Eloquence that he whom the mercenary Tongues of their Lawyers had rendred as a Monster of men could not be found guilty of Treason either in the particulars or the whole So that his Enemies were filled with madness that their Charge of Crimes appeared no other than a Libel of Slanders and the dis-interessed Hearers were besides the pleasure they received to find so great Endowments polluted with no hainous Crimes sensible of the unhappiness of those who are Ministers of State among a Factious people where their prosperous Counsels are not rewarded and unsuccessful though prudent are severely accused when they err every one condemns them and their wise Advices few praise for those that are benefited envy and such as are disappointed hate those that gave them And such seemed the Fate of this Excellent Counsellour whom nothing else but his great Parts his Master's Love and Trust had exposed to this Danger The Faction being obstructed this way by the Earl's Innocency and Abilities from taking away his Life move the House to proceed by a Bill of Attainder to the making a Law after the Fact whereby they Vote him guilty of High Treason yet add a Caution that it should not be drawn into a Precedent seeking to secure themselves from a return of that Injustice upon themselves which they acted on him intending to prosecute what they falsly charged him with the Alteration of Government Which yet passed not without a long debate and contention for many that had none but honest hopes disdained to administer to the Interest of the Faction in the blood of so much Innocent Gallantry and those that were prudent saw how such an Example opened the avenues to ruine of the best Persons when once exposed to publick hatred Therefore they earnestly disswaded such a proceed And fifty nine of the most eminent openly dissented when it came to the Vote whose Names were afterwards posted and marked for the fury of the Rabble that for the future they might not oppose the designs of the Factious unless they desired to be torn in pieces In two dayes the Lower House past the Bill so swift were the Demagogues to shed blood but the Lords House was a little more deliberative the King having amongst them declared His sense of the Earl's Innocency of whose slow Resolves the Faction being impatient there came a seditious rabble of about 5 or 6000 of the dregs of the people armed with Staves and Cudgels and other Instruments of Outrage instigated by the more unquiet Members both of the House of Commons and the City to the Parliament doors clamouring Justice Justice and the next day to raise their Fury there was a report spred among them of some endeavours to prepare an Escape for the Lieutenant of Ireland therefore with more fierceness they raised their clamours some objecting Treason to him others their Decay of Trade and each one either as he was instructed for some of the House of Commons would be among them to direct their Fury and to give some order to their Tumult that it might appear more terrible or the sense of his own necessities and lusts led him urged his different motives for Justice and at last heated by their own motion and noise they guard the doors of the House of Peers offer insolencies to the Lords especially the Bishops as they went in and threaten them if their Votes disagree from their clamours And when they had thus made an assault on the Liberty of the Parliament which yet was pretended to be so Sacred they afterward set upon the neighbouring Abby-Church where forcing open the doors they brake down the Organs spoiled all the Vestments and Ornaments of the Worship from thence they fly to Court and disturb the Peace of it with their undecent and barbarous clamours and at last were raised to that impudency as to upbraid the King who from a Scaffold perswaded them as they passed by to a modest care of their own private affairs with an unfitness to reign When some Justices of the Peace according to the Law endeavoured to suppress those Tumults by imprisoning the most forward and bold Leaders they themselves were imprisoned by the Command of the Commons upon pretext of an injury offered to the Liberties of the Subject of which one was as they then dictated That every one might safely petition the Parliament yet when the Kentish men came to Petition for something contrary to the Gust of the Faction they caused the City Gates to be shut upon them and when other Counties were meditating Addresses for Peace by threatnings they deterred them from such honest undertakings And when some prudent Persons minded the Demagogues how dishonourable it was for the Parliament not to suppress such Mutinies they replyed that their friends ought rather to be thanked and caressed By these and other Arts having wholly overthrown the freedom of that Council and many with-drawing themselves from such Outrages when scarce the third part of the Peers were present the Faction of that House likewise passed the Bill the Dissenters being out-voted only by seven Voices Yet all this could not prevail upon the King though the Tumults were still high without and within He was daily solicited by the Lords of His Palace who now looked upon the Earl as the Herd doth on an hurt Deer and they hoped his Blood would be the Lustration of the Court to leave the Earl as a Sacrifice to the Vulgar Rage Nor did the King any ways yield till the Judges who were now obsequious to the pleasures of the Parliament declared He might do it by Law and the Earl by his own Letters devoted himself as a Victim for the publick Peace and His Majesties Safety and then overcome with Importunities on all hands and being abused by bad dealing of the Judges as Himself complained to the Bishops whom He consulted in that Case and the Bishop of London who was one of them answered That if the King in Conscience found him not guilty He ought not to pass the Bill but for matter of Law what was Treason he referred Him to the Judges who according to their Oath ought to carry themselves indifferently betwixt Him and His Subjects The other four Bishops that were then consulted Durham Lincoln Carlisle and the Arch-Bishop of Armagh were not so free as the Bishop of London was and therefore the King observed a special blessing of God upon him He at last with much reluctancy signed a Commission to some Lords to pass that Bill of Attainder and another for Continuation of the Parliament during the pleasure of the Two Houses The passing of these two Bills as some thought wounded the King's Greatness more than any thing He ever did The first because it cut off a most exquisite Instrument of Empire and a most faithful Servant and none did more make use of this to pollute His Honour than those who had even forced Him to it like those malignant and damned Spirits who upbraid
