautus in Trinummo The Lord Keeper failed not to put Gold in his Pocket but he paid him chiefly out of his Father's Purse That most Reverend Arch-Bishop of York his Father being highly distasted with Sir Toby's Revolt from the Protestant Religion made a Vow to Dis-inherit him and to leave him nothing The Lord Keeper plied the Arch-Bishop with sweet and pleasant Letters which he loved and with some Mediators in Yorkshire not to infringe his Vow for he did not ask him so much as to name him in his last Wiâ—l and Testament but to furnish him with Three thousand Pounds while he lived and the Sum was paid to his Son to a Peny How Sir Toby beâ— himself in the wisest Counsel which I think was given to the King of Spain may be read Cab. P. 25â— importuning his Majesty not to entangle the Prince with the Voâ—o of the Theologos to which he could not submit himself with Honour but to accept of those large Conditions for Catholicks which my Lord the King and the Prince have condescended to that so the Prince may have some foot of Ground upon which he may stand without Breach of Honour to comply with the incomparable Affection which he beareth to the Infanta This is sure that Sir Toby's Industry was well taken because he did what he could And he that employed him held him ever after to be a Person of Trust in any thing which he promised to do 145. Very consonant to the grand Particulars of the Praemises are the Contents of two Letters both dispatcht in June from the Lord Keeper to the Duke's Grace That which bears the former Date June 15 and yet unpublished lays out Errors advisedly and mannerly under the Heads of trivial Reports and furnisheth the Duke with Counsel for all Exigencies of Advantage especially diseloseth the King's Opinion if the Worst should come It is long but I could not pare it and not mar it Thus it is May it please your Grace IF ever I had as God knoweth I never had any extraordinary Contentment in the Fortunes of this World I have now good Cause offered me to redouble the same by that exceeding Love and Affection which every Man in his private Letter to others doth take Notice that your Grace doth bear and continually express to your poor Servant Nor is your Love incentred to me only in your own Breast but full of Operation having procured to me a good
Quarrel between his Ministers in Spain which did so much disturb the Match Sir John Hipsley and such as he the Duke could pass them over for rash Writers but he would never forgive it to the Lord Keeper who invited him to see his Errors But like old Galesus in Virgil Aen. 7. who was knocked down while he went betwen the Latins and Trojans to reconcile them Dum paci medium se offert justissimus unus Qui fuit So it hapned to him that pleaded in this Mediation to be offered upon the Sacrifice and Service of making Love 159. Nevertheless to draw out the Thread of Favour to more length which the Duke had with the King and that the Destinies might not cut it off the Lord Keeper wrote to his Majesty upon Sir John Hipsley's Arrival in the midst of August That he had heard more of the Duke's most laudable Diligence in Spain from Sir John than ever he could learn before that Malice it self could not but commend his Zeal and that Humanity could not but pity the Toil he had to reduce that intricate and untoward Business of the Palatinate to some good Success He might well call them intricate and untoward for the Spanish Motions were circular Nothings much about and nothing to the Point Most true it is that the Articles anent the Marriage were drawn up and restricted to some Heads and Numbers though not perfected three years before the Emperor had entred into the Palz with any Hostility Therefore the Spaniards disputed thus Bring not the motion of it into this Treaty as a thing born out of due time What were it else but as the Proverb says Extra chorum saltare to Dance well but quite out of the measure of the Mascarata We answered if things had been as they are now at the beginning this had then been a principal Capitulation Nor had we honerated the Articles with a new Proposition unless themselves that is the House of Austria had cast us into the Gulph of a new Extremity Reduce the King and his Posterity to the same Peace they were in when we began to treat and we ask no more But as Seneca says Lib. 4. de ben c. 35. Omnia esse debent eadem quae fuerant cum promitterem ut promittentis fidem teneas But upon so great a Change there is neither Inconstancy nor Encroachment to fall into new Consultations For all this though nothing but Pertinacy durst stand the Breath of so much Truth the others came no nearer to us but kept further off affirming as it is in the Report made at St. James's that they conceived our King expected no Restitution at all for his Son and Daughter and that they supposed his Majesty had already digested that bitter Potion We told them they must not dissemble before us as if they knew not the Contrary For his Majesty never intermitted to rouse up their Embassadors to give him a fair Answer about it and had stopt the Treaty of the Match if they had not opened the Way by Protestation made in the Faith of their King that the Palatinate should be rendred up with Peaceable Possession What Shape could Olivarez put on now none but his own a stately Impudency For he told us in the broad Day-light that all former Promises spoken before the Prince's Coming whether by Embassadors to our King or by Count Gondamar to my Lord of Bristol and others were but Palabras de cumplimiento Gratifications of fine Words but no more to be taken hold of than the Fables and Fictions of Greece before the Wars of Theseus The Prince came over him at this with a blunt Anger that if there were no more Assurance in their Word it was past the Wit of Man to know what they meant but he would tell them really his Father's and his own Meaning That without his Sister 's and her Husband's Inheritance restored they neither intended Marriage nor Friendship When King Philip had heard with what Courage and Determination his Highness had spoken like Caesar in Velleius Se virtute suâ non magnitudine hostium metiens it put that King and his Counsel to a middle-way as they called it To treat upon the old Articles and no other as falling perpendicularly on the Marriage but to take into a concurrent Deliberation the Restitution of the Prince Elector's Country Let Metaphysical States-men scratch their Heads and find a real Distinction if they can between these Formalities Yet Sir Walter Aston followed them in that Way and paid them in the same Coin with this Distinction Cab. P. 38. That the King his Master prest for the Restitution of the Palatinate and Electoral Dignity to the Prince his Son-in-Law not as a Condition of the Marriage but to be setled together with the Marriage And again Not as a Condition but as a Fruit and Blessing of the Alliance And to make the Coming of the Excellent Princess the Infanta of more Esteem to his Subjects bringing with her beside the Glory of her own Virtue and Worth the Security of a perpetual Peace and Amity These were Punctilio's in Honour but just Nothings in Wisdom the Cause of the Palatinate must not be tempered at the same Forge but apart not a Rush was gotten by it and time wasted for our Ministers were resolved to conclude neither unless they perfected both 160. The Sennor Duca Olivarez made such Work upon this Theme and turn'd it into so many Forms that it makes him ridiculous in the History Vertumnis quotquot sunt natus iniquis Horat. And so disastrous a Counsellor through his Variableness that it was his Fault that caused a Distrust in the main as wise Spotswood says Pag. 544. The Prince conceived there was nothing really intended on the King of Spain's Part but that the Treaty was entertained only till he and the House of Austria had reduced Germany into their Power which might be suspected without Injury by looking upon this Vertumnus in all his Changings Seven Months before the Prince took his Journey and came to cast the Die upon the whole Stake to win or loose all Mr. End Porter was sent to Spain and spake with the great Conde who snapt him up and gave him this unkind Welcome in a Chase That they neither meant the Match nor the Restitution of the Palatinate Presently the Earl of Bristol gave him a Visit and a Discourse about it In a trice he winds himself out of his former Fury and vows he would do his best to further both The next Discovery breaks out by Mr. Sanderson's Diligence Pag. 540. in a Letter of the Conde's to King Philip Novemb. 8. 1622. That the King of Great Brittain affected the Marriage of his Son with the Infanta and was more engaged for the Palatinate And as a Maxim I hold these two Engagements in him to be inseparable For us though we make the Marriage we must fail in the other Then you will be forced to a War with England with
