as long as Episcopacy stood firm in England in which respect they could not but be willing to assist those whose design it was to abolish it Before this time it was thought sit to deprive the King of two prime Counsellors the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Strafford whose names were delivered in by the Scottish-Commissioners as incendiaries between the two Nations which was done in the way of an impeachment by the House of Commons at the Lords Bar for High Treason Upon this Impeachment it was found requisite to commit them presently to the Tower so as the King was immediately deprived of their advice in Council and the Earl of Strafford was speedily brought to Trial in Westminster-Hall with much solemnity which had continuance for many days and at last was broken up with heat and violence by the House of Commons such as ill became the gravity of that Assembly and they did it conceiving that the Lords carried themselves partially in relation to the person impeached but his condemnation was finished afterwards by the Legislative power in a Bill of Attainder which could not pass the Lords till many of them were so terrified by tumults as they found it for their safety to be absent at the last Reading And this business of the Bill was carried on with such violence as there was a kind of proscription of such persons as in the House â—f Commons had Voted against the Bill for their names were posted up in London by the care of some malicious body The Archbishop was reserved to a Trial less legal as to the form but no less fatal to his ruine being some few years after condemned by a Bill passed in both Houses but wanting the Royal assent At or about the time of Straffords Trial there was a general licentiousness used The Parliament-houses were daily haunted with a rabble of tumultuating people crying out for that which they called justice There was also a Liberty assumed and connived at to Print and publish what every man thought fit which for the most part was in defamation of the Governors Ecclesiastical and Temporal Within the City of London the Pulpits were almost wholly possest by Presbyterian-Ministers whose eloquence was altogether employed the same way In the Country or at least in divers parts there was such encouragement given under-hand as the common people fell upon Popish Recusants and plundered their houses with all severity And the House of Commons being made acquainted with the inconvenience and terror of these Tumults as well by their own members as by a Message from the house of Lords would not be drawn to discountenance much to declare against them It was not long after the Pacification that the Scots much urged the King to go into Scotland to be crowned whereunto his Majesty assented at the last which gave great jealousie again at Westmirster in so much as the Parliament made some addresses to the King desiring that he would not depart out of the Kingdom at that time but those addresses became altogether fruitless the King declaring his absolute and peremptory engagement to go And the apprehensions of this journey were so powerful as a very active Member of the house of Commons standing at the door of the Lords House upon occasion of a Message having fetch'd a great sigh made a profession he thought we were all undone but the Presbyterian Scots continued true to their own interest with a respect also to their profit and expecting to be called again into England as it came to pass afterwards The Scottish Coronation being past the King returned to London and then the exasperations grew higher than ever It seems his Majesty was willing to impute the disorders in Parliament to some particular persons Members of both Houses whom he had found to have held intelligence with his enemies and therefore he directed his Atturny General to accuse the five members whose names are well known in Parliament of high Treason which was so ill resented in both Houses as the Impeachment was refused whereupon his Majesty fell upon that unhappy resolution of coming personally into the House of Commons which gave so great offence as both Houses pretending they could not sit securely at Westminster without a guard adjourned themselvs for some days and appointed to meet during the vacancy in London as grand Committies to consider what was to be done upon the pretended breach of Priviledge This gave a great advantage against the King for by this means they had opportunity to fix their correspondence with the Citizens and to engage them in their defence Between this time and the Kings return out of Scotland the Court had been annoyed with a confluence of unruly people so as it was thought fit to have a Corps de guard or a Court of guard as they call it kept in the passage before Whitehal to keep the rabble at a distance But during this Adjournment the Citizens of London became so engaged as upon the day of the Houses meeting again at Westminster they sent a little army with some field pieces for their security these passed by land and by water on each side of Whitehal and the noise of their coming was so loud as it was concluded fit for the guard of Middlesex trayned bands to withdraw and so their passage became free This was interpreted at Court as the beginning of a war and thereupon his Majesty thought good to retire to Hampton-Court After this there were many addresses to the King by the Parliament but not any that could