Cross and to the Service in the Quire He shewed as much humble Devotion there as he had manifested Princely Gallantry in his Justs admired and applauded by the People for His accomplishments in the Arts both of War and Peace That He could behave Himself humbly towards His God and bravely towards His Enemy pleased with the hardiness of His Body and ravished with His more generous Mind that the pleasures of the Court had not softned one to Sloth nor the supremest Fortune debauched the other to Impiety Anno 1622. Confident in these and other evidences of a wise conduct the King without acquainting his Council sends the Prince into Spain there to contract a Marriage with the Infanta and as a part of the Portion to recover the Palatinate which His Sisters Husband had lost and was by the Emperour canteld to the Duke of Bavaria and the King of Spain And herein He was to combate all the Artists of State in that Court the practices of that Church and put an issue to that Treaty wherein the Lord Digby though much conversant in the Intrigues of that Council had been long cajoled To that place He was to pass Incognito accompanied only with the Marquess of Buckingham Mr. Endymion Porter and Mr. Francis Cottington through France where to satisfie His Curiosity and shew Himself to Love He attempted and enjoyed a view of the Court at Paris and there received the first Impression of that Excellent Princess who was by Heaven destined to His chast Embraces Satisfied with that sight no lesser enjoyments of any pleasure in that great Kingdom nor Vanity of Youth which is hardly curbed when it is allyed to power could tempt His stay or a discovery of His Greatness but with a speed answerable to an active body and mind He out-stripped the French Posts which were sent to stop Him although that King had intelligence of His being within his Dominions immediately after their departure from the Louvre The certain news of His safe arrival at Madrid drew after Him from hence a Princely Train and raised the Censures of the World upon the King As being too forgetful of the Inhospitality of Princes to each other who when either Design Tempests or Necessity have driven their Rivals in Majesty upon their Coasts without a Caution they let them not part without some tribute to their Interest and a fresh Example of this was in the King 's own Mother who seeking refuge in England with her Sister Queen Elizabeth from a Storm at home did lose both her Liberty and Life This none daring to mind the King of his Jester Archee made him sensible by telling him He came to change Caps with him Why said the King Because replied Archee Thou hast sent the Prince into Spain from whence He is never like to return But said the King what wilt thou say when thou seest Him come back again Mary saies the Jester I will take off the Fools Cap which I now put upon thy head for sending Him thither and put it on the King of Spain 's for letting Him return This so awakened the King's apprehension of the Prince's danger that it drove him into an exceeding Melancholy from which he was never free till he was assured of the Prince's return to his own Dominions which was his Fleet in the Sea and that was not long after For notwithstanding the contrasts of his two prime Ministers there Buckingham and Bristol which were sufficient to amaze an ordinary prudence and disturb the counsels of so young a beginner in the Mysteries of Empire and the Arts of experienced Conclaves the impetuous attempts of the Spanish Clergy either for a Change of His Religion or a Toleration of theirs the Spleen of Olivares whom Buckingham had exasperated He so dexterously managed the Treaty of Marriage that all the Articles and Circumstances were solemnly sworn to by both Kings By a Civil Letter to the Pope which His Enemies Malice afterwards took as an occasion of Slander He procured a civil return with the grant of a Dispensation baffled the hopes of their Clergy by His Constancy in his own Profession and vindicated it from the odious aspersions of their Priests by causing our Liturgie to be translated into the Spanish Tongue and by His generous miene enthralled the Infanta for whom He had exposed His Liberty Yet having an insight into the practices of that Court that they would not put the Restitution of the Palatinate into the consideration of the Portion but reserve it as a Super-foetation of the Spanish Love and as an opportunity for the Infanta to reconcile the English Spirits who were heated by the late Wars into an hatred of the Spaniards and that this was but to lengthen out the Treaty till they had wholly brought the Palatinate under their power He conformed His mind to the resolves of His Father who said He would never marry his Son with a Portion of His only Sister's Tears and therefore inclined to a rupture But concealing His Purpose and dissembling His Knowledge of their Designs He consulted His own Safety and Return which His Fathers Letters commanded which He so prudently acquired that the King of Spain parted from Him with all those