That if his Majesty should receive any intelligence that he was deteined in that State as a Prisoner he would be pleased for his sake never to think of him more as a Son but to reflect with all his Royal Thoughts upon the good of his Sister and upon the safety of his own Kingdoms Sic omnes unus amores vicit amor patriae And so far to the Supplements I must now explicate their Lordships Opinion who having by the Command of his Majesty taken into their Mature Considerations the whole Narration made by the Prince his Highness and my Lord Duke to both Houses in this place and all the Letters and Dispatches read unto them to corroborate the same And Lastly these Supplements and Additions recited before are of opinion upon the whole Bulk of the matter that his Majesty cannot rely upon or maintain any longer either of both these Treaties concerning the Match with Spain or the Restitution of the Palatinate with the safety of his Religion his Honour his Estate or the Weal and Estate of his Grand-Children And his Highness together with their Lordships are desirous to know whether you Gentlemen the Knights Burgesses and Citizens of the House of Commons do concur with their Lordships in this their Opinion which they ever referred to this further Conference with your Honourable House 192. As Plutarch said of the Laconick Apothegms 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they were Clean and Sound Timber with the Bark taken off So the Reader may observe in these Reports that the Matter is Heart of Oak the Style clear from Obscurity and disbark'd quite from superduity But regarding the Auditors and their Affections at that Season nothing could be more proper for he spake to their Content as if he had been within them with Sweet and Piercing Expressions resembled in the Harp and the Quiver of Arrows with which the Heathen Trimm'd up Apollo their Deity of Graceful Speech They that detract from such Worth would be glad it were their own as says our compleat Poet upon the like A good Man 's Envied by such as would For all their Spight be like him if they could But this beginning presaged good Luck to the ensuing Counsels debated in that Session This is called to this day the Blessed Parliament and so Posterity will take it from us Says Tully very well 3. Philip. Magna vis est magnum numen unum idem consentient is senatus A full Senate Head and Members consenting in one carries a Majestick and Oraculous Authority with it This is the Confirmation of it when the people brought before the King the Fruits of their Wisdom which they had Studied And the King did ratifie him chearfully with the Wisdom of his Power They opened their Purse to him and which was more beneficial to them then if they had spared a little Mony he let fall some Flowers off his Crown that they might gather them up which indeed was no more then desluvium pennarum the Molting of some Feathers after which the Eagle would Fly the better He opened his Ear to them in all their Petitions and they listned as much to him and gave their Ear-Rings to Jacob Gen. 35.4 So the King and the Subject became perfect Unisons And as God doth knit his own Glory and the Salvation of mankind together so the King did imitate God and Married his Honour with the welfare of the Kingdom Who is it that reads the Statutes 21 Jacobi and doth not admire them The Peers took it to be their greatest Nobility to look well to the Publick And the other House did light upon the True Companion of Wisdom Sâ—data Tranquillitas a Calm Tranquility as Rivers are deepest where they Foam least And all the Land had cause of rejoycing that the House of Commons was never better Replenish'd in Man's Memory with Knights and Burgesses of rare Parts and Tempers especially the Gown-men of the Inns of Courts who were extoli'd for Knowledge and political Prudence as no Age had afforded a better Pack And I give the Lord Keeper his Right and no more knowing his Traces perfectly at that time that he labour'd as for Life to keep an Harmony between the King and this Parliament to suck out his Majesties assent to all their Proceedings that he might shew himself as good as he was great Which I think was the greatest certainly the happiest part of Honour that ever the Lord Keeper Merited How he mitigated Discontents and softned refractoriness how he obliged the leading Voices with benefits how he kept the Prerogative of the Supreme Power and the Extravagancies of pretended Liberty on the other side from Encroachments the Wise only knew but they that knew it not were the better for it and that he was chiefly us'd in Consultation for compiling those wholesom Laws which had their double Resining and Clarifying from Lords and Commons In all likelihood prosperous success might be expected from this Parliament because it was Pious and Pious because it was a strict preserver of the Holy Patrimony Allotted to God Quae 〈…〉 erunt quam quibus Deus praestitit auxilium says Ansonius to the Emperor 〈◊〉 What Counsels are more compleat then those that are help'd by God Nay What Councels can be more compleat then theirs that defend the Right of God As worser times would let the Clergy keep nothing so those times by their good Will would let them part with nothing Let the Trial be observ'd as the Case follows 193. The Duke of Buckingham lack'd a dwelling according to the Port of his Title and to receive a very populous Family It must be near to Whitehal and it must be spacious None could be found so fit as the Arch-Bishop of York his House It was nigh to Charing-Cross and he came little to it The Duke us'd the Lord Keeper to move Arch-Bishop Mathew for his Consent and to make the Bargain between them causing him to make prosser of such Lands in the County of York as should be equivalent or better then the House Garden and Tenements belonging to the Arch-Bishop's Place For nothing was intended but Exchange with considerable Advantage to him and his Successors And that was sure as touch because the House was to be past by Act of Parliament to the Kings Majesty So the Duke had made it his humble Request and drew on the King hardly to make a Chop with those Demeasnes to which the Name of God and his Christ were made the Feoffees in the first Donation for the use of that Tribe which peculiarly serves him in Sacred Offices Yet with instance and much Suit the King was wrought to it for the Duke's sake As M. Antony said to his Confident Septimius Quod Concupiscas tu videris quod concupieris certè habebis Tul. 5. Philip. So this Beloved Minion should be Wise to see what he ask'd for his Master had no Power to say him nay His Majesty was most Nice and Cautious to make the Composition