be in the least measure pleasing to him It happened that Mr. Pim had newly and publickly at a conference between the House as I take it used some words of disrespect to the King wherewith his Majesty exprest himself to be offended and thereupon the House of Commons having notice of the Kings resentment took a resolution to send his Majesty a paper in full justification of that which Mr. Pim had said I my self was present at this resolution and appearing dissatisfied with it immediately went out of doors which being observed by a back friend of mine he named me one of the four to carry it This unwelcome news was brought to me to my own house by one of our Serjeants with a copy of the order which must not be disobeyed and so we went and delivered the paper to his Majesty at Hampton-Court which being read he began to discourse upon it as if he expected reason from us and seem'd to address his Speech more particularly to me perhaps having heard of my dislike but Sir John Culpepper then Chancellor of the Exchequer and chief of the four told his Majesty we had not power to speak one word whereupon we were dismissed and returned to London After this the King left Hampton-Court and went to Theobalds whither the Parliament sent a Committie of Lords and Commons but with a message either so unreasonable or unseasonable as the King thought fit to dismiss
judged fit to call in the Scots which matter being moved in the House of Commons and it being objected that it would be fruitless to call them without proposing to them at the same time something of great advantage by it there stood up presently that great Patriot Henry Martin and desired with much confidence that an offer might be made them of the Counties of Northumberland and Cumberland and in case they were not therewith contented to add two such other Counties in the North as should be most convenient for them So little care had he in that conjuncture of the honour and advantage of the English Nation This was justly thought extravagant yet that business of calling in the Scotts being communicated to the Lords there was a Committy of Lords and Commons nominated to go into Scotland and matters were so transacted with the Scots as they entred into England with an army the February following I should have related how in the former year after the King 's retiring from Parliament there was set up at Westminster an assembly of Divines being an Ecclesiastical body of strange constitution and composed of persons nominated by the Knights and Burgesses of each County to which were added a small number named by the Lords and some few Commissioners deputed by the Kirk of Scotland This assembly being so extraordinary in the constitution was certainly designed to produce great effects but the success was not answerable for they could never perfect their model of Church Government not well agreeing among themselves by reason of the Independent members who approved of no Church discipline other than Parochial and even that part of the model which was concluded upon with approbation of Parliament could never be put in execution the Presbyterian discipline being so strict as made it unpleasing to most of the people and especially to those of the Gentry who found themselves likely to be over-powered by the Clergy even in the places of their habitation But the Army after it became new modelled was wholly averse to it I conceive the intentions of calling an Assembly to have been these two First to have a Synod of Divines concurring in the subversion of the Bishops and their Hierarchy and in this the Parliament had their end fully for the matter very well pleased all such persons as were earnestly of their party And secondly to agree upon some uniformity in Divine Service which was the ground of their Directory but all Uniformity or colour of it was distasteful to the Independents which became the growing opinion and at last so over-spread the Army as the sight of a black-coat grew hateful to them and so the Directory fell to ground of it self These Assembly-men might well be discouraged since hopes were given at first that the Lands of Bishops and of Collegiate Churches should be setled in some way for the raising of all Parochial Churches a competency of means for the Ministers but the necessities belonging to War exposed these to sale and frustrated that hope I should have related how the House of Commons finding the Pulpits filled with persons disaffected to them made a breach upon the Lords in point of Judicature and erected a Committy called of plundered Ministers and by this Committy they ejected the old Ministers and placed new at pleasure but because the ejected had been possest of a Freehold the Committy ordered to his Wife and Children a fifth part of the profits if cause were not shewed to the contrary which must be this That the person displaced was otherwise possest of temporal means sufficient and to my observation there was scarcely any of the new-placed who did not dispute that provision at the Committy But it seems that this Committy could not dispatch that business fast enough for the Earl of Manchester was afterwards invested with a power by both Houses to do the same thing within his association as also to reform the University of Cambridge where he had the like arbitrary power of ejection But the Parliament had a way of cementing their fluctuating faction by religious bands of union which