endearments with which departing Friends ceremoniate their Farewels having satisfied Him by a Proxie left with the Earl of Bristol to be delivered when the Dispensation was come Which as soon as He was safe on Shipboard by a private Express He commanded him to keep in his hands till further Order An. 1623. His Return to England which was in October 1623 was entertained with so much Joy and Thanksgiving as if He had been the happy Genius of the whole Nation and His entrance into London was as a Triumph for His Wisdom their Bonefires lengthened out the day and their Bells by uncessant ringing forbad sleep to those eyes which were refreshed with His sight Nor could the People by age or sickness be confined at home but despising the prescriptions of their Physicians went to meet Him as restored Health When He had given the King an account of His Voyage and the Spanish Counsels not to restore the Palatinate a Parliament was Summoned which was so zealous of the Honour of the Prince that both Houses Voted an Address to His Majesty that he would no longer Treat but begin a War with Spain and desiring the Prince's Mediation who was alwayes ready to gratifie the Nation therein to His Father they assured Him they would stand by Him with their Lives and Fortunes but yet when the War with the Crown descended unto Him they shamefully deserted Him in the beginning of His Reign When neither a Wife nor Peace was any longer to be expected from Spain both were sought for from France by a Marriage with Henrietta Maria the youngest Daughter of Henry the IV. The Love of whom the Prince had received by the Eye and She of Him by the Ear. For having formerly received impressions from the
unhappy Souls with those Crimes and ruines to which they themselves have tempted and betrayed them But the heaviest Censor was Himself for He never left bewailing His Compliance or rather Connivence with this Murder till the issue of His Blood dried up those of His Tears By the other Bill He had as some censured renounced His Crown and granted it to those men who at present exercised so Arbitrary a Power that they wanted nothing but length of time to be reputed Kings and this they now had gotten But the more Speculative concluded it an act of especial Prudence for the King made that an evidence of His sincere intention to oblige His people and overcome the Malice of His Enemies with Benefits which the Faction would have usurped and by the boldness of the attempt ingaged the People to them as the only Patrons of their Liberty And they were furnished with an Example for it by their Confederates in Scotland who indicted an Assembly without the King's leave and continued it against His pleasure and as all imitations of Crimes exceed their first pattern it was conceived these men whose furies were more unjust and so would be more fierce intended to improve that Precedent to the extremest guilt The Bill was no sooner signed but they hastened the Execution and so much the more eagerly because the King desired in a most passionate Letter delivered by the Prince to the Lords that that Excellent Soul which found so much Injustice on Earth might have the more time to fit it self for the Mercy of Heaven But this favour which became Christians to grant agreed not with the Religion of his Adversaries and therefore the second day after he was brought to the Scaffold on Tower-Hill in his Passage thither he had a sight of the Archbishop of Canterbury whose Prayers and Blessing he with a low Obeisance begged and the most pious Prelate bestowed them with Tears where with a greater presence of mind than he had looked his Enemies in the face did he encounter Death and submitted his neck to the stroke of the Executioner He was a person of a generous Spirit fitted for the noblest enterprises and the most difficult parts of Empire His Counsels were bold yet just and he had a Vigour proper for the Execution of them Of an Eloquence next to that of His Master's masculine and most excellent He was no less affectionate to the Church than to the State and not contented while living to defend the Government and Patrimony of it he commended it also to his Son when he was about to die and charged his abhorrency of Sacrilege His Enemies called the Majesty of his Miene in his Lieutenancy Pride and the undaunted execution of his Office on the contumacious the Insolency of his fortune He was censured for committing that fatal Errour of following the King to London and to the Parliament after the Pacification with the Scots at York and it was thought that if he had gone over to his charge in Ireland he might have secured both himself and that Kingdom for His Majesties Service But some attributed this Counsel to a necessity of Fate whose first stroke is at the brain of those whom it designs to ruine and brought him to feel the effects of Popular Rage which himself in former Parliaments had used against Government and to find the Experience of his own advices against the Duke of Buckingham Providence teaching us to abhor over-fine Counsels by the mischiefs they bring upon their Authors The Fall of this Great Man so terrified the other Officers of State that the Lord High Treasurer resigned his Staff to the Hands from whence he received it the Lord Cottington forsook the Mastership of the Court of Wards and the Guardian of the Prince returned Him to the King These Lords parting with their Offices like those that scatter their Treasure and Jewels in the way that they might delude the violence of their greedy pursuers But the King was left â—aked of their faithful Ministery and exposed to the Infusions and Informations of those who were either Complices or Mercenaries to the Faction to whom they discovered his most private Counsels When the Earl of Strafford was dead then did the Parliament begin to think of sending away the Scots who hitherto had much impoverished the Northern Counties and