Am I like to be beholden to them for a setled Tranquility that practise upon the ruine of my Estate and the thrall of my Honour If I forfeit one Preferment for fear will it not encourage them to tear me piecemeal hereafter Memet ipse non deseram was well resolv'd of Philotus in Curtius Nor will I set so great a Mulct upon mine own Head What hurt can my Neighbourhood do to the Court and being so seldom in Town No greatness of Power when it would extreamly abuse it self which is not glad to think of Means how to avoid the note of Injustice In this there is not one syllable to accuse me much less to make me guilty It is not my case alone but every mans even his that is the prompter and puts it into the King's Head to ask it If the Law cannot maintain my Right it can maintain no mans This was his Constancy Nor did he let go his fast-hold in this Deanry till the King received it from him in Oxford anno 1644. As Livy says of Spain Hispania primò tentata est à Romanis sed postremò subacta It was the first Kingdom the Romans invaded and the last they conquered So this was the first of Lincoln's Preferment set upon and the last which he delivered up Since he would not be forced out of it it was carried with a Stratagem to keep him from it for in four years he was not admitted to preach a Sermon in Lent before the King the course for his Place being usually on Good-Friday and three years together when he came to the Chapters or to the Election to see it fairly carried for the choice of the best Scholars he could not rest above a day in the College but Secretary Coke either viva voce or by his Letters which are yet saved commanded him from the King to return to his Bishoprick As terrible a Prophet as Elisha was to the Noble-man of Samaria upon the Plenty of Corn predicted Thou shalt see it with thine eyes but thou shalt not eat of it 2 Kin. 7.2 This might fret the Bishop but not affright him And he ask'd the Secretary so stoutly what Law he brought with him to command him from his Freehold that the good old man was sensible that he had done an Injury In fine the chief Agitant saw that this Tryal upon so firm a Courage was uneffectual and ridiculous Neither was it a little Breath that could shake him from his Stalk like a Douny Blow-ball 88. Yet the more he did thrust off this Importunity the more it did follow him and a finer shift was thought of to esloign him from Westminster Archbishop Abbot had Directions from the King to press him to Residency upon his Bishoprick by the Statute the Archbishop of the Province having the oversight of the said Statute to see it put in execution And some words were dropt in the Archbishop's Letter to signifie that it was presumed that being in the Place of Lord Keeper he had pass'd a Dispensation under the Great Seal for himself to enjoy the Commenda of the Deanry for his better accommodation in that Office His Answer hereunto as followeth is his own in every word Most Reverend c. TO that Apostyle touching my Dispensation to reside upon the Deanry of Westminster the said Deanry being as all Commenda's are in the Eye of the Law united for the time of my Incumbency upon this poor Bishoprick I can say no more than what your Grace knoweth as well as I that I use the said Dispensation very modestly and sparingly and that I am resolved in this and every thing else to give His Majesty all Satisfaction in a due and reasonable order to his Royal Orders which no Bishop doth yield more exactly than myself He breaks no Law who pleads a Privilege nor doth that Subject transgress in Order who produceth a just and lawful Dispensation to exempt him from the same as your Grace by daily experience well knoweth For other matters that proceed from wrong and sinister Informations I do intend to procure one or other of my good Lords of the Council to let His Majesty understand how these things are misconcerved as soon as I can As first to represent unto His Majesty that no L. Keeper can issue forth a Dispensation of this nature nor any other person whosoever but either His Majesty immediately by his Regal Right and Eminency of Power or your Grace by the Act of Parliament So as my being Lord Keeper did contribute no more to this Patent than it did to all others that is to say Wax and Impression Your Grace may call to mind we were four Governours of several Colleges made Bishops at one time and two of these had their Colleges put into their Commenda's as well as myself And in your Graces Memory also in the most exact times of Ecclesiastical Government when those Promotions were manag'd with the Advice of that great and wise Prelate the Lord Bancroft a Bishop of Bristol kept the Deanry of York together and a Bishop of Rochester this of Westminster during his Incumbency with many others the like Neither did the then L. Keeper procure the Faculty to hold this Deanry for the late King my dear Master of Blessed Memory was not about London but at Rutford in Nottingham-shire when he granted me this gracious Favour Nor to deal ingenuously with your Grace was it gained by mine own Power or Interest with His Majesty but by the Mediation of His Majesty now reigning and by the Duke of Buck. together with some inducement of the deceased King not unknown to some yet living and howbeit my Faculty is without distinction of Time yet am I no chaser of mine own Time but do confine my self to those particular seasons which the local Statutes of the Colledge and my express Oath to perform the said Statutes do enjoyn me That is to say the two Chapters and the great Festivals All which space of time doth not being taken in the disjunct spaces make a Bishop a Non-resident by any Law I know of nor consequently infringe his Majesties Instructions though a man had no Dispensation which Instructions require only that Bishops should reside but we presume that it is no part of his Majesties gracious intention that they should be confined or as it were imprisoned in their Bishopricks I hope to procure a fair representation of these particulars to his Majesty and thereby to obtain his gracious approbation of as much residence as I intend to make in the Deanry Where as your Grace knoweth as well as I in regard of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical and Temporal of preventing Ruins and Dilapidations of Hospitality of Suits in Law of the Church the School the Colledge and the like I have no less necessity of abiding sometimes then upon my Bishoprick and somewhat more because of my Oath So most humbly c. This was enough to satisfie both Statute and Reason Unto which it may
to visit this Diocess as well for the Reasons premised as because all the means of Livelihood belonging to this See being taken away by the Duke of Somerset 2 Ed. 61. and a new airy and phantastical Corps being framed for the miserable Bishoprick consisting in great part of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction if your Grace should inhibit the exercise thereof and divert the Profits assigned therefrom for the Bishop's Maintenance he should not be able to eat or drink much less to pay unto his Majesty First-fruits Tenths and Subsidies charged upon this Bishoprick with relation to this last Endowment In the which last Difference this Bishoprick is for ought I know miserably distinguish'd from all others Thus I conceive the case to stand my gracious Lord and I hope unless your Grace will be pleased to permit me to go on with my Visitation for this year and take further time to consider thereof by our Lady-Eve to procure all those several pieces which confirm these Premisses to be transcribed out of our Records and Registries and sent by my Officers to attend your Grace's further Good-will and Pleasure c. How reasonable the Propositions of