certainly they found very effectual though upon differing grounds or else they would never have had three of them in three or four years time which I think is not to be paralell'd in any other revolt The first of these was a protestation in the year 1641 which being before the War began took into it the defence of his Majesties Royal person Estate and Dignity The second was termed a Vow and Covenant set on foot in the year 1642 and this containeth no mention of the King but in the way of forcible opposition to him by prosecuting the War And the third was the Scottish-Covenant which again taketh in the defence of his Majesties Royal person but in so perplexed and complicated a way as it signified little And in this was also contained a total abrogation of the Government Ecclesiastical by Archbishops Bishops c. with the whole Hierarchy so as this Covenant may be said to have spoken perfect Scottish The taking of the first and last of these in their proper time was pressed upon the people in general with all terror and the Vow and Covenant which related much to a particular conspiracy only upon the Members of both Houses and certainly it was a very useful policy to engage the most considerable persons in these oaths and in other things rendring them odious to their Prince and exposing them to confiscation of their Estates upon conquest which could not but make them stick the more closely to common defence All the time of this Parliament it was the design of our Caballists to abate the power of the Lords House and in pursuance of that design at the very beginning in Straffords business they prevailed to have the Recusant Lords deprived of Voting there and afterwards they had not patience to stay till the Bishops were excluded by the Ordinance but took advantage of a protestation made by such Bishops as then sate in the House of Lords being about half their number and to my best remembrance thus it was Those Bishops having taken a resolution not to continue sitting long after his Majesties forsaking the Southern parts yet finding that there was an Ordinance coming for abolition of their Order which must pass the Lords House they used their endeavours to enervate that which might be done in their absence and upon that ground they entred a Protestation subscribed with their names against all such determinations to their prejudice This being become matter of record the House of Commons took notice of it and came up presently with an impeachment of those Bishops by name as guilty of a Praemunire in assuming to themselves a power to invalidate that which is otherwise the Law of the Land viz. the Jurisdiction of Parliament and upon this ground how justly I know not for the matter was never brought to Judgment those Bishops unhappily formed to themselves a
deprivation instead of a withdrawing By this means and by the absence of those Lords who withdrew themselves to serve his Majesty the House of Peers was grown so empty as their Authority became little considerable which was not much regarded by our Leaders in the House of Commons who in likelihood had at that time a resolution to dissolve that House as it came to pass afterwards As great assertors of priviledge of Parliament as that House of Commons pretended to be yet they cared not how far they encroached upon the Lords nor how they violated their priviledges as may appear by a message delivered at their Bar near the beginning of the Parliament which was to this effect That the Commons found in that House so great an obstruction of matters tending to the good of the Common-wealth as they desired their Lordships to make known the names of such Lords as were the causes of it that they might be dealt with as enemies to the State So as in those days the House of Commons might properly use the French proverbial saying Je n'ayme pas le bruit si je ne le faits I love no noise but what I make my self But their own House began to be almost as much cried out upon for paucity of Members and for this they had provided a remedy sufficient by the new great Seal and there was little danger of bringing in evil Members for no writ of election could be issued but by Warrant from the Speaker and consent of the House who would not grant it for places where the people were known to be disaffected to the Parliament By this means the House became pretty well filled and many of the new Members were Officers of the Army who had been so used to command as at the last they found a way to command even the House it self Besides this the new Great Seal enabled the Parliament to constitute Judges and to set up again the Courts at Common Law as also to make what Justices of the Peace they thought sit whereof there was very great want in the Parliament Quarters till then so as now there were complete judicial proceedings both Criminal and Civil which gave great satisfaction to the people and would have deserved high applause but that all men knew this convenience to be raised upon a most unjust and insolent foundation Before this recruiting of the House of Commons as it was then called the Military affairs of Parliament were much advanced for by the help and countenance of the Scottish Army his Majesties strength in the North was so broken as the Parliament had first besieged Newark and then the City of York but both these Towns were very bravely relieved by Prince Rupert and could that Prince have been contented with