increased the charges of the Nation but now they were Voted to receive 300000 pound under the notion of a Brotherly Assistance but in truth designed by the Faction as a reward for their Clamours for the Earls Blood yet were they kept so long till the King had passed away more of His Prerogative in signing the Bills to take away the High-Commission and the Star-Chamber After which spoils of Majesty they disband the English and the Scotch Armies August 6. and on the 10. of that Month the King follows them into Scotland to settle if it were possible that Kingdom But the King still found them as before when He satisfied their greedy appetites then would they offer Him their Lives and Fortunes but when gain or advantage appeared from His Enemies they appeared in their proper nature ungrateful changeable and perfidious whom no favours could oblige nor any thing but Ruine was to be expected by building upon their Love While the King was in Scotland labouring to settle that Nation by granting all that the Covetousness and Ambition of their Leaders pretended was for the Publick good and so aimed at no less than a Miracle by His Benefits to reduce Faith which like Life when it is once departed doth never naturally return into those perfidious breasts the Parliament adjourns and leaves a standing Committee of such as were the Leaders or the Servants of the Faction These prepared new Toils for His Majesties Return and by them was the Grand Remonstrance formed in it were reckoned for Grievances all the Complaints of men that were impatient of Laws and Government the Offences of Courtiers the unpleasing Resolves of Judges the Neglects or Rigours of the Ministers of Justice the undigested Sermons of some Preachers yea the Positions of some Divines in the Schools were all exaggerated to defame the present Government both in Church and State and to magnifie the skill of these State-Physicians that offered Prescripts for all these Distempers Besides more easily to abuse the Vulgar who reckon Misfortunes as Crimes unpleasing accidents were represented as designs of Tyranny and those things which had been reformed were yet mentioned as continued burthens From which the people were assured there could be no deliverance but by the wisdom and magnanimity of the Remonstrants To prepare the way for this the most opprobrious parts of it were first whispered among the Populacy that by this seeming suppression men impatient of Secrets might more eagerly divulge them and the danger appear greater by an affected silence Then prodigious Calumnies which none but souls prone to any wickedness could believe of so Great a man were formed
Arts of the Irish Rebels who to dishearten the English from any resistance bragged that the Queen was with their Army That the King would come amongst them with Auxiliary Forces That they did but maintain His Cause against the Puritans That they had the Kings Commission for what they did shewing indeed a Patent that themselves had drawn but thereto was affixed an Old broad Seal that had been taken from an obsolete Patent out of Farnham Abby by one Plunckett in the presence of many of their Lords and Priests as was afterwards attested by the Confession of many That the Scots were in confederacy with them to beget a faith of which they abstained from the lives and fortunes of those of that Nation among them On the other side to encourage the Natives of their own party they produce fictitious Letters wherein they were informed from England that the Parliament had passed an Act that all the Irish should be compelled to the Protestant Worship that for the first offence they should forfeit all their Goods for the second their Estates and for the third their Lives Besides they present them with the hopes of Liberty That the English Yoke should be shaken off that they would have a King of their own Nation and that the Goods and Estates of the English should be divided among the Natives And with these hopes of Spoil and Liberty the Irish were driven to such a Fury that they committed so many horrid and barbarous acts as scarce ever any Age or People were guilty of In the mean while nothing was done for the relief of the poor English there but only some Votes passed against the Rebels till the King returned to London which was about the end of November where He with the Queen and the Prince were magnificently feasted by the Citizens and the Chief of them afterwards by Him at Hampton-Court For he never neglected any honest Arts to gain His Peoples love to which they were naturally prone enough had not His Enemies methods and impulses depraved their Genius But this much troubled the Faction who envied that Reverence to Majesty in others which was not in themselves and they endeavoured to make these loves short and unhappy for they discountenanced the prime advancers of this Honour to the King and were more eager to render Him odious For having gotten a Guard about them they likewise insinuated into the people dangerous apprehensions as the cause of that Guard and every day grew more nice and jealous of their Priviledges and Power The King's advices to more tenderness of His Prerogative or His Advertisements of the scandalous Speeches that were uttered in their House they interpret as encroachments upon their Grandeur and upbraided the King for them in their Petitions to Him But their greatest effort upon Majesty was the Remonstrance after which they took all occasions to magnifie the apprehensions of those Fears which they had falsly pretended to in it This the Faction had before formed and now brought into the House of Commons where it found a strong opposition by those wise men that were tender of the publick Peace and Common Good though those who preferred their Private to the General Interest and every one that was short-sighted and improvident for the future were so fierce for it that the Debates were continued all night