this Letter are I know not I know they did not prevail Sed ne querelae tum quidem gratae fuere cum forsitan erant necessariae says Livy in his Preface His Complaints were not well taken though they were necessary and good to stand upon Record to shew what was alledg'd for the benefit of his own See and the emolument of smaller Bishopricks In the end our Bishop let it go on the Archbishop's side without more contradiction having not forgotten that Philosophy in Seneca Acerbissimam partem servitutis effugit qui imperium libens excipit 97. All this and so many Quarrels piled one upon another were too little to bow the straightness of his Spirit yet there was enough to make his Foes audacious because a heavy Charge in Star chamber depended Seven years against him prosecuted for the King by the Attorny-General concurrent all along with the rehearsed Troubles Omne tulit secum Caesaris ira malum Ov. 3. Trist el. 12. God complains of the Rigour of the Heathen against Jerusalem I was but a little displeased and they helped forward the affliction Zech. 1.15 Beware to help Affliction forward Revenge is fierce when Misery cannot mitigate it It may be a Court-lesson it is not a Christian to thrust him down that is a falling Mark Reader that the Actors herein came into the hands of a Power or rather of a Tyranny that had no compassion of any Optima vindex insolentiae variet as humanae conditionis Valer. lib. 4. c. 7. The Wheel of Vicissitude turning many Sticklers that were at the top to the bottom is the Act and Motion of Providence to be the Scourge of Insolency Among all Devices to thrust him under Water that was sinking already none was hatcht of more Despight and Indignity than a Book publish'd by a Bluster-master ann 1636. call'd A Coal from the Altar to defame a Letter sent nine years before by the Bishop to some Divines of the Neighbourhood of Grantham in Lincolnshire to resolve a Doubt upon the Site of the Communion-Table or Altar as the Vicar of Grantham call'd it from whose Indiscretion the Contention began If ever any had a Wolf by the Ear the Bishop was in that quandary upon this provocation Gladly he would have made his Peace with the King to which he came near twice or thrice but at last utterly lost the sight of it It behoved him for his Safety not to make them his Enemies who were like to be his Judges chiefly not to trespass against the Likings of Archbishop Laud who could draw the King with one Hand farther than all the Lords in the Court with their whole Arm. From anno 1627 when the Letter was written in the Case of the Vicar of Grantham to anno 1636 there had been much done in Preaching and Practice to introduce some comelinesses in the Worship of God as they were stiled which had not been before The Archbishop set his Mind upon it which a late Writer calls his Pregnancy to revive ancient Ceremonies and another Book Antid Lincol. p. 85. No Metropolitan of this Church that more seriously endeavour'd to promote the Uniformity of Publick Order than his Grace now being The Clamours raised upon him are an Evidence of it The Compliance of many to curry Favour did out-run the Archbishop's Intentions if my Opinion deceive me not and made the Clamour the greater which meeting with other Discontents might have warned Wisdom to stop or go on slowly So well it is known to be dangerous to run against the Stream and Unwillingness of the People and no good Physician will try Experiments upon an accrased Pody An honest Mind is not enough to patronize that which is much condemâ—â—â— I would have none to suspect the Archbishop that he meant any Change in the Doctrine of our Church I would have none to tax his Reformation for Superstition but I will say as Polybius did in defence of the nice Observations of the old Roman Religion that it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an Excess of Piety Yet be not too bold against causeless Jealousies Grant it but I do not give it that the Clamours did rise from weak Judgments and pass over that Rule That the strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please our solves Rom. 15.1 Policy ought to listen abroad to the Talk of the Streets and the Market-places for secular Policy is no prophane thing well used in the Service of God and not to despise Rumours when they are sharpened against the innovating of any Discipline These things appeared but Straws to stumble at to a resolved Stomach and a Champion comes out in print to gagg all popular murmuring against the placing of the Holy Table Altar-wise Ambustum Torrâ—m Corinaeus ab arâ corripit Aen. 12. one that would vent more I believe than the Masters of the Game would have done that put him into the Lists Athletâ—e suts ineitatoribus fortiores sunt says St. Hicrom in an Epistle to Julianus Yet the common Vogue was that this Author though learned was not the fittest to defend the Cause being not fortunate in the good opinion of the Times It was remembred that the Spartans would not pass that into a Decree which was good in it self which a scandalous Fellow oster'd to their Council but turned him by and set up a plain honest man to prefer it Sic bona sententia mansit turpis autor mutatus est Gel. lib. 18. c. 3. But if the Press must be set awork as the Pulpits Schools and Consistories had been to maintain this matter of no great moment God wot why must this Bishop and his Letter be the Block to fashion their Wit upon He was one that would carry no Coals they knew it A judicious Reply from him would make the Shadow return
Xeno Ath. Resp 'T is pardonable for every man to help himself Nor was it an indirect way no not a jot for there was neither Perjury nor Contradiction found between the first and second Depositions of the Parties And what the Bishop did was by the advice of the best Counsel in England to draw up some few Interrogatories to be put to the four Witnesses only to interpret and not to vary from or to substract or contradict what they had deposed before For the words being ambiguous in themselves might be taken in one sense to Defame in another fence not at all to touch upon the credit of Pregion It was agreed that Pregion offer'd money to A. Tubb and Alice Smith to procure Eliz. Hodgson to lay the base Child upon another man this they had sworn this the Bishop never endeavoured to impeach But an interrogatory is drawn up and offer'd to them whether El. Hodgson was dealt with to lay it upon the right Father which was a just and lawful motion or upon some other whether he had been the Father or no. They both answer That Pregion sollicited her to lay it upon another that was the true Father And this variation is all the Offence that is none at all in that particular And in that right meaning Sir J. Wray Sir J. Bolls and Richardson the Clerk of the Peace did receive it in the Sessions This Practice so little as it is is the grand Objection all beside comes not to so much as a filip on the Forehead For instance one Ward swears that he heard a Servant of the Bishop C. Powel offer Alice Smith Monies to take an Oath of his framing but Alice swears directly it was not so Powel swears he offer'd and paid her Money to bear her Charges as a Witness which is fit and lawful Nec ist a benignitas adimenda est quae liberalitatem magis significat quà m largitionem Cic. pro Murenâ T. Lund takes his Oath That Pregion told him that he never had touch'd El Hodgson but twice Being demanded hereof more strictly in his examination in the Star-chamber he swears That Pregion did not say to him that he touch'd her carnally nor did he know what he meant by touching Is there either substraction or contradiction in this or any more than a plain interpretation Lastly Wetheral had deposed That he was entreated by Pregion not to be at the Sessions