the honour of having effected his business in the dissolution of those sieges it had been happy but he as a Souldier knew what a fear usually is attendant upon Armies in a retreat having been forced to forsake a siege and thereupon he gave the Parliament Forces Battel at Marston-Moor and was defeated wholly yet with such a confusion on both parts as six Generals present in that sight were said to take wing at the same time conceiving their party to be utterly overthrown whereof General Lesly of the Scottish was one This set the Parliaments reputation very high in point of strength and gave opportunity to our Caballists of abating or rather dissolving Essex his power who as they conceived and perhaps grounding their conceit upon his Letter for propositions to his Majesty in which Letter he also exprest much care that the Royal person might be preserved in safety had no mind to an utter overthrow of the Regal Authority So as when the Armies were withdrawn into their Winter-quarters our grand Politicians set themselves upon the effecting of this great work which must have influence as well upon Essex his chief adherents as upon himself The manner of this critical business was thus It was affirmed in the House of Commons as impossible that the War could be brought to an end by an Army that had totally lost its discipline whereupon it was moved and assented to that a Committy should be nominated for examination of corruptions and abuses in the Army This Committy sate many days and was very full of employment till at last a Report was called for Then arose up Mr. Tate the Chair-man with a great bundle of papers in his hand being a very great Presbyterian and little suspecting that his business would become the ruine of his party as it did in conclusion He appeared unwilling to make the Report but being pressed to do it he desired that the House would first give him leave to speak a few words And then he uttered his parable concerning a man much troubled with Botches and Boiles in several parts of his body who had recourse to a Physician for cure his Doctor told him that he could give him plaisters to cure any part of his body so disaffected but that whatsoever was healed in one member would break out again in another for the whole habit of his body was corrupted and that if he would have perfect health he must procure for himself a better habit of body by much purgation with a new diet and so the Ulcers would be healed of themselves This saith Mr. Tate is so applicable to the business in hand as I hope the House will find no need of a Report and yet upon command I am ready to make it Hereupon other Members who had prepared themselves spake against the Report and said that abroad out of doors all our ill successes were imputed to the absence of Members from Parliament and then a motion was made that there might be a self-denying Ordinance by which all the Members of either House might be deprived of other employments that diverted them from their service in Parliament This was very hard of digestion to many Members who had profitable Offices yet for publick satisfaction and for better reforming of the Army it was consented to that there should be such an Ordinance which was afterwards brought in and passed both Houses By this means Essex Denbigh Manchester Grey of Groby Sir William Waller Haselrig Brereton Cromwell and divers others were deprived of Command though the last was never intended to suffer by this Ordinance as it appeared afterwards But notwithstanding all this Essex had not surrendred his Commission and therefore something must be done to shew him a perfect necessity So the House of Commons proceeded in nomination of Collonels for their new Army whereof Sir Thomas Fairfax was one and at last he was Voted to be General of it He was a person eminent for valour vaillant comme son espée fearless as his sword but of a temper more flexible than Essex and very many others which pleased Cromwell who meant to be the chief Steersman Not long after this Essex finding himself imperatorem sine exercitu
them with an absolute negative and there passed something then which perhaps may be fit to be inserted herein as containing that which is something extraordinary I received the relation from a noble person who was one of the Commoners then sent and this it is After having received his Majesties answer the Committy being still at Theobalds retired it self to take into consideration the terms of it that there might be no difference in reporting to the several Houses of Parliament As soon as the Committy was set the Earl of Warwick was called out to speak with his brother the Earl of Newport He went out and speedily returned with this account of the business that the Earl of Newport had acquainted him that the King was even then so pressed to give a more satisfactory answer as he was confident they should have such an answer if they would but defer their departure for a small season To this the whole company seemed to assent with much chearfulness when suddenly young Sir Henry Vain declared himself to mervail at it for said he is there any person here who can undertake to know the Parliaments mind that is whether this which we have or that which is called a more satisfactory answer will be more pleasing to the Houses For my part I cannot and if there be any that can let him speak to this no man made any answer and so having agreed upon the