till ten a clock the next morning so that many of the more aged and persons of best fortunes not accustomed to such watchings were wearied out and many others not daring to provoke the Faction in this their grand Design left the House so that at last they carried it yet but by eleven Votes Which they presented with a Petition to take away the Votes of Bishops in the House of Lords and the Ceremonies in the Church and to remove those Persons from His Trust which they could not confide in yet named none but only accused all under the name of a Malignant Popish Party Which they had no sooner delivered than they caused it to be published in Print To which the King answers in another publick Declaration but so much to the discontent of the Demagogues to find their Methods of Ruine so fully discovered as they were in His Majesties Answer that they had recourse to their former sovereign Remedy which sober men accounted a crime and an indignity to Government the Tumults of the Rabble Who in great numbers and much confusion came up to Westminster some crying out against Bishops others belching their fury against the Liturgy and a third party roaring that the Power of the Militia should be taken out of the King's hands To their Clamours they added rude Affronts to those Lords whom their Leaders had taught them to hate and especially to the Bishops at their going in or coming out of the House and afterwards drawing up to White-Hall they appeared so insolent as it was evident they wanted only some to begin for there were enough to prosecute an Assault upon the King in His own Palace The Bishops thus rudely excluded from their Right and Liberty of coming to the Parliament Twelve of them afterwards protest against the Proceedings of it during their so violent Exclusion Which Protestation the Commons presently accused of High Treason and caused their Commitment to the Tower where they continued them till the Bill against their Votes in the Lords House was past that they might not produce their Reasons for their Rights and against the Injustice offered unto them and then afterwards released them The King also saw it necessary to take a Guard of such Gentlemen as offered their Service for His Safety and to prevent the prophaning of Majesty by the rude fury of the People who used to make their Addresses acceptable at Westminster by offering in their passage some base Affronts at White-Hall But when the terrour of this Guard had reduced them to some less degree of Impudency they then instructed by their Heads laboured to make it more unsafe to the King by seeking to raise the Rage and Jealousie of the whole City against Him For at midnight there were cries out in the Street that all People should arise to their defence for the King with His Papists were coming to fire the City and cut their throats in their beds Than which though nothing was more false yet it found the effects of truth and the People by such Alarms being terrified from sleep the impressions of those nightly fears lay long upon their Spirits in the day and filled them almost with Madness The King therefore not alwaies to incourage these Violences with Patience but at last by a course of Justice to take off those whom He had found to be the Authors of these destructive Counsels the grand Movers of these Seditious practices and which was more the Inviters of a Foreign Force the Scotch Army into this Nation commands His Atturney General to accuse Five Members of the House of Commous and one of the Lords upon Articles of
all and those the reproach of that Assembly For besides those that were violently excluded others that did abhor the Conditions of sitting there withdrew themselves to their own homes And many of those who formerly deluded by their pretensions to Religion Justice and Liberty had hitherto been of the Faction yet now awakened by these clamorous Crimes sorsook their bloody Confederacy Yet did not this contemptible Number of which in most Votes there were Twenty Dissenters blush to assume the Authority of managing the weightiest Assairs of the English Empire to alter and change the Government to expose His Majesty to a violent Murder and to overthrow the Ancient Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom For being wholly devoted to the service of the Army they communicated counsels with them and whatsoever was resolved at the Council of War pasled into a Law by the Votes of this Infamous Remnant of the House of Commons who now served the Souldiers in hopes of part of the Spoil and a precarious Greatness which being acquired by so much Wickedness could not be lasting In order therefore to the Army's design they revive those Votes of No Addresses to the King which had at first but surreptitiously and by base practices passed and had been afterwards Repealed by a full House Those Votes of a Treaty with the King and of the Satisfactoriness of His Concessions with scorn they rased out of the Journal-Book And then proceeded to Vote 1. That the People under God are the Original of all Just Power 2. That the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament being Chosen by and Representing the People have the Supreme Authority of this Nation 3. That whatsoever is enacted and declared for Law by the Commons of England Assembled in Parliament by which they understood themselves hath the sorce of a Law 4. That all the People of this Nation are concluded thereby although the Consent and Concurrence of the King and House of Peers be not had thereunto 5. That to raise Arms against the People's Representative or Parliament and to make War upon them is High Treason 6. That the King Himself took Arms against the Parliament and on that account is guilty of the blood shed throughout the Civil War and that He ought to expiate the crime with His own blood Those that were less affected with the common Fears and Miseries could not temper their mirth and