He stands to it but adds that he was not bound to be there nor summoned He had deposed That Pregion spake to him to swear to no more than the Court should ask him What harm was there in that Caution Being examined in Star-chamber he swears That Pregion tempted him to nothing by Bribes or Reward but that he told him if he were sworn to tell the whole Truth he would not conceal it Only one Witness George Walker layeth it on the Bishop how Powel and Richard Owen entreated him in the Bishop's Name to speak with Witheral upon these matters which though it include no ill yet Owen and Powel depose They were never employed by the Bishop to deal with G. Walker upon such an Errand So the Bishop is cleared in every Information by sufficient Oaths of such against whose Faith there was no exception How easie a Province had the Defendant's Counsel to crumble these Impeachments into Dust and to blow them into the Eyes of the Impeachers Verba innocenti reperire facilè est Curt. lib. 6. Yet the Oratory of the Court by pre-instructions did turn them into filthy Crimes As Irenaeus says in the beginning of his Work That out of the same Jewels which being handsomly put together make the Image of a Prince being taken asunder you may contrive them into the Shape of a Monster 119. Could it be expected that such Driblets or rather Phantoms of Under-dealing with Witnesses should hold the Court ten days hearing in the long Vacation after Trinity-Term What leisure was taken to bolt out to exaggerate to wrack to distort to make an Elephant of a Fly which I may justly pour forth in the words of Tully for his Client Quintius de fortunis omnibus deturbandus est Potentes diserti nobiles omnes advocandi Adhibenda vis est veritati minae intentantur pericula intenduntur formidines opponuntur But here were worse things which the Oratour had never cause to complain of under the Roman Laws All the Depositions of the main Witnesses for the Bishop were deleted not fairly by a Hearing in open Court where their Lordships might every one have consider'd of it but were spunged out by that Judge in his private Chamber who was the bane of the Cause from the beginning to the end and forsooth because they were impertinent Scandals against Kilvert and others that had deposed for the King Only the Bishop was allowed to put in a cross Bill when it was too late after he was first ruin'd in his Honour Fortunes and Liberty and then lest to seek a Remedy against a Companion not worth a Groat And who was ever used like this Defendant since the Star-chamber sate that when his Cause was so far proceeded as to be heard in three sittings that two new Affidavits should be brought in by Kilvert which struck to the very substance of the Cause to which no Answer could be given because they were new matters quite out of the Books obtruded long after publication yet from thenceforth produced every day which seduced divers of the noble Lords and no doubt many of the Hearers as though they had been Depositions in that Cause which were not so but Materials of another information and in their due time were fully cleared and disproved When was it known before that in every of the ten days that the Cause was in debate a Closet-meeting was held at Greenwich the Lords sent for to it one by one the Proofs there repeated to them and their Votes bespoken Which was no better than when Junius Marius in Tacitus bespake the Emperor Claudius to impart his private Commentaries unto him Per quos nosceret quisque quem accusandum poposcisset And between the full hearing and sentencing the Cause the Lords were well told a Passage That a noble Personage had offered Ten thousand pounds to compound for the Bishop's Peace which is true that the Duke of Richmond did it when he saw how the Game went in the Cabinet Which was the very reason that induced their Lordships to lay such an immense Fine upon a Fault conceiv'd that was never sentenc'd in any Kingdom or State before Yet all this did not suffice but in that morning of the day when the Cause was sentenc'd it was first debated in an inner Chamber so long till many hundreds waited for their coming forth till high noon wherein Agreement was concluded by all Parties before they sate There and then it was that the Archbishop press'd for the degradation of his Brother Bishop and his deportation God knows whither Now
to be re-examin'd after Issue joyn'd in case they recover'd A particular Charge being laid before you when the House of Commons is a Party and the Charge of so high a nature as Treason I shall not advise this Honourable House to use any Chiquancery or Pettisoggery with this great Representation of the Kingdom but admit them forthwith to examine their own Members yet with this Caution To hew the Names two days before they be produced to the Sollicitor of the Defendant that he may have notice of the persons But the House press for Secrecy in the Examination Well they are safe enough while they are in the Lord's hands who have Urim and Thummim perfect Knowledge and perfect Integrity and therefore nothing can be suspected Are not they surer than other Officers In ordinary Commissions out of Star-Chamber my Lord Ellsmore would not allow that any Clerks should be used to prevent Futility and Evaporation saying That the best Commissioner in England was not too good to be the King's Clerk Secondly I am as'kt about the Examination of the Peers and the Assistants of this House upon Oath There is no question to be made about the Assistants they are no Peers of this Kingdom but whether Peers may be produced as Witnesses and testifie upon Oath A question not sit to be now handled and impossible to be resolved out of the Rolls of the Parliament because the Peers give their Testimony both in this Court and others either way And I am confident a Peers Averment against his Fellow Peer cannot be refused either way especially in case of Treason For a Peer judgeth his Peer worthy of Death upon his Honour and therefore may witness against him upon his Honour In this Court and almost in this Case in Alze Pierce her Case 1 Rich. 2. Num. 21. Lord Roger Beauchamp swears upon the Holy Evangelists The Lord of Lancaster King of Castile and Leon is examin'd but not sworn Nay both ways have been declar'd in this House to be all one Your Lordships declaring that you did not bound limit or terminate your Assertion with your Honour but mount it and relate it up unto God that gave you your Honour and yielded your selves perjur'd if you falsisied in swearing upon Honour which is just the very same as if you sware upon the Holy Evangelists To swear upon Honour and rest there were Idolatry But to swear upon Honour with a Report and Relation to God who bestowed it upon your Lordships as a special Favour and Grace is as Christian an Oath as any in the World For new Scruples in the manner as to touch the Book to look on the Book to hold up a Finger or Hand to Heaven are Ceremonies which the House of Commons little regards but leaves them to us And the Lord of Strafford is so wise that he will never question the Honour of his Peers And why should we trouble our selves about the circumstance but leave each Lord called to testisie to call God as a Witness to his Assertion in which of these two manners it shall please his Lordship Not the Book not the Honour but the Invocation of God to bear witness to the Assertion makes the Oath 144. I am put to it by your Lordships to speak in the third place about the examination of Privy Councillors Here needs no distinction between Peers and Assistants This is part of a Privy Councillor's Oath That he shall keep secret all matters committed and revealed to him or that shall be treated of in Council 2. If any Treaty touch his fellow-Councillor he shall not