report to be made they departed I have related this to shew how easily one subtle ill-disposed person may overthrow a general good intention Now were the well affected party as it was then termed stirred up in all parts to give incouragement to the House of Commons in the way of pretended Reformation by petitions whereof some were delivered dayly at the bar and the deliverers had thanks given by the Speaker which was a thing altogether new And as a general return to these and to keep the people in perfect heat it was resolved that a general and publick declaration of the State of the kingdom should be made to the Nation In time of former Princes the House of Commons had some times but very rarely made remonstrances of that nature to the King which were never pleasing to him yet not justly to be excepted against because it is exprest in the writs of Summons that they are to advise his Majesty but for any advising or treating with the people it was always held illegal and of mischievous consequence Upon these grounds the declaration being brought into the House caused a very long debate but was at last passed with the dissent of very many of the most considerable Members Our Nation being in such disorder the rebellion broke out in Ireland and the Lords of the Council being yet in London imparted their new received intelligence to the House of Commons who seemed chearfully to embrace the business of reducing that Kingdom to obedience and thereupon endeavoured the raising of a stock of money by adventure upon security of the living Bears-skin which was the Estates of such persons as were in Rebellion Upon this the King made offer of going in person to suppress the rebellion if he might be supplied with money and other necessaries for the work which offer was so far from being hearkned unto at Westminster as it created new jealousie But the Parliament made good use of the Irish business for by that means they listed Officers and made full enquiry concerning their inclinations which succeeded happily with them afterwards Every day produced new differences between the King and Parliament for that unsatiable Monster of publick security caused the making of a proposition to his Majesty which was that the Parliament might govern the Militia or Trained-bands for some time at least which was rejected by the King as a power not to be parted withal no not for an hour whereupon the Parliament made new Lieutenants for each County who assumed the exercise of that power by Parliamentary authority in many parts of the Kingdom And upon the same ground of publick security Sir John Hotham seised upon the Town of Kingston upon Hull with the Kings Magazin there which his Majesty cried out upon not only as rebellious but as a robbing him of his Arms and Ammunition being personal Goods bought with his money and this before any the least act of hostility shewed on his part The King was then retired to the City of York as a place of more safety than nearer to London And there first of all the Warrants of Parliament being sent by express Messengers for Delinquents by them so stiled were flatly disobeyed which was no unwelcome news to the great managers of affairs at Westminister for they pretended such obstruction of Justice to be a justifiable sufficient ground for the raising of forces When the opposition was grown to this height his Majesty judged it fit that such Members of both Houses as had resolved to engage against the Parliament should withdraw themselves and one of the last that continued sitting in the House of Commons was Mr. Sidney Godolphin who for a farewel declared That by a War the Parliament would expose it self to unknown dangers for said he when the Cards are once shuffled no man knows what the Game will be which was afterwards found by the Parliament too true when their own Army became their Masters But in the mean time this Secession of Members did very much facilitate the entry into and continuance of the War all dispute being taken away within the Houses and the House of Commons would not lose this convenience and therefore they soon excluded the withdrawn Members by special Votes This abscission or cutting off of Members had been formerly used in this and other Parliaments but very rarely and for offences extraordinary and such an offence was this obedience to his Majesty then adjudged to be so unfitting a time for Judgment is the heat of a Civil War in matters relating to that War This War first began in Paper by Manifestoes and Declarations on both parts which brings to remembrance a pleasant passage in the House of Commons upon this account One of the Members brought with him into the House a Declaration of his Majesties which he had newly bought and complained much of those who were so insolent as freely to sell such papers of the Kings At this a young Gentleman of those who were accounted Fanaticks in those days but one who never spake publickly in the House grew into a seeming impatience and said with much earnestness Why not his papers as well as every mans else Which though loudly yet being spoken without standing up was answered only with looks and smiles This passage is scarcely worthy of a place in any serious discourse yet it seemeth naturally to express the small ingenuity of those times which allowed not to a Sovereign Prince in his own Dominions that freedom which every petty fellow assumed without exception At this time