scorn at such ridiculous Usurpers that thought to adjust their Crimes by their own Votes that in one breath would adorn the People with the Spoils of Monarchy and in the next rob the People to invest themselves And it is said that even Cromwell who intended to ruine our Liberty was ashamed and scorned their so ready Slavery and afterwards did swear at the Table of an Independent Lord that he knew them to be Rascals and he would so serve them Others of more melancholy Complexions considering the baseness of these servile Tyrants and the humours of their barbarous Masters the Souldiers all whose inhumanities they were to establish by a Law and that Power gotten by Wickedness cannot be used with the Modesty that is fit for Just Magistrates justly feared that as under the King they had enjoyed the height of Liberty so under these men they were to be overwhelmed in the depth of Slavery and that these Votes which overturned the very Foundation of our Laws could not be designed but for some horrid Impiety and our lasting Bondage which came so to pass For in their next Consultations they Constitute a Tribunal to Sentence their Sovereign which afterwards they used as a Shambles for the most Loyal and Gallantest of the Nobless and People of the most abject Subjects and to procure a Reverence to the Vilest of men they give it the specious name of The High Court of Justice For which they appoint One hundred and fifty Judges that the Number might seem to represent the whole Multitude of the most violent and heady of all the Faction To whom they give a Power of Citing Hearing Judging and Punishing CHARLES STVART King of England To make up this Number they had named six Peers of the Upper House and the twelve Judges of the Land But the greatest part were Officers of the Army who having confederated against His Majesty and publickly required His Blood could not without a contempt to the light of Reason be appointed His Judges and Members of the Lower House who were most violent against Monarchy and indeed all Government wherein themselves had no share The rest were Persons pick'd out of the City of London and Suburbs thereof who they imagined would be most obsequious to their Lusts Those that surveyed the List and knew the Men deemed them most unfit for a Trust of Justice and proper Instruments for any wicked undertaking for of these Judges one or two were Coblers others Brewers one a Goldsmith and many of them Mechanicks Such among them as were descended of Ancient Families were men of so mean worth that they were only like the Statues of their Ancestors had nothing but their Names to make them known unto the World Some of them were Spend-thrifts Bankrupts such as could be neither safe nor free unless the Kingdom were in Bondage and most notorious Adulterers whose every Member was infamous with its proper Vice Vain and Atheistical in their Discourse Cowardly and Base in Spirit Bloody and Cruel in their Counsels and those Parts that cannot honestly be named were most dishonest One of them was accused of a Rape Another had published a Book of Blasphemies against the Trinity of the Deity Some of them could not hope to get impunity for their Oppressions of the Country and Expilations of the publick Treasure but by their Ministry to this Murther Others could not promise themselves an advancement of their abject or declining Fortune but by this Iniquity Yet all these by the Faction were inrolled in the Register of Saints though fitter to stand as Malefactors at the Bar than to sit upon Seats of Judgement And notwithstanding their diligent search for such a Number of men who would not blush at nor fear any guilt some of those whom they had named in abhorrency of the Impiety refused to fit and some that did yet met there in hopes of disturbing their Counsels All this while the House of Peers were not Consulted and it was commonly supposed that most of them terrified with those Preparations against the King the only defence of the Nobless against the Popular Envie would absent themselves from that House except four or five that were the Darlings of the Faction and they deemed the Names and Compliance of those sew were enough to give credit and Authority to their bloody Act. But in them they were disappointed also for some of the Peers did constantly meet and on that day wherein the Bill for Tryal of the King was carried up to that House there were Seventeen then present a greater Number than usual who all
mine haste I am cast out of the sight of thine eyes nevertheless Thou hearest the voice of my supplication when I cry unto Thee If Thou Lord shouldst be extream to mark what is done amiss who can abide it But there is Mercy with Thee that thou mayest be feared therefore shall sinners fly unto Thee I acknowledge my Sins before Thee which have the aggravation of my Condition the eminency of my Place adding weight to my Offences Forgive I beseech Thee my personal and my peoples Sins which are so far Mine as I have not improved The Power thou gavest Me to thy Glory and my Subjects good Thou hast now brought Me from the glory and freedom of a King to be a Prisoner to my own Subjects Justly O Lord as to thy over-ruling hand because in many things I have rebelled against Thee Though Thou hast restrained my Person yet enlarge my Heart to Thee and thy Grace towards Me. I come far short of David 's Piety yet since I may equal David 's Afflictions give Me also the Comforts and the sure Mercies of David Let the penitent sense I have of my Sins be an evidence to Me that Thou hast pardoned them Let not the Evils which I and my Kingdoms have suffered seem little unto Thee though Thou hast not punished us according to our Sins Turn Thee O Lord unto Me have mercy upon Me for I am desolate and afflicted The sorrows of my Heart are enlarged O bring Thou Me out of my Troubles Hast Thou forgotten to be gracious and shut up thy loving kindness in displeasure