reveal it unto him till the King or Council shall require it I collect now that matters of Fact he may reveal without violation of his Oath and that he may be examin'd of matters revealed unto him that were treated of in Council if they were not treated of in Council when he was present That a Privy-Councillor for all his Oath may be examin'd concerning Words Advices or Opinions of another Privy-Councillor otherwise given than in Council That Bed-chamber and Gallery Discourse is nothing to the Council-Table Private Entertainers of the King when the Counsellors attend at the Door are not to pass for Counsellors Ear-wiggs and Whisperers are no Counsellors but detracters from Counsellors If they advise the Destruction of the King the State or the Laws of the Realm there is nothing in the Oath to protect such an Ear-worm but he may be appeached For matters which touch another fellow-Councillor or matters committed otherwise to him or which shall be treated of in Council these are not to be concealed from all forts of men but from private men only not from the King not from the Council both those are in the Oath nor from the Parliament That Privy-Councillots may be examin'd by Command of the Parliament for things treated in Council 2. for things revealed unto them secretly from the King in his Bed-chamber 3. and especially for ear-wigging and treating with the King in private after things already settled in Council The Case of Alze Pierce 1 Rich. II. num 41. clears all these Doubts And it is the Case also of a Deputy of Ireland William of Windsor Lord-Deputy misbehaved himself in Ireland the Council directs Sir Nicholas Dagworth to go thither and to enquire into his Actions Windsor makes means to Alze Pierce to keep off this man under pretence of Enmity betwixt them This Shunamite that lay in David's Bosom prevails with the King to stay Sir N. Dagworth the Council-Order notwithstanding The Lords in Parliament question her for this act as having drawn with it the Ruin of the State in Ireland She pleads not guilty Issue is joyned The Lords produce inter alios John Duke of Lancaster upon his Honor and Roger Beauchamp Lord Chamberlain upon the Evangelists Alze produceth of her part the Steward and Comptroller of the Houshold All these four were Privy-Counsellors they depose all of them nothing else but matters treated of in Council and opposed by Alze Pierce treating with the King out of Council So that if this Record be true this Case is cleared Privy-Councillors may not be forced by ordinary Courts of Justice to reveal things treated of in Council but may be produced upon Oath and Honour to reveal such Secrets by the King the Council or the Parliament especially in detestation of Statewhisperers and Ear-wiggs yea though they had taken no Oath at all Yet God forbid a Privy-Counsellor should witness against his Fellow for publickly venting the freedom of his Judgment at the Board who is bound to advise faithfully not wisely as I do here this day Should any man be accused for an Error of Judgment O God defend peradventure my Error hath set all the rest of the Council straight Errores antiquorum venerari oportet si illi non errassent minùs ipse providissem otherwise you would take away all Freedom of Debates nay almost of very Thoughts If I knew any man
lay-Lay-Lords and consequently continued present in Judicature in the eye and construction of the Law Therefore I apply my Answers to Courtney's Protestation principally which are divers and fit to be weighed and ponder'd First I do observe that Bishops did never protest or withdraw in Causes of Blood but only under the unsteddy Reign of Richard the Second Never before nor after the time of that unfortunate King to this present Parliament for ought appears in Record or History And that one Swallow should make us such a Spring and one Omission should create a Law or Custom against so many Actions of the English Prelates under so many Kings before so many Kings and Queens after that young Prince seems to me a strange Doctrine especially when I consider that by the Rules of the Civil and Common Law a Protestation dies with the death of him that makes it or is regularly vacated and disannulled Per contrarium actum subsequentem protestationem by any one subsequent act varying from the tenour of the said Protestation Regul Juris Bap. Nicol. part 2. Now that you may know how the Prelates carried themselves in this point and actually voted in Causes of Treason and sometimes to Blood before Richard the Second I refer me to what I cited before out of Mr. Selden and he out of Stephanides concerning Becket condemned by his Peers Ecclesiastical and Temporal 15 H. 2. Archbishop Stratford acquitted of High Treason in Parliament by four Prelates four Earls and four Barons under Edward the Third Antiq. Britan. p. 223. There was 4 Ed. 3. Roger de Mortimer Berisford Travers and others adjudged Traitors by Bishops as well as other Peers 16 Ed. 3. Thomas de Berkely was acquitted of Treason in pleno Parliamento And especially I refer my self to Roll 21 Rich. 2. Num. 10. which averrs That Judgments and Ordinances in the time of that King's Progenitors had been avoided by the absence of the Clergy which makes the Commons there to pray that the Prelates would make a Procurator by whom they might in all Judgments of Blood be at the least legally if they durst not be bodily present in such Judicatures And for the practice since the Reign of Rich. II. be it observed that in the fifth of Hen IV. the Commons thank the Lords Spiritual and Temporal for their good and rightful Judgment in freeing the Earl of Northumberland from Treason 3 Hen. 5. The Commons pray a Confirmation of the Judgment given upon the E. of Cambridge by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 5 H. 5. Sir J. Oldcastle is attainted of Treason and Heresie by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 28 H. 6. The Duke of Suffolk is charged with Treason before the Lords Spiritual and Temporal 31 H. 6. The Earl of Devon in like sort and so down to the Earl of Bristol's Case 22 Maii 1626. ten Bishops are joyned with ten Earls and ten Barons in the disquisition and agitation of that supposed Treason I leave it therefore to any indifferent Judgment Whether these Protestations made all under one Kings Reign dying with the Parties that made them can void a Right and Custom grounded on a continual Practice to the contrary in all other Tryals that have been since the Conquest to this present Parliament 151. Secondly It is fitting we know the nature of a Protestation which some may mistake Protestatio est animi nostri declaratio juris acquirendi vel conservandi vel damnum depellendi causâ facta saith Spiegle Calvin and all the Civilians No Protestation is made by any man in his Wits to destroy his own Right and much less another mans but to acquire or preserve some Right or to avoid and put off some Wrong that was like to happen to the Party or Parties that make the Protestation As here in Courtney's Protestation the Prelates in the first place conceive a Right and Power they had voluntarily to absent themselves while some matters were treated of at that time in the House of Lords which by the Canon-Law the Breach whereof the Popes of Rome did vindicate in those times with far more Severity than they did the Transgressions of the Law of God they were not suffer'd to be present at not for want of Right to be there in all Causes but for fear of Papal Censures In the next place they did preserve their former Right as Peers which they still had though voluntarily absenting themselves More solito interessendi considerandi tyactandi ordinandi definiendi all things without exception acted and executed in that Parliament And in the last place they protest against any loss of right of being or voting in Parliament that could befall them for this voluntary absenting of themselves at this time And where in all this Protestation is there one word to prejudice their Successors or to authorize any Peer to command his fellow-Peer called thither by the same Writ of Summons that himself is and by more ancient Prescription to withdraw and go out from this Common-Council of the Kingdom Thirdly We do not certainly know what these matters were whereat Archbishop Courtney conceived the Prelates neither could nor ought to be present These matters are left in loose and general words in that Protestation Some conceive indeed it was at the Condemnation of Tressilian Brambre L. Beauchamp and others Ant. Brit. p. 286. But the Notes of Privileges belonging to the Lords collected by Mr. Selden do with more reason a great deal assign this going forth of the Prelates to be occasion'd by certain Appeals of Treason preferred in that Parliament by the Duke of Gloucester against Alexander Archbishop of York whom the Popish Canons of those Times as you know exempted as a sacred person from the cognizance of King or Parliament and therefore the rest of the Bishops as the Squares went then neither could nor ought to be present and Parties to break the Exemptions Immunities and Privileges of that great Prelate But the Earl of Strafford is not the Archbishop but the President of York and to challenge any such Exemptions and Immunities at this time from the cognizance of King and Parliament amounts to little less than Treason Therefore this Protestation is very unseasonably urged to thrust out any Protestant Prelate from voting in Parliament Lastly In the Civil and Canon-Law for the Law of this Land knoweth it not a Protestation is but a Testation or witnessing before-hand of a man 's own Mind or Opinion whereby they that protest provide to save and presorve their own Right for the time to come It concludes no more bende themselves no Stranger to the Act no Successor but if it be admitted sticks as inherent in the singular and individual person until either the Party dyes or the Protestation be drawn and revoked Therefore what is a Protestation made by Will. Courtney to Will. Laud Or by Tho. Arundel to bind Tho. Morton And what one Rule in the Common-Law of the Land in the Journaâ—-Books or
for that which outgoes my Knowledge shall never undergo my Censure As our English People say Much Cry and little Wool these two Houses produced small things in the close Nothing more uncertain than what a Parliament will bring forth in the end At the Colloquy at Ratisbon Tanner granted that the Pope might err in a Council unless he used all due and ordinary means But the Jesuit in effect granted nothing For says he without all doubt and question he doth ever use those means But if a Parliament were all Popes and made out their Consults with the Line and Plumbet of the best Diligence Obliquity would fall out because all human Light burns dim in the Lanthorn of thick misty Passions It is observ'd that His Majesty removed one Parliament to Oxon in the first of his Reign this other in the nineteenth both rose up abruptly and gave him small content How is it that publick Councils were improsperous in those delicate Seats of Arts and Sciences The Genius of the place is not pleased with those Areopagites for they are not proper Visitors of its learned Foundations Themistius hath these words in an Oration upon the Muses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They all agree very well together but the Muses like no other company 200. Oxford wanted not Bishops at this time many lodg'd in it but they were excluded to sit and vote as Peers in Parliament yet their presence serv'd for very good use His Majesty had preferred Dr. Frewin the President of Magdalen-College to the Bishoprick of Lichfield and Coventry whom none of his Predecessors did exceed in Prudence Bounty and Advancement of learned Scholars who was consecrated by the Archbishop of York in the Chappel of his own College and feasted the Nobles and Clergy in a fair Room built at his own Cost It is not to be pass'd over that he left the Presidentship of that College a place of Security and Plenty to take a Bishoprick when those Dignities were voted out of the Church by the Disciplinarians and their Revenues offer'd to sale to pay the Charges of their Army Which was an act of as much Hope and Courage as that Roman's in Livy That when Rome was besieged by Hannibal bargain'd for and bought that piece of Land upon which the Carthaginians had pitch'd their Camp To return from this little Diversion into the great Road When the Parliament had made a recess His Majesty call'd a few able Statesmen to him in private among whom our Archbishop was one and being the first in precedency was called upon to begin and to say freely what might best be done to bring His Majesty and his faithful part out of those Troubles which the Lords and Gentlemen that lately undertook it had left no better than they found them The Archbishop was very backward and made many Excuses desiring to hear others that had been more assiduous in those great Affairs which being not granted he was honester than the Oracle of Apollo as Eusebius objects it to the Pagans lib. 6. Praep. Evan. c. 1. That the Oracle much importuned in a certain case and loth to give an Answer burst out into this passion Retine vim istam falsa enim dicam si coges An Evasion sit for the Couesels of the Devil But the Archbishop took his mark from St. Ambrose Ep. 29. to Theodosius Neque est imperiale libertatem dicendi negare neque Sacerdotale quod sentias non dicere So he broke into the matter Sir says he to the King my Opinion will be strange and I fear unwelcome If it please not yet do not impute it to Falshood or Fear but to Error and Mistaking Your Militia is couragious but small not like to encrease and then not to hold out Your Enemies multiply and by this time your Army hath taught them to fight They are in Treaty with the Scots to make a Recruit and the Princes and States beyond Seas to their shame give them countenance Their Treasurers at Westminster boast that it costs them large Moneys every month to keep Correspondence with their Intelligencers and Spies about you Your Souldiers in their March and Quarters are very unruly and lose the Peoples Affections every where by the Oppressions they sustain Out of these Premises I inferr and I engage my Life to your Majesties Justice and my Soul to God's Tribunal that I know no better course than to struggle no further since so it is the Will of God and to refer all to the pleasure and discretion of that unkind and insolent Parliament at Westminster but with the preservation of your Majesties Crown and Person to which they have all taken an Oath to offer no Hurt or Violence and have renewed it in many Protestations As likewise with the Indemnity of your Adherents for we save a Ship with the loss of the Goods not of the Passengers If any thing will soften them it will be this most pacifick and gracious Condescention The Heathens speak rudely that Constancy in Suffering will tire out the Cruelty of the Gods but certainly such a Sufferance and Self-denial as resigns up your Majesties Cause and Trust quite unto them will make the worst of them asham'd of their pertinacy and melâ—â—â— the best into a shower of Repentance But if your Majesty disdains to go so low and will not put the good of the Church and Kingdom upon their Faith to which Misery I fear our Sins have brought us I am ready to run on in the common Hazard with your Majesty and to live and dye in your Service There was danger in so much Plain-lealing for Xenophon lib. 2. Hist relates that in a Case to this