O remember thy Compassions of old and thy loving kindnesses which have been for many Generations I had utterly fainted if I had not believed to see thy Goodness in the Land of the Living Let not the sins of our Prosperity deprive us of the benefit of thy Afflictions Let this fiery tryal consume the dross which in long Peace and Plenty we had contracted Though Thou continuest Miseries yet withdraw not thy Grace what is wanting of Prosperity make up in Patience and Repentance And if thy Anger be not yet to be turned away but thy hand of Justice must be stretched out still let it I beseech Thee be against Me and my Fathers house as for these Sheep what have they done Let my Sufferings satiate the malice of Mine and thy Churches Enemies But let their Cruelty never exceed the measure of My Charity Banish from Me all thoughts of Revenge that I may not lose the reward nor Thou the glory of my Patience As Thou givest Me a heart to forgive them so I beseech Thee do Thou forgive what they have done against Thee and Me. And now O Lord as Thou hast given Me an heart to pray unto Thee so hear and accept this Vow which I make before Thee If Thou wilt in mercy remember Me and my Kingdoms in continuing the light of thy Gospel and settling thy True Religion among us In restoring to us the benefit of the Laws and the due execution of Justice In suppressing the many Schisms in Church and Factions in State If Thou wilt restore Me and Mine to the ancient Rights and Glory of my Predecessors If Thou wilt turn the hearts of my People to Thy self in Piety to Me in Loyalty and to one another in Charity If Thou wilt quench the flames and withdraw the fewel of these Civil Wars If Thou wilt bless us with the freedom of publick Counsels and deliver the Honour of Parliaments from the insolency of the Vulgar If Thou wilt keep Me from the great offence of enacting any thing against my Conscience and especially from consenting to Sacrilegious Rapines and spoilings of thy Church If Thou wilt restore Me to a capacity to glorifie Thee in doing good both to the Church and State Then shall my Soul praise Thee and magnifie thy Name before my People Then shall thy Glory be dearer to Me than my Crowns and the advancement of true Religion both in purity and power be my chiefest care Then will I rule my people with Justice and my Kingdoms with Equity To thy more immediate hand shall I ever owe as the rightful Succession so the merciful Restauration of my Kingdoms and the glory of them If Thou wilt bring Me again with Peace Safety and Honour to my chiefest City and my Parliament If Thou wilt again put the Sword of Justice into my hand to punish and protect Then will I make all the world to see and my very Enemies to enjoy the benefit of this Vow and Resolution of Christian Charity which I now make unto Thee O Lord. As I do freely pardon for Christs sake those that have offended Me in any kind so my hand shall never be against any man to revenge what is past in regard of any particular injury done to Me. We have been mutually punished in our unnatural Divisions for thy sake O Lord and for the love of my Redeemer have I purposed this in my heart That I will use all means in the wayes of Amnestie and Indemnity which may most fully remove all Fears and bury all Jealousies in forgetfulness Let Thy Mercies be toward Me and Mine as my resolutions of Truth and Peace are toward my People Hear my Prayer O Lord which goeth not out of feigned lips Blessed be God who hath not turned away my Prayer nor taken his Mercy from Me. O my Soul commit thy way to the Lord trust in him and he shall bring it to pass But if Thou wilt not restore Me and Mine what am I that I should charge Thee foolishly Thou O Lord hast given and thou hast taken Blessed be thy Name May my People and thy Church be happy if not by Me yet without Me. His MAJESTIES Declaration After the Votes of no further Address Carisbrook Jan. 18. M DC XLVII To all My People of whatsoever Nation Quality or Condition AM I thus laid aside and must I not speak for My self No I will speak and that to all My People which I would have rather done by the way of My two Houses of Parliament but that there is a publick Order neither to make Addresses to or receive Messages from me And who but you can be judge of the differences betwixt Me and My two Houses I know none else for I am sure you it is who will enjoy the Happiness or feel the Misery of good or ill Government and we all pretend who should run fastest to serve you without having a regard at least in the first place to particular Interests And therefore I desire you to consider the state I am and have been in this long time and whether My Actions have more tended to the Publick or My own particular good For whosoever will look upon Me barely as I am a Man without that liberty which the meanest of My Subjects enjoyes of going whither and conversing with whom I will as a Husband and Father without the comfort of My Wife and Children or
Unanimously even the Democratick Lords not dissenting did reject the Bill as Dangerous and Illegal This so highly provoked the Fury of the Faction that they meditated a severe revenge and for the present blotted out those Peers whose Names they had before put into their Ordinance to make their Court more splendid After this they did also rase out the names of the Judges of the Land for they being privately Consulted concerning these Proceedings against the King although they had been all raised to that Dignity and Trust by the Faction yet answered that It was contrary to the known Laws and Customs of England that the King should be brought to Tryal To heal these two wounds which the Lords and Judges had branded their Cause with they use two other Artifices to keep up the Spirits and Concurrence of their Party First they bring from Hert ford shire a Woman some say a Witch who said that God by a Revelation to her did approve of the Army's Proceedings Which Message from Heaven was well accepted of with Thanks as being very seasonable and coming from an humble Spirit A second was the Agreement of the People which was a Module of a Democratical Politie wherein those whose abject Condition had set them at a great distance from Government had their hopes raised to a share of it if they conspired to remove the great Obstruction which was the Person and Life of the King This was presented to the House of Commons by Sir Hardress Waller and sixteen other Officers as a temporary remedy for when they had perpetrated their Impiety they discountenanced and fiercely prosecuted those that endeavoured it In considence of these their Arts and their present Power notwithstanding all these Publick Abhorrencies and detestations by all Persons of Honour and Knowledge they Enacted their Bill And for President of this Court they chose one of the Number John Bradshaw A person of an equal Infamy with his new employment A Monster of Impudence and a most fierce Prosecuter of evil purposes Of no repute among those of his own Robe for any Knowledge in the Law but of so virulent and petulant a Language that he knew no measure of modesty in Speaking and was therefore more often bribed to be silent than fee'd to maintain a Client's Cause His Vices had made him penurious and those with his penury had seasoned him for any execrable undertaking They also had a Sollicitor of the same Metal John Cooke A needy man who by various Arts and many Crimes had sought for a necessary Subsistence yet still so poor that he was forced to seek the shelter of obscure and sordid corners to avoid the Prison So that vexed with a tedious Poverty he was prevailed upon through the hopes of some splendid booties to venture on this employment which at the first mention he did profess to abhor These were their Chief Agents other inferiour Ministers they had equally qualified with these their prime Instruments as Dorislaus a German Bandito who was to draw up the Charge Steele another of their Counsel under pretence of sickness covered his fear of the Event though he did not abhor the wickedness of the Enterprise having before used his Tongue in a cause very unjust and relating to this the Murther of Captain Burleigh The Serjeants Clerks and Cryer were so obscure that the world had never taken notice of them but by their subserviency to this Impiety These were the Publick Preparations In private they continually met to contrive the Form of their Proceedings and the Matter of their Accusation Concerning the first they were divided in Opinions Some would have the King first formally degraded and devested of all His Royal habiliments and Ensignes of Majesty and then as a private person exposed to Justice But this seemed to require a longer space of time than would comport with their project which as all horrid acts was to be done in a present fury lest good Counsels might gather strength by their Delay Others rejected this course as too evidently conforming with the Popish procedure against Sovereign Princes and they feared to confirm that common Suspicion that they followed Jesuitical Counsels whose Society it is reported upon the King's offering to give all possible Security against the Corruptions of the Church of Rome at a Council of theirs did decree to use their whole Interest and Power with the Faction to hasten the King's death Which sober Protestants had reason enough to believe because all or most of the Arguments which were used by the Assertors of this Violence on His Majesty were but gleanings from Popish Writers These Considerations cast the Determination on their side who designing a Tyrannical Oligarchy whereby they themselves might have a share in the Government would have the King proceeded against as King that by so shedding His Blood they might extinguish Majesty and with Him murther Monarchy For several of them did confess that indeed He was guilty of no Crime more than that He was their King and because the Excellency of His Parts and Eminent Vertues together with the Rights of His Birth would not suffer Him to be a private Person In their second Debate about the Matter of Accusation all willingly embraced the Advice of Harrison who was emulous of the Power of Cromwell and though now his Creature yet afterwards became the Firebrand and Whirlwind of the following Times to blacken Him as much as they could yet found they not wherewith to pollute His Name For their old Scandals which they had amassed in their Declaration for no more Addresses to the King had been so publickly refuted that they could afford no colour for His Murther Therefore they formed their Accusation from that War to which they had necessitated Him And their Charge was that He had levied War against the Parliament that He had appeared in Arms in several places and did there proclaim War and executed it by killing several of the Good People for which they impeached Him as a Tyrant Traitor Murderer and an implacable Common Enemy This Charge in the Judgement of Considering men argued a greater guilt in those that prosecuted it than in Him against whom it was formed for they seemed less sensible of the instability and infirmities of humane Nature than those that had none but her light to make them generous for such never reproached their conquered Enemies with their Victory but these men would murther their own Prince against whom they had nothing more to object than the unhappy issues of a War which leaves the Conquered the only Criminal while the names of Justice and Goodness are the spoils of the Conquerour How false those Imputations of Tyranny Treason and Murther were was sufficiently understood by those who considered the peaceful part of the King's Reign wherein it was judged that if in any thing He had declined from the safest Arts of Empire it was in the neglect of a just Severity on Seditious persons whom the Laws