as near as can be Archestratus was cast in Prison for advising the Athenians to take such Conditions of Peace as the Lacedemonians would give them after their great Overthrow at Aegos-potamos Yet some noble persons at the prosecution of this Consultation struck in with the Archbishop's Judgment the most dissented the King was not pleased in it and the Burden lay upon the Fore-man that began it Says the Son of Syrach c. 7 5. Boast not of thy Wisdom before the King The Note of Grotius is extant upon it Qui excellunt sapientiâ suspecti fermè regibus But the Gallantry of the Array were quite out of patience to hear of it their Heaven upon Earth was to see the day that they might subdue and be revenged of the Roundheads The common Souldier that subsisted upon Pay and Plunder had as lieve dye as lose his Trade Tanta dulcedo est ex alienis fortunis praedandi Liv. lib. 6. Now because this was called the Archbishop's Judgment though others consented and suffer'd hard words it will be to some purpose to unfold it a little and to defend the Innocent For he that lives may out-wear a Disgrace not he that is dead Therefore Arist maintains it in his ninth Problem that it is more just to do right to the Dead than to the Living
Old Latium August and Sacred signified the same 'T were good if it would prove so now But it began with discontent on every side and never mended Our Wise King no longer smother'd his Passion but confess'd at sundry times a great fault in himself that he had been so improvident to send the Duke on this Errand with the Prince whose bearing in Spain was ill Reported by all that were not partial He put the bafful so affectedly upon the Earl of Bristol at every turn that those Propositions which his Majesty had long before approved with deep Wisdom and setled with the Word of Honour were struck out by my Lord of Buckingham only because Bristol had presented them Nay if the Prince began to qualifie the unreasonableness he would take the Tale out of his Highness's Mouth and over-rule it and with such youthful and capricious Gestures as became not the lowly Subjection due to so great a Person but least of all before Strangers It was an Eye-sore to the Spaniards above any people who speak not to their King and the Royal Stems of the Crown without the Complement of Reverence nor approach unto them without a kind of Adoration The more the Prince endur'd it the more was their judgment against it For every Mouth was fill'd with his Highness's Praise and nothing thought wanting in him to be absolutely good and Noble but to know his own Birth and Majesty better and to keep more distance from a Subject So the Earl of Bristol Writes Cab. p. 20. I protest as a Christian I never heard in all the time of his being here nor since any one Exception against him unless it were for being supposed to be too much guided by my Lord of Buckingham which was no Venial Sin in their censure For how much their gall Super-abounded against that Lord the same Earl could not hold to write it to the Lord Keeper bearing Date August 20. I know not how things may be Reconciled here before my Lord Duke's departure but at present they are in all Extremity ill betwixt this King his Ministers and the Duke And they stick not to profess that they will rather put the Infanta head-long into a Well then into his Hands One thing that fill'd up the Character of my Lord Duke before in this Work was that he had much of the brave Alcibiades in him In this they differ that Plutarch's Alcibiades suited himself so well to the Manners and Customs of all Courts where he came that he gave satisfaction to all Princes and they were best pleased with him that most enjoy'd him The great Lord Villiers was not so Fortunate for he thrived not in the Air of Madrid and he brook'd the Air of Paris as ill about two years after upon the like Occasion And no marvel For as Catulus said of Pompey in Paterculus Praeclarus vir Cn. Pompeius sed reipub liberae nimius So this Lord was a worthy Gentleman but too big to be one in a Free Treaty with other Ministers The Lord Keeper who was the Socrates to this Alcibiades had Noted his Lordships Errors and unbeseeming Pranks before For which he look'd for no better then he that rubs a Horse that is gaul'd Yet he resolv'd to shoot another Arrow the same way that the former went though the Duke had threatned to break his Bow as soon as he came Home But he was too prudent to be scared from doing Duty to so great a Friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Aristotle He is neither Wise nor Faithful but a Flatterer that denies his Spirit ingenious Freedom And it is a Speech worthy of Sir Ph. Sidney which the Lord Brooke ascribes to him Pag. 42. of his Life That he never found Wisdom where he found not Courage Therefore the Lord Keeper writes to the Duke Aug. 3. of which this is the Moral to him that reads it intelligently That no Man living can keep Favour who keeps not Conditions that merit to perpetuate Favour May it please your Grace I Have no more to trouble your Grace at this time withal than the Expression of that Service and those Prayers which as I do truly owe so shall I ever as faithfully perform to your Grace New Comers may make more large and ample Promises but will in the end be found to fall short of your old Servants in Reality and Performances If your Grace hath by this time thought that I have been too bold and too near your Secrets in those Counsels I presumed upon in my last Letters I beseech you to remember how easie it was for me to have held my Peace how little Thanks I am like to receive from any other beside your Grace for the same how far I am in these Courses from any end of mine own beside your Prosperity and Security If your Grace would give me leave to deliver my Opinion upon the main though no Hunter after Court-News it is this Your Grace stands this Day in as great Favour with his Majesty as your Heart can desire And if I have any Judgment in far more Security of Continuance than ever you did if you remain as for ought I can perceive you do in the same State with the Prince in the same Terms as your Pains have deserved with the Princess and out of Quarrels and Recriminations which will but weaken both Parties and make way for a third with the rest of his Majesties Agents in this Negotiation I cannot but presume once more to put your Grace in mind that the nearer you are drawn to his Highness in Title the more you are with all Care and Observance to humble your self unto him in Speech Gesture Behaviour and all other Circumstances yea although his Highness should seem to require the Contrary This cannot be any way offensive to your own and is expected to the utmost Punto by that other Nation I do presume of Pardon for all my Follies in this kind and that whatsoever is wanting in my Discretion your Grace will be pleased to make up out of my Sincerity and Affection However your Grace and the Earl of Bristol shall conclude I hope your Grace will pardon my Zeal though peradventure not according to Knowledge aiming only at your Grace's Service the Amplitude and Continuance of your Greatness For whatsoever your Grace shall determine and conclude I do and shall implicitly yield unto the same Yet am still of Opinion the way of Peace to be the broad way to enlarge and perpetuate your Grace's Greatness and Favour with his Majesty c. This was bold but faithful and ingenious Dealing The Duke's last Messenger whom he sent into England before he arrived Sir J. Hipsley gave him a touch of the same Cab. P. 316. For God's-sake carry the Business with Patience betwixt my Lord of Bristol and you And again in the same For God's-sake make what hast you may Home for fear of the worst For the